One point is also that Hitler's goals were in the East (Lebensraum im Osten). It's unpopular to say it but his former intention was to avoid war with France and UK.
Those pushing an overarching liberal perspective would prefer to ignore Lebensraum, because it allows them to easier justify settler colonial projects like the United States and Israel.
@@robert9016 i don't know if it makes it only makes it easier to justify other colonial projects (not saying you meant that) but that it makes it easier to ignore these more recent crimes and not confront their similarities to older evils they decry
My mother and family lived in a village deep in Vichy territory (a region called Perigord). My grandfather was a railroad engineer (building, not driving) and so worked for the Vichy government. As the railroad was critical military infrastructure, the Germans posted their civilian/military railroad people at every station in towns and up (but not villages, like where G'pa worked). As such, G'pa defacto reported to a German at the next town. In '44, La Resistance kidnapped G'pa from his office and held him for three days; my G'ma had no idea what happened to him and feared the Germans had arrested him. La Resistance gave G'pa an ultimatum: spy for them (and if caught, shot by the Germans) or be immediately shot as a collaborator. G'pa picked the former and spent a nail biting year passing manifests and schedules of German military trains, etc. After D-Day, the Germans took control of Vichy territory and in late June a German convoy rolled thru G'pa's village (their house was on the main road, so he initially feared they were coming for him). The lead tank said hello by machine gunning a young boy tending a flock of sheep and rolled on thru. A week or so later, word was the Gestapo was on their way to the village on a sweep of Resistance members. My mother's grade school teacher (a man) was a target, but tipped off and ran. Before the Gestapo arrived, the principal got in front of the class and introduced a village woman as their new teacher. They were to say she had always been their teacher. Remember, this is a bunch of 6 to 8 yo kids, it only took one to be a smart ass or stupid to put the faculty in the deep trouble. But when the Gestapo arrived, searched the school and failed to find their target, an officer marched to the front of the class and asked the kids if they knew where their teacher went. My mother said they all silently pointed at the new woman. Stymied, the Gestapo left empty handed. The memory of their classmate being gunned down turned them all into members of La Resistance.
@ Sorry, all too real. And I left out a lot. My mother has still has PTSD not just from that loss of her classmate and the Gestapo visit, but from the years of fear and hunger between 1940 and 45. She's told the stories so often over the years that they've become my memories, too.
The same French fixation on colonial vestiges that led to later wars in Algeria and Indochina also led them to choose surrender to Germany to preserve their colonies.
France COULD end Germany if they pressed on 1939 while Wehrmacht was in Poland......but somehow they can't find the same fixation to fight in the Rhine.
@@pawejankowski9364 Quite an ignorant comment. France is mostly getting completely aligned with the US (some would say subdued by...) since Sarkozy. It's barely trying to preserve some meagers geostrategic interests in Africa but Russia, and China on a much bigger extent, are taking over the place. "Working on becoming an empire again"? Please.
@@sighsgkj they did abut they failed though. See: Saar Offensive. Across the Maginot was an almost equal (but not quite) fortification system in the Seigfreid Line.
@@yurivii emm the Siegfried Line is largely stripped of garrison during the German invasion of Poland. The French enjoyed vast local force superiority across the front. The German officiers were thus perplexed as to why the French did not attack -- knowing that they would surely be crushed had French advanced.
The irony of that statement is that the modern UK royalty descends from Northern French (Norman to be more accurate) nobility _casually unfolds 1000 years of inter-channel conflict_
@@justalonesoul5825 It is indeed true that they were originally for Scandinavia (led by Rollo if my memory serves correctly). However, by the time of 1066 they were more than willing to pledge allegiance to the crown in Paris. Also, they more often than not spoke French in court. And wasn't the 100 years war for the leadership of France? It's almost as though the Normans cared more of France than their UK possessions.
Yes but I don't think even Elsass was that big of a deal for Hitler. The number one priority was to passify France and negate threat of creating a western front after invading Soviet Union. Even if Germany hadn't annexed Elsass, it could have taken what they wanted after conquering the east.
@@Karpaneen "Even if Germany hadn't annexed Elsass, it could have taken what they wanted after conquering the east." Not with such a possible massive threat in their back while they would be attacking Soviet Union. UK alone was a huge thorn in H. 's side for the whole war and their resistance proved of utter importance (bombing campaigns among other things). UK + France given time to fully mobilize and arm itself? Nahah. Couldnt let that be.
@@justalonesoul5825 I have to agree. The Jerries knew the French were badly traumatised by WW1, but still very wary of them, so if they were ever going to try to attack Germany, it would be when she had her hands full with another enemy. That and the German perception at the time was that France's military was more potent...yeah, they'd need to be dealt with first. The French stupidly tipped them off with that abortive half-ass invasion of the Rhineland in late '39, when they thought, "No actually this isn't a good idea". You always show a calculating front, you NEVER let your enemy see indecisiveness. Possibly the greatest mistake in French history.
@@addrakettp in English, Alsace is called Elsass, fyi. Why do the english feel the need/think they have the right to rename regions/cities/countries, is another question...
1:08 - I'll disagree. The purpose of Maginot Line was not to make it impossible to invade France; it was meant as a delay measure - to give French Army enough time to organize at the back
Meanwhile panzer ghost division 240km into maginot line: "We are the panzer elite, born to compete, never retreat, Living or dead, always ahead, fed by your dread"
Exactly this, that was the whole point. French high command wasn't incompetent and they did very much plan on fighting most of the war in Belgium, where their main force and best units would be massed. This in addition to cost and diplomatic concerns is why the maginot line didn't extend along the belgian border. French doctrine had a number of issues, one was a lack of prioritization on modern equipment such as aircraft and armor; tanks were mostly dispersed in units rather than concentrated and the airforce lacked funding. French generals were positioned far behind the frontline leading to delayed decisions and they did not allow units the tactical freedom that the Wehrmacht enjoyed. The massive blunder of thinking the Ardennes impassable lead to the downfall of the allied forces even with recon aircraft spotting the German column advancing through the forest, the French reaction was slow and failed to contain the German spearhead. At this point nothing could be done, the overly static mindset of the French played perfectly into the war of movement of the Germans (not Blitzkrieg as this is a post-war term and was never used by the Wehrmacht).
When you look at the losses France suffered in WW I - especially considering there were a LOT of people still alive who remembered it - one should be able to see their point in not wanting to go through that again, possibly on a much larger scale.
One has to wonder, having gone through similar loss in WW1, is if the Germans were prepared to go through significant losses at this stage. If they hadn’t experienced lightning quick success in France, would their morale have remained so high through the battle of France and into Barbarossa?
@@cirroalex714 Yes the Germans were prepared to go through significant losses at this stage. Between the two wars, the Germans prepared themselves for a new war, especially since Hitler came to power, convincing his people with propaganda.
@@cirroalex714 Then would Germany have also declared war on USA? Japan and USA were only at war with each other. But Hitler was convinced Germany was already winning by the time Barbarossa was initiated.
@@TX200AADuring WW1, most of the fighting took place in France. British civilians and infrastructures were not directly affected by the war. I do not question the contribution of the british empire to ww1, but we cannot compare the economic and psychological consequences that this war had on France to Britain.
The French defended us (Zeeland) to the end, even after the rest of the country had surrendered. In the end it only bought a few more days, but they fought in a nearly hopeless situation, even after being ordered to evacuate, to defend my home. I think that is worth a lot.
At the time, for Germany, it seemed the correct thing to do. They'd beaten the French and occupied their capital, Paris, and their northern industrial towns, and all the Atlantic coast. They expected the UK to cave in and sue for peace within a few weeks, so there was no need to antagonize the French to rise up and fight them again. Effectively, though he chafed at the notion, Marshal Petain had become Hitler's stooge, so for about two years, Germany had the best of both ways WRT France.
They would have gave up occupation of northern France in time as well, had they won the war. They were entirely happy to have France remain independent, though under a Germany-friendly/puppet administration. So yea, Vichy France was a very acceptable situation for them to begin with.
@@maynardburger Exactly, why drag out the war? The French lost what mattered most. Everyone acts like the German high command was stupid and they weren't weary of getting into a war on two fronts. Of course the British were around, but they weren't going to invade France by themselves. You just don't want to refuse negotiations with the French to unnecessarily waste resources, manpower and most importantly time with a nation you've already defeated. The way it went down for the Germans was better than anything they could have imagined after WW1. Of course, it immediately started go off the rails right with the beginning of the Battle of Britain. It's funny watching people trying to salvages Frances reputation in the comment section, they got beat badly, just let it go.
@@cefb8923 there is nothing to savage most of europe got badly beat its just ironic that france is so heavily singled out.........I mean huge parts of the soviet union were occupied for years......denmark surrendered in 6 hours....the british didn't fire a shot in defense of the channel islands and had a mass surrender in sigapore aganist a vastly inferior japanese force...americans got destroyed in there first battle with the germans but yet its always about france....italy got kicked around by most combatants in the war including by the french losing to the germans at the same time....nobody denies the french lost badly but acting like only did is funny...and a bit revealing about ppl.
@@cefb8923 Please tell us how many French died in the Battle of France compared to the number of British deaths in the same battle.I see nothing dishonourable in the much greater number of French casualties, but perhaps you have figures that have been denied analysts and historians for the past 85 years?
@@cefb8923 You are also wrong about the Battle of Britain. It was at Narvik in April Germany lost its ability to invade the UK when the Warspite (I am the proud owner of that battleship's rangefinder telescope, by the way, the most important artefact in the last 1,000 years of British history, and am bequeathing it to my alma mater, Churchill College at Cambridge University) destroyed half the Kriegsmarine's destroyer fleet. After that, a defence of invasion barges crossing the narrow seas would have been impossible for the Germans. We would have sent in fifty or more of our own destroyers whic, little molested by the few remaining German destroyers, would have sunk the invasion barges with their bow waves alone when moving at 40 knots (which speed would also have made them impossible targets for the Luftwaffe as well, RAF or no). The value of the success of the Battle of Britain was not strategic but propagandic, which the nation needed after the defeat of Dunkirk. Narvik by the way also led to Marmite-man Churchill becoming PM, which should not be underestimated in its import for history.
Ignoring the war between Australia and France in Syria and Lebanon is a real omission in this history. Britain and India formed part of the Australian force which defeated France to capture Syria and Lebanon in 1941 which made Torch look like a skirmish. The Australians ensured the French endured further humiliation by forcing them into an armistice on Bastille Day then becoming the army of f occupation. General Dentz who commanded the French, never got over the shame of surrendering Paris to the Germans, then two colonies to the Australians.
@ Well Britain and India were under Australian command, so therefore it was an Australian force. And stratus financed the whole operation too, and formed the initial occupation force.
@@seanlander9321 "Britain and India were under Australian command": if only that were true! I think the truth, however, is that British and Indian troops were under Australian command.
@ Splitting hairs, you know what I meant. Anyway, once British forces were under Australian command as a consequence so were India’s, because India was a British colony.
@@seanlander9321 I'm not interested in guessing at your intentions when what you say (e.g. "Britain and India were under Australian command") already has a very clear meaning. Language is a tool: you communicate by complying with it. Like all tools, it needs to be respected,
I'm not French, but the "France surrenders" meme always frustrate me, because, sometimes, you see that people genuinely think that France ALWAYS surrendered. It is frustrating because they have an incredibly rich and impressive military history, so their reputation as history's biggest cowards is so weird
They were overwhelmed by revolutionary military tactics by the most powerful army the world had ever seen (until the rise of the red army). If anything the italians should be considered cowards by history considering their behavior in both world wars
@@bsaintnyc " If anything the italians should be considered cowards by history considering their behavior in both world wars" Which would also somehow completely be ignoring much about their history, like the power and conquests of some of the Italian city-states and Communes of the Middle-Age and Renaissance for example. Themselves being direct heirs of the Roman Empire, which doesnt have much of a cowardly reputation. But sure, it goes back a long way. But hey, the country that loves to make the most fun of France is so new in history, it doesnt really have lots of points of comparison.
@@bsaintnyc Please don't be tough on Italians. French people who have been under Italian occupation and later under German occupation always said that the Italians were much nicer than the Germans, back then.
So many seem to forget that while England was bravely loading over 100,000 of it's troops at Dunkirk, French soldiers kept fighting to give the English more time to escape. Many of those French soldiers gave up their lives to help the English and about a single division of French troops to escape. No movies made about them. French soldiers held out until the last boat to clear Dunkirk. Even though the Germans had cut them off from resupply and reinforcement by land or water. But who cares about that? I'm not French and my Americans ancestors came from England.
You make a valid point about the bravery of French troops who acted as rear-guard for the Dunkirk evacuation (most were French, but there were significant British forces in the rear-guard). Your numbers are off, though. Total troops evacuated at Dunkirk were 338,000 and a third of them were French (source Imperial War Museum website).
Maybe it’s because you’re American but almost every British person who knows about Dunkirk knows about the French rear guard. Also you seem ignorant of the actual history, a third of those who evacuated were French, it did not start as a joint operation either the French and British retreats in France were conducted separately until shortly after operation dynamo started, which lead to a lot of confusion between the soldiers on the ground, but it was eventually cleared up by British command who made clear that French and British were to be evacuated in equal number so that’s why more British were saved than French. And the British, after most of the evacuation had happened specifically went back for the French rear guard, saving another 23000 French and 50 British personnel, after that the Germans had pretty much gained control of the whole area and further evacuation was deemed impossible. So your snide remark at the start of your commonest only proves your ignorance of history.
