Why was France so Useless in World War Two???

So I think we can all agree that World War III was not the best time for the French military. The French collapse in the face of Hitler's war machine has made it the butt of cheap jokes since, when its cheese-eating monkeys surrendered, there were only 6 weeks left before the first German tanks crossed the border into France, giving up their freedom and dignity the fall of France was as surprising then as it is now the whole

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expected it to put up much more fighting, including the Germans themselves who believed that France had one of the strongest armies in the

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in World War I had resisted for 4 years against the Germans in World War II collapsed in days to the people at the time it was impressive surely I must be dreaming this was how it was summed up in In the memoirs of a French pilot, an American diplomat said that never before had an event astonished so much so to the entire world that it would be easy to assume that the Nazis won due to overwhelming military superiority, greater numbers of men, or better quality equipment;

That is not the case. The French collapse was, in fact, much more complicated and interesting than that. That story will form the majority of this video; However, before we get into that, we need to have an overview of how the amazing story of the Battle of France happened in the late 1930s. War was very clearly on the horizon Hitler had established a totalitarian state in Germany, but that wasn't enough, he wanted more. His book Mine Camp or My Fight laid bare the extent of his hatred of Jews and his belief that the German race should rule.

In the world, all the nations of Europe were rearming as quickly as possible. War finally broke out on September 1, 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland in response. Great Britain and France declared war on Germany. France then launched a minor offensive into Germany but after only a few days withdrew. Over the next few months the war entered a period of tranquility and very little fighting occurred which became known as the False War during which everyone was doing everything possible to strengthen their armies and prepare for the inevitable. Renewed fighting Britain and France's plan was to use the British Navy to blockade Germany and at the same time prepare to defend France from Nazi invasion.

That invasion finally came in May 194, a full eight months after war was declared on Britain and France. They assumed that the German invasion would pass through Belgium, the route that had been taken so many times throughout history, they sent their best forces to Belgium to confront the German advance. Unfortunately, they were wrong, relatively few German forces entered Belgium, so the Germans concentrated their attack even more. Heading south through the Ardens Forest, the French had assumed that the Germans would not be able to attack through the Ardens because they thought it would be impossible to move large numbers of men and vehicles through the forest.

It would also require the Germans to cross the Muse River. when they would be vulnerable the french had bet that the germans would not attack there and they bet wrong in just 3 days the germans crossed the ardens and crossed the muse river from there they advanced quickly towards the canal they moved as fast as they could almost recklessly ignore any threat from a possible counterattack. They arrived at the canal 7 days after crossing The Muse. Only 10 days after the invasion for the allies, which was a monumental disaster, a large part of their forces were now surrounded and isolated from the rest.

France, which hampered communication and left the Allies in complete disarray, its only hope was to break through the German corridor and break the encirclement. The Allies failed to do so over the next few days, the Germans strangled that little Allied pocket Titan until the Allies. They were forced to withdraw their forces, the famous evacuation of Dun Kirk, with which the French will to fight completely collapsed. Within a few days they were talking about offering an armistice and on June 22 the deal was closed. Nazi Germany occupied northern France while the south became a vassal state France Hitler had achieved in six weeks what Germany had not achieved in four years of fighting during World War I, so if France fell into only six weeks it would be reasonable to assume that it was due to overwhelming German military superiority. men more tanks and planes better tanks and planes now I want to convince you that that is not really the case and that the two armies were quite comparable first let's look at the infantry the Germans had 3 million men available for the invasion about half had only had a few few weeks of training and half were over 40 years old, only 10% of them were motorized, which means they had vehicles to get around, the other 90% had to get around on foot, for the 3 million men, there were only 120,000 vehicles.

Logistics was mainly done. With vehicles hauled to fight the Nazi invaders, France had 2.2 million men, those men had access to 300,000 vehicles for transportation, more than double that of the Germans. France also had the support of its allies. Britain had 200,000 troops in France, all of whom were motorized. The Belgians and the Netherlands also contributed perhaps up to a million men between them in terms of tanks. Again, the French could absolutely match the Germans. France had around 3,000 modern tanks available to fight the invasion, which was a little more than the Germans who had around 2 and a half thousand.

In terms of quality, it is not easy to make comparisons because there are many different things to consider size speed armor thickness firepower maneuverability that said most historians agree that the French actually had the best all-around tank, the SoMo S35, it was fast well protected and had greater firepower than its German equivalent The Panza 3 the French also had the best heavy tank the B1 the B1 had greater firepower and armor than the German heavy tank the Panza 4 its armor was twice as thick the B1 had some weaknesses It was slow at half the speed The Panza 4 due to its size was very fuel intensive meaning it could only operate for about 4 hours, so while the French had a slight advantage in terms of tanks, they had a significant advantage in artillery.

