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 ...
There is a a very brief scene in Band of Brothers where German POWs are being murdered by the side of the road by French troops.
I hadn’t thought much about the French in the latter years of WW2, so I did a bit of research. From what I’ve read, German POWs were horribly treated by the French, and as referenced in Band of Brothers, frequently murdered. Thousands more were sent to Vietnam to fight France’s war. And considering the existence of Vichy France, and that the French African garrisons usually fought against the allies (this was often for different, frequently justifiable reasons, but the fact remains), and that an unknown, but certainly in the tens of thousands, number of French women married German soldiers, there is something ridiculous about the savage reprisals the surrendering French took on German soldiers AFTER the United States bailed France out (for the 2nd time). I recall an old fable about terriers biting and ripping a lion after it had been fatally wounded by wolfhounds.
The French fought bravely at the start of the war, and obviously the occupation of France was not a pleasant time for the French, but more than plenty of them were happy to cooperate for one reason or another once the Nazis were in charge.
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I object to ALL of it! Obviously you have been influenced by the attempt to make the Germans the poor innocent victims and shift the blame for wartime atrocities to the French. As I said, you should do more research in order to perhaps comprehend the whole picture. To begin with, Germany invaded France three times within one man’s lifetime; The Franco Prussian war 1871 in which they claimed Alsace and part of Lorraine in the Frankfort Treaty, World War I in which 6 out of ten FRENCH young men between the ages of 18-28 died or were permanently maimed, 73% of the men mobilized were casualties, 1,357,000 dead, 4,266,000 wounded (1.5 million permanently maimed)out of a civilian population of 40 million was a cross the French still bear. They reclaimed Alsace-Lorraine only to have Hitler reclaim it at the beginning of WW II.
It infuriates me to see the idiots ranting about the “Surrender Monkeys” when thy have no conception of the losses suffered by France due to German aggression. In WW II look up the Malmedy Massacre in which 84 AMERICAN POW’s were massacred in a series of killings by the Kampfgruppe Peiper 1st SS Panzer Division. Part of the Dachau Trials of 1946 dealt with the Malmedy Massacres. Then you might research the murder of 642 civilians, men, women, and children, an entire village, Oradour sur Glane in Haute-Vienne, on June 10, 1944 by the 2nd Panzer Division’s Das Reich. The men were herded into a barn (garage ?) and machine gunned, the women and children were herded into the church which the Germans then set on fire. The town was destroyed and its citizens wiped out. I’ve been there to see the ruins and the museum. The French suffered other atrocities like this which you will find if you do some research. As for your claim that the French garrisons in North Africa fought against the Allies, it is true that some of them defended until Admiral Darlan cooperated with the Allies not long after the invasion. You should do some research on the secret mission to North Africa by General Mark Clark in which several high ranking French cooperated with the Allies in providing landing sites, defensive strength and numerous other details which were very effective in saving lives during the initial landings of Operation Torch.
Your concept of German innocence needs some severe readjustment. I hope you do some more research for your own enlightenment.
The French were in the war for what, a month and a half?
Most kids don’t know where Dukirk is, what happened there, or why.
Adding the French to the story would just confuse the Millenials.
In the first Gulf War, the French made a magnificent sweep that nailed Saddam’s “elite.”
Could be or maybe just artistic license?
Well, actually there were some French who landed at Normandy, but that is beside the point. Eisenhower was talking about the vulnerability of the Normandy landings in the first few days and the disaster that could have occurred had the 2nd Panzer Division, Das Reich, succeeded in reaching Normandy within three days which would have been normal. Due to the French Resistance it took fragments of Das Reich between a week and three weeks to reach Normandy by which time the Allies were well entrenched. Rommel had said, “The war will be won, or lost, on the beaches.” He was correct.
Das Reich was badly beaten up when they arrived having been constantly harassed and attacked by the Resistance. Bridges had been blown up, rail lines designed to transport the troops and tanks destroyed, ambushes everywhere, roads blocked by fallen trees, and even the destruction of the telephone connection between the sub pens and the interior. Havoc was the word of the day according to my husband who was part of it all.
