Posted on 10/01/2013 10:15:48 PM PDT by JerseyanExile
These data exculpate the prewar parliamentary regime and the British.And, there's the buried lead -- the purpose of the "research". The fact is, the Germans just kicked the ever-lovin' crap out of the British and French, who'd already been given an historic ass-whipping twenty years earlier. It took five years and the combined forces of the USSR (most German and Waffen SS casualties and KIA were on the eastern front), the US, the UK, Canada and troops drawn from all over the British Empire, plus the French underground and Free French forces (snicker) to beat Germany with their mostly useless Italian allies plus volunteers from occupied countries in Europe.
The technology, strategy and tactics of warfare took a quantum leap - starting in 1917 with the introduction of the tank and continuing on with advances made in aircraft, communications, and the understanding of how the battlefield was no longer confined to a specific geographical area. The same way that warfare changed dramatically between Waterloo and the American Civil War.
Germany embraced this change and prepared for it. The other countries didn’t. The collapse of France was, from this perspective, inevitable. France’s political instability, combined with the war weariness of the population at large were additional factors.
I’ve always thought that after Europe was bled white in WWI, nobody could contemplate suffering again on such a massive scale. With the exception of Hitler, who not only could contemplate it, he could actively welcome it.
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