It had around 11,000 cannons compared to Germany's 8,000. The French also had a greater proportion of more powerful large caliber guns. However, France lacked anti-tank weapons. It had only 270 of its best anti-tank guns. Many units had to use an obsolete weapon that was not effective against modern tanks. The French also had a serious deficiency in anti-aircraft guns. They had only about 4,000, compared to 9,000 Germans. Some units even had to use light machine guns against aircraft. I think the largest area in which France had significant influence. The disadvantage was that its Air Force during the 1930s French aircraft production had been less effective than they would have expected.

The French had been trying to build multi-purpose aircraft that could act as bombers. Fighter and reconnaissance aircraft. They really needed to build specialized aircraft. for a feature, they also struggled to get the production to what they wanted. In 1936, the German air force surpassed the French air force, both in terms of quality and quantity. The French were aware of this deficiency. France's Chief of the Air Staff warned the government that in a war, the French Air Force would be destroyed within a few days. Finally, in March 1938, the government decided to prioritize the construction of the Air Force. 42% of military spending went to building aircraft and training pilots who finally began work in November 1938.

September. In 1939, production went from 41 aircraft per month to 300. Unfortunately, it was too late when the German invasion occurred, the French Air Force still did not have enough aircraft and many of the ones it used were quite obsolete, for example, France did. design a good fighter, the detin d520, which was as good as the best german fighters; However, production began in December 1939, so only 80 were available at the time of the German invasion. In terms of total number of aircraft, there are various estimates for how the two sides compare with tanks, it is difficult to know what should be counted, whether the total number of aircraft or the number of combat-ready aircraft, if the aircraft modern and old count equally, however the numbers are done, it is clear that Nazi Germany had a significant advantage.

Here are some estimates of how the Air Force compares. Germany had almost three times as many planes, the British contributed about 400 planes, but that wasn't enough to close the gap overall, so I think the Germans had an advantage in terms of military strength, but I really don't think it was overwhelming. I certainly don't think it can explain why France fell in 6 weeks. Further evidence that the French defeat was not a foregone conclusion comes from what people said before that the French army is stronger than ever in its history, declared a French general. People from other nations agreed.

The military editor of the New York Times said that experts have long considered the French army to be the best in the world and that its best divisions are undoubtedly incomparable, even the largest. The Germans believe that France has a world-class army. One of the first German plans predicted that it would cost half a million German soldiers just to push the Allies back to the Som River. The main German attack on France would only be possible in two years. Later, when Hitler demanded a quick and decisive attack similar to the one that had been launched on Poland, he was told that this would not be possible against an army as powerful as the French, so if overwhelming military force was not the key to victory German victory, what Was where I'm going to spend most of my time talking about the German offensive all the way because the importance of that cannot be overstated.

They came from German territory to the English Channel in just 10 days, this is what the map looked like on May 10, this is what it looked like 10 days later, on the 20th. Now it seems absolutely crazy to me. I don't think the war really had to be lost from that point on and I'll talk about that later, but it was a huge setback, so how could the Germans do that? First, to say that the French were not prepared for an attack through the Ardennes is a huge understatement. They did all their military planning without paying absolutely any attention to the idea that the Germans would attack where they did now.

To be fair, they had reason to think it was unlikely and assumed, understandably, that, being a mountainous forested area, it would be incredibly difficult to get large numbers of men and vehicles through the area once the Germans had Once through the forest they would have to cross the Muse River, during which they would be vulnerable since the time of the Roman armies moving between France and Germany would pass through Belgium. The Belgian plains were the easiest for an invading army to traverse and offered the shortest route. In contrast to France, the region was forested and mountainous with a poor road network.

In March 1934, a French general had declared the area impenetrable; In his words, any enemy who attacks there will be caught when he leaves the forest. a vulnerable sector in the words of another general the ardens had never favored large operations France assumed that Belgium would once again be the invasion route and made preparations accordingly their plan was to send their best forces to Belgium as soon as fighting began to confront The The approaching Germans, since World War I had largely been fought on French soil, were eager to keep as much of their fighting in Belgium as possible, since they expected the invasion to come through Belgium.

