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 djones520 wrote:
France got steam rolled in WW1, but the Germans, on the cusp of victory took a wrong left turn, and it opened up a gap that let the British and some French elements punch through. The Germans had to fall back, and so the stalemate started.

In addition, at the end of the war, no Germany territory was in French hands, while the Germans still controlled territory in France.

 Hordini wrote:
It was more than just France vs. Germany, but note that I also said arguably.

But as far as France is concerned, it was mostly against Germany, no?

Never questioned the quality of French troops in WW1 or WW2, the issue was more that the generals/leaders who made the strategies used ways that were out of time.

Interesting article especially on the puritanical views.

Weapon technology was more advance then the strategy/tactics used on the battlefield.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Never questioned the quality of French troops in WW1 or WW2, the issue was more that the generals/leaders who made the strategies used ways that were out of time.

Interesting article especially on the puritanical views.

Yeah, that is a given. Both the French and German soldiers were superb. It was the leadership that made the difference. Much like the war that followed a couple decades later, the Germans were definitely an echelon above in leadership and tactics. The French soldiers though, they fought valiently, if not vainly.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Never questioned the quality of French troops in WW1 or WW2, the issue was more that the generals/leaders who made the strategies used ways that were out of time.

Interesting article especially on the puritanical views.

And even then, there were a small number of "excellent" generals from France. Much of the reading that I've done on the subject seems to point much more at the civilian politics of the time hamstringing the military much more than the military itself... .And even then, I use the term civilian politics because some of the generals were so far entrenched into "regular" politics that they couldn't see the barrel of a rifle for what it was.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
It was more than just France vs. Germany, but note that I also said arguably.

But as far as France is concerned, it was mostly against Germany, no?

Yes, for the most part. A contest the French didn't fair particularly well in.

 Hordini wrote:
I'm not 100% certain, because I'm not very familiar with that specific field manual, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say I'm pretty sure that's false. Reason being, the US Military actually has a lot of COIN and guerrilla warfare related doctrine that has been written over the years, much of which predates the Waffen-SS, particularly the Marine Corps Small Wars manual. Judging by that, as well as the terror tactics used by the SS, I don't think that has much to do with American COIN doctrine.

It would have to be false. Even ignoring the brutality of the SS, the organisation was also highly inconsistent and reactive, traits that no modern military would want to embrace in dealing with a counter insurgency.

I mean, when developing policy, who would look to the idiots that managed to make people want to go back to Stalin, and copy anything they did?

 djones520 wrote:
France got steam rolled in WW1, but the Germans, on the cusp of victory took a wrong left turn, and it opened up a gap that let the British and some French elements punch through. The Germans had to fall back, and so the stalemate started.

Wrong turn? The Germans were marching straight at Paris (thanks to the terrible Plan XVII and poor French offensive doctrine). They were stopped at Marne because the French did brilliantly in rapidly assembling an army to stop them, and because French heavy artillery finally game to the party.


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 Jihadin wrote:
Weapon technology was more advance then the strategy/tactics used on the battlefield.

Tactics on the field evolved constantly, and were actually quite sophisticated and varied. By the end of the war German infiltration tactics and British combined arms operations were actually pretty impressive, especially considering the limited communication tech.

And that's actually the big issue - communication tech. Armies had exploded in size in a few years, but the tech to co-ordinate those armies had barely progressed at all. Fixed line telephones are great, but only on the defensive - forward units relying on runners and signal flags were pretty dodgy, and that frequently resulted in commanders being fed wrong information about the success of various attacks.

Well, and the you add in the ability of the defender to rapidly move reserves by train, while the attacker is stuck with footslogging, and you realise why most offensives petered out fairly quickly.


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 Hordini wrote:
In addition, at the end of the war, no Germany territory was in French hands, while the Germans still controlled territory in France.

But that's meaningless. Germany lost. They could have been in the outer suburbs of Paris for all it mattered, because they signed on the bottom line admitting they were to blame, they got to watch their country get cut up and have bits of its handed out to other countries, and pay reparations for the next generation. That's losing.


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 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
And even then, there were a small number of "excellent" generals from France. Much of the reading that I've done on the subject seems to point much more at the civilian politics of the time hamstringing the military much more than the military itself... .And even then, I use the term civilian politics because some of the generals were so far entrenched into "regular" politics that they couldn't see the barrel of a rifle for what it was.