@@owensilvant After the French surrender to the Germans, didn't the vast majority of French troops who were rescued by the British (at the cost of both French and British lives) then decide to return to France?
The French, contrary to received Anglo=Saxon opinion, fought bravely in May and early June 1940 but were ultimately ineffectual as the national government was not willing to sacrifice Paris (unlike the British who a few months later absorbed colossal devastation of London). The German tactic of Blitzkrieg unsettled the military leadership in France, but the politicians were not prepared to let them do what was necessary to win which was to abandon (temporarily) what would have been a devastated Paris and allow the army to regroup a few hundred miles to the south and then come back at the Germans, who had inferior mechanized equipment (tanks) but used them better in a short campaign. Four asides, the French navy saved the honour of France in 1943 when it scuttled its ships in Toulon rather than let the Germans take them, and arguably Germany would not have been able to invade the Soviet Union in mid-1941 had it nor been able to seize so much material from the French after the surrender.Also, The "miracle of Dunkirk" may not have been possible had the French army not fought so well in defending the evacuation area, and finally, had Darlan not been a raging Anglophone and sailed the French fleet in June 1940 to fight alongside the Royal Navy he would have become French postwar leader and not de Gaulle.
The problem is that they would not hace come back to retake Paris because the army was outnumbered, less equiped (less planes and tanks), less mobile (since most of the equipments was lost). The only viable option was to give up mainland or defend only the southern part with the aid of the terrain (even there germans could have catch up french retreating units)
@@Fox13440 Fair comments , but were the French outnumbered and less well equipped? Their tanks were superior to those of the Germans' in 1940. Did they lose them mainly through combat or as a result of the surrender? The latter, surely, as I said otherwise the Germans would not have been able to invade the Soviet Union a year later. Their best army/mechanized equipment at that time was Czech and captured (after the surrender) French. Aeroplanes were something else. Had the French military leadership acted rapidly after Dunkirk (which was a French as well as a British evacuation) and moved southwards by three or four hundred miles and abandoned any thought of defending Paris, the outcome in 1940 as a whole could have been very different. That is my hypothesis, and invite facts and figures to demonstrate its impossibility. Remember, the French would also still have been fighting alongside the British. Furthermore, the complication of opportunistic Italy entering the war may have not happened either.
@@MarkPayne-k7l the British were only 300k to help against millions of germans. And after Dunkirk it was sure that they will not come to aid the rest of the mainland of France. Lot of equipments were lost at Dunkirk bc it was the best french divisions there and they could not embark equipments on ships (same for british). Moreover a lot of soldiers were captured at Lilles and Dunkirk.
@@Fox13440 You may be right but to be fully convinced I would need hard figures (men and tanks say) in the north and elsewhere with freedom of movement. I understood that the bulk of both was to the south - in order to protect Paris after the memory of the close-run Marne business of 1914 - of the German thrust to the sea across to Abbeville. I know that these figures will exist, but I do not have them (readily to hand). Do you? As an aside, it follows from your argument that you feel that the union of the UK and France proposed by Churchill after Dunkirk would have been a damp squib, militarily as well as politically?
@MarkPayne-k7l I don't have the numbers but saw them at some point. I just remember that in the battle of Lille and Dunkirk around 100k french soldiers were made prisoners/killed. Then french soldiers were in England and the time to get them to the front let germans time to advance. Also during the retreat to make the Weygand line some tropps got captured and even after the retreat order a big chunk was cutoff near the Maginot line due to being outspeed by germans divisions. In 1940 the situation was far more dangerous than in 1914 because ik 1914. I don't know what would have happen in case of a franco british union. I suppose they would have either abandonned France or kept a small foothold like Brittany
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French armed resistance to the Allied invasion in Operation Torch was more to defend French territory et leur honneur than to be loyal to the German occupiers.
I'm not sure that matters if they are shooting at you. It wasn't just Torch either. Lookup Syria, Madagascar, Dakar etc. No matter what the reason, Vichy France was an active nutzie ally. That's not a reflection on anyone born in France. There were those in Britain who would have acted the same had circumstances been different. The USA also had it's share of nutzies.
At 13:41 in the video the picture is of the German cruiser Königsberg, which had been sunk during the invasion of Norway the April before the invasion of France.
3:10 That Anglo-French political union was actually a hare-brained thought by Churchill. It would have been strongly resisted not only in the U.K. but also the Dominions.
@shryggur taking the world back to the reign of Richard the Lionheart who held most of modern day France as the vassal of the French King. His brother, John, threw it all away by failing to pay homage and other actions.
There were 2 political considerations that video ignored. 1. France had weak coalition governments in the 1930's, not unlike Weimar in 1920's. The French Popular Front was a coalition of Communists and Socialists who led Governments during the Depression. The French right wing parties, like the German right wing parties a decade prior, did not view Fascism as either aberrant or abhorrent. To them, Vichy France was an improvement over Leon Blum. 2. After defeating France in the field, Hitler wanted a negotiated peace with the UK. When Chamberlain resigned, some in the Government and the Tory Party wanted a concillitory PM. Fortunately, they came to their senses and chose Churchill who vowed "never surrender". Greatly assisting the "anti-peace" side were Attlee and George VI who quietly let his opion be known. All this explains Hitler's lenient terms. He din't want the UK to fear capitulation
Because if he had done so it would have been catastrophic for the Germans. 1) they would have put enormous ressources on administration, police and military. 2) They would have lost all the alliance of the french empire and it's strategic position to Gaullist free France, meaning the french Navy would switch sides. 3) The landing of the allies in north Africa would have been easier. France is not Poland. It had a huge empire and it's position at the crossroads of Europe makes it very difficult and costly to occupy.
it would have made things much better for everyone inolved and reduced the time the germans spent occupying france as the gemans would have lost sooner
Seeing how the British behaved with things like the Suez crisis, I think the French knew they were essentially erasing themselves if they took the British offer and would've been annexed into the British empire.
@@lightworker2956 I don't think it was about that. More so that early WW2 looked like a lost cause for the Allies and permanent exile in a far off colony under an Franco-British alliance that could possibly never retake Mainland France looked less preferable than giving up some land and still getting to keep their government. Surrendering and remaining independent was seen as better than fighting and potentially being a government in exile forever.
As a Pole, France claimed they fought "bravely" but they had no ball entering Germany a year earlier when we were fighting against Germany. We would have cared less about France, had it not been for France pleasing Polish soldiers to help.
They did. They had an incompetent command however the soldiers fought bravely even when all was lost. You have no right commenting on the bravery of soldiers when you live in the 21st century and see war as a game like hoi4.
In 1940 the Germans had a secret weapon in the form of Pervitin (methamphetamine) that allowed their soldiers to go for over a week without sleep. Although even that had its limits, which is likely how the British Expeditionary Force was able to escape from Dunkirk back across the Channel.
France does not claim they fought "bravely". Historians do. When it comes to the incursion the French army made in Germany in September 1939: To start with, the Allies thought that Poland would resist longer, at least till the winter. From the 7th September 1939, the French launched an attack in Saarland in order to relieve Poland. The Germans had evacuated the area, civilians included, and had laid mines and booby traps everywhere. On the 18th, after an advance of about 10 km long by 25 km wide, the units stopped. They were a few kilometers from the Westwall, the western wall, which the French called the Siegfried Line. They encountered no resistance but suffered significant losses from the mines. On the 21st, Poland being virtually beaten, the French troops received the order to retreat to the Maginot Line. In any case, the French didn't have the artillery to breakthrough and couldn't envisage a serious attack on the Westwall, even with the reduce numbers left in the west by the Germans. On the 28th, Warsaw capitulated and on the 6th of October, the last Polish soldiers laid their weapons. The Germans immediately transferred their forces to the west for an offensive that Hitler wanted to launch as soon as possible. The Germans needed less than half their army to defeat Poland, leaving more than half their forces ready to block a French invasion. Even if their best troops, including all the panzer and light divisions were in the East, they could quickly have been brought back in case of major offensive by the French. And also: In 1939, there was nothing much the French could have done, unless accepting again crippling human losses. France had already suffered much in WW1 and all her pre-WW2 strategy was to save her soldiers' lives. The French army was not ready in September 1939. Planes were old, tanks were not properly used and equipped (lack of radio), ammunition stocks were low, etc... The French industry was working hard but France could not be ready before 1941. Germany had a population double that of France which participated in the war effort. When it came to planes, for example, France was three years behind Germany.
Shirer talks about how France’s wealthy systematically avoided paying their fair share of taxes. Their entitlement is telling. Unfortunately, people in the US are really bad at history.
My grandfather was in Syria in 1938, to do his military service. June 1940, they didn't fought, and De Gaulle made his call for resistance. My grandfather and 2 others comrade from his regiment (out of 900), accept to fought with the Britains and De Gaulle, passing throught ennemy line, to fight the Afrika Korps. So we can say that official resistance rate was of 0.33%.
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The success of the Germans over the allies was a surprise to everyone. It was totally unprecedented, and so everyone was manoeuvring in new ground. What to do with the French fleet? The French colonies? How to govern? How to bring Britain to negotiate? Vichy provided a way to keep the French fleet and colonies out of British hands
Very good explanation, I lived in France 5 years and knew a few people who remember the occupation. It took me years to get to understand the head space of the French people who sided with Germans like Pierre Laval.
I'm not sure that the facts support that. France certainly suffered in WW1, but so did many others... France 1.7 million Germany 2.8 million Russia 2.8 million Ottoman Empire 3.3 million Persia 2.0 million Austria-Hungary 2.0 million UK 0.4 million Serbia 0.8 million As a percentage of their population France comes in sixth behind Persia, Serbia, Ottoman Empire, Albania and Romania. There are another half a dozen countries that had percentages in the same ball park as France. So, yes, France suffered, and greatly, but not really exceptionally. Sorry but I don't think that is the explanation. Also it doesn't explain the bravery with which they fought. They weren't a pushover, despite what the shortness of the war might seem to imply. There were many reasons they lost, but I think we look at the result and tend to think it was a foregone conclusion. Had things gone wrong for the Germans we wouldn't even be talking about it now. There was a period where the main force striking through the Ardennes was one long traffic jam. We saw both in Iraq and the attack on Kyiv how badly that can go. There was also a period when that force was stretched out from Sedan to the coast with little guarding it's flank again the British to the north and French to the south. Had the attack on Arras been better co-ordinated it could have ended very badly for the Germans. I'm not saying they got lucky, but they certainly had a week of more good luck than bad luck.
One other possibility not sure if anyone gave serious thoughts to, but what if Germany and Vichy signed an official peace treaty, whereas Vichy would recognize the Alsace-Loraine incorporation into Germany, and Germany releases POWs from France, and they gi their separate ways. Vichy was internationaly recognized as the official French government, even by USA. If this was done in early 1941, Charles de Gaulle would have been a nothing after this. Plus, this would have solidified Germany's Western front, and neutralized a major military power from the fight.
Yes I thought about it for a long time. As long as the UK was still at war with Germany, it would not have been possible for Hitler to sign a peace treaty with Vichy France. Signing a peace treaty with Vichy France would have meant that the German army would have to withdraw from France. The occupation of the west European coasts was essentiel for the Germans. None of the countries invaded by the Germans in 1940 signed a peace treaty with the Germans.
@@phlm9038 Probably Germans can garrison on the French coast and operate from French ports until England has been dealt with, but Vichy takes defacto civil control of France
The Germans had great generals with Rommel and Manstein, Guderian and Von Runstedt out witted and encircled the French. The Germans outwitted them with their great strategy. These tactics are still taught in the military academies.
"The Germans had great generals with Rommel and Manstein, Guderian and Von Runstedt out witted and encircled the French." I would say "and encircled the ALLIES". British, Belgians and Polish troops got encircled as well.
The problem with hazardeurs is that they do either know when they have to stop or when they can push further. Bot Hitler and Mussolini were military hazardeurs, lacking real military knowledge. Hitler did not know when to stop in the SU and did not know to push to the full gain with the British invasion and the occupation of France. Yes, holding occupyed the entire French territory would have required a lot more manpower. But even if Franco was not willing to be sucked into the war, having a German-Spanish border would have eliminated the pocket of communist.
Germany did occupy most of France in 1940, but not all of it. Here's why: *Armistice and Occupation:* After the Battle of France, which saw the swift defeat of French and Allied forces, an armistice was signed on June 22, 1940. This agreement divided France into two zones: *Occupied Zone:* This zone was under direct German military control and encompassed most of France, including Paris and the Atlantic coast. *Free Zone:* This smaller zone in the southeast of France was nominally governed by the French Vichy government, which collaborated with Nazi Germany. *Vichy France:* The unoccupied zone was established to allow for a degree of French self-administration under the collaborationist Vichy regime led by Marshal Philippe Pétain. This arrangement served several purposes for the Germans: * It reduced the administrative burden on Germany by allowing the French to manage day-to-day affairs in the unoccupied zone. * It presented a facade of French sovereignty, which helped to legitimize the occupation in the eyes of some French citizens and the international community. * It allowed Germany to exploit French resources and industry more effectively. *Strategic Considerations:* While the Germans held considerable influence over the Vichy government, maintaining a nominally independent French state in the unoccupied zone had some strategic advantages for them. It provided a buffer zone and a potential bargaining chip. In summary, while Germany did not directly conquer all of France in 1940, they established control over most of the country through military occupation and exerted significant influence over the remaining territory through the collaborationist Vichy regime. This arrangement served both practical and strategic purposes for the German war effort.