The Ardennes were only minimally defended. The few forces that were defending it were poorly trained and equipped. One of the generals charged with defending the Ardens complained about this but his pleas were ignored. People in the government also tried to draw attention to the weakness. A government report in March 2 months before the invasion he spoke of serious insufficiencies in the French defenses, another general responded furiously saying that he believed that urgent measures were not necessary to reinforce the front there through the Ardens, the Germans were breaking with history, his plan was audacious and extremely risky even Some of the German commanders themselves had doubts that it would work and some thoughtThat would be a disaster.

The German Chief of Staff wrote that there was only a 10% chance that the plan would work. The doubts were understandable. Getting a massive army through the area with its limited road network was a difficult task. extremely difficult logistical operation the Germans not only had to get through the forest but they had to do it quickly they had to do it before France had time to react if they spent days with their vehicles bumper to bumper on the roads of the Ardens They would be easy targets for the Allied bombs and artillery. How quickly could German troops get through the forest?

One commander thought four days, others thought nine, it all depended on that crucial question, so France made a terrible mistake by not doing more to defend the Ardens. but surely once the attack was underway, they quickly realized what was happening and acted quickly to counter it. No, the French were incredibly slow to figure out what the Germans were doing. The attack began at 4:30 on May 10. 130,000 soldiers and 1,600 vehicles began to pass through the Ardens Forest, in the words of one German commander, it was the largest traffic jam known to date in Europe. French aerial reconnaissance detected considerable motorized and armed forces on the move in the Ardens, including a significant amount of bridging equipment still. the penny did not drop for the French one of the French commanders in the area did not request any additional support with bombers another French general ordered the bombing but it was canceled the Germans advanced to the extremes encountering little French resistance most of the units did not encounter With a single French soldier, the French forces facing the German advance were vastly outnumbered and retreated quickly despite encountering far greater numbers than they had anticipated.

They still didn't realize that this was the main breakthrough. The first German units reached the Muse River within 2 days. Now they had to cross it once more. The French had to try to do it. Guess the German plans, where would they try to cross the river? The French commander thought it would be in the south and stationed his best units there. He assumed that the city of Sedan was not vulnerable due to natural obstacles in the river he stationed there. their weakest troops a division of B series reservists were not only poorly trained the entire division had only one anti-aircraft gun once again the French had completely misjudged the German plans the sedan was in fact one of their main targets the attack began at 7:00 a.m. on May 13 3 days after the invasion for 8 hours the German dive bombers bombed the French positions the French troops unable to defend themselves became very demoralized and then the Germans began to cross the river if the French had had reasonable forces in the En the area would have been able to inflict significant losses on the Germans and potentially drive them back.

The Germans were crossing in boats that could barely stay afloat due to the weight of their equipment. They were extremely vulnerable. The French were able to inflict some casualties but no. enough, the Germans crossed the river and took the French bunkers. A squad of 11 Germans were able to take seven French bunkers by 5:30, less than 11 hours after the assault began, the Germans were building their first bridge across the river throughout the afternoon. of the French soldiers began to flee their positions, which gradually turned into complete panic at the end of the 13th, the Germans had crossed the river in sedan and two other places, it had already been 3 days into the invasion when the penny They began to fall for France they realized what the German plan was and that they were very ill prepared to fight it in the French headquarters there was an atmosphere of desperation a French commander exclaimed that there had been a collapse and burst into tears I think so far we can see several major problems that France had.

The first was her complete inability to guess German plans. They were wrong to guess that the Germans would attack through Belgium. They were wrong in guessing where the Germans would try to cross the river. I think to what extent it was terrible judgment or just bad luck is debatable, but what is certain is that it cost them dearly. The French should have paid more attention to the possibility of the Germans doing something unexpected. They should have been aware of the possible German strategies that would be left to them. Those most vulnerable in the reaction at headquarters can see another major problem for the French: a defeatist mentality and low morale.

The Germans had crossed the river in three places, which was indeed a big setback, but it was not the end of the world. They were very small and vulnerable to counterattack, which brings us to another big problem for the French, their inflexibility, they were completely unable to react to the German movements and mount an effective counterattack first, they hesitated, the counterattack should have started immediately on the eve of the 13, but did not start until the next morning, that was partly because French doctrine said that offensives had to be carefully planned in advance, as the French were bothering and the Germans were frantically rushing so many men and tanks across the river as they could by the When the French counterattack occurred, the Germans had enough resources on the other side of the river to fight them. 200 12 French infantry divisions had disintegrated and fled.

