Volunteer for the army

[Not_Fred_Honest]

War is coming !!

And we all know anyone under the age of 30 wont go, so its up to us !!!

Some may say we're all too OLD, FAT and mostly leaky .........but we can still play our part.

I've sign up for tank crew cos I pay warthunder and don't mind being trapped in a steel box for days with MEN

 

[LadyOnArooftop]

Conscript the migrants! Service will guarantee citizenship!

 

[Not_Fred_Honest]

For Shame !!

You cant expect people who have escaped war and persecution to defend this country. They will just run away again !!

Its not the French army you know !!!

 

[DurhamLad]

Its not the French army you know !!!

The French Army was very good, Fred. They were let down by a few of their arrogant commanders whose strategic mistakes made it impossible for the French Army to compete. Still, they did a good job of holding off the Germans outside Dunkirk thereby enabling British and French soldiers to cross the channel.

Never heard of War Thunder but my uneducated guess is that you may have to do a bit more than tell the British Army that you've been playing computer games and that qualifies you as a tank commander. I'd probably hold off telling the family you're going to war for the time being.

 

[Not_Fred_Honest]

I started playing War thunder while I was recovering from my heart attack. This gave me something to do and keep my mind off what just happened to me. Heart attacks come as a bit of a shock, its always someone else.

The French Army in 1940.........hmmm.

It wasn't up to the job. People forget the army was called to arms in late 1939 and stood on the boarder during the "phoney war" period. A conscripted army who had little to do but drink cheap wine and wait for the attack. With poor morale and high desertions rates.

Frances best troops were on colonial service and never recalled.

Units like the French foreign legion weren't trusted due in part to most of them being German and were sent overseas.

When I think back to my childhood and all the WW2 veterans all said the same thing about the French: they hated the Jews and Arabs. They thought Hitler was right. We all forget how much support the Nazi had cross world including the UK and USA.

French politics was a mess in 1930's.

I think the best way to sum up the French army in during the battle of France in 1940 was:

Poor morale
Second rate troops
And a few thought they were fighting on the wrong side.

 

[Kinell]

Fred giving his life for the country! Top drawer!

 

[Kev45]

I have been playing martial art video games for years, I am a 456th black belt in Strip Mall Karate, and so if anyone is interested in any advice about martial arts in general let me know in PMs.

I know Dana White (UFC) personally and if anyone wants an introduction let me know.

In the same token, anyone genuinely interested in how the French really performed in WWII, where and why, should expand their horizon past the first few Googled pages they come across, and it is a hugely complex topic that could not be covered in any great depth here.

To keep it basic I recommend Case Red by Robert Forczyk, which argues convincingly, from multiple sources, that myths about French incompetence are black and white, an over simplification and simply just plain wrong.

The French Army were basically a defence force, dug in, in well-prepared positions, more than a match for the Wehrmacht and certainly on a par with the “heroic Soviet Union” war effort which is well documented. The Battle of Gembloux demonstrated how formidable the French First Army could be, was, and a battle which stopped the German 'Blitzkrieg' in its tracks.

Less obvious issues were a major problem, radio technology etc which the Germans had in all tanks, but I won't say too much because Mr Google is lurking watching.

Ultimately, the German war machine put all its effort into winning individual battles, the Allies, once organised, (including the French) were more interested in winning the war.

 

[DurhamLad]

Poor morale
Second rate troops
And a few thought they were fighting on the wrong side.

This isn't actually true, Fred. The morale of both the French Army and the British Army was high going into WW2. They expected to stop the Germans in their tracks as they had WW1. The French Army was a very well trained army and they had some equipment that was of better quality than the German equipment. It is true that they hadn't finished the Maginot Line, but that wasn't the downfall. The downfall was that some important French commanders were outsmarted and refused to listen to their own intelligence, until it was too late and they had an army behind them and in front of them.

As for: "a few thought they were fighting on the wrong side", I reckon you'd need to put some meat on the bones beyond "what I heard when I went to school."

 

[Not_Fred_Honest]

As for: "a few thought they were fighting on the wrong side", I reckon you'd need to put some meat on the bones beyond "what I heard when I went to school."

6 February 1934 crisis stands out most.

Watch:

 

[DurhamLad]

6 February 1934 crisis stands out most.

Watch:

Fred, I studied history at university, including various modules surrounding international relations 1870-1945. This doesn't mean I'm right in my opinions/conclusions, but it does mean I've read various sources from various angles/nationalities/political viewpoints.

That being the case, you need to explain your point rather than post a YT link and state: "watch".

 

[Not_Fred_Honest]

The 6 February 1934 crisis (also known as the Veterans' Riot was an anti-parliamentarist street demonstration in Paris, organized by multiple far-right leagues that culminated in a riot on the Place de la Concorde, near the building used for the French National Assembly. The police shot and killed 17 people, nine of whom were far-right protesters. It was one of the major political crises during the Third Republic

6 February 1934 crisis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Hmmm.... the roots of the 6 February 1934 crisis go back to end of WW1. The aftermath was a rise in support and membership of right wing party's.

Its hard to say how much of that support was left by 1939, but after the defeat of France there was some.

