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 Grey Templar wrote:

 ingtaer wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
They weren't weak, but they were definitely stupid.

Had France actually fully invaded Germany when they declared war on Poland they could have curbstomped the few German units which were between them and Berlin while most of the Wermacht was on the Eastern front. The Germans would have been sandwitched between the much larger French army and the actually fairly substantial Polish army. Germany did NOT have the manpower to face both.

The trick with that being that French logistics were suited to going to the Ardennes and the Rhine... and no further. Their entire pre-war strategy was to break Germany on their defenses and made no planning at all toward invasion.

Yes, an Anglo-French invasion would have smashed what little German units were on the western front at the time.... had they been capable of invading.

They could have still invaded and used the time honored logistics method of Loot and Steal. And by the time that can't sustain them anymore they would have been able to set up some sort of supply line, say through a number of easily captured west German ports and the ever convenient Royal Navy.

The real reason they didn't invade was because everybody was paralyzed with fear at the war becoming another Trench war so the British and French were too timid to actually engage.

You are seriously saying that the French were stupid because they didn't advocate the commissioning of war crimes? It would have been interesting to see how the French army would have reacted had they been seriously ordered to attack Germany, their moral had never recovered from '17 and with all the political turmoil and communist agitation within the nation itself there offensive spirit was practically non-existent (their defensive spirit wasn't a lot better in many units).

It’s not a war crime to steal material from the enemy.

It is if you decide to declare war on someone just tomjsutify stealing from them.

It is any way under international law, both Hague conventions and Geneva. The only permitted 'looting' is of military stocks and as German had very few depots on the western front at the time that wouldn't have been much of an option (unless the French were going to reequip a bunch of troops in German uniform armed with German weapons).

 Peregrine wrote:

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
The maginot line had turrets that could not rotate to cover the rear and was poorly defended against air and paratrooper attacks.

And? This is not a RTS where you can theorize about firing arcs or whatever, we have actual history. And the history is that the Maginot line had a goal of forcing any German attack to be funneled into a specific region where the French army would be able to oppose it on favorable ground. The history is that the Maginot line did exactly that, Germany avoided a direct attack and went exactly where the line forced them to go. The French army just failed to respond effectively to the attack and missed their chance to defeat it on the chosen ground before it broke through. Worrying about paratroopers or firing turrets backwards is silly, if meaningful forces are behind the line then it has already failed and the defense has to fall back. Once an attacker bypasses the line there's little or no reason to attack the line itself, those backwards-firing turrets would have had nothing to do.

In short, you seem to have learned your history from LOL FRANCE jokes and not legitimate study.

This is true, only three battalions defended the Ardennes, the French general staff were useless, the Maginot line was not. aslo having thev guns face one way meant the defences could not be held from a counterattack by the French is any were successfully siezed.

They were vulnerable to the air like Eben Emael. But at the maginot line was a line if some portions were assaulted from the air they would be supported by infantry from along the line. Belgian fortresses on the other hand were stand alone bastions and could not be supported from air attack.

Static defences can and do work, but you must not use static thinking with them. They represent a prepared defence not a paralysis of defence.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 ingtaer wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
They weren't weak, but they were definitely stupid.

Had France actually fully invaded Germany when they declared war on Poland they could have curbstomped the few German units which were between them and Berlin while most of the Wermacht was on the Eastern front. The Germans would have been sandwitched between the much larger French army and the actually fairly substantial Polish army. Germany did NOT have the manpower to face both.

The trick with that being that French logistics were suited to going to the Ardennes and the Rhine... and no further. Their entire pre-war strategy was to break Germany on their defenses and made no planning at all toward invasion.

Yes, an Anglo-French invasion would have smashed what little German units were on the western front at the time.... had they been capable of invading.

They could have still invaded and used the time honored logistics method of Loot and Steal. And by the time that can't sustain them anymore they would have been able to set up some sort of supply line, say through a number of easily captured west German ports and the ever convenient Royal Navy.

The real reason they didn't invade was because everybody was paralyzed with fear at the war becoming another Trench war so the British and French were too timid to actually engage.

You are seriously saying that the French were stupid because they didn't advocate the commissioning of war crimes? It would have been interesting to see how the French army would have reacted had they been seriously ordered to attack Germany, their moral had never recovered from '17 and with all the political turmoil and communist agitation within the nation itself there offensive spirit was practically non-existent (their defensive spirit wasn't a lot better in many units).

It’s not a war crime to steal material from the enemy.

It is if you decide to declare war on someone just tomjsutify stealing from them.

Umm, the French and British had just declared war on Germany in response to the invasion of Poland so they were already in a state of hostilities. The British and French just didn't do anything tangible besides some small skirmishes along the border.

