Posted on 07/22/2017 9:06:51 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Around 30,000 French troops held back Nazi divisions near the city of Lille to protect their allies during the evacuation code-named Operation Dynamo.
Renowned French film critic Jacques Mandelbaum called Nolan "witheringly impolite" and slammed the director's "deplorable indifference" towards his country's contribution to the epic evacuation.
"Where in the film are the 120,000 French soldiers who were also evacuated from Dunkirk? Where are the 40,000 who sacrificed themselves to defend the city against a superior enemy in weaponry and numbers?" he asked in his review in French newspaper Le Monde.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibtimes.co.uk ...
Roosevelt was a disciple of Woodrow Wilson and was willing to pay any price to have a League of Nat...err United Nations with the United States and the Soviets in it.
He also saw the British Empire as an oppressive relic. He wasn't far off.
“Charlene de Gaulle.
Maxine Weygand
Marine Gamelin”
Hah! Darn clever.
As an American I have to laugh at tales of British “heroism” over Dunkirk. They all would have been POWs or dead had it not been for Hitler’s unfathomable stupidity in stopping the Wehrmacht from capturing them. And the 30,000 French troops they claim were “pivotal” were nothing of the kind.
>As an American I have to laugh at tales of British “heroism” over Dunkirk. They all would have been POWs or dead had it not been for Hitler’s unfathomable stupidity in stopping the Wehrmacht from capturing them. And the 30,000 French troops they claim were “pivotal” were nothing of the kind.
Actually once the British built up the defenses at Dunkirk there was a pretty hard fought defense going on there by the French and the British. The heroism was all the small boat with mostly volunteer crews that sailed in to pickup the men from the beaches. Those craft had no defenses against air attacks and were easy prey for German Air force. As well as the RAF capture of air supremacy over Dunkirk that made the evacuation possible at all.
However, you are correct that it was Hitler who prevented the Panzers from taking Dunkirk. There were halted 10 miles away from the port at a time where there we no defenses of the port and very few troops protecting it.
Hitler was still holding out some hope for a Peace Treaty with Britain and potential support from Britain when Germany invaded Russia, which probably explains why Hitler didn’t necessarily want to go in for the kill at the time.
The vast majority of French soldiers evacuated to England were brought back to France to engage the Germans.
They were begged to stay and form up another army to fight another day and some did - but most insisted on returning to fight. That they did and most were POWs by the end of the battle with the Germans. - or killed in action.
French leadership was not much to brag about.
Munich and Chamberlain in 38' was a strategic disaster for the Germans.
The Brits simply no longer believed any deal negotiated by the Germans and refused to go to the table.
And by Autumn 1940, at the height of the Battle of Britain, the Brits realized the danger of a German invasion was over and sent every tank they had to Egypt for Operation Compass.
Too bad. I’d hoped for so much more, especially from Nolan.
Germans lost 400,000 at Stalingrad, Italians 114,000, Romanians 109,000, Hungarians 105,000.
A catastrophe like that isn’t propaganda.
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The German losses at Stalingrad almost equal to the total American losses in WWII on all fronts during the entire war.
Actually, I know the French have a long list of historical battles that they won and won against terrible odds. And you are right, their leadership has failed them, both past and present.
The humor I expressed in this thread, was just that, humor. Humor very seldom is completely truthful.
Think I’ll re-watch Valkyrie and Inglorious Basterds tonight.
If you have Netflix, try 'My Honor Was Loyalty'.
It's a German 'Band of Brothers' that takes place on the Russian front.
It has subtitles. You know they wouldn't make a program like that on this side of the Atlantic.
Even the battle of Kursk was well on it’s way to being a Germany victory before Hitler halted it due to the invasion of Italy and troops were stripped from the eastern front to protect Italy and the Balkans.
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The battle Of Kursk was going to be huge defeat for the Germans regardless of how many troops Hitler sent to Italy. They were outnumbered, outgunned and Zhukov knew the German plans.
Thanks for the tip. I saw the Curious Case of Benjamin Button (9 years late) and the sub-ramming scene was quite emotional. Film’s worth it for just that one 2-minute sequence.
I was very diappointed in the movie. Amateur photography.
No storyline. The cut from scene to scene was not believable.
For example, The people on the boat are at high noon.
Then the next scene is on the beach pitch dark nighttime.
I hope someone remakes it. The story of Dunkirk has the
potential to be a Saving Private Ryan.
Despite lousy fighters and worse antiaircraft guns, the French managed to down and capture hundreds of German pilots.
Brits begged the French to turn them over so they could go to POW camps in Canada.
The French refused. They were hoping to use them to negotiate the release of French POW's. Of course French POW's remained in captivity until 45'.
Those German pilots went on to fight on in the Battle of Britain and beyond.
After reading your review I would suggest that you see this-———I saw it in in May——and loved it-———it’s about the making of a Dunkirk movie.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/their_finest_2017/
sick and tired of the French bashing. he British generals cut and ran for the beaches after the French premier said France had lost. In doing so they stranded the Belgium army as well. The French lost more troops after Dunkirk than before. Napoleon only conquered all of Europe but i guess he wasn't French, but Corsican. The French navy was instrumental in the British defeat at Yorktown. In WW1 the French generals learned quicker than the British ones. Just ask any Canadian about Vimy and Passchendaele, or Dieppe in'42. The French have a large presence in Africa today. They are all over central Africa. The French army, like the French people, were betrayed by their politicians. Unlike the Russians, they did not have the time and distance necessary to learn how to defeat the Wehrmacht. Flame away.
Too funny
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