While I agree the French tend to get short shrift in American historical interpretation, I must take some issue withe your interpretations of German history.The Reasons for the Franco-Prussian war go deeper than German Imperialism. Germany, at the time, was made up of a plethora of individual duchies, principalities, city states etc. the largest of which was Prussia. Germany’s traditional role in Europe was to serve as a battlefield for Russia, Austria and France. When Bismark came to power as Prussian Chancellor he wanted to change the situation. He engineered wars with Denmark, Austria and France so as to take advantage of a preexisting pan-German desire for unity. (By the way, in 1870 it was the French who declared war on the Prussians.) In the years leading up to the German unification France had, on occasion, bullied the various German states to exert her will and to keep the Germans from becoming a powerful rival. The “appropriation” of Alsace and Lorraine (Elsass and Lothringen) just continued a back and forth for these provinces that had been taking place since the death of Charlemagne (Karl der Grosse). The people there, even today, are ethnically German but view themselves as French. Bismark was help along by the French Emperor Napoleon III, who, Like Wilhelm II later on was intelligent, but a pompous oaf with dreams of grandeur. As to the unbending militarism of Prussia, that is a myth. In the middle 18th century Prussia was the most liberal state on the continent, and was still not the horror Germany would later become even up to the end of WWI. As to WWI, it was a series of blunders by Wilhelm II, and political maneuvers by Russia, Serbia, Austria and France that led to that catastrophe. Wilhelm II had pretty much used up any good will in the international community by 1914 by shooting of his mouth at every opportunity, and by wanting an ocean full of toy boats (”his” fleet). The Serbs wanted to push the Austrians out of the Balkans, not out of any sense of idealism, but so that they could take over. So Serbia sponsored the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne. Wilhelm told Austria he would back whatever decision was made and left on vacation. The Austrians saw this as an opportunity to destroy Serbia and issued some very intrusive demands. The Russians were pleased by this because they wanted hegemony in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, so the tried to steer things toward war (they felt it was time to deal with Austria once and for all.) The Germans played right into the Russian hands. They mobilized their forces in response to Russian mobilization, which was in response to Austrian mobilization. As the Russians were allied with the French, the Germans had only one mobilization plan, for war against both. (Great military minds my fuzzy buttocks). It was, of course, a “France first” plan which made no allowances for a war only in the east. When France mobilized, Germany made a few demands to insure France would stay out of any war with Russia. The demands were insulting and overbearing and of course France refused. Not that the French had any intention of sitting it out, since 1871 their foreign policy was one of revenge (revanche). Of the initial participants only Germany and Belgium entered the war without any clearly defined war aims, and Belgium hadn’t intended to enter at all, Germany’s idiotic war plans forced it on them. After WWI and the great stupidity at Versailles I have no defence for the evil that enveloped a once great and cultured nation, but I did have to speak to your simplistic view of German history before that. Study of the Causes of WWI has come a long way since “The Guns of August” thanks in no small part to the fall of the USSR and the opening of Russian archives.
I think I’ll skip this one. Thanks, LS.
You may consider my views as simplistic. That is your opinion. I strongly doubt you have spent the hours, days, and years I have studying the Franco-Prussian War, World War I and World War II on the battle sites and in the archives in France, Belgium and Luxembourg. I consider your views simplistic and German oriented. So we are even. As far as the Versailles Treaty is concerned, it should have been enforced! Germany should never have been allowed to rebuild its military!
Obviously I have more faith in the future of Western Culture than you do. Perhaps your pro German sentiment colors your interpretation of history.
The Franco-Prussian War was clearly provoked by Bismarck. France declared war in hopes of maintaining the balance of powers in Europe. Bismarck had other ideas seeking unification of the German states under Prussian rule. and invaded northeastern France very quickly. Unfortunately the French were ill prepared for the onslaught. Bismarck succeeded in unifying Germany and the civilized world (particularly France)suffered the consequences for the next 74 years.
Since Germany under Merkel opened the doors to the destruction of western Europe, I would not be too proud of the Germans if I were you.