 Vulcan wrote:

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
So, does anyone else think that the leaders of France and england honestly believed Hitler was posturing and saber rattling to rebuild germany's economy after ww1 and its disastrous treaty and really believed no one could possibly want a repeat of ww1?

I think they really really hoped and wanted it to be that way, and like many politicians they allowed that desire to distort that view of reality... right up to the point where it bit them on the backside.

I'm not even sure if it was the politicians or the constituents who voted for them, and hence they were trying to represent. I think the populations of France and England had no stomach for more war at that moment in time.

 Easy E wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
So, does anyone else think that the leaders of France and england honestly believed Hitler was posturing and saber rattling to rebuild germany's economy after ww1 and its disastrous treaty and really believed no one could possibly want a repeat of ww1?

I think they really really hoped and wanted it to be that way, and like many politicians they allowed that desire to distort that view of reality... right up to the point where it bit them on the backside.

I'm not even sure if it was the politicians or the constituents who voted for them, and hence they were trying to represent. I think the populations of France and England had no stomach for more war at that moment in time.

You know you raise an excellent point. The poeople of france and england had had enough of war for a while.

Sadly what happened in germany was basically this:

In light of current events that's positively terrifying.

I don't know how much you know about the french situation in the Interwar time, especially the problem of the politisation of the officer korps, since both the communits aswell as the parties tried to gain the influence since both feared an agitation /civil war.
Ergo they both were vying for the controll of the military.

France and Britain were stupid for declaring war over Poland. Poland was stupid in believing they would help.

No, I don't think France or England were stupid or weak. It's always very easy to unfairly judge the people who call the shots when you have the advantage of hindsight. I think things are seldom as apparent as historians make them seem to be.

For one, France and Britain didn't put up a unified front when it came to enforcing the Versailles Treaty. France was quite adamant about sticking to the letter, but in Britain there was a good deal of sympathy for the Germans not just from the government but also the public. They felt that the treaty had gone too far and as a result were much more lenient when the Nazis violated the terms. This was a big reason why Chamberlain didn't seriously challenge Hitler over the Anschluss or for annexing the Sudetenland. It was seen as Germany recovering territory that rightfully belonged to it anyway.

For another, I think war weariness is a very easy thing to overlook when we start pointing fingers on this subject. World War 1 was incredibly costly to all its combatants, not just in terms of lives lost but the actual material costs as well. After four years of fighting there was little the victorious nations had to show for it, and no one wanted to go down that road again. I think appeasement in the name of keeping the peace was a very understandable policy for the big wigs of this era, all of whom would have remembered the last great war that rocked the continent.

I think people also don't take into account just how uncanny Hitler's intuition was in the early years of the war. He was a prolific opportunist who knew how to read his adversaries, and he used this to his advantage repeatedly in the late 30s. He knew what he wanted and gambled, quite successfully I might add, on that intuition until he eventually bit off more than he could chew. It's easy to slag him for the genocide, the bone headed decisions that came later, or how vile and repulsive his ideology was, and he SHOULD be slagged for that, but he was also very clever and insightful. Perhaps most importantly, he had the audacity to pursue his warped ambitions.

So in conclusion, no, I don't think France or England were stupid or weak. I think they had very justifiable reluctance to settle their differences with Germany through war, I think their differing stances on the Versailles Treaty sapped their alliance of any real power, and I think many reasonable people in their position would have pursued appeasement just as vociferously as they did.

Ultimately, infant Eastern European countries with large German populations weren't really worth British and French blood. Then, Germany reached a sort of critical mass, where it was clear that this type of thing was going to be a pattern and not the occasional one-off.

Churchill was so terrified that his army wasn't up to snuff that he sent them on what was effectively a preseason training camp in North Africa (while the Red Army got on with the business at hand), where Rommel ran rings around them for the majority of the campaign.

The French government was in disarray between the wars and Gamelin's military plans took no account of reality.

If 'stupid' is synonymous with 'naive' for present purposes, then it's perfectly possible to argue that yes, Britain and France were stupid and weak between the wars, without relying too much on hindsight.

 Peregrine wrote:


Also, no, the Maginot line was not a disaster.

France was defeated in 6 weeks making it an unmitigated disaster

 Peregrine wrote:


It functioned exactly as it was intended to, forcing the attack into a chosen area where it was very likely to be defeated (and probably would have been, if France had responded immediately and with better knowledge of how fast the German advance was going to be). Its only failure was that political issues prevented it from being completed to its full intended length.

Plans often don't survive contact with the enemy.

Static defenses are a good force multiplier, but they forfeit the initiative to the enemy.