The Allies attempted to bomb the Germans but it was not very effective and they suffered heavy losses given the acute shortage of bombers they had to resort to using obsolete aircraft some heavy tank divisions were also sent to The Fray but achieved little with the Germans established on the French side of the river the French once again demonstrated their complete inability to guess German plans they assumed that the Germans would move south to flank the Magol line to protect against the fact that many of the reinforcements that were sent were Headed south, in fact the Germans were going to charge northwest as fast as they could towards the channel that would leave the Allies.

Forces in Belgium isolated from the rest of France was a bold and risky plan. Advancing so quickly would leave their sides incredibly vulnerable to French counterattack, as the corridor was incredibly thin and the men at the front could easily be surrounded despite the risk of the Germans. they tried and advanced as fast as they could, the best example of that was when Owen Rumel advanced 110 km in a single day and advanced far ahead of his infantry and artillery, which should have been enormously reckless and dangerous if the French had been more effective. It served to demoralize the French, who were stunned by how far the Germans had come west.

In reality, there was disagreement among German commanders as to whether they should continue with the neckbreaking advance. The senior commander wanted it to slow down and consolidate. One of his subordinates threatened to resign. If that happened and the advance continued, the fact that the Germans could and should have been vulnerable was not lost on the Allies, as Church Heill put it, the turtle has stuck its head dangerously far out of its shell, that was all very well, but if the French couldn't get their forces into position quickly, it wouldn't count for anything, which didn't seem particularly likely at the time because the Allied forces were essentially collapsing, the forces in Belgium having to fall back to try to avoid encirclement, the Rapid German advance had also disrupted Alli's communications, meaning that no one really knew what was happening.

Some small counterattacks had a moderate degree of success, but they needed to have more Strength focused on a specific area to be truly decisive. There was a plan to release a large number of units. from around the Magol line and attacked north, but as always there were hesitations and delays, morale and defeatism continued to be a big problem on the fifth day of the invasion. French Prime Minister Paul Rold told Churchill: we have been defeated, we have been defeated, we have lost. the battle the front is broken near the sedan bot another French general told a British major I am broken and I can't do anything against these bellies finally on May 20 just 10 days after the invasion began the Germans arrived at the canal The forces Allies in Belgium were now isolated from the rest of France, the situation was critical, the only hope for the allies was to break the encirclement and attack the German column from the north and south at the same time the plan would involve coordinating the forces in France with those of Belgium, many of whom were British or Belgian, which brings us to another major problem that the allies faced, having to manage their relations with each other, there was a lot of mutual suspicion between them, the French often doubted the The British commitment to the defense of France they also suspected that the Belgians had pro-German sympathies there were also communication problems misunderstandings and disagreements all of this cost them valuable time that they could not afford the plan to try to break the siege shows us that This The wand of the French Supreme Commander flew to E to organize the offensive, unfortunately for the allies, they were unable to gather all their main commanders in the same place at the same time.

Wayan's first meeting was with King Leopold of Belgium. Leopold was not particularly enthusiastic about the plan and Wean left thinking that the Belgians were not going to be of much use Leopole demanded to hear the British commander's opinion before agreeing to anything with that Wan the French commander traveled back to Paris unsure of whether the plan was to go ahead and An hour after leaving Gort, the British commander arrived. Gort was informed of the plan and was not very optimistic about his chances, but he agreed to go ahead. French morale remained a huge problem. The British Chief of Staff VI visited the French and this was his description then I found Bot and Blanchart two French generals in a state of complete desperation no plan no plan ready to be slaughtered I lost my temper and shook Belon by the button his tunic the man is completely defeated that's what the British said The Chief of Staff managed to get the two French generals to accept the plan to break the siege.

The Allied Forces would attack the city of Aris at the same time from the North and the South, even then they delayed General Altm, who would be in charge of the offensive said that the forces would not be ready for 2 days in a quote he said that one should see things as they are the troops are gone and then he said that he was ready to go and get himself killed at the head of a battalion despite this pathetic on the part of the French commanders the escape attempt was carried out on the 21st, the eleventh day of the invasion and you might want to sit down before listening to this, it was actually quite successful, the allies managed to take Aris, there was a glimmer of hope.

The Germans were actually quite baffled by the fact that the German general lost more tanks that day than any other. In some respects it is not surprising that the Germans were overextended to an enormous degree, so what happened next was that the Allies threw everything at the dam to press their advantage as hard and fast as they could, no, in fact, They did much of what they had been doing up to that point, hesitating, hesitating, arguing that neither commander wanted their men to eventually take the lead in the offensive. After several days occupying Aris became untenable for the small British force there and they were forced to retreat in Paris.