I have some contention with your portrayal of the french navy. The 5 battleships in french service were of ww1 design, 2 courbet and 3 bretange class vessels. The 2 Dunkirque class vessels vary between fast battleship and battlecruiser designation depending on who you ask, but there were two. The only aircraft carrier was bearn, which was a basket case of a design which was more an early experimental carrier adopted into service interwar due to not having anything better available. Not sure if you meant several as in the carrier and the seaplane carrrierz While many of the french cruisers were modern, with the exception of the Dunkirques the capital ships of the fleet were aging even for ww1 vintage or a complete mess of a carrier.
France navy was not strong in firepower and numbers, but in high speed cruisers + battlecruiser.. sadly they never had the chance to show the full might. It wasnt strong as the british, but nearly the same as the italian. The kriegsmarine was short in surface ships, if they had taken the french ships some things could have been better for them specially in the Mediterranean. Still I find it really bad and dishonourable for the allies to destroy a neutral navy at port. Such destruction wasn't necessary.
Impossible que la Kriegmarine prennent des vaisseaux capitaux, pour une bonne raison, et on l'a déjà vu pendant la période 1789-1815, c'est que sans personnels et surtout sans entrainement adéquat, un navire ne sert à rien, il peut même être perdu en pleine mer sans action de l'ennemi d'où la destinée pitoyable de l'invasion de l'Irlande.
13:27 The Japanese occupation was a little more complicated than that in the case of Indochina (Vietnam). Despite Vichy France being an axis country, they continued to sell fuel to Nationalist forces in China whom Japan was fighting hence the Japanese eventually ended up invading Vietnam and working with anti-French separatists.
Japan had been fighting a proxy war against France for the 1930s, by arming Thailand. I have to be fair here, the Thai side had legitimate claims against France, which stole some Thai territories along the Mekong.
La France n'était pas un pays de l'Axe, c'était même pas considéré comme un pays de l'Axe à l'époque, c'est uniquement post opération Torch quand les américains avaient besoin de saisir les avoirs et les brevets qu'ils ont commencé à le dire, et post Torch on est sur un territoire totalement occupé.
The Anglo-Francais union is a cool concept. Imagine how later conflicts, namely, conflicts for independence with the two former empires would've played out.
How do you view Germany allowing the British to escape from Dunkirk? Runstedt gets the blame for what was obviously a mistake but then the classic blitzkreig or scwherpunkt doctrine is you have objectives and go for them ignoring side battles.
Well the weather much helped bc the skies were extremely overcast whereas the German Luftwaffe could not bomb the escapees. Plus the Germans had a couple tank divisions bogged down too far south to help backup an invasion on Dunkirk.
A factor behind the rapid French defeat, you did not mention, was the government had tones down military spending a LOT. When the war began the French, on paper had a much stronger army, in fact their tank divisions where considered superior to German tanks of the time. However the budget constraints resulted in a lot of the French armor units being without fuel or ammunition. The Germans literally left these intact tanks on the side of the road as they passed them and then later on put them to use for themselves.
Quand Churchill est venu il lui a aussi été fait remarqué qu'en 1918 l'armée anglaise avait bénéficié de l'envoi de 40 divisions de renforts et qu'aujourd'hui c'était la France qui en avait besoin, et c'est vrai qu'en Juin 1940 alors que l'Angleterre a été prévenue dès 1938, qu'elle ne disposait toujours pas d'armée de masse...
probably because the UK was exahusted and broke after the war and wouldn't be up to shouldering the burden alone....other occupied nations benefited as well why is only france singled out they do border germany
By then the US was running things and although Eisenhower (and virtually everyone else) loathed DeGaulle the Americans view the French favourably because the French assisted the US in the American war of independence. Also the US and UK were still fighting the Japanese and could already see that the real enemy would be the Soviets. If boosting the French ego aided in the battle against communism, which was rearing it's ugly head all over Western Europe, then why not - it didn't cost anything to the US. The cost in the long run is that to this day the French, rather than being grateful for being liberated, resent everyone and especially the British for betraying them - which is utterly ridiculous even coming from a collaborating Frenchie! Ultimately the only ones who were happy were the girls in Paris who were paid in Reichsmarks, Dollars and Pounds! 🤣 God save the King. 🇬🇧
Can you imagine how cursed an Anglo-French Empire would be in the modern day? This massive block of land with ties to half of the planet...I cant even begin to imagine how this would have shaped industry, culture, and economy...!
The French were very happy to be under Germany. They happily help round up jews and others, 4 years France was happy. Only when the war turned against the Axis did the French start regretting their happy relationship.
Also their "resistance" was absolutly pathetic compared to the ones in Russia, Serbia and Poland. The french were indeed happy to be part of the axis for the most part.
Blitzkreig was NOT combined arms warfare (a battlefield tactic) it was the german geo-politocal reality that they couldnt win a long term war... Thus they fought to win fast instead... they NEEDED the war to be over quickly at least on one front. they needed to accept french terms
That declaration of Act of Union with the U.K. would have been psychotic. I mean the French spent 114 YEARS fighting against the English in the 1300's and 1400's to prevent precisely this.
It's the fault of France that English and French history is so intertwined, by making William the Conqueror a Duke of Normandy. It meant England's King had immense power in France, and lead to conflict for about 500 years - with the loss of Calais under Mary I being the final nail in the coffin, and the majority lost at the end of the Hundred Years War. But the Hundred Years War was just as much about French aristocratic competition for the French throne as it was English desire. Although, I'd say it's the 400 years that followed that really split the two countries to the point where a union seems inconceivable, given that England has owned half of France, at some times. Richard 'Lionheart' I, the famous English Crusader King, spent most of his life in south-west France, and given his family, he was entitled to. There was far more tension between them through colonial conquest than there was during the Middle Ages, where you also see national identity become much more important to countries. But the histories of the two countries are strongly linked. We're like two siblings from the same parents (none of this is really taught, if at all, in British history classes, because Romans, Tudors, and Victorians are 'more interesting'). A funny part is the English and later British Royal family only relinquished their claim of the French throne because of the French Revolution, as they recognised it didn't exist anymore.
It's not stunning at all, it was to be expected when you know that: 1- Marshal Ferdinand Foch of France considered the Treaty of Versailles to be "a capitulation, a treason" because he believed that only permanent occupation of the Rhineland would grant France sufficient security against a revival of German aggression. In a remarkable moment of foresight, as the treaty was being signed Foch said: "This is not peace. It is an armistice for 20 years”. And also: “Next time the Germans won't make any mistake. They will invade France from the north and will seize all the ports on the Channel. From there, they will launch attacks against England. Everything will be lost if we are not on the Rhine." Or: "The United States of America are far away and protected by the ocean. England can not be reached, even by Napoleon. You are both protected. We are not." (Clemenceau). 2- The German rearmament: Louis Barthou (French government) : "If Great Britain continues to turn a blind eye to German rearmament, France will ensure its security by its own means." John Simon (British government) : "In case France were to attack Germany, England would be forced to defend the latter, in the name of the Locarno Pact of 1925." (By the way, the Locarno Pact which would be violated by Hitler later). 3- The German re-occupation of the Rhineland in March in 1936: "Above all, we must discourage any military action by France against Germany (Anthony Eden)." 4- The annexation of Austria by Hitler in 1936: Joseph Paul-Boncoeur, Foreign Secretary in the French government, sent a message to London through the ambassador of the UK, Eric Phipps, in order to obtain that His Majesty's Government publicly announce that if Germany attacked Czechoslovakia and France came to the latter's aid, Great Britain would support France. Request rejected! It's only in 1939 that the UK realised that France was not the enemy. All this being being carefully ignored by France detractors.
Then these weak men raised a bunch of post modern communist philosophers that would try to push their cowardice on all of western civ. All time worst generation of a peoples
Good video, I see you have a different take on the European pressures on France - & Germany - after the invasion of Poland. America wasn't a party to the mutual assistance treaty that brought GB and France into war with Germany in 1939, but until Dec. 7, 1941, the isolationist rhetoric in America overrode any sentiment toward intervening in Germany's affairs. We were rather like Lord Chamberlain presuming Hitler to be an honorable man who could be reasoned with. When I was a young man studying history, it made perfect sense that the Northern and Eastern parts of Europe would be occupied by the Germans. The ports, the industrial cities, the proximity to Northern French rail system into Belgium and Germany, it all played to Germany's control of the North Atlantic naval & to the overall military transportation system. Since Spain was 'simpatico' with Germany, just realizing the capitulation of the capital of France practically gave Germany all of France for the price of the limited control you so well described. No one in my history classes in USA even questioned whether Germany needed to fight across France occupying each and every little town - part of which is the stereotype of the "make love, not war" French philosophy, but because of an overwhelming sense of France's doomed military might given the dependence upon the Maginot line with minimal armament across the rest of the nation. Now the French did put up stiff resistance as the British pulled back to Dunkirk, they were the real heroes of that retreat - but it was very intense fighting proving that the French could indeed make war equal to any country - but outflanked and out-witted, the British forces owe their successful retreat to Hitler's indecisive approach to a full pursuit. The Luftwaffe did their best to impede the flotilla of craft rescuing GB's personnel, but the armor & troops did not rush the retreating forces. That is the question we always asked - why did Hitler not demand a rapid mop-up of the outfought and retreating forces? Not why was Southern France occupied in theory but not in fact until later in the war when German manpower was at a premium?
Regardless of whose side you were on everyone knows what happened at Dunkirk. He knew if he wiped out the British and French, he'd be responsible for their possessions. You're leaving out half of history. Probably too much time spent in American Politically Correct Universities Inc, an Acme company.
@kidd32888 there was no government to pay soldiers to keep fighting and the leaders would have had to decide to go rogue (like De Gaulle) A big part of the problem was that due to 1) fear of socialists meant they were kicked out of government (about 20% of the electorate were told their votes didn't matter) and 2) the directions from Moscow were for good socialists to oppose war with Germany (Molotov-Ribbentrop pact) meant that a not insignificant amount of French men saw the fall of the French government as a necessary step to make Socialist France a possibility. The might of the French resistance didn't kick into gear until after June 1941, when Germany invaded the USSR and good socialists/communists were supposed to take up arms and resist/fight/sabotage the German occupation. Before June 1941 the French resistance was much less substantial. Did they question why they ever agreed not to fight the Germans? Some did, but that's what ideological rigidity gets you.
Because the colonial elite was more than happy to have Hitler destroy the Socialist government in Paris and to repress the people so "surrender" was a pretty good price to pay in exchange for having to share the spoils with the Nazi regime to which they would cover the back, to the Mediterranean side with the Vichy regime, so they could concentrate in protecting their Northern flanc from any possible Anglo Saxon invasion from the sea. That is why Churchill destroyed their fleet, he knew what game they were playing.
I once heard that Churchill gave the order to destroy the French fleet during a drunken episode. The "game" they were playing was as follows: One of the terms of the Armistice negotiated and signed by Germany and France is that Germany accepted that the French fleet would not be dismantled nor seized at the condition that it stayed disarmed in its ports and would not sail to anywhere. If the French had allowed their fleet to sail to the UK or anywhere else or to scuttle it on request of the UK, it would have been considered as a breach of the Armistice and it would have allowed the Germans to resume the hostilities with the French at a full scale just like before the Armistice was signed.
It would not have been possible because one of the terms of the Armistice negotiated and signed by Germany and France is that Germany accepted that the French fleet would not be dismantled nor seized at the condition that it stayed disarmed in its ports and would not sail to anywhere. If the French had allowed their fleet to sail to the UK or anywhere else or to scuttle it on request of the UK, it would have been considered as a breach of the Armistice and it would have allowed the Germans to resume the hostilities with the French at a full scale just like before the Armistice was signed.
Pas vraiment, déjà les moyens de lutte anti-soumarine n'étaient pas encore au top, les anglais ont démontré qu'ils pouvaient faire sans et les allemands ne pouvaient pas faire plus que des envois de sous-marins et de l'harcèlement psychologique avec leurs cuirassés. Entre temps la marine n'a aucun apport à part permettre de protéger l'envoi de corps expéditionnaire car l'Allemagne est sur le continent et y'a que la route du fer qui pourrait être attaqué hors elle était ultra protégée, niveau invasion y'a pas de ressources à envoyer en masse avant l'arrivée des américains. Donc en terme de durée ça ne change rien, par contre ça pouvait réduire le temps de la campagne contre l'Italie en Afrique du Nord, mais pour les fronts comme la Grèce et la Yougoslavie, c'est pas une France affaiblie et 3 anglais armés qui auraient renversé le cour des choses. Niveau maintenance de la flotte française y'aurait eu aussi de grands soucis, sans parler des besoins de modernisation continus, cela il semble que les anglais avaient plus de navires que de marins donc peut être qu'il y'aurait juste eu un transfert de personnels sur les navires non utilisés.
wow that french anglo agreement would have been interesting... wouldn't it have been a far better option for France.... plus the french navy would have changed the balance of power in the Atlantic. fascinating and sad.
Non cela n'aurait pas été la meilleure option car au moment où Churchill a posé ce truc, déjà la moitié du pays était mort donc dans une démocratie c'est pas foufou, mais en plus Churchill était en position de faiblesse politique chez lui, et ça l'état major et les politiciens l'ont bien vu. Leur pire crainte en plus du risque de la peine de mort pour défaite et abandon de territoire comme l'exigeait la loi, d'où le fait qu'il y'ait eu un armistice et non une capitulation, c'était de faire ce type d'alliance puis de se retrouver vendus aux allemands dans les mois qui suivaient et le fait d'avoir été attaqué quelques jours seulement après l'armistice les ont bien convaincu qu'ils avaient fait le bon choix.