The failure on a politic level happened because the line was dependent on politics to remain effective therefore the entire nation defences of France was dependent on politics and the decisions of other nations. That's such a bad idea at it's core the net result was France being defeated in 6 weeks.

The worst crime of the Maginot line was creating a false sense of security. If the France didn't think it would have worked then they would have modernized their army and would have been as good or better than the Germans. Failing to do so meant they were not capable of going into a real offensive during the Nazi invasion leading to the 8 month phony war. If France kept up with Germany they could have attacked Germany during the invasion of Poland.

Hindsight is 2020 but we have to call a catastrophic mistake a catastrophic mistake.

 schadenfreude wrote:
France was defeated in 6 weeks making it an unmitigated disaster

And? The question is not whether or not France lost the war, it's about the Maginot line in specific. And the Maginot line was not a disaster, it worked exactly as it was intended to.

Static defenses are a good force multiplier, but they forfeit the initiative to the enemy.

Uh, no. The entire point of the Maginot line and why it was a success is that it put an absolute lock on the initiative. Germany had exactly one possible invasion route, chosen specifically to be through terrain as unfavorable as possible for an invasion. They could either fight on France's terms, or not fight at all. And they did exactly that.

The worst crime of the Maginot line was creating a false sense of security. If the France didn't think it would have worked then they would have modernized their army and would have been as good or better than the Germans. Failing to do so meant they were not capable of going into a real offensive during the Nazi invasion leading to the 8 month phony war. If France kept up with Germany they could have attacked Germany during the invasion of Poland.

And yet, for all that "false security", France still should have won the war. The Maginot line funneled the attack right into favorable terrain for France, they simply failed to respond fast enough once the invasion started and missed their shot at defeating it on that chosen ground. A faster reaction to the initial attack could have crushed it. A better understanding of how fast tanks could move over that terrain could have placed a stronger initial defense in position to stop them. The mistake was not the Maginot line, it was elsewhere.

Also, talking about invading Germany preemptively is completely ignoring the political situation. France wasn't going to invade, regardless of the state of their army.

France formally declared was on Germany 2 days after they rolled into Poland and then sat on their ass for 8 months. That's completely ceding when the fighting starts and thus ceding the initiative and only reacting to the other side. It totally forfeited action for reaction and made France completely predictable.

Attacking Germany would have put them in the nightmare scenario that they feared before WW1. Germany was not set up to fight a 2 front war in 39.

None of that has anything to do with the Maginot line.

Excommunicatus wrote:Churchill was so terrified that his army wasn't up to snuff that he sent them on what was effectively a preseason training camp in North Africa (while the Red Army got on with the business at hand), where Rommel ran rings around them for the majority of the campaign.

The French government was in disarray between the wars and Gamelin's military plans took no account of reality.

If 'stupid' is synonymous with 'naive' for present purposes, then it's perfectly possible to argue that yes, Britain and France were stupid and weak between the wars, without relying too much on hindsight.

For someone who complains about history memes its really quite hypocritical for you then to post such utter drivel.

schadenfreude wrote:France formally declared was on Germany 2 days after they rolled into Poland and then sat on their ass for 8 months. That's completely ceding when the fighting starts and thus ceding the initiative and only reacting to the other side. It totally forfeited action for reaction and made France completely predictable.

Attacking Germany would have put them in the nightmare scenario that they feared before WW1. Germany was not set up to fight a 2 front war in 39.

France did invade Germany in '39, they made a hash of it.

The French offensive in 39 was half assed and only lasted 8 days.

The idea of the Maginot line was a good idea in the same way that Churchill's idea of Gallipoli was a good idea. The original idea was to force the straight with obsolete ships because they were not doing anything constructive, were sucking up resources, and were expendable. Well worth the sacrifice if it gets Greece into the war. Next thing you know they land troops to save expendable ships and it turns into a total gak storm.

The big problem with the Maginot line is it would have been just as effective at 10% of it's cost, or maybe even 1%. A German invasion would have still followed the path of least resistance while all of that money and resources could have been funneled into modernization of their army and aircraft.

In both cases they took a good idea and ran too far with it until it became a bad idea.

France already had arguably the best tanks in the world. Deficient army doctrine is not something you solve by throwing money at the problem until it goes away.

 ingtaer wrote:

Excommunicatus wrote:Churchill was so terrified that his army wasn't up to snuff that he sent them on what was effectively a preseason training camp in North Africa (while the Red Army got on with the business at hand), where Rommel ran rings around them for the majority of the campaign.

The French government was in disarray between the wars and Gamelin's military plans took no account of reality.

If 'stupid' is synonymous with 'naive' for present purposes, then it's perfectly possible to argue that yes, Britain and France were stupid and weak between the wars, without relying too much on hindsight.

