still here and watching! i love indy's super-detailed covering of stuff like this, does a lot to help dispel myths. also, huntzinger is the new hotzendorf of this war tbh lmao
8:28 Keep in mind that the French have no choice but to depend upon the Belgians holding out long enough for the French Armies to move up and take position, since the Belgians have refused to allow the French to enter Belgium to set up defenses, which was what the agreement had originally been between the 2 nations. Once the Belgians chose to preserve their neutrality by keeping the French out, the burden was always going to be on the Belgian Armies to hold off the Germans for some period of time to allow those French Armies to get set up on defense.
18:39 Thank you, and yeah, I agree. Honestly the phrase "Lions led by donkeys" is kind of a cliché and used way too liberally (especially for WW1), but it's pretty much right on the money there. General Charles Huntziger (in charge at Sedan) became a member of the Vichy regime (minister of War) and was among the co-signatories of a 1940 anti-Semitic law that banned Jews from many professions, including the military. The POS died in a plane crash in '41, but he should have been judged not only for his role as a collaborator but also for his incompetence.
Honestly this week, as well as the next one, are just so incredibly frustrating. Because the uncomfortable truth is that the germans (as their own wargames prior to the ardennes offensive confirmed when the results for them were almost always a defeat or a stalemate) simply got ridicolously, insanely, unbelievably, if-this-was-pitched-as-a-movie-it-would-be-rejected-as-plot-contrievance, lucky, and NEVER should have won the battle for France as swiftly or as easily as they did. The fact that they managed not just a breakthrough but a complete break-out is just nuts, and has far more to do with allied incompetence than their own brilliance. It's why it's so hard to feel any sympathy towards the allied leaders responsible for this whole debacle, since it was basically utterly avoidable right until the very end and so almost entirely self-inflicted. As for Huntziger, yeah he totally was a documented right-wing antisemite who we should all very much give an angry and suspicious stare to from across history, and when Indie got asked in a Q&A whether he might have been in league with the germans, he answered "it wouldn't surprise me". His actions are just bizarre otherwise, and since (spoiler alert) he dies in a random plane crash in 1942 the actual truth has never been officially established, annoyingly enough. When your own men are doing their job just fine and all you have to do is let them do so for a few more days so that reinforcements can come in en masse to ensure victory, but instead you order them to retreat against their will, well then it's really hard not to think the worst of you. Either you are shockinlgy imcompetent or you are a traitor, there's not really any other options there...
still here and watching! i love indy's super-detailed covering of stuff like this, does a lot to help dispel myths. also, huntzinger is the new hotzendorf of this war tbh lmao
8:28 Keep in mind that the French have no choice but to depend upon the Belgians holding out long enough for the French Armies to move up and take position, since the Belgians have refused to allow the French to enter Belgium to set up defenses, which was what the agreement had originally been between the 2 nations. Once the Belgians chose to preserve their neutrality by keeping the French out, the burden was always going to be on the Belgian Armies to hold off the Germans for some period of time to allow those French Armies to get set up on defense.
18:39 Thank you, and yeah, I agree. Honestly the phrase "Lions led by donkeys" is kind of a cliché and used way too liberally (especially for WW1), but it's pretty much right on the money there.
General Charles Huntziger (in charge at Sedan) became a member of the Vichy regime (minister of War) and was among the co-signatories of a 1940 anti-Semitic law that banned Jews from many professions, including the military. The POS died in a plane crash in '41, but he should have been judged not only for his role as a collaborator but also for his incompetence.
I am still watching this series.
Honestly this week, as well as the next one, are just so incredibly frustrating. Because the uncomfortable truth is that the germans (as their own wargames prior to the ardennes offensive confirmed when the results for them were almost always a defeat or a stalemate) simply got ridicolously, insanely, unbelievably, if-this-was-pitched-as-a-movie-it-would-be-rejected-as-plot-contrievance, lucky, and NEVER should have won the battle for France as swiftly or as easily as they did. The fact that they managed not just a breakthrough but a complete break-out is just nuts, and has far more to do with allied incompetence than their own brilliance. It's why it's so hard to feel any sympathy towards the allied leaders responsible for this whole debacle, since it was basically utterly avoidable right until the very end and so almost entirely self-inflicted.
As for Huntziger, yeah he totally was a documented right-wing antisemite who we should all very much give an angry and suspicious stare to from across history, and when Indie got asked in a Q&A whether he might have been in league with the germans, he answered "it wouldn't surprise me". His actions are just bizarre otherwise, and since (spoiler alert) he dies in a random plane crash in 1942 the actual truth has never been officially established, annoyingly enough. When your own men are doing their job just fine and all you have to do is let them do so for a few more days so that reinforcements can come in en masse to ensure victory, but instead you order them to retreat against their will, well then it's really hard not to think the worst of you. Either you are shockinlgy imcompetent or you are a traitor, there's not really any other options there...
Huntziger: Idiot or Traitor. Why not both?