Dude I've been studying WWII off and on for nearly a decade and I NEVER knew that story about Britain destroying French ships at Mers-el-Kébir. They killed almost 1,300 Frenchmen.
The answer is simple, because they couldn't take the massive lines of natural defenses, mountains and numerous plateaus that the Massif-Central offers and they could have never cleared the Alps nor the Pyrenees against a determined, organized and professional fighting force. Truth is that Germany was getting bled bad prior to the armistice, allies started the battle of France poorly, but counter offensives mounted by general Maxime Weygand after the brittish had fled, were successful, french elements of half the size of german corps, consisting of a couple regiments of infantry and detachments of artillery strung together stopped and pushed back entire german corps with their panzer divisions. Casualties were mounting on the german side, german command was getting worried that they couldn't sustain a war for long at this rate of attrition and France still had ressources to drag the war on. The month of June 1940 was the bloodiest month ever recorded for both the french and german armies, more than any month during the Battle of the Somme or during the Battle of Verdun, by a lot. Only comparison for the german army is Stalingrad. The issue was the lack of manpower to replace or reinforce these units ressembling small divisions for the french army, germans could reinforce their troops so french units had to fall back eventually or would get encercled and captured. Those tactics deployed by Weygand were later used by the Free French Liberation forces during the Battle of Bir Hakkeim. If only the BEF had bought the french army a little more time or had redeployed after Dunkirk, it would have given France the chance to extend conscription, to deploy and arm properly fresh volunteers who they had to send on suicide missions to slow the german advance, sometimes without equipment or rifles because they didn't get the time to get equipped, they had to reach garrisons close to Paris within a couple days. May and June 1940 were similar to January 1940, France wasn't ready at all, no reserves were organized. In January 1940 there was 1 riffle given to every 2 conscripts with 10 concealed bullets that they were not allowed to use, they mostly didn't have uniformrs or helmets, couldn't target practice and they didn't have officers to train them, just be it for physical readiness. Brand new tanks had not been deployed, there was a lack of pilots because not enough had been trained to man all the aircrafts produced in just 1939, plus huge lacks of radios accross all the french armies although the budgets were exceeding the money necessary to equip every unit to squad level. But nobody knows were the money went, historians point to corruption in the army and some generals didn't believe that there would be a war with Germany. Or that we'd be dumb enough to declare war without preparations. This is why France never pushed into Germany during the invasion of Poland, because the french army was still years away from being at its full capacity and they never planned for it nor could have. France was still paying its Great War debts to the US and most of the budgets were directed towards that goal, not towards modernizing the army or training new troops. And Germany never payed the war tribute after the Versailles treaty, which was meant to finance the french and brittish debts to the US that they wouldn't forgive.
Henry V would have liked this, finally as it should have been. Henry after all was the first King to speak English well, though he did speak French too.
Yes, France wanted to keep its colonies at all costs, that's why they jumped at the German concessions, and the plan for the French government to exile to the African colonies and keeping the fight wouldn't go so great because if they resisted and lost, Germany would definitely takeover the French colonies, and France control over its colonies during the early 20th century was growing tenous, if the government exile in Africa and African colonies notice that France is in a weak position, rebellions would explode, and Germany would take advantage of it.
In June 1940, more than 600,000 German and Italian soldiers were out of action, so continuing the war would have sacrificed many more Axis soldiers to continue its operations in Europe.
Britain and France becoming one nation? This is a possibility I only became aware of through the film "Darkest Hour". At age 66, I couldn't believe I had never heard this story and I thought it had been invented to spice up the film's script. Imagine any Reform supporters becoming aware that Churchill supported the idea 🤯😡😠🤬
French Guiana (the overseas prison population of extremely hardened criminals and political exhiles) was really interesting in late 1939. You have murderers in jail for life, being told by their captors that if the Germans invade south America the prisoners will be given rifles and expected to help defend the territory. Can you imagine? Read Papillion. (NOT ANY OF THE MOVIES OR ONLINE SERIES) Read the actual book. It's incredible
A German medal for the Fall of France 1940 was made in prototype but not issued. It would have been difficult to have the cooperation they did if thousands of soldiers were seen walking around France wearing them.
Always like the way that these narrators causally mention that "the British bombed the French fleet and killed over a thousand men" No one ever uses the term War crime!
It's like how when Russia invades Ukraine that is an illegal invasion, but when Israel illegally annexes part of Syria that is called "creating a buffer zone."
The French attacked in the Rhineland in 1939 (The Saar Offensive ) heading for Poland, but they were called back 😮🇨🇵. What would have happened had they/we been allowed to continue with all Hitler's forces heading for Warsaw?
Nothing good would have happened. The Allies thought that Poland would resist longer, at least till the winter. From the 7th September 1939, the French launched an attack in Saarland in order to relieve Poland. The Germans had evacuated the area, civilians included, and had laid mines and booby traps everywhere. On the 18th, after an advance of about 10 km long by 25 km wide, the units stopped. They were a few kilometers from the Westwall, the western wall, which the French called the Siegfried Line. They encountered no resistance but suffered significant losses from the mines. On the 21st, Poland being virtually beaten, the French troops received the order to retreat to the Maginot Line. In any case, the French didn't have the artillery to breakthrough and couldn't envisage a serious attack on the Westwall, even with the reduce numbers left in the west by the Germans.* On the 28th, Warsaw capitulated and on the 6th of October, the last Polish soldiers laid their weapons. The Germans immediately transferred their forces to the west for an offensive that Hitler wanted to launch as soon as possible. It didn't happen before May 1940. *The Germans needed less than half their army to defeat Poland, leaving more than half their forces ready to block a French invasion. Even if their best troops, including all the panzer and light divisions were in the East, they could quickly have been brought back in case of major offensive by the French.
@@andrewrobinson2565 Non, je n'ai pas que ça à faire. J'ai énormément de travail à expliquer aux gens que tout n'était pas si simple et que la plupart du temps, il y a une explication pourquoi un pays à fait ça, ou n'a pas fait ça. La vie est dure 😏
The French did not fight on because their government told them to stop fighting, after having requested an armistice from the Germans. Why did the French government ask for an armistice? Because at this stage they knew there was nothing to be done anymore. What was waiting for them was another butchery, what they wanted to avoid. I'll remind everyone that, like the British, the French were suffering from strategic and economic weakness in the 1930s. They lacked the manpower and industrial strength to match Germany, which had a larger population and whose industrial production was twice as big as France's. France had to adopt a forward defence strategy because its major industrial centres were near the German and the Belgian borders, but in 1936 the Belgians abandoned the French alliance, adopted a policy of neutrality and refused any staff talks with the French on possible joint action if Belgium were invaded by Germany. The French, who had an obvious interest in fighting Germany in Belgium if possible, felt unable to extend the defensive Maginot Line, designed to compensate for inferior French numbers, along the Franco-Belgian frontier. The USSR could allow themselves to fight on because they had a huge territory in which they could retreat if necessary. Something else that has been completely forgotten: The first day Poland was invaded, the first move the French wanted to do was to send their troops to wait for the Germans on the Belgian-German border in the Liege region. Request refused by the Belgians because of their policy of neutrality.
Déjà ce n'était pas la Légion d'aujourd'hui, soit une espèce de mix entre un corps de commandos et de troupes de choc qu'on peut envoyer à la boucherie sans problématique politique vu que la majorité ne sont pas français. C'était juste de l'infanterie normale qui a fait ses opérations comme toutes les autres unités et elle a été dans les deux camps, la version FFL ayant plus de transfuges antiallemands, était en général plus motivée que la moyenne.
The map at 12:51 does not cover the French Madate in Syria that was a legacy of WW1. I remember, from the coverage on the WW2 UA-cam channel, UK campaigns there to take control of Syria away from Vichy France.
Dunkirk was not just a British evacuation. French forces were also evacuated. As for Vichy, the Germans were also thinking about Britain. Going easy on France was hoped to induce Britain to make peace.
True, but the French forces evacuated to England did not stay there long. Most of them were repatriated to Brest and Cherbourg in the days, even hours, that followed to resume the fight. In fact, the French command tried to stop the German troops on the Somme and the Aisne, but the superiority of the German troops was overwhelming.
@@dennisweidner288 Without Dunkirk in 1940, there would not have been 6 June 1944. The British evacuated because they judged the battle lost and it was time to think of the protection of their own country. The French were for a counterattack so that their industries would not fall into German hands. It happens when two allied countries end up having different interests. Subsequently, propaganda does its job, to the joy of the common enemy.
@@dennisweidner288 If the British troops who had been evacuated to England from Dunkirk had been taken prisoners in May/June 1940 by the Germans, Hitler would have used them as a bargaining chip in the same way he did with the French prisoners. The UK, which had already lost most of its equipment, would also have lost its professional army. England could not have served as a rear base for opponents of all occupied Europe and could not have served as a starting point for the d-day landings, without forgetting the landings in north Africa in 1942... That's why I think that Dunkirk was vital.
One point is also that Hitler's goals were in the East (Lebensraum im Osten). It's unpopular to say it but his former intention was to avoid war with France and UK.
Those pushing an overarching liberal perspective would prefer to ignore Lebensraum, because it allows them to easier justify settler colonial projects like the United States and Israel.
@@robert9016 Who? Ian Kershaw, surely an indomitable liberal, writes extensively about Lebensraum.
The truth is often unpopular
@@robert9016 possible sockpuppet
@@robert9016 i don't know if it makes it only makes it easier to justify other colonial projects (not saying you meant that) but that it makes it easier to ignore these more recent crimes and not confront their similarities to older evils they decry
My mother and family lived in a village deep in Vichy territory (a region called Perigord). My grandfather was a railroad engineer (building, not driving) and so worked for the Vichy government. As the railroad was critical military infrastructure, the Germans posted their civilian/military railroad people at every station in towns and up (but not villages, like where G'pa worked). As such, G'pa defacto reported to a German at the next town. In '44, La Resistance kidnapped G'pa from his office and held him for three days; my G'ma had no idea what happened to him and feared the Germans had arrested him. La Resistance gave G'pa an ultimatum: spy for them (and if caught, shot by the Germans) or be immediately shot as a collaborator. G'pa picked the former and spent a nail biting year passing manifests and schedules of German military trains, etc. After D-Day, the Germans took control of Vichy territory and in late June a German convoy rolled thru G'pa's village (their house was on the main road, so he initially feared they were coming for him). The lead tank said hello by machine gunning a young boy tending a flock of sheep and rolled on thru. A week or so later, word was the Gestapo was on their way to the village on a sweep of Resistance members. My mother's grade school teacher (a man) was a target, but tipped off and ran. Before the Gestapo arrived, the principal got in front of the class and introduced a village woman as their new teacher. They were to say she had always been their teacher. Remember, this is a bunch of 6 to 8 yo kids, it only took one to be a smart ass or stupid to put the faculty in the deep trouble. But when the Gestapo arrived, searched the school and failed to find their target, an officer marched to the front of the class and asked the kids if they knew where their teacher went. My mother said they all silently pointed at the new woman. Stymied, the Gestapo left empty handed. The memory of their classmate being gunned down turned them all into members of La Resistance.
Ngl this sounds like ai
@ Sorry, all too real. And I left out a lot. My mother has still has PTSD not just from that loss of her classmate and the Gestapo visit, but from the years of fear and hunger between 1940 and 45. She's told the stories so often over the years that they've become my memories, too.
@@jsu153 you still sound ai. even the guy above sounds ai. the video also has ai voice
The video doesnt have an ai narrator and it doesnt even sound remotely like ai @@stormstriker2000
@snugglecity3500 have u heard chatgp 4o ai voice? It sounds more human then most human beings.
The same French fixation on colonial vestiges that led to later wars in Algeria and Indochina also led them to choose surrender to Germany to preserve their colonies.
And they still dream of and work on becoming an empire again
France COULD end Germany if they pressed on 1939 while Wehrmacht was in Poland......but somehow they can't find the same fixation to fight in the Rhine.
@@pawejankowski9364 Quite an ignorant comment. France is mostly getting completely aligned with the US (some would say subdued by...) since Sarkozy. It's barely trying to preserve some meagers geostrategic interests in Africa but Russia, and China on a much bigger extent, are taking over the place. "Working on becoming an empire again"? Please.
@@sighsgkj they did abut they failed though. See: Saar Offensive. Across the Maginot was an almost equal (but not quite) fortification system in the Seigfreid Line.
@@yurivii emm the Siegfried Line is largely stripped of garrison during the German invasion of Poland. The French enjoyed vast local force superiority across the front.
The German officiers were thus perplexed as to why the French did not attack -- knowing that they would surely be crushed had French advanced.
Brits: You will be Brits too !!!
French: Don´t say that, that´s scary, I prefer to be German-occupied...
Only half occupied...
@@burgitech8643 Till November 1942.
The irony of that statement is that the modern UK royalty descends from Northern French (Norman to be more accurate) nobility
_casually unfolds 1000 years of inter-channel conflict_
@@CG-yq2xy and the Normands actually came from... (hint, it was not France).
@@justalonesoul5825 It is indeed true that they were originally for Scandinavia (led by Rollo if my memory serves correctly). However, by the time of 1066 they were more than willing to pledge allegiance to the crown in Paris. Also, they more often than not spoke French in court. And wasn't the 100 years war for the leadership of France?
