A somewhat surprising historical article is on Wargamer site regarding the fighting in France that occurred in 1940 post-Dunkirk. I did know there was fierce fighting, but hadn't known about the change in French tactics to defense in depth or the successful deployment of WW1-vintage 75mm artillery as anti-tank weapons. However what unsettled me somewhat was how the article ended:
"In the end, it was not the hard fighting French soldier who'd failed his mother country, it was the corrupt politicians who sold their nation for 30 pieces of silver during and after the interwar years, not to mention the elderly generals who were content to rest upon the glorious laurels of past victories in wars past and who were unable to adapt to a new and modern mode of warfare until it was far too late."
See the whole piece here.
http://www.wargamer.com/article/3769/historical-article-after-dunkirk
The ending jarred me a bit as it seemed to mirror the Petainist viewpoint. France was rotten from the top and needed to be rebuilt under Vichy - nationalist, Catholic and conservative.
Rather, my sense was that, after the fall of Paris, France simply lacked the means to fight on. Her main industries had been overrun. She lacked the larger population and strategic depth of a Soviet Union, which in 1941 could retreat hundreds of miles and still have the vastness of Russia behind them. Unlike the Soviets, the French could not displace and rebuild industries in the Urals beyond German aircraft bombing range. And a key factor was that, unlike in the east a year later, the Germans in 1940 were not waging an explicit war of racial expansion and conquest. Hitler planned to eliminate and replace the Soviet populations with Nordic settlers, a plan that really gave the Soviets no option but to fight on.
Yes, there was a collapse of morale and certainly the French political system didn't help. But it seems a bit much to portray this as a sell-out by traitorous politicians.
I am also dubious about the majority of French soldiers in late June 1940 wanting to continue fighting. German WW1 apologists said the same thing about their collapsing army - it was stabbed in the back. In fact, in November 1918 the German troops were mutinous. I suspect there may have been French mutinies in July 1940 as well if orders had been given to continue what had become a pointless struggle. Or resistance would have devolved into the hands of the French Communists - an option that would have horrified French anti-Communists who would have seen surrender to Germany as a better option.
A thought-provoking article and I would be interested in other views.
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TheDoctorKing
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My father was a soldier in that 1940 French army. His view was that things were going not too badlly. His division was stationed near Mulhouse, in Alsace. In late May, they withdrew from the Maginot Line fortifications and redeployed in the vicinity of Lyons. They fought several times against the Germans, and were successful in at least one encounter. He recalled picking up at least two ambulance loads of wounded German POWs and transporting them to a hospital. The division retreated to the Auvergne, where they finally surrendered when ordered on 25 June. His sense was that the army was ready to go on fighting and would have obeyed if ordered to continue resistance in southern France or take ship for the colonies.
He was a Gaullist, though. He served in 1941-42 with the 1ère BFL with 8th British Army in Libya and Egypt, he was at Bir Hakiem, in the 1943 Tunisian campaign he was an ambulance driver with the Tirailleurs Sénégalais du Tchad, later part of 2ème division blindée. He would have agreed with the article that France was betrayed by senior officers in 1940, but the senior officer he would have pointed to first was Petain.
BTW, the French 75mm field piece was a very effective AT gun in the early war. It had plenty of punch to get through the armor of most German AFVs of the 1940-41 era, it fired very rapidly, and it was quite accurate. The only problem was that the ammunition available to the colonial troops in North Africa was old and had been stored under bad conditions in tropical arsenals; the charges had lost force. My father had a big scar on his left arm where a fragment of one of those old 75mm rounds - a short - sliced him on the Tunisian front in May, 1943.
He always remarked that it was especially depressing to be shelled by your own artillery.
He was a Gaullist, though. He served in 1941-42 with the 1ère BFL with 8th British Army in Libya and Egypt, he was at Bir Hakiem, in the 1943 Tunisian campaign he was an ambulance driver with the Tirailleurs Sénégalais du Tchad, later part of 2ème division blindée. He would have agreed with the article that France was betrayed by senior officers in 1940, but the senior officer he would have pointed to first was Petain.
BTW, the French 75mm field piece was a very effective AT gun in the early war. It had plenty of punch to get through the armor of most German AFVs of the 1940-41 era, it fired very rapidly, and it was quite accurate. The only problem was that the ammunition available to the colonial troops in North Africa was old and had been stored under bad conditions in tropical arsenals; the charges had lost force. My father had a big scar on his left arm where a fragment of one of those old 75mm rounds - a short - sliced him on the Tunisian front in May, 1943.