>Well, actually there were some French who landed at Normandy, but that is beside the point. Eisenhower was talking about the vulnerability of the Normandy landings in the first few days and the disaster that could have occurred had the 2nd Panzer Division, Das Reich, succeeded in reaching Normandy within three days which would have been normal. Due to the French Resistance it took fragments of Das Reich between a week and three weeks to reach Normandy by which time the Allies were well entrenched. Rommel had said, “The war will be won, or lost, on the beaches.” He was correct.
>Das Reich was badly beaten up when they arrived having been constantly harassed and attacked by the Resistance. Bridges had been blown up, rail lines designed to transport the troops and tanks destroyed, ambushes everywhere, roads blocked by fallen trees, and even the destruction of the telephone connection between the sub pens and the interior. Havoc was the word of the day according to my husband who was part of it all.
I think you’ll been reading resistance propaganda stories. There was big effort to play up the french resistance during and after the war. Honest studies of French resistance has shown it be quite weak and not very productive compared to Norway or Poland.
I’ve read multiple German sources on Normandy and they don’t even mention the French resistance being a factor.
You are correct that the Panzer divisions were chewed up by the time they got close to the beachhead but this was due to allied fighter bombers. The German army found it was impossible to move by day because allied fighter bombers were hitting anything that moved everywhere in the Normandy area. Every single road,rail, and river was being hit over and over again. It frustrated German leadership to no end and it’s something that Rommel predicted would happen based on his experiences in North Africa.
That guy is just as bad as the one demanding more French or minorities or women. One of the best things about the movie is the tight focus on just a few characters who were actually experiencing things. A scene of Churchill in an office in London would have ruined the whole tone of the thing and taken you off the beach.
Make that Scotch Single Malt and you’re on.(Big Smile) I enjoy these kind of exchanges and abhor the ignorants who think it’s funny to constantly slam the French. History is fascinating when it is discussed intelligently. Unfortunately too few are interested in today’s push button world. I’ll be in France soon to enjoy late summer and autumn there. I love the country and its people and have always been treated well there...often simply because I’m an American.
They weren’t written out, they were mentioned many times.
It’s not a hole. It’s understanding what story they’re trying to tell. When push comes to shove movies are short stories, novellas at best. In under 2 hours you aren’t telling the whole of Dunkirk, you ain’t even telling the half of Dunkirk. They 3 stories basically: a handful of soldiers trying to get out, 1 civilian boat, one squad of Spitfires. It’s a “soldier’s eye” of the story. We spend a little time with that Admiral but he’s mostly just telling the audience stuff: why the destroyers can’t come in, what the tide schedule is, why this isn’t a massive air sea war. In a book form that character wouldn’t exist because the author would just fill that in. Including Churchill would have broken the scope of the story.
For that side of this same story, please see The Darkest Hour due out in November.
Boy have you been reading propaganda! I have known many people who were involved in the Resistance and most are gone now including my husband. I have hunted on the terrain where the Resistance in Correze, Haute Vienne, Dordogne, and Creuze operated. I can take you to sites which still bear traces of their encampments and show you bridges that were destroyed. There are trees which bear the marks of gunfire and i can point out where some Resistants were arrested and executed on the spot. The French Resistance did not receive the arms support they were due early on as the English were wary of their allegiance to France rather than the Nazis. Fortunately, Churchill formed the SOE and America formed the OSS which recognized the importance of “setting Europe ablaze” with a new kind of warfare. Do some research.
As far as the bombers beating up the 2nd Panzer, you are way off track. The bombers did not even hit their targets on D Day, or as the French call it Jour J. They overshot their targets by many miles or we would not have had such a tough time on Omaha Beach.
I would suggest you not depend on German propaganda about Normandy. I doubt they will admit that many of their soldiers were Eastern Europeans pressed into service of the Nazis. Why don’t you talk to people who were there and visit the places it all happened. There are still some eye witnesses around. I’m also sure the Allied airmen who were rescued and spirited out of France by the Resistance have left many stories you should read.
Thanks for the summary. I haven’t seen it yet.
OK, too bad...
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