It's almost as though the Normans cared more of France than their UK possessions.
I think another important point is that France, besides the Elsass, was never a wargoal for Hitler. He always wanted to go east.
Yes but I don't think even Elsass was that big of a deal for Hitler. The number one priority was to passify France and negate threat of creating a western front after invading Soviet Union.
Even if Germany hadn't annexed Elsass, it could have taken what they wanted after conquering the east.
@@Karpaneen "Even if Germany hadn't annexed Elsass, it could have taken what they wanted after conquering the east."
Not with such a possible massive threat in their back while they would be attacking Soviet Union. UK alone was a huge thorn in H. 's side for the whole war and their resistance proved of utter importance (bombing campaigns among other things). UK + France given time to fully mobilize and arm itself? Nahah. Couldnt let that be.
@@justalonesoul5825 I have to agree. The Jerries knew the French were badly traumatised by WW1, but still very wary of them, so if they were ever going to try to attack Germany, it would be when she had her hands full with another enemy. That and the German perception at the time was that France's military was more potent...yeah, they'd need to be dealt with first. The French stupidly tipped them off with that abortive half-ass invasion of the Rhineland in late '39, when they thought, "No actually this isn't a good idea". You always show a calculating front, you NEVER let your enemy see indecisiveness. Possibly the greatest mistake in French history.
Alsace fyi
@@addrakettp in English, Alsace is called Elsass, fyi. Why do the english feel the need/think they have the right to rename regions/cities/countries, is another question...
1:08 - I'll disagree. The purpose of Maginot Line was not to make it impossible to invade France; it was meant as a delay measure - to give French Army enough time to organize at the back
I second that motion!!! 🤠👍
Meanwhile panzer ghost division 240km into maginot line: "We are the panzer elite, born to compete, never retreat, Living or dead, always ahead, fed by your dread"
Also to channel the enemy which worked but it got them where no one expected them
Exactly this, that was the whole point. French high command wasn't incompetent and they did very much plan on fighting most of the war in Belgium, where their main force and best units would be massed. This in addition to cost and diplomatic concerns is why the maginot line didn't extend along the belgian border. French doctrine had a number of issues, one was a lack of prioritization on modern equipment such as aircraft and armor; tanks were mostly dispersed in units rather than concentrated and the airforce lacked funding. French generals were positioned far behind the frontline leading to delayed decisions and they did not allow units the tactical freedom that the Wehrmacht enjoyed. The massive blunder of thinking the Ardennes impassable lead to the downfall of the allied forces even with recon aircraft spotting the German column advancing through the forest, the French reaction was slow and failed to contain the German spearhead. At this point nothing could be done, the overly static mindset of the French played perfectly into the war of movement of the Germans (not Blitzkrieg as this is a post-war term and was never used by the Wehrmacht).
Living 10 km from a remain fortress from the 'Ligne Maginot', you are right and the video is wrong.
When you look at the losses France suffered in WW I - especially considering there were a LOT of people still alive who remembered it - one should be able to see their point in not wanting to go through that again, possibly on a much larger scale.
One has to wonder, having gone through similar loss in WW1, is if the Germans were prepared to go through significant losses at this stage. If they hadn’t experienced lightning quick success in France, would their morale have remained so high through the battle of France and into Barbarossa?
@@cirroalex714 Yes the Germans were prepared to go through significant losses at this stage. Between the two wars, the Germans prepared themselves for a new war, especially since Hitler came to power, convincing his people with propaganda.
@@cirroalex714 Then would Germany have also declared war on USA? Japan and USA were only at war with each other. But Hitler was convinced Germany was already winning by the time Barbarossa was initiated.
The UK also had large WWI losses, but took a very different attitude.
@@TX200AADuring WW1, most of the fighting took place in France. British civilians and infrastructures were not directly affected by the war. I do not question the contribution of the british empire to ww1, but we cannot compare the economic and psychological consequences that this war had on France to Britain.
The French defended us (Zeeland) to the end, even after the rest of the country had surrendered. In the end it only bought a few more days, but they fought in a nearly hopeless situation, even after being ordered to evacuate, to defend my home. I think that is worth a lot.
Against who?
@@horeageorgian7766 The Germans
@allyputira3986 How is the Moroccan occupation?
The French also defended the British Expeditionary force making its retreat at Dunkirk. Those brave French saved a lot of British lives in those days.
Ever looked at how many French troops were also evacuated, and the British troops that also remained to hold back the Germans? @juleswombat5309
At the time, for Germany, it seemed the correct thing to do. They'd beaten the French and occupied their capital, Paris, and their northern industrial towns, and all the Atlantic coast. They expected the UK to cave in and sue for peace within a few weeks, so there was no need to antagonize the French to rise up and fight them again. Effectively, though he chafed at the notion, Marshal Petain had become Hitler's stooge, so for about two years, Germany had the best of both ways WRT France.
They would have gave up occupation of northern France in time as well, had they won the war. They were entirely happy to have France remain independent, though under a Germany-friendly/puppet administration. So yea, Vichy France was a very acceptable situation for them to begin with.
@@maynardburger Exactly, why drag out the war? The French lost what mattered most. Everyone acts like the German high command was stupid and they weren't weary of getting into a war on two fronts. Of course the British were around, but they weren't going to invade France by themselves. You just don't want to refuse negotiations with the French to unnecessarily waste resources, manpower and most importantly time with a nation you've already defeated. The way it went down for the Germans was better than anything they could have imagined after WW1. Of course, it immediately started go off the rails right with the beginning of the Battle of Britain.
It's funny watching people trying to salvages Frances reputation in the comment section, they got beat badly, just let it go.
@@cefb8923 there is nothing to savage most of europe got badly beat its just ironic that france is so heavily singled out.........I mean huge parts of the soviet union were occupied for years......denmark surrendered in 6 hours....the british didn't fire a shot in defense of the channel islands and had a mass surrender in sigapore aganist a vastly inferior japanese force...americans got destroyed in there first battle with the germans but yet its always about france....italy got kicked around by most combatants in the war including by the french losing to the germans at the same time....nobody denies the french lost badly but acting like only did is funny...and a bit revealing about ppl.
@@cefb8923 Please tell us how many French died in the Battle of France compared to the number of British deaths in the same battle.I see nothing dishonourable in the much greater number of French casualties, but perhaps you have figures that have been denied analysts and historians for the past 85 years?
@@cefb8923 You are also wrong about the Battle of Britain. It was at Narvik in April Germany lost its ability to invade the UK when the Warspite (I am the proud owner of that battleship's rangefinder telescope, by the way, the most important artefact in the last 1,000 years of British history, and am bequeathing it to my alma mater, Churchill College at Cambridge University) destroyed half the Kriegsmarine's destroyer fleet. After that, a defence of invasion barges crossing the narrow seas would have been impossible for the Germans. We would have sent in fifty or more of our own destroyers whic, little molested by the few remaining German destroyers, would have sunk the invasion barges with their bow waves alone when moving at 40 knots (which speed would also have made them impossible targets for the Luftwaffe as well, RAF or no). The value of the success of the Battle of Britain was not strategic but propagandic, which the nation needed after the defeat of Dunkirk. Narvik by the way also led to Marmite-man Churchill becoming PM, which should not be underestimated in its import for history.
Interesting . Thank you for explaining what happened. Appreciated.
6:07 three shades of slightly different green. Good, clear choice 😅
Ignoring the war between Australia and France in Syria and Lebanon is a real omission in this history. Britain and India formed part of the Australian force which defeated France to capture Syria and Lebanon in 1941 which made Torch look like a skirmish. The Australians ensured the French endured further humiliation by forcing them into an armistice on Bastille Day then becoming the army of f occupation. General Dentz who commanded the French, never got over the shame of surrendering Paris to the Germans, then two colonies to the Australians.
"Britain and India formed part of the Australian force" while the Sovet Union formed part of the Romanian force ...
@ Well Britain and India were under Australian command, so therefore it was an Australian force. And stratus financed the whole operation too, and formed the initial occupation force.
@@seanlander9321 "Britain and India were under Australian command": if only that were true! I think the truth, however, is that British and Indian troops were under Australian command.
@ Splitting hairs, you know what I meant. Anyway, once British forces were under Australian command as a consequence so were India’s, because India was a British colony.
@@seanlander9321 I'm not interested in guessing at your intentions when what you say (e.g. "Britain and India were under Australian command") already has a very clear meaning. Language is a tool: you communicate by complying with it. Like all tools, it needs to be respected,
I'm not French, but the "France surrenders" meme always frustrate me, because, sometimes, you see that people genuinely think that France ALWAYS surrendered. It is frustrating because they have an incredibly rich and impressive military history, so their reputation as history's biggest cowards is so weird
They were overwhelmed by revolutionary military tactics by the most powerful army the world had ever seen (until the rise of the red army). If anything the italians should be considered cowards by history considering their behavior in both world wars
@@bsaintnyc " If anything the italians should be considered cowards by history considering their behavior in both world wars"
Which would also somehow completely be ignoring much about their history, like the power and conquests of some of the Italian city-states and Communes of the Middle-Age and Renaissance for example. Themselves being direct heirs of the Roman Empire, which doesnt have much of a cowardly reputation. But sure, it goes back a long way.
But hey, the country that loves to make the most fun of France is so new in history, it doesnt really have lots of points of comparison.
@@bsaintnyc Many Italians quickly surrendered in the field simply because they did not believe in Mussolini's aims.
People seem to forget about that Napoleon guy
@@bsaintnyc Please don't be tough on Italians. French people who have been under Italian occupation and later under German occupation always said that the Italians were much nicer than the Germans, back then.
So many seem to forget that while England was bravely loading over 100,000 of it's troops at Dunkirk, French soldiers kept fighting to give the English more time to escape. Many of those French soldiers gave up their lives to help the English and about a single division of French troops to escape. No movies made about them.
French soldiers held out until the last boat to clear Dunkirk. Even though the Germans had cut them off from resupply and reinforcement by land or water. But who cares about that?
I'm not French and my Americans ancestors came from England.
You mean British soldiers and Britain don't you?
You make a valid point about the bravery of French troops who acted as rear-guard for the Dunkirk evacuation (most were French, but there were significant British forces in the rear-guard).
Your numbers are off, though. Total troops evacuated at Dunkirk were 338,000 and a third of them were French (source Imperial War Museum website).
Maybe it’s because you’re American but almost every British person who knows about Dunkirk knows about the French rear guard. Also you seem ignorant of the actual history, a third of those who evacuated were French, it did not start as a joint operation either the French and British retreats in France were conducted separately until shortly after operation dynamo started, which lead to a lot of confusion between the soldiers on the ground, but it was eventually cleared up by British command who made clear that French and British were to be evacuated in equal number so that’s why more British were saved than French. And the British, after most of the evacuation had happened specifically went back for the French rear guard, saving another 23000 French and 50 British personnel, after that the Germans had pretty much gained control of the whole area and further evacuation was deemed impossible. So your snide remark at the start of your commonest only proves your ignorance of history.
Your figures are well off and I think it may just be Americans who don't know much about this.
@@owensilvant After the French surrender to the Germans, didn't the vast majority of French troops who were rescued by the British (at the cost of both French and British lives) then decide to return to France?
Excellent work: concise, unhyped and beautifully explained. Subscribed.
(Meme)
Her: I bet he's thinking about other women.
Him: Why the heck did Germany not take over all of France in 1940?
The French, contrary to received Anglo=Saxon opinion, fought bravely in May and early June 1940 but were ultimately ineffectual as the national government was not willing to sacrifice Paris (unlike the British who a few months later absorbed colossal devastation of London). The German tactic of Blitzkrieg unsettled the military leadership in France, but the politicians were not prepared to let them do what was necessary to win which was to abandon (temporarily) what would have been a devastated Paris and allow the army to regroup a few hundred miles to the south and then come back at the Germans, who had inferior mechanized equipment (tanks) but used them better in a short campaign. Four asides, the French navy saved the honour of France in 1943 when it scuttled its ships in Toulon rather than let the Germans take them, and arguably Germany would not have been able to invade the Soviet Union in mid-1941 had it nor been able to seize so much material from the French after the surrender.Also, The "miracle of Dunkirk" may not have been possible had the French army not fought so well in defending the evacuation area, and finally, had Darlan not been a raging Anglophone and sailed the French fleet in June 1940 to fight alongside the Royal Navy he would have become French postwar leader and not de Gaulle.
The problem is that they would not hace come back to retake Paris because the army was outnumbered, less equiped (less planes and tanks), less mobile (since most of the equipments was lost). The only viable option was to give up mainland or defend only the southern part with the aid of the terrain (even there germans could have catch up french retreating units)
@@Fox13440 Fair comments , but were the French outnumbered and less well equipped? Their tanks were superior to those of the Germans' in 1940. Did they lose them mainly through combat or as a result of the surrender? The latter, surely, as I said otherwise the Germans would not have been able to invade the Soviet Union a year later. Their best army/mechanized equipment at that time was Czech and captured (after the surrender) French. Aeroplanes were something else. Had the French military leadership acted rapidly after Dunkirk (which was a French as well as a British evacuation) and moved southwards by three or four hundred miles and abandoned any thought of defending Paris, the outcome in 1940 as a whole could have been very different. That is my hypothesis, and invite facts and figures to demonstrate its impossibility. Remember, the French would also still have been fighting alongside the British. Furthermore, the complication of opportunistic Italy entering the war may have not happened either.