He always remarked that it was especially depressing to be shelled by your own artillery.
Stewart King
"There is no substitute for victory"
Depends on how you define victory.
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"There is no substitute for victory"
Depends on how you define victory.
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elxaime wrote: it seemed to mirror the Petainist viewpoint. France was rotten from the top and needed to be rebuilt under Vichy - nationalist, Catholic and conservative.
Rather, my sense was that, after the fall of Paris, France simply lacked the means to fight on. Her main industries had been overrun. She lacked the larger population and strategic depth of a Soviet Union, which in 1941 could retreat hundreds of miles and still have the vastness of Russia behind them. Unlike the Soviets, the French could not displace and rebuild industries in the Urals beyond German aircraft bombing range. And a key factor was that, unlike in the east a year later, the Germans in 1940 were not waging an explicit war of racial expansion and conquest. Hitler planned to eliminate and replace the Soviet populations with Nordic settlers, a plan that really gave the Soviets no option but to fight on.
Yes, there was a collapse of morale and certainly the French political system didn't help. But it seems a bit much to portray this as a sell-out by traitorous politicians.
I am also dubious about the majority of French soldiers in late June 1940 wanting to continue fighting. German WW1 apologists said the same thing about their collapsing army - it was stabbed in the back. In fact, in November 1918 the German troops were mutinous. I suspect there may have been French mutinies in July 1940 as well if orders had been given to continue what had become a pointless struggle. Or resistance would have devolved into the hands of the French Communists - an option that would have horrified French anti-Communists who would have seen surrender to Germany as a better option.
A thought-provoking article and I would be interested in other views.
Petain was voted by politicians to be the head of France, and it was worst with even more rotten coward petainist politicians "yes to nazis". The fear of bolshevics was just an excuse to their love of power, and so their non resistant cowardice.
There is an excellent what-if book about a possible metropolitan french resistance, and this scenario was exactly what I had done in a HeartOfIron2 game before the release of this book!:
A resistant France is not military efficient, but it compell Germany to put much more troops here, and so France can be able to keep some territory (other occupied territory is ordered to resist in the 'back' of enemy), where army has strategically retreated with fighting, to Grenoble ('maginot' pride standing head of defense) down to Marseille (supply by sea, Rhône as line of defense), and have its capital protected in Algier north-africa (by americans in my game). ((If Marseille is lost, I think some supply could be loaned to Swiss, which had even cancelled its neutrality to ally with me! as I had huge victories in defending Alps mountainous Grenoble)) All french navy retreated to Mediterranean sea to protect the supply of Marseille and link with Algier.
ERISS wrote:A resistant France is not military efficient, but it compell Germany to put much more troops here, and so France can be able to keep some territory (other occupied territory is ordered to resist in the 'back' of enemy), where army has strategically retreated with fighting, to Grenoble ('maginot' pride standing head of defense) down to Marseille (supply by sea, Rhône as line of defense), and have its capital protected in Algier north-africa (by americans in my game). ((If Marseille is lost, I think some supply could be loaned to Swiss, which had even cancelled its neutrality to ally with me! as I had huge victories in defending Alps mountainous Grenoble)) All french navy retreated to Mediterranean sea to protect the supply of Marseille and link with Algier.
Interesting. So politics and political will aside, it was militarily feasible for France to have continued in the war from a southern France redoubt area?
elxaime wrote: resistance would have devolved into the hands of the French Communists - an option that would have horrified French anti-Communists who would have seen surrender to Germany as a better option.
Some like in Spain36, it's Petain, and even DeGaulle, who pushed the resistance of France in Stalin hands (who tried to purge it too).
Petain for his resistance of France went into a collaboration. DeGaulle for his call was not for an actual resistance, but for a retreat from France to build a new army in England:
DeGaulle despised the french resistance for he could not control it. And it's late, when he see that the France against Petain, this resistance who at first liked DeGaulle, become communist, that he deign to help it, a little only to not give too much weapons to who could resist against gaullist army too; DeGaulle succeded in controlling parts of resistance, but he was not confident with it. It's for DeGaulle didn't like french resistance (for resistants were mainly basic people, and non military), that (first) resistants, at first confident in him, went distrusting him. In the end, okay, the many late new resistants like DeGaulle for he comes with the US tanks.
ERISS wrote:Some like in Spain36, it's Petain, and even DeGaulle, who pushed the resistance of France in Stalin hands (who tried to purge it too).