The four main political factions which emerged as leading proponents of radical collaborationism in France were Marcel Déat's National Popular Rally (Rassemblement National Populaire, RNP), Jacques Doriot's French Popular Party (Parti Populaire Français, PPF), Eugène Deloncle's Social Revolutionary Movement (Mouvement Social Révolutionnaire, MSR), and Pierre Costantini's French League (Ligue Française).These groups were small in size, between 1940 and 1944 fewer than 220,000 French people (including in North Africa) joined collaborationist movements

Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

What is clear is French military leaders watched events in Spain closely and live in fear of a communist revolution. It's one of those questions still asked in France today, how far would they gone to prevent it? Its hard for any of us here in the UK to say how close France was to a civil war in the 1930's. It's clear they had the leaders in place for a Francisco franco style government by 1932, the popular support after 1934. There just wasn't the spark to kick it off.

If France descended into civil war by 1935, would WW2 happened?

My feeling is no. The UK wouldn't have taken on Germany without French involvement. With pro right wing government's in France and Spain and rise in right wing support in the UK, the UK would have stayed out of Poland crisis.

It's one of those "what if" questions from history we will never know the answer too.

 

[DurhamLad]

6 February 1934 crisis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Hmmm.... the roots of the 6 February 1934 crisis go back to end of WW1. The aftermath was a rise in support and membership of right wing party's.

Its hard to say how much of that support was left by 1939, but after the defeat of France there was some.

There certainly was a politically influential group which hated everything about the Third Republic as well as socialists and communists, some of those people were fascists. There was also a deep divide in France during the inter-war years in terms of how to contain Germany: pacifism versus confrontation, which enabled the war to be brought to a halt very quickly after the French government moved to Bordeaux. It's worth noting that sections of the left-wing supported the Vichy regime borne of pacifist politics.

It's also true that many of the Frenchmen who were in power after France surrendered, were Anglophobes who attempted to blame Britain for their plight, i.e. dragging them into the war and abandoning them farther down the line.

But, to say they felt they were fighting on the wrong side is not quite true. France had its own long-standing, right-wing political programme that was native to France as opposed to being directed by Germany. It really depends on what you mean when you say: "fighting on the wrong side". There certainly was widespread ideological opposition to Britain, but that doesn't mean France wanted to team up with Germany to fight a war against Britain.

 

[Not_Fred_Honest]

I feel you need to look at the Franco Prussian war in 1870 for the root causes of Frances defeat in 1940.

They were over confidence
Corruption ran riot in the military.
And France was really bad at diplomacy.
Like in 1870 France had one of the best army's on paper in the world and thought Prussians would be a walk over. It was the same in 1939 with Germany. The truth was in both cases they were more like the Russians in Ukraine in the early days.

 

[DurhamLad]

I feel you need to look at the Franco Prussian war in 1870 for the root causes of Frances defeat in 1940.

They were over confidence
Corruption ran riot in the military.
And France was really bad at diplomacy.
Like in 1870 France had one of the best army's on paper in the world and thought Prussians would be a walk over. It was the same in 1939 with Germany. The truth was in both cases they were more like the Russians in Ukraine in the early days.

I don't know a great deal about the Franco-Prussian war, it's a war that I didn't find interesting.

What I would say is that by WW1, the French had learned to compete much better. When you consider relative factors such as Germany's greater industrial capacity, and consider that the French did the lion's share of the fighting up to The Somme, then the French did a decent enough job of competing with the German Army.

On the other hand, Britain's blockade of German ports denied them vital resources and Britain borrowed a lot of money from the United States which was passed on to the French to keep them fighting. You'd have to say that a war solely between Germany and France in 1914 would have ended with with a German victory.

 

[Not_Fred_Honest]

A German victory in 1914? Hmmm........ no

I can think of a few reasons why but the main one is: Germany was hoping for a short war and that was never going to happen.

We all overrate Britain and Russia's roles in 1914.

British Expeditionary Force (BEF):
A small force of around 150,000 men, including six infantry divisions and one cavalry division, was sent to France.

Russia entered the war in support of Serbia. Initially, war patriotism reduced anti-government feelings. Unsurprisingly, poorly equipped and poor leadership resulted in Russian defeat. Many troops lacked boots, bedding, ammunition and weapons.

Even German high command realized after the first 3 months the war was lost. They were losing 30,000-40,000 men each month.

In the first three months of World War I, Germany suffered significant casualties, particularly in August and September 1914. While specific figures for all three months are difficult to pinpoint precisely, the International Encyclopedia of the First World War notes that in August and September 1914 alone, 54,064 German soldiers were killed and 81,193 went missing

The French fleet still would have blocked German ports.

The Germans could never hope to win a war of attrition, I cant think of anyone who can.

 

[DurhamLad]

The German Navy would have disposed with the French Navy WW1 because they were better equipped with dreadnoughts, cruisers and destroyers. The German High Seas Fleet was simply more powerful.

Add in a few things: Germany's greater industrial capacity, France needing to borrow a lot of money from Britain to keep fighting, French mutiny 1917 which meant the British Army was the only offensive army during that year, and you have a German victory.

The French fought bravely and if you read the memoirs of German soldiers they rated the French very highly as a creative, attacking force; but, it would have been over by say 1917 because the French wouldn't have been able to sustain it for the reasons stated.