@@MarkPayne-k7l the British were only 300k to help against millions of germans. And after Dunkirk it was sure that they will not come to aid the rest of the mainland of France. Lot of equipments were lost at Dunkirk bc it was the best french divisions there and they could not embark equipments on ships (same for british). Moreover a lot of soldiers were captured at Lilles and Dunkirk.
@@Fox13440 You may be right but to be fully convinced I would need hard figures (men and tanks say) in the north and elsewhere with freedom of movement. I understood that the bulk of both was to the south - in order to protect Paris after the memory of the close-run Marne business of 1914 - of the German thrust to the sea across to Abbeville. I know that these figures will exist, but I do not have them (readily to hand). Do you? As an aside, it follows from your argument that you feel that the union of the UK and France proposed by Churchill after Dunkirk would have been a damp squib, militarily as well as politically?
@MarkPayne-k7l I don't have the numbers but saw them at some point. I just remember that in the battle of Lille and Dunkirk around 100k french soldiers were made prisoners/killed. Then french soldiers were in England and the time to get them to the front let germans time to advance. Also during the retreat to make the Weygand line some tropps got captured and even after the retreat order a big chunk was cutoff near the Maginot line due to being outspeed by germans divisions. In 1940 the situation was far more dangerous than in 1914 because ik 1914. I don't know what would have happen in case of a franco british union. I suppose they would have either abandonned France or kept a small foothold like Brittany
THANKS, HILBERT!!!😮🤔😉 SUBSCRIBED!!😉 First time viewer of your channel, as it randomly popped up in my feed!!???🤔 Great job, and very interesting topic!! As an American, I Love Historical videos posted by our Cousins in the United Kingdom, and other European Countries our Ancestors Are From!!😉🙂 Best WISHES to You, and your Future Success!!!🙂😉😉
French armed resistance to the Allied invasion in Operation Torch was more to defend French territory et leur honneur than to be loyal to the German occupiers.
I'm not sure that matters if they are shooting at you. It wasn't just Torch either. Lookup Syria, Madagascar, Dakar etc. No matter what the reason, Vichy France was an active nutzie ally.
That's not a reflection on anyone born in France. There were those in Britain who would have acted the same had circumstances been different. The USA also had it's share of nutzies.
At 13:41 in the video the picture is of the German cruiser Königsberg, which had been sunk during the invasion of Norway the April before the invasion of France.
3:10 That Anglo-French political union was actually a hare-brained thought by Churchill. It would have been strongly resisted not only in the U.K. but also the Dominions.
Why?
Churchill had rich imagination, apparently... not his only radical idea
@shryggur taking the world back to the reign of Richard the Lionheart who held most of modern day France as the vassal of the French King. His brother, John, threw it all away by failing to pay homage and other actions.
Great Video, I really enjoyed it!
There were 2 political considerations that video ignored.
1. France had weak coalition governments in the 1930's, not unlike Weimar in 1920's. The French Popular Front was a coalition of Communists and Socialists who led Governments during the Depression. The French right wing parties, like the German right wing parties a decade prior, did not view Fascism as either aberrant or abhorrent. To them, Vichy France was an improvement over Leon Blum.
2. After defeating France in the field, Hitler wanted a negotiated peace with the UK. When Chamberlain resigned, some in the Government and the Tory Party wanted a concillitory PM. Fortunately, they came to their senses and chose Churchill who vowed "never surrender". Greatly assisting the "anti-peace" side were Attlee and George VI who quietly let his opion be known. All this explains Hitler's lenient terms. He din't want the UK to fear capitulation
Because if he had done so it would have been catastrophic for the Germans.
1) they would have put enormous ressources on administration, police and military.
2) They would have lost all the alliance of the french empire and it's strategic position to Gaullist free France, meaning the french Navy would switch sides.
3) The landing of the allies in north Africa would have been easier.
France is not Poland. It had a huge empire and it's position at the crossroads of Europe makes it very difficult and costly to occupy.
it would have made things much better for everyone inolved and reduced the time the germans spent occupying france as the gemans would have lost sooner
Very well done content
4:21 it really says something when surrender to the Nazis is preferable to being British 😂
At the time the nazis didn't look as evil as they do to us today. Many of their atrocities hadn't happened yet.
Hilarious
@@lightworker2956 true
Seeing how the British behaved with things like the Suez crisis, I think the French knew they were essentially erasing themselves if they took the British offer and would've been annexed into the British empire.
@@lightworker2956 I don't think it was about that. More so that early WW2 looked like a lost cause for the Allies and permanent exile in a far off colony under an Franco-British alliance that could possibly never retake Mainland France looked less preferable than giving up some land and still getting to keep their government. Surrendering and remaining independent was seen as better than fighting and potentially being a government in exile forever.
As a Pole, France claimed they fought "bravely" but they had no ball entering Germany a year earlier when we were fighting against Germany. We would have cared less about France, had it not been for France pleasing Polish soldiers to help.
They did. They had an incompetent command however the soldiers fought bravely even when all was lost. You have no right commenting on the bravery of soldiers when you live in the 21st century and see war as a game like hoi4.
In 1940 the Germans had a secret weapon in the form of Pervitin (methamphetamine) that allowed their soldiers to go for over a week without sleep. Although even that had its limits, which is likely how the British Expeditionary Force was able to escape from Dunkirk back across the Channel.
France does not claim they fought "bravely". Historians do. When it comes to the incursion the French army made in Germany in September 1939:
To start with, the Allies thought that Poland would resist longer, at least till the winter. From the 7th September 1939, the French launched an attack in Saarland in order to relieve Poland. The Germans had evacuated the area, civilians included, and had laid mines and booby traps everywhere. On the 18th, after an advance of about 10 km long by 25 km wide, the units stopped. They were a few kilometers from the Westwall, the western wall, which the French called the Siegfried Line. They encountered no resistance but suffered significant losses from the mines. On the 21st, Poland being virtually beaten, the French troops received the order to retreat to the Maginot Line. In any case, the French didn't have the artillery to breakthrough and couldn't envisage a serious attack on the Westwall, even with the reduce numbers left in the west by the Germans. On the 28th, Warsaw capitulated and on the 6th of October, the last Polish soldiers laid their weapons. The Germans immediately transferred their forces to the west for an offensive that Hitler wanted to launch as soon as possible.
The Germans needed less than half their army to defeat Poland, leaving more than half their forces ready to block a French invasion. Even if their best troops, including all the panzer and light divisions were in the East, they could quickly have been brought back in case of major offensive by the French.
And also:
In 1939, there was nothing much the French could have done, unless accepting again crippling human losses. France had already suffered much in WW1 and all her pre-WW2 strategy was to save her soldiers' lives. The French army was not ready in September 1939. Planes were old, tanks were not properly used and equipped (lack of radio), ammunition stocks were low, etc... The French industry was working hard but France could not be ready before 1941. Germany had a population double that of France which participated in the war effort. When it came to planes, for example, France was three years behind Germany.
@ to add on to what you said, war was not seen to be the fast paced mobile war it turned out to be in 1939.
@@pigman6420 Exactly.
A very through study of the collapse of France is in William Shirer, “The Collapse of the Third French Republic”.
Shirer talks about how France’s wealthy systematically avoided paying their fair share of taxes. Their entitlement is telling. Unfortunately, people in the US are really bad at history.
I thought I had read and watched a lot about ww2 but somehow I have either forgotten or never heard of the attack on Mers-el-Kébir
Excellent explainer for this topic on WWII
My grandfather was in Syria in 1938, to do his military service. June 1940, they didn't fought, and De Gaulle made his call for resistance. My grandfather and 2 others comrade from his regiment (out of 900), accept to fought with the Britains and De Gaulle, passing throught ennemy line, to fight the Afrika Korps. So we can say that official resistance rate was of 0.33%.
There seems to be a glitch in the video when you start talking about the French Navy
Explore France on the geography map and uncover its diverse landscapes - from the snowy Alps to the sun-soaked Riviera and the rolling vineyards of Bordeaux
The success of the Germans over the allies was a surprise to everyone. It was totally unprecedented, and so everyone was manoeuvring in new ground. What to do with the French fleet? The French colonies? How to govern? How to bring Britain to negotiate? Vichy provided a way to keep the French fleet and colonies out of British hands
Interesting, thank you!
Great vid! thx
You always were and always will be Hilbert
Very good explanation, I lived in France 5 years and knew a few people who remember the occupation. It took me years to get to understand the head space of the French people who sided with Germans like Pierre Laval.
The French lost over a million people in WW1. It is through this context that one should view their surrender in WW2.
I'm not sure that the facts support that. France certainly suffered in WW1, but so did many others...
France 1.7 million
Germany 2.8 million
Russia 2.8 million
Ottoman Empire 3.3 million
Persia 2.0 million
Austria-Hungary 2.0 million
UK 0.4 million
Serbia 0.8 million
As a percentage of their population France comes in sixth behind Persia, Serbia, Ottoman Empire, Albania and Romania. There are another half a dozen countries that had percentages in the same ball park as France. So, yes, France suffered, and greatly, but not really exceptionally. Sorry but I don't think that is the explanation. Also it doesn't explain the bravery with which they fought. They weren't a pushover, despite what the shortness of the war might seem to imply. There were many reasons they lost, but I think we look at the result and tend to think it was a foregone conclusion. Had things gone wrong for the Germans we wouldn't even be talking about it now. There was a period where the main force striking through the Ardennes was one long traffic jam. We saw both in Iraq and the attack on Kyiv how badly that can go. There was also a period when that force was stretched out from Sedan to the coast with little guarding it's flank again the British to the north and French to the south. Had the attack on Arras been better co-ordinated it could have ended very badly for the Germans. I'm not saying they got lucky, but they certainly had a week of more good luck than bad luck.
One other possibility not sure if anyone gave serious thoughts to, but what if Germany and Vichy signed an official peace treaty, whereas Vichy would recognize the Alsace-Loraine incorporation into Germany, and Germany releases POWs from France, and they gi their separate ways.
Vichy was internationaly recognized as the official French government, even by USA. If this was done in early 1941, Charles de Gaulle would have been a nothing after this. Plus, this would have solidified Germany's Western front, and neutralized a major military power from the fight.
Yes I thought about it for a long time. As long as the UK was still at war with Germany, it would not have been possible for Hitler to sign a peace treaty with Vichy France. Signing a peace treaty with Vichy France would have meant that the German army would have to withdraw from France. The occupation of the west European coasts was essentiel for the Germans. None of the countries invaded by the Germans in 1940 signed a peace treaty with the Germans.
@@phlm9038 Probably some deal could have been struck,
@@Rahul_G.G. What kind of deal? A deal between the Germans and Vichy France after having signed a peace treaty?
@@phlm9038 Probably Germans can garrison on the French coast and operate from French ports until England has been dealt with, but Vichy takes defacto civil control of France
Also did my comment get delated lol
The Germans had great generals with Rommel and Manstein, Guderian and Von Runstedt out witted and encircled the French. The Germans outwitted them with their great strategy. These tactics are still taught in the military academies.
"The Germans had great generals with Rommel and Manstein, Guderian and Von Runstedt out witted and encircled the French."
I would say "and encircled the ALLIES". British, Belgians and Polish troops got encircled as well.
@phlm9038 Enabled entirely with modern mechanised forces and air power, something every army was behind Germany on at this stage of the war.
Because thou art still Hilbert.
Once, thou wast someone else, but at present, thou art Hilbert.
The French resistance to the Allied invasion in Operation Torch was more to defend French territory et lemur honneur
Great video man 🍻 your channel inspired me to start mine!
The memories of WW1 and its carnage dominated their thinking and paralyzed will.
The problem with hazardeurs is that they do either know when they have to stop or when they can push further. Bot Hitler and Mussolini were military hazardeurs, lacking real military knowledge.
Hitler did not know when to stop in the SU and did not know to push to the full gain with the British invasion and the occupation of France.
Yes, holding occupyed the entire French territory would have required a lot more manpower. But even if Franco was not willing to be sucked into the war, having a German-Spanish border would have eliminated the pocket of communist.
Germany did occupy most of France in 1940, but not all of it. Here's why:
*Armistice and Occupation:* After the Battle of France, which saw the swift defeat of French and Allied forces, an armistice was signed on June 22, 1940. This agreement divided France into two zones:
*Occupied Zone:* This zone was under direct German military control and encompassed most of France, including Paris and the Atlantic coast.
*Free Zone:* This smaller zone in the southeast of France was nominally governed by the French Vichy government, which collaborated with Nazi Germany.
*Vichy France:* The unoccupied zone was established to allow for a degree of French self-administration under the collaborationist Vichy regime led by Marshal Philippe Pétain. This arrangement served several purposes for the Germans:
* It reduced the administrative burden on Germany by allowing the French to manage day-to-day affairs in the unoccupied zone.
* It presented a facade of French sovereignty, which helped to legitimize the occupation in the eyes of some French citizens and the international community.
* It allowed Germany to exploit French resources and industry more effectively.
*Strategic Considerations:* While the Germans held considerable influence over the Vichy government, maintaining a nominally independent French state in the unoccupied zone had some strategic advantages for them. It provided a buffer zone and a potential bargaining chip.
In summary, while Germany did not directly conquer all of France in 1940, they established control over most of the country through military occupation and exerted significant influence over the remaining territory through the collaborationist Vichy regime. This arrangement served both practical and strategic purposes for the German war effort.