Petain for his resistance of France went into a collaboration. DeGaulle for his call was not for an actual resistance, but for a retreat from France to build a new army in England:
DeGaulle despised the french resistance for he could not control it. And it's late, when he see that the France against Petain, this resistance who at first liked DeGaulle, become communist, that he deign to help it, a little only to not give too much weapons to who could resist against gaullist army too; DeGaulle succeded in controlling parts of resistance, but he was not confident with it. It's for DeGaulle didn't like french resistance (for resistants were mainly basic people, and non military), that (first) resistants, at first confident in him, went distrusting him. In the end, okay, the many late new resistants like DeGaulle for he comes with the US tanks.
Yes, this seemed to play out in 1944, when it was very important to DeGaulle that the LeClerc Division enter and control Paris before Colonel Rol and the French Communist partisans could seize the main buildings.
Keeping France in fight in 1940 would have been very difficult
MainLand was lost. Some delaying action could have been done to allow to evacuate what could be, but all industries, shipyard, etc.. were in mainland France.
For example keeping the powerfull french fleet battle ready would have been a logistical nightmare. Alger and colonies did not have at all the shipyard capability to maintain it. Of course england could have helped but ammunitions, spare parts, etc... were not standard at all for the most part.
Of course in sector where men matters more than equipements, aviation for example, the highly trained french pilots would have been very helpfull (probably using spitfires and hurricanes, .... or Yak-9 ...... because another time, the industries to support french planes were lost in mainland).
It would not have changed the course of the war, but it would have helped, and sometimes symbol are important.
MainLand was lost. Some delaying action could have been done to allow to evacuate what could be, but all industries, shipyard, etc.. were in mainland France.
For example keeping the powerfull french fleet battle ready would have been a logistical nightmare. Alger and colonies did not have at all the shipyard capability to maintain it. Of course england could have helped but ammunitions, spare parts, etc... were not standard at all for the most part.
Of course in sector where men matters more than equipements, aviation for example, the highly trained french pilots would have been very helpfull (probably using spitfires and hurricanes, .... or Yak-9 ...... because another time, the industries to support french planes were lost in mainland).
It would not have changed the course of the war, but it would have helped, and sometimes symbol are important.
I translated and edited a little the french wiki:
The end of the (WW2) war will be marked in Occitania (90% of the whole-south of France) by a triumphant french patriotism: in same time, occitan collaborators were prosecuted, and the occitan resistants were often attacked, by both the Gaullists and the Communists. In Limoges there is even an occitan resistance inside gaullist authorities, and finally General de Gaulle himself came to Toulouse to disarm the maquis, who would not yield their weapons for claiming the will to help the basque and catalan republican resistants (against Franco).
My own grand father was in a cavalry regiment raised from camargues, near Nimes, in the south of France, a region with a big horse tradition.
He was in Belgium, fight a little, then retreated to dunkirk, thanks to horses behind very efficient at retreating offroad
(The infantery part of its units was captured :cool .
He managed with its units to embark to England during the evacuation. (Leaving horses behind.. Poor horses....).
Then come the interesting parts.
While already in England, he was not gaulist or did not heard of de gaulle at all, not sûre about that, and so choose to return to France which his units.
He arrived in France for the armistice, so returned to its rural countryside in the south of France where he waited the end of the war with no more adventure.
I regret today not talked much about the war with him. (But he was hardly speaking about it by himself).
One time i remember him blessing its officer for being smart and having saved its compagny thought the retreat. He was probably following him without thinking too much about the outcome of the war & politics, unlike doctorking relative.
Fun facts : He married my grandmother during the war in 1941. She was 13 year old younger.
. Remember that most men were captured in germany at this time.
Another fun facts : his house were near the townhall of his small village. (He was a farmer).
When german occupied the free zone in 1942, his house was requisitionned to store a german compagny. 60 years later we discovered german graffiti in a lost wall in the house (while moving some stone around for construction). Not really a huge historical interest (mostly dick lol), but it was fun.
He was in Belgium, fight a little, then retreated to dunkirk, thanks to horses behind very efficient at retreating offroad
(The infantery part of its units was captured :cool
.
He managed with its units to embark to England during the evacuation. (Leaving horses behind.. Poor horses....).
Then come the interesting parts.
While already in England, he was not gaulist or did not heard of de gaulle at all, not sûre about that, and so choose to return to France which his units.
He arrived in France for the armistice, so returned to its rural countryside in the south of France where he waited the end of the war with no more adventure.
I regret today not talked much about the war with him. (But he was hardly speaking about it by himself).