The British withdrawal from Aris was interpreted as abandoning the idea of ​​breaking the encirclement. They became convinced that the British were not there. committed to the defense of France and were screwing around at home, relations between France and Britain were now getting much worse. The French Supreme Commander thought the British government was lying to him. In fact, he told the British Chief of Staff that he would like to box. One can't help but think that if that kind of fighting spirit had been applied to the Nazi army currently invading their country, the Germans were now threatening to take the entire coast, leaving the British and French forces in danger of being unable of power. evacuate by sea, that is why they abandoned the plan to attack the South and retreated to the North.

The problem that the Allies had of being coal became clear again a few days later when Belgium requested a ceasefire with Germany. Great Britain and France were furious with the French Prime Minister. He said in a radio broadcast that never in history had such a betrayal occurred, which seems somewhat exaggerated to me, at this point it was clear that the forces in the north were going to have to be evacuated from Dunkirk,given that much of what had happened up to that point had been such a farce that you would be surprised to learn that the Dunkirk evacuation was carried out quite competently;

In the end, some 340,000 Allied soldiers were evacuated and some 35,000 were left behind and taken prisoner while it was relatively successful in terms of the number of men evacuated, it brought the relationship between Britain and France to a new low. The French felt that the British had prioritized British soldiers for evacuation and did not provide as much air support as they could have. Wan, the French commander, said that everyone has their virtues and defects. The English are more motivated by an almost instinctive selfishness. The British in turn now had very little respect for the French. A British commander wrote that there seems to be no mistake in the fact that the French French do not make their generals contemptible that complete breakdown in the relationship made it practically impossible for the allies to continue fighting after the evacuation of Dunkirk, in theory the battle was not yet lost, the French still had much of their army intact and the The Germans controlled only a small part of France in In reality, they now had very little will to fight and their forces were in disarray, the French were now outnumbered and the Germans advanced rapidly towards central France.

On June 10, 1940, the government announced that it had decided to abandon the capital and very soon there was talk of surrender, although that was completely understandable, it was not the only option, surrender made sense if the war was over and the British were also going. to surrender, which the French assumed of course, the British were led by this guy and he wasn't exactly the type to give up if the French had had any of that church Alan Spirit, there were options available to them, The government could have gone abroad, whether to French North Africa or Britain, it could have taken as many military resources as possible. and continued the fight there, they could theoretically have maintained a guerrilla campaign on the continent supported by Britain, although it should be said that that would have led to enormous destruction and, given the brutality of the Nazis, I would not let them pass by. literally executing everyone in France by agreeing to a ceasefire.

Some French leaders hoped that they could maintain a small amount of control over a reasonable amount of France on June 22, when the Germans had taken about 2/3 of France. It was signed the north of France came under direct Nazi occupation while the south became a German puppet state known as Vichi France V France collaborated and cooperated with Nazi Germany to a shameful degree many French came to fully accept Nazi ideology V France became the only unoccupied nation that actively rounded up and deported its Jews to be massacred in the Holocaust. Anti-Semitism had been widespread in France before the war and many people in France strongly agreed with the extermination of Jews.

Some brave Frenchmen continued to fight as part of the French Resistance and a government in exile was established in London led by Charles de Gore. France was under Nazi occupation for 4 years until it was finally liberated on D-Day, so how do I summarize if I was forced to say what I believe were the most important factors in the stunning French collapse. I would say the following four things: first, the inability to defend the Ardens, second, the French inflexibility, that is, their inability to react to the Germans who crossed the ident and counterattack once. They crossed the river third, their big problem with low morale and defeatism, and fourth, the inherent challenges of being part of a coalition, for me the first two are the biggest.

France really wouldn't have needed to do much to cross the river. Ardens and the Muse crossing incredibly difficult and expensive for the Germans if they had simply destroyed the road network it would have cost the Germans days. They could have placed mines along the Route if they had moderate amounts of artillery or bombers available. they could have inflicted huge losses on the Germans even if they hadn't done those things, if they had reacted quickly they could have devastated the Germans, for example if once the Germans crossed Muse the French had been able to counterattack and drive them back to the other side. side of the river, the Germans would have been absolutely defenseless, a large number of German soldiers would have been trapped in the Ardens forest, barely able to respond to fire and unable to evacuate quickly, do not forget that it was described by a German commander as the The Biggest traffic jam in history.

This enormous number of men and vehicles would have been the easiest target in the world for artillery. They would have been easy targets. Don't forget that the French actually had more artillery than the Germans. The Germans would barely have been able to. Returning fire would have been an absolute death camp, it was precisely because of that possibility that the Germans were so nervous about their plan, unfortunately for France and for the world, that is not what happened.