I have some contention with your portrayal of the french navy. The 5 battleships in french service were of ww1 design, 2 courbet and 3 bretange class vessels. The 2 Dunkirque class vessels vary between fast battleship and battlecruiser designation depending on who you ask, but there were two. The only aircraft carrier was bearn, which was a basket case of a design which was more an early experimental carrier adopted into service interwar due to not having anything better available. Not sure if you meant several as in the carrier and the seaplane carrrierz While many of the french cruisers were modern, with the exception of the Dunkirques the capital ships of the fleet were aging even for ww1 vintage or a complete mess of a carrier.
France navy was not strong in firepower and numbers, but in high speed cruisers + battlecruiser.. sadly they never had the chance to show the full might.
It wasnt strong as the british, but nearly the same as the italian. The kriegsmarine was short in surface ships, if they had taken the french ships some things could have been better for them specially in the Mediterranean.
Still I find it really bad and dishonourable for the allies to destroy a neutral navy at port. Such destruction wasn't necessary.
Impossible que la Kriegmarine prennent des vaisseaux capitaux, pour une bonne raison, et on l'a déjà vu pendant la période 1789-1815, c'est que sans personnels et surtout sans entrainement adéquat, un navire ne sert à rien, il peut même être perdu en pleine mer sans action de l'ennemi d'où la destinée pitoyable de l'invasion de l'Irlande.
13:27 The Japanese occupation was a little more complicated than that in the case of Indochina (Vietnam). Despite Vichy France being an axis country, they continued to sell fuel to Nationalist forces in China whom Japan was fighting hence the Japanese eventually ended up invading Vietnam and working with anti-French separatists.
Japan had been fighting a proxy war against France for the 1930s, by arming Thailand. I have to be fair here, the Thai side had legitimate claims against France, which stole some Thai territories along the Mekong.
La France n'était pas un pays de l'Axe, c'était même pas considéré comme un pays de l'Axe à l'époque, c'est uniquement post opération Torch quand les américains avaient besoin de saisir les avoirs et les brevets qu'ils ont commencé à le dire, et post Torch on est sur un territoire totalement occupé.
Likely reason: 7:00
The Anglo-Francais union is a cool concept. Imagine how later conflicts, namely, conflicts for independence with the two former empires would've played out.
9:23 “Et une perdrix dans un poirier!” 🎶🎵
How do you view Germany allowing the British to escape from Dunkirk? Runstedt gets the blame for what was obviously a mistake but then the classic blitzkreig or scwherpunkt doctrine is you have objectives and go for them ignoring side battles.
Well the weather much helped bc the skies were extremely overcast whereas the German Luftwaffe could not bomb the escapees. Plus the Germans had a couple tank divisions bogged down too far south to help backup an invasion on Dunkirk.
A factor behind the rapid French defeat, you did not mention, was the government had tones down military spending a LOT. When the war began the French, on paper had a much stronger army, in fact their tank divisions where considered superior to German tanks of the time. However the budget constraints resulted in a lot of the French armor units being without fuel or ammunition. The Germans literally left these intact tanks on the side of the road as they passed them and then later on put them to use for themselves.
Unlike HOI 4 a single horse is not an effective garrison. Just a couple strategic 🥕 and all the guards are forced to walk everywhere. 😏
Churchill asked Gamelin "what about the strategic reserve"
Gamelin responded, "what strategic reserve"
Quand Churchill est venu il lui a aussi été fait remarqué qu'en 1918 l'armée anglaise avait bénéficié de l'envoi de 40 divisions de renforts et qu'aujourd'hui c'était la France qui en avait besoin, et c'est vrai qu'en Juin 1940 alors que l'Angleterre a été prévenue dès 1938, qu'elle ne disposait toujours pas d'armée de masse...
A follow up question. Why were the French treated as a victorious ally after the war by the US and the UK?
probably because the UK was exahusted and broke after the war and wouldn't be up to shouldering the burden alone....other occupied nations benefited as well why is only france singled out they do border germany
Who else will occupy France? Italy was part of the Axis so that wouldn’t work. Spain was neutral. Greater Belgium? 🇧🇪
Yeah, victorious was a stretch. But they were an Ally (the Free French, not Vichy quasi-fascists).
By then the US was running things and although Eisenhower (and virtually everyone else) loathed DeGaulle the Americans view the French favourably because the French assisted the US in the American war of independence.
Also the US and UK were still fighting the Japanese and could already see that the real enemy would be the Soviets.
If boosting the French ego aided in the battle against communism, which was rearing it's ugly head all over Western Europe, then why not - it didn't cost anything to the US.
The cost in the long run is that to this day the French, rather than being grateful for being liberated, resent everyone and especially the British for betraying them - which is utterly ridiculous even coming from a collaborating Frenchie!
Ultimately the only ones who were happy were the girls in Paris who were paid in Reichsmarks, Dollars and Pounds! 🤣
God save the King. 🇬🇧
France just kind of folded their poker hand, but maybe you gotta know when to hold em and know when to fold em
The brirish-French union is like canada but bigger
No Canada is still bigger
😀😃😄🤠👍
@@BrightWendigoGreater is what was meant
This vid need a small edit at about the 8'50" (approx.) mark, the bit where it's about the French Navy. It's repeated. Tale a look. Cheers. 👍
The french navy in WWII indeed gets too little credit. I would always prefer a Richelieu to a Bismarck for example.
No clue as to why the music starting about 14:00 changes to the Troparion of the Cross. Did the French turn Orthodox? Were Russians involved?
He got lazy and played an unedited version of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture
Can you imagine how cursed an Anglo-French Empire would be in the modern day? This massive block of land with ties to half of the planet...I cant even begin to imagine how this would have shaped industry, culture, and economy...!
The French were very happy to be under Germany. They happily help round up jews and others, 4 years France was happy. Only when the war turned against the Axis did the French start regretting their happy relationship.
Don't forget that the French girls in Paris earned a lot of Reichsmarks during the war. 😂
Also their "resistance" was absolutly pathetic compared to the ones in Russia, Serbia and Poland. The french were indeed happy to be part of the axis for the most part.
Three idiots here 🤣🤣🤣
@@ZOMBIEo07 and rightly so.
Indeed
1:36 Wrong colours on that helmet emblem, it should be black-white-red.
Blitzkreig was NOT combined arms warfare (a battlefield tactic) it was the german geo-politocal reality that they couldnt win a long term war...
Thus they fought to win fast instead...
they NEEDED the war to be over quickly at least on one front.
they needed to accept french terms
Thanks for the history! Great video. BTW, this history inspired Doris Day to sing the song,
Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be).
That declaration of Act of Union with the U.K. would have been psychotic. I mean the French spent 114 YEARS fighting against the English in the 1300's and 1400's to prevent precisely this.
It's the fault of France that English and French history is so intertwined, by making William the Conqueror a Duke of Normandy. It meant England's King had immense power in France, and lead to conflict for about 500 years - with the loss of Calais under Mary I being the final nail in the coffin, and the majority lost at the end of the Hundred Years War. But the Hundred Years War was just as much about French aristocratic competition for the French throne as it was English desire.
Although, I'd say it's the 400 years that followed that really split the two countries to the point where a union seems inconceivable, given that England has owned half of France, at some times. Richard 'Lionheart' I, the famous English Crusader King, spent most of his life in south-west France, and given his family, he was entitled to. There was far more tension between them through colonial conquest than there was during the Middle Ages, where you also see national identity become much more important to countries. But the histories of the two countries are strongly linked. We're like two siblings from the same parents (none of this is really taught, if at all, in British history classes, because Romans, Tudors, and Victorians are 'more interesting').
A funny part is the English and later British Royal family only relinquished their claim of the French throne because of the French Revolution, as they recognised it didn't exist anymore.
It really is stunning how soft, weak, and cowardly France’s government was in WW2…
It's not stunning at all, it was to be expected when you know that:
1- Marshal Ferdinand Foch of France considered the Treaty of Versailles to be "a capitulation, a treason" because he believed that only permanent occupation of the Rhineland would grant France sufficient security against a revival of German aggression. In a remarkable moment of foresight, as the treaty was being signed Foch said: "This is not peace. It is an armistice for 20 years”.
And also: “Next time the Germans won't make any mistake. They will invade France from the north and will seize all the ports on the Channel. From there, they will launch attacks against England. Everything will be lost if we are not on the Rhine."
Or:
"The United States of America are far away and protected by the ocean. England can not be reached, even by Napoleon. You are both protected. We are not." (Clemenceau).
2- The German rearmament:
Louis Barthou (French government) :
"If Great Britain continues to turn a blind eye to German rearmament, France will ensure its security by its own means."
John Simon (British government) : "In case France were to attack Germany, England would be forced to defend the latter, in the name of the Locarno Pact of 1925." (By the way, the Locarno Pact which would be violated by Hitler later).
3- The German re-occupation of the Rhineland in March in 1936:
"Above all, we must discourage any military action by France against Germany (Anthony Eden)."
4- The annexation of Austria by Hitler in 1936:
Joseph Paul-Boncoeur, Foreign Secretary in the French government, sent a message to London through the ambassador of the UK, Eric Phipps, in order to obtain that His Majesty's Government publicly announce that if Germany attacked Czechoslovakia and France came to the latter's aid, Great Britain would support France. Request rejected!
It's only in 1939 that the UK realised that France was not the enemy. All this being being carefully ignored by France detractors.
The socialist in control just prior were more afraid of losing power than they were of national security,that's why the army's leadership was weak
@phlm9038 Excellent reply. Well sourced, detailed insights that will be unfamiliar to many. Thanks for that comment.
Then these weak men raised a bunch of post modern communist philosophers that would try to push their cowardice on all of western civ. All time worst generation of a peoples
@@PaulJakma You are welcome.
Good video, I see you have a different take on the European pressures on France - & Germany - after the invasion of Poland. America wasn't a party to the mutual assistance treaty that brought GB and France into war with Germany in 1939, but until Dec. 7, 1941, the isolationist rhetoric in America overrode any sentiment toward intervening in Germany's affairs. We were rather like Lord Chamberlain presuming Hitler to be an honorable man who could be reasoned with. When I was a young man studying history, it made perfect sense that the Northern and Eastern parts of Europe would be occupied by the Germans. The ports, the industrial cities, the proximity to Northern French rail system into Belgium and Germany, it all played to Germany's control of the North Atlantic naval & to the overall military transportation system. Since Spain was 'simpatico' with Germany, just realizing the capitulation of the capital of France practically gave Germany all of France for the price of the limited control you so well described. No one in my history classes in USA even questioned whether Germany needed to fight across France occupying each and every little town - part of which is the stereotype of the "make love, not war" French philosophy, but because of an overwhelming sense of France's doomed military might given the dependence upon the Maginot line with minimal armament across the rest of the nation. Now the French did put up stiff resistance as the British pulled back to Dunkirk, they were the real heroes of that retreat - but it was very intense fighting proving that the French could indeed make war equal to any country - but outflanked and out-witted, the British forces owe their successful retreat to Hitler's indecisive approach to a full pursuit.
The Luftwaffe did their best to impede the flotilla of craft rescuing GB's personnel, but the armor & troops did not rush the retreating forces. That is the question we always asked - why did Hitler not demand a rapid mop-up of the outfought and retreating forces? Not why was Southern France occupied in theory but not in fact until later in the war when German manpower was at a premium?
Regardless of whose side you were on everyone knows what happened at Dunkirk. He knew if he wiped out the British and French, he'd be responsible for their possessions. You're leaving out half of history. Probably too much time spent in American Politically Correct Universities Inc, an Acme company.
I thought they did conquer all of France. This is new info to me.
Caesar didn't conquer all of Gaul.
They did but afterwards they occupied northern France while vichy france managed the south.
I believe there was one small indomitable village @@HS-su3cf
Technically no but de facto yes
@kidd32888 there was no government to pay soldiers to keep fighting and the leaders would have had to decide to go rogue (like De Gaulle)
A big part of the problem was that due to 1) fear of socialists meant they were kicked out of government (about 20% of the electorate were told their votes didn't matter) and 2) the directions from Moscow were for good socialists to oppose war with Germany (Molotov-Ribbentrop pact) meant that a not insignificant amount of French men saw the fall of the French government as a necessary step to make Socialist France a possibility.
The might of the French resistance didn't kick into gear until after June 1941, when Germany invaded the USSR and good socialists/communists were supposed to take up arms and resist/fight/sabotage the German occupation. Before June 1941 the French resistance was much less substantial. Did they question why they ever agreed not to fight the Germans? Some did, but that's what ideological rigidity gets you.
Because the colonial elite was more than happy to have Hitler destroy the Socialist government in Paris and to repress the people so "surrender" was a pretty good price to pay in exchange for having to share the spoils with the Nazi regime to which they would cover the back, to the Mediterranean side with the Vichy regime, so they could concentrate in protecting their Northern flanc from any possible Anglo Saxon invasion from the sea. That is why Churchill destroyed their fleet, he knew what game they were playing.
I once heard that Churchill gave the order to destroy the French fleet during a drunken episode.
The "game" they were playing was as follows:
One of the terms of the Armistice negotiated and signed by Germany and France is that Germany accepted that the French fleet would not be dismantled nor seized at the condition that it stayed disarmed in its ports and would not sail to anywhere. If the French had allowed their fleet to sail to the UK or anywhere else or to scuttle it on request of the UK, it would have been considered as a breach of the Armistice and it would have allowed the Germans to resume the hostilities with the French at a full scale just like before the Armistice was signed.