One time i remember him blessing its officer for being smart and having saved its compagny thought the retreat. He was probably following him without thinking too much about the outcome of the war & politics, unlike doctorking relative.
Fun facts : He married my grandmother during the war in 1941. She was 13 year old younger.
. Remember that most men were captured in germany at this time.
Another fun facts : his house were near the townhall of his small village. (He was a farmer).
When german occupied the free zone in 1942, his house was requisitionned to store a german compagny. 60 years later we discovered german graffiti in a lost wall in the house (while moving some stone around for construction). Not really a huge historical interest (mostly dick lol), but it was fun.
Stelteck wrote:I regret today not talked much about the war with him. (But he was hardly speaking about it by himself).
Same with my grand-father, he didn't like to speak, and further about this.
All I remember (badly) is that he was in an infantry regiment, which was surrounded in beginning of war, and he spent all the war in Germany, in a 'work camp'. Andatiep says his story is surely told by the 2 tomes Stalag comic of Tardi:
http://bd.casterman.com/catalogues_list.cfm?CategID=4663&OwnerID=1524
Thenafter, he was journalist at LaCroix, friend with some renowned french writers (I think an aunt has kept the many letters), spent his remaining time as prisons visitor, and interested in all the resistances in south of France where he lived (catharism, and others, I thought about him when I wrote my past post about Occitania here).
My father unkindly seriously mocked him as 'ancien combattu' (maybe translated as 'ex-servicedman'?): I was very young and hazy remember it saddened my grand-father and made him just go about his own business instead of answering or other.
My grand-mother, I knew her always mad, living at nuns' hospital.
My mother family: Grand-father was already dead (in WW2) when I was born. He was known as "giving his shirt to the poor", what my grandmother didn't like as themself were already poor (my mother said they searched in the dump). Grand-mother spent the war in Paris and never wanted to talk about.
I would certainly agree that France was in fact rotten from the top down. The fact that France lost the 1940 campaign in the North did not necessarily mean that France had to sue for peace. The French armies could have fought for several more months retreating step-by-step south and then in the worst case scenario, they could have been evacuated to French North Africa.
France had a huge colonial empire. The French army could have been evacuated, and later on resupplied and refitted with alied weapons. This did happen to a large part of the Polish army after their defeat in 1939. And eep in mind taht Poland had no colonies and that in 1939 it did not border any allied country and taht evacuation by friendly navies was not possible.
Yet Poland fought on, did not sue for peace and by 1941 had fielded a larger allied force than the Free French.
Capitulation and Vichy was not the only solution. France could have fought on, had she had any fight in her left.
Not to say the common Frenchmen was a defeatist, but the percentage of French people who wanted to actively oppose the occupation was lower than in similar populations in eastern Europe. As a comparison - in 1944 both Paris and Warsaw were the scenes of a mass uprising of underground resistance soldiers against the occupant.
Warsaw, despite being almost 3 times smaller than Paris fielded some 50 000 me who fought in the AK (Home Army) agisnt the germans.
Paris on the other hand, fielded some 18 000 men of FFI (French Forces of the Interior) plus some odd ~1 000 communist fighters.
The will to fight was present both in the Polish and the French populations, but the percentages were radically diferent. I would certainly call France the "sick man of urope" of the 1920s and 1930s.
France had a huge colonial empire. The French army could have been evacuated, and later on resupplied and refitted with alied weapons. This did happen to a large part of the Polish army after their defeat in 1939. And eep in mind taht Poland had no colonies and that in 1939 it did not border any allied country and taht evacuation by friendly navies was not possible.
Yet Poland fought on, did not sue for peace and by 1941 had fielded a larger allied force than the Free French.
Capitulation and Vichy was not the only solution. France could have fought on, had she had any fight in her left.
Not to say the common Frenchmen was a defeatist, but the percentage of French people who wanted to actively oppose the occupation was lower than in similar populations in eastern Europe. As a comparison - in 1944 both Paris and Warsaw were the scenes of a mass uprising of underground resistance soldiers against the occupant.
Warsaw, despite being almost 3 times smaller than Paris fielded some 50 000 me who fought in the AK (Home Army) agisnt the germans.
Paris on the other hand, fielded some 18 000 men of FFI (French Forces of the Interior) plus some odd ~1 000 communist fighters.
The will to fight was present both in the Polish and the French populations, but the percentages were radically diferent. I would certainly call France the "sick man of urope" of the 1920s and 1930s.