Petain seems to me a character that really defines France in WWI and WWII. In WWI he did what was needed to keep France in the war, and fed troops as needed in to the meatgrinder at Verdun, won the operation and all but ensured Germany would have to lose the war of attrition.

But come WWII, as he was promoted in to the war cabinet as the disaster snowballed, the same fight wasn't there. It was a much more hopeless position, for sure, but it seemed that idea that came out of Verdun after the battle, that France had done that once and never again, had actually crept in to the mind of the chief saviour of Verdun.

The American army is awesome and I like them.
There, I have said it. Now they are going to kill me back home.


Also, to the French, every foreign military must seem really impressive, because you know, they are French.

 paulson games wrote:
I visited France back when I was in high school and I found that I was a couple inches taller than most of the people I met (not towering but a bit taller) I was also into a fair amount of sports at the times so I was in good shape and had far more muscular build. I was invited to a track meet and left them in the dust. When I'm at home I was basically average height and running ability, due to practicing martial arts at the time I was really strong but not bulky. I'm 5"10 while most of my friends are in the 6ft range with a couple being 6'2-6'4 (and were marines)

While I didn't tower over people I felt like I had a much larger physical presence than the average french person, this was also compounded by the fact that so many items like doors and beds are much smaller there as many of the building are centuries old and built for people who were even shorter at that period, it was a bit odd.

In Europe and Asia I am the perfect height and size lol
It's here I am tiny...(makes sense I am part of the first generation of my family to be born here and not Europe)

 sebster wrote:

But that's meaningless. Germany lost. They could have been in the outer suburbs of Paris for all it mattered, because they signed on the bottom line admitting they were to blame, they got to watch their country get cut up and have bits of its handed out to other countries, and pay reparations for the next generation. That's losing.

It's absolutely not meaningless. That very fact helped fuel the Dolchstoßlegende which had a huge impact on the disgruntled WWI veterans who later joined the various Freikorps and other groups that contributed to the rise of Nazism, such as the SA. It doesn't mean Germany didn't lose WWI - they did. It also doesn't mean that the French military performed particularly well - they often didn't, which led to Germany taking and holding French territory until the end of the war. But to say that it's meaningless is only accurate if you see war as a zero sum game of win/loss ratios, which it is not. Germany holding French territory at the end of WWI, with no German territory in French hands contributed directly to the rise of the Nazis and the start of the second world war.

 Hordini wrote:
It's absolutely not meaningless. That very fact helped fuel the Dolchstoßlegende which had a huge impact on the disgruntled WWI veterans who later joined the various Freikorps and other groups that contributed to the rise of Nazism, such as the SA. It doesn't mean Germany didn't lose WWI - they did. It also doesn't mean that the French military performed particularly well - they often didn't, which led to Germany taking and holding French territory until the end of the war. But to say that it's meaningless is only accurate if you see war as a zero sum game of win/loss ratios, which it is not. Germany holding French territory at the end of WWI, with no German territory in French hands contributed directly to the rise of the Nazis and the start of the second world war.

First up, I'm not looking to claim the French performance in WWI was equal to the Germans - it wasn't. France won because they had better allies and British control of the sea. Their own performance was, well, 'good enough'.

My point is that where the front lines were when the war was concluded is meaningless. It was was fought in France because Germany mobilised faster and fought better in the early, mobile stages of the war. From there, both sides realised they were facing an attritional war then the capture of any ground was meaningless. Look at the German strategic objectives for Verdun - kill 3 Frenchmen for every 2 Germans lost. Consider the British objective for the Somme - kill more Germans than British are lost. The actual capturing of ground was not prioritised because that wasn't how the war was going to be won.

You are right that German vets used the fact that the war concluded while they were still in France as evidence of betrayal from political masters... but the point is that the vets were wrong, Germany's military and economic capacity was spent, no matter who's country the front line was in.

This may be a semantic argument, in how we see the use of the word 'meaningless'. Consider 9/11 Truthers - they have meaning in that they exist and have political relevance (though nothing like the political relevance of the post WWI situation), so that is meaning in the sense that I think you're using the term. But their arguments are meaningless in that they have no sensible basis, they are fundamentally mistaken, and so are meaningless in the way I have used the word.

What do you think?