Because they didn't need to France where the bad guys
The French Navy angle is interesting. Imagine if their Navy had joined the British Navy, the war may have been shortened by quite a bit.
It would not have been possible because one of the terms of the Armistice negotiated and signed by Germany and France is that Germany accepted that the French fleet would not be dismantled nor seized at the condition that it stayed disarmed in its ports and would not sail to anywhere. If the French had allowed their fleet to sail to the UK or anywhere else or to scuttle it on request of the UK, it would have been considered as a breach of the Armistice and it would have allowed the Germans to resume the hostilities with the French at a full scale just like before the Armistice was signed.
Pas vraiment, déjà les moyens de lutte anti-soumarine n'étaient pas encore au top, les anglais ont démontré qu'ils pouvaient faire sans et les allemands ne pouvaient pas faire plus que des envois de sous-marins et de l'harcèlement psychologique avec leurs cuirassés.
Entre temps la marine n'a aucun apport à part permettre de protéger l'envoi de corps expéditionnaire car l'Allemagne est sur le continent et y'a que la route du fer qui pourrait être attaqué hors elle était ultra protégée, niveau invasion y'a pas de ressources à envoyer en masse avant l'arrivée des américains.
Donc en terme de durée ça ne change rien, par contre ça pouvait réduire le temps de la campagne contre l'Italie en Afrique du Nord, mais pour les fronts comme la Grèce et la Yougoslavie, c'est pas une France affaiblie et 3 anglais armés qui auraient renversé le cour des choses.
Niveau maintenance de la flotte française y'aurait eu aussi de grands soucis, sans parler des besoins de modernisation continus, cela il semble que les anglais avaient plus de navires que de marins donc peut être qu'il y'aurait juste eu un transfert de personnels sur les navires non utilisés.
Thank you from America.
History of South Tyrol please.
wow that french anglo agreement would have been interesting... wouldn't it have been a far better option for France.... plus the french navy would have changed the balance of power in the Atlantic. fascinating and sad.
Non cela n'aurait pas été la meilleure option car au moment où Churchill a posé ce truc, déjà la moitié du pays était mort donc dans une démocratie c'est pas foufou, mais en plus Churchill était en position de faiblesse politique chez lui, et ça l'état major et les politiciens l'ont bien vu.
Leur pire crainte en plus du risque de la peine de mort pour défaite et abandon de territoire comme l'exigeait la loi, d'où le fait qu'il y'ait eu un armistice et non une capitulation, c'était de faire ce type d'alliance puis de se retrouver vendus aux allemands dans les mois qui suivaient et le fait d'avoir été attaqué quelques jours seulement après l'armistice les ont bien convaincu qu'ils avaient fait le bon choix.
Useful and good information was added to me. Thank you for your good channel
Dude I've been studying WWII off and on for nearly a decade and I NEVER knew that story about Britain destroying French ships at Mers-el-Kébir. They killed almost 1,300 Frenchmen.
The answer is simple, because they couldn't take the massive lines of natural defenses, mountains and numerous plateaus that the Massif-Central offers and they could have never cleared the Alps nor the Pyrenees against a determined, organized and professional fighting force. Truth is that Germany was getting bled bad prior to the armistice, allies started the battle of France poorly, but counter offensives mounted by general Maxime Weygand after the brittish had fled, were successful, french elements of half the size of german corps, consisting of a couple regiments of infantry and detachments of artillery strung together stopped and pushed back entire german corps with their panzer divisions. Casualties were mounting on the german side, german command was getting worried that they couldn't sustain a war for long at this rate of attrition and France still had ressources to drag the war on. The month of June 1940 was the bloodiest month ever recorded for both the french and german armies, more than any month during the Battle of the Somme or during the Battle of Verdun, by a lot. Only comparison for the german army is Stalingrad. The issue was the lack of manpower to replace or reinforce these units ressembling small divisions for the french army, germans could reinforce their troops so french units had to fall back eventually or would get encercled and captured.
Those tactics deployed by Weygand were later used by the Free French Liberation forces during the Battle of Bir Hakkeim. If only the BEF had bought the french army a little more time or had redeployed after Dunkirk, it would have given France the chance to extend conscription, to deploy and arm properly fresh volunteers who they had to send on suicide missions to slow the german advance, sometimes without equipment or rifles because they didn't get the time to get equipped, they had to reach garrisons close to Paris within a couple days. May and June 1940 were similar to January 1940, France wasn't ready at all, no reserves were organized. In January 1940 there was 1 riffle given to every 2 conscripts with 10 concealed bullets that they were not allowed to use, they mostly didn't have uniformrs or helmets, couldn't target practice and they didn't have officers to train them, just be it for physical readiness. Brand new tanks had not been deployed, there was a lack of pilots because not enough had been trained to man all the aircrafts produced in just 1939, plus huge lacks of radios accross all the french armies although the budgets were exceeding the money necessary to equip every unit to squad level. But nobody knows were the money went, historians point to corruption in the army and some generals didn't believe that there would be a war with Germany. Or that we'd be dumb enough to declare war without preparations. This is why France never pushed into Germany during the invasion of Poland, because the french army was still years away from being at its full capacity and they never planned for it nor could have. France was still paying its Great War debts to the US and most of the budgets were directed towards that goal, not towards modernizing the army or training new troops. And Germany never payed the war tribute after the Versailles treaty, which was meant to finance the french and brittish debts to the US that they wouldn't forgive.
Henry V would have liked this, finally as it should have been. Henry after all was the first King to speak English well, though he did speak French too.
Germany never wanted to go to war with Fracnce in the first place.
in hitler's book he says different
@@camm8642True. France was portrayed as germanys „mortal enemy“. In „Mein Kampf“. It was the power most interested in containing German expansion.
How would Napoleon have thought about such a union is more relevant. (And Wellington and King George III too?)
Yes, France wanted to keep its colonies at all costs, that's why they jumped at the German concessions, and the plan for the French government to exile to the African colonies and keeping the fight wouldn't go so great because if they resisted and lost, Germany would definitely takeover the French colonies, and France control over its colonies during the early 20th century was growing tenous, if the government exile in Africa and African colonies notice that France is in a weak position, rebellions would explode, and Germany would take advantage of it.
Try ‘This has been Hilbert…’, Hilbert.
In June 1940, more than 600,000 German and Italian soldiers were out of action, so continuing the war would have sacrificed many more Axis soldiers to continue its operations in Europe.
Britain and France becoming one nation? This is a possibility I only became aware of through the film "Darkest Hour". At age 66, I couldn't believe I had never heard this story and I thought it had been invented to spice up the film's script.
Imagine any Reform supporters becoming aware that Churchill supported the idea 🤯😡😠🤬
They got to 99 overextension
That’s the neat part, they did
French Guiana (the overseas prison population of extremely hardened criminals and political exhiles) was really interesting in late 1939. You have murderers in jail for life, being told by their captors that if the Germans invade south America the prisoners will be given rifles and expected to help defend the territory. Can you imagine? Read Papillion. (NOT ANY OF THE MOVIES OR ONLINE SERIES) Read the actual book. It's incredible
A German medal for the Fall of France 1940 was made in prototype but not issued. It would have been difficult to have the cooperation they did if thousands of soldiers were seen walking around France wearing them.
Always like the way that these narrators causally mention that "the British bombed the French fleet and killed over a thousand men"
No one ever uses the term War crime!
They never mention at all that Churchill started bombing German civilians May 1940
If the UK didn’t have naval control then D Day would never have happened
It's like how when Russia invades Ukraine that is an illegal invasion, but when Israel illegally annexes part of Syria that is called "creating a buffer zone."
The French attacked in the Rhineland in 1939 (The Saar Offensive ) heading for Poland, but they were called back 😮🇨🇵.
What would have happened had they/we been allowed to continue with all Hitler's forces heading for Warsaw?
Nothing good would have happened. The Allies thought that Poland would resist longer, at least till the winter. From the 7th September 1939, the French launched an attack in Saarland in order to relieve Poland. The Germans had evacuated the area, civilians included, and had laid mines and booby traps everywhere. On the 18th, after an advance of about 10 km long by 25 km wide, the units stopped. They were a few kilometers from the Westwall, the western wall, which the French called the Siegfried Line. They encountered no resistance but suffered significant losses from the mines. On the 21st, Poland being virtually beaten, the French troops received the order to retreat to the Maginot Line. In any case, the French didn't have the artillery to breakthrough and couldn't envisage a serious attack on the Westwall, even with the reduce numbers left in the west by the Germans.* On the 28th, Warsaw capitulated and on the 6th of October, the last Polish soldiers laid their weapons. The Germans immediately transferred their forces to the west for an offensive that Hitler wanted to launch as soon as possible. It didn't happen before May 1940.
*The Germans needed less than half their army to defeat Poland, leaving more than half their forces ready to block a French invasion. Even if their best troops, including all the panzer and light divisions were in the East, they could quickly have been brought back in case of major offensive by the French.
@Thehiddentruths-rj4fn Great copy/paste 🤣🤣🤣.
@@andrewrobinson2565 Did you think I was going to write it all over again each time 🤣
@Thehiddentruths-rj4fn Si tu n'as que ça à faire. 🤣
@@andrewrobinson2565 Non, je n'ai pas que ça à faire. J'ai énormément de travail à expliquer aux gens que tout n'était pas si simple et que la plupart du temps, il y a une explication pourquoi un pays à fait ça, ou n'a pas fait ça. La vie est dure 😏
The better question is why didn't the french fight on like the USSR or China.
The French did not fight on because their government told them to stop fighting, after having requested an armistice from the Germans. Why did the French government ask for an armistice? Because at this stage they knew there was nothing to be done anymore. What was waiting for them was another butchery, what they wanted to avoid. I'll remind everyone that, like the British, the French were suffering from strategic and economic weakness in the 1930s. They lacked the manpower and industrial strength to match Germany, which had a larger population and whose industrial production was twice as big as France's. France had to adopt a forward defence strategy because its major industrial centres were near the German and the Belgian borders, but in 1936 the Belgians abandoned the French alliance, adopted a policy of neutrality and refused any staff talks with the French on possible joint action if Belgium were invaded by Germany. The French, who had an obvious interest in fighting Germany in Belgium if possible, felt unable to extend the defensive Maginot Line, designed to compensate for inferior French numbers, along the Franco-Belgian frontier.
The USSR could allow themselves to fight on because they had a huge territory in which they could retreat if necessary.
Something else that has been completely forgotten: The first day Poland was invaded, the first move the French wanted to do was to send their troops to wait for the Germans on the Belgian-German border in the Liege region. Request refused by the Belgians because of their policy of neutrality.
They should have fought AGAINST the USSR, because the wrong side won WW2
For the French, getting conquered by the Nazis meant occupation.
For the Soviets, getting conquered by the Nazis meant being literally genocided.
In retrospect, and considering the current situation, it's so tragic that so many lives were ended between cultural cousins.
Not really since it doesnt mean anything
@martinondrus6344 what you said doesn't mean anything because it's incredibly vague
@@user-tm8jt2py3d not really since being cultural cousins doesnt mean anything in the real world. Clear enough for you?
@martinondrus6344 yeah you did better that time. But it's just some reddit brained nonsense, so it wasn't worth clarifying.
@@user-tm8jt2py3d sure, cause when you look at history being culturaly close means a lot
What was the Foreign Legion up to?
Déjà ce n'était pas la Légion d'aujourd'hui, soit une espèce de mix entre un corps de commandos et de troupes de choc qu'on peut envoyer à la boucherie sans problématique politique vu que la majorité ne sont pas français.
C'était juste de l'infanterie normale qui a fait ses opérations comme toutes les autres unités et elle a été dans les deux camps, la version FFL ayant plus de transfuges antiallemands, était en général plus motivée que la moyenne.
Fighting themselves in the Levant iirc.
The map at 12:51 does not cover the French Madate in Syria that was a legacy of WW1. I remember, from the coverage on the WW2 UA-cam channel, UK campaigns there to take control of Syria away from Vichy France.
Well, they had the coast, ports and heavy industry.
Dunkirk was not just a British evacuation. French forces were also evacuated. As for Vichy, the Germans were also thinking about Britain. Going easy on France was hoped to induce Britain to make peace.
True, but the French forces evacuated to England did not stay there long. Most of them were repatriated to Brest and Cherbourg in the days, even hours, that followed to resume the fight. In fact, the French command tried to stop the German troops on the Somme and the Aisne, but the superiority of the German troops was overwhelming.
@Thehiddentruths-rj4fn Absolutely correct. But it's important to note that the British did not abandon the French at Dunkirk,
@@dennisweidner288 Without Dunkirk in 1940, there would not have been 6 June 1944. The British evacuated because they judged the battle lost and it was time to think of the protection of their own country. The French were for a counterattack so that their industries would not fall into German hands. It happens when two allied countries end up having different interests. Subsequently, propaganda does its job, to the joy of the common enemy.
@Thehiddentruths-rj4fn Not all WW II authors agree. I persoaally agree with you and think Dunkirk was vital.
@@dennisweidner288 If the British troops who had been evacuated to England from Dunkirk had been taken prisoners in May/June 1940 by the Germans, Hitler would have used them as a bargaining chip in the same way he did with the French prisoners. The UK, which had already lost most of its equipment, would also have lost its professional army. England could not have served as a rear base for opponents of all occupied Europe and could not have served as a starting point for the d-day landings, without forgetting the landings in north Africa in 1942... That's why I think that Dunkirk was vital.