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What has happened to France?

Really.
Back when those photos were taken, the French were tough bastards. And you can tell too.

And religious.
Note the priests (in uniform!) and the nuns.

That was during a terrible war, but those people look defiant, not defeated. Not at all.

That was 90 years ago, two generations. My grandfather fought in World War I.

Look at how far France has fallen!
Look at how quickly moral rot from within completely unhinged a great nation.

I tell you, those men in those photos kicked the German's asses. They were outnumbered but they fought and won. They were as fine as any troops in the world.

They do not look different from Americans, really, except for the officers photo, where they look like they're ready to mount horses for a cavalry charge.

How the mighty are fallen, in such a short time.
But WHY?
What made France fall from those guys in those photos that you would want on your side, and that nobody wanted to mess with, to the weak and feeble state that France is today?
Moral decay.
Rot from within.
The worm in the wood.

It makes you weep.
And when you see it in color, it looks more real, and close to us. What separated the poilus of my grandfather's generation from the effeminate France of today?
The loss of standards. Moral fatigue and collapse.
It happened there.
It wants to happen here.
No one is immune.

Back when those photos were taken, the French were tough bastards.

True.

those men in those photos kicked the German's asses. They were outnumbered but they fought and won.

Okay, let's not go to the other extreme. Both sides were tough and "kicked ass." But the Germans simultaneously fought the British and French on the West, and Russia on the East, so I don't know if the Germans outnumbered anyone.

And a Frenchman analyzed the causes, in 1940. It was no mystery.

Marc Bloch, "Strange Defeat".

http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/spring99/strangedefeat.htm

M. Bloch was shot by the Gestapo in 1944 while working for the resistance.

Even Petain, he of Vichy, said it was due to a moral collapse.

See my post 110.

What happened to the French is that their political leaders and incompetent generals got most of their brave young men killed. What was left reproduced, giving you the French of today.

Pity. To a lesser extent, the same thing happened to the British.

The French were very tough soldiers, especially during WWI. It was a major emphasis to build an army of high valor and toughness prior to the Great War.

Unfortunately this toughness was frittered away by poor leadership and the idea that this toughness was a substitute for good weapons, organization and such trivialities as food and clothing. By 1917, many French units were near mutiny, the slaughter was just too much. How the "rebellion" was put down is hush-hush, but the subversives were weeded out and dealt with.

Marshall Petain was instrumental in reestablishing order, he was of course the hero of Verdun and a key general. After the war the French military really never recovered and were fodder for the Germans in 1940 during round 2.

Petain's history is fascinating, WWI hero, Vichy leader, Nazi collaborator, tried in his 90s and sentenced to death for this collaboration, sentence commuted and he died a disgraced man. Classic French stab in the back, although cannot say Petain deserved much else.

I rarely agree with you, but you are absolutely right in this whole post. It has got to suck to have had French Grandparents who sacked up in WWI on behalf of what the country has become now.

'It happened there.
It wants to happen here.
No one is immune. '

Well said.