France in 1939 worst nightmare was to see again the loss ratio of WW1, the vast majority of all French families lost at least one person in the GW. So the politics gave up after the front was shattered twice.
Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's law."
I'm certainly no expert on 1930's France, but from the accounts I've read (mostly by American journalists who lived in Paris at the time), France in the 30's was deeply divided between right and left politics (even more so than the early 1900's). I always suspected it was intensified due to the strain of the Great Depression (though I don't think France was as heavily impacted by the Depression as other western nations). In particular, the Popular Front seemed to rile up bad feelings in the conservative population.
Throw this backdrop against a war the general population wasn't all that crazy about being involved in (high losses in WW1, and the Sitzkrieg up to this point), it's very understandable why senior military and politicians would seek an armistice once the military situation fell apart. Paris was lost, and the Maginot Line flanked, fighting on would've only ended with worse surrender terms for France at that point.
Militarily, the Allies biggest mistake up to mid-1940 was failing to realize how to incorporate air power effectively into ground support. The Luftwaffe was the key to Germany splitting open France's defenses and keeping the Allies from coordinating a defense to fill the gap. Panzers were important of course, but France actually had better tanks. Air power was the key to WW2.
Throw this backdrop against a war the general population wasn't all that crazy about being involved in (high losses in WW1, and the Sitzkrieg up to this point), it's very understandable why senior military and politicians would seek an armistice once the military situation fell apart. Paris was lost, and the Maginot Line flanked, fighting on would've only ended with worse surrender terms for France at that point.
Militarily, the Allies biggest mistake up to mid-1940 was failing to realize how to incorporate air power effectively into ground support. The Luftwaffe was the key to Germany splitting open France's defenses and keeping the Allies from coordinating a defense to fill the gap. Panzers were important of course, but France actually had better tanks. Air power was the key to WW2.
@Altaris
The Allies had more men (about 10%), more guns (nearly twice), more tanks and better tanks, more planes also; part of the problem was the English were reluctant to part with their 'strategic reserve' as many as 600+ planes- Fighters and almost equal number of bombers.
The Germans decided to throw even the Training aircraft and the Trainers themselves into the battlefield.
Also their Tanks had 2 way radios, connected to corps commanders and they also had air liason officers, during the 1940 Battle of France, most Panzer units got air support within an hour of the 1st request, some in as less as 20 minutes- astounding numbers.
Secondly, the average age of the British and French Generals was in the early 60s and late 60s respectively, the German Generals averaged less than 55, were twice as fit, there were several instances of senior generals leading the battle- Rommel, Guderian are famous but even senior Army commanders like von Reichenau were almost always at the forefront.
Thirdly, again very important- the Officers and NCO's in the German army even middle and senior Officers were ready to fight and die, this is very crucial for morale, leadership from the front and leadership to the death, in almost all of Prussian wars since the time of Frederick this is seen repeatedly.
The Allies had more men (about 10%), more guns (nearly twice), more tanks and better tanks, more planes also; part of the problem was the English were reluctant to part with their 'strategic reserve' as many as 600+ planes- Fighters and almost equal number of bombers.
The Germans decided to throw even the Training aircraft and the Trainers themselves into the battlefield.
Also their Tanks had 2 way radios, connected to corps commanders and they also had air liason officers, during the 1940 Battle of France, most Panzer units got air support within an hour of the 1st request, some in as less as 20 minutes- astounding numbers.
Secondly, the average age of the British and French Generals was in the early 60s and late 60s respectively, the German Generals averaged less than 55, were twice as fit, there were several instances of senior generals leading the battle- Rommel, Guderian are famous but even senior Army commanders like von Reichenau were almost always at the forefront.
Thirdly, again very important- the Officers and NCO's in the German army even middle and senior Officers were ready to fight and die, this is very crucial for morale, leadership from the front and leadership to the death, in almost all of Prussian wars since the time of Frederick this is seen repeatedly.
Rascals, would you live forever? - Frederick the Great.
Shri wrote:Thirdly, again very important- the Officers and NCO's in the German army even middle and senior Officers were ready to fight and die, this is very crucial for morale, leadership from the front and leadership to the death, in almost all of Prussian wars since the time of Frederick this is seen repeatedly.
Even more, and against their army, many officers/NCOs built a subversive school of autonomy since prussian defeat against Napo. Hitler decided to follow this unofficial school against the werhmacht classical officers, that's why his army was so reactive, and this participated in the victory against paralized french army. Later the US Army copied this autonomy organization, which is still working nowadays (what we can see in Generation Kill serie).
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