For someone who complains about history memes its really quite hypocritical for you then to post such utter drivel.
.

Which part of it is wrong, my love?

The Maginot line was fine. The problem was that the French didn’t build it all the way to the sea. They assumed the Germans would never invade the weak Benelux and just bypass the line.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Churchill was so terrified that his army wasn't up to snuff that he sent them on what was effectively a preseason training camp in North Africa (while the Red Army got on with the business at hand), where Rommel ran rings around them for the majority of the campaign.

The French government was in disarray between the wars and Gamelin's military plans took no account of reality.

If 'stupid' is synonymous with 'naive' for present purposes, then it's perfectly possible to argue that yes, Britain and France were stupid and weak between the wars, without relying too much on hindsight.

while you're not technically wrong, the first part of your point doesnt really give evidence to the rest of your statement. Once the war had started, and France had fallen, Churchill was smart to resist US pushes for a European invasion. He realised that British forces were outdated in their tactics compared to the German Blitzkrieg, and weren't ready for the seaborne assaults and maneuver warfare that an invasion of NW Europe wouldve required.

It is meant to - and does - support the point that it is possible to argue that Britain was "weak" "pre-WW2". You tacitly agree that North Africa was essentially a training camp and that the army wasn't fit for purpose.

If you want to debate the finer points of Churchill's disastrous adventurism and Imperialist instincts, start a thread for it.

Churchill didnt become prime minister until the war was already underway.

But I can see from your posts that you're probably more likely to engage in diversionary statements and silly condescensions rather than engaging in a proper debate, so I'm happy to just call this here.

Right. At which point the army wasn't up to it.

A state of affairs that didn't develop overnight and required the army to go on a training camp.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Churchill was so terrified that his army wasn't up to snuff that he sent them on what was effectively a preseason training camp in North Africa (while the Red Army got on with the business at hand), where Rommel ran rings around them for the majority of the campaign.

You say this as if Churchill deliberately instigated a conflict in North Africa, but that isn't the case at all. War came to him. The Italians attacked Egypt, there was no choice but to respond.

Do I even need to point out that's a strawman you've raised just to knock down again?

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Do I even need to point out that's a strawman you've raised just to knock down again?

Um... what?

 Excommunicatus wrote:

 ingtaer wrote:

Excommunicatus wrote:Churchill was so terrified that his army wasn't up to snuff that he sent them on what was effectively a preseason training camp in North Africa (while the Red Army got on with the business at hand), where Rommel ran rings around them for the majority of the campaign.

The French government was in disarray between the wars and Gamelin's military plans took no account of reality.

If 'stupid' is synonymous with 'naive' for present purposes, then it's perfectly possible to argue that yes, Britain and France were stupid and weak between the wars, without relying too much on hindsight.

For someone who complains about history memes its really quite hypocritical for you then to post such utter drivel.
.

Which part of it is wrong, my love?

The first paragraph in its entirety, Honey. Churchill wasn't PM at the start of the war, the Soviets were not in the war until 2 years later and Rommel wasn't in the desert until about then. Even then the British desert army consisted of units assigned to the defence of the client state of Egypt (or occupy them depending upon how you look at it) and more specifically the Canal. The Italians invaded and the tiny British army of the desert kicked the crap out of them taking thousands of prisoners.
Whilst "the Red Army got on at the business at hand" Britain had won the battle of Britain, had pinned the German surface navy to its ports, twice got involved in France, in Greece, in Norway, had annexed Iceland, Persia, Syria and Madagascar.
By the time the Soviets had turned the tide at Stalingrad the British were fighting the Japanese in the ADBA front, had defeated Vichy (in conjunction with the Germans) gaining all of French North Africa with its garrison army, as well as French West Africa and were driving the German/Italian army out of the desert into Tunisia where they eventually surrendered netting as many prisoners as the Soviets had captured as well as destroying a substantial portion of the German Air Force and sinking over half of the Axis merchant fleet.
And all the time they were fighting the battle of the Atlantic, running supplies to the Soviets (both in P.Q convoys and along the Persian Railway), engaging in commando operations and last and certainly not least flattening German industries and civilian infrastructure by bombing.
Edit; Clean forgot the whole war in East Africa, where the British liberated Ethiopia and conquered Italian Somalia.

 Grey Templar wrote:
The Maginot line was fine. The problem was that the French didn’t build it all the way to the sea. They assumed the Germans would never invade the weak Benelux and just bypass the line.

Which was pretty stupid of the French at the time, since in WWI the German's did exactly that. The certainty that was held by Allied commanders that the same course of events wouldn't repeat has always baffled me.