Posted on 06/07/2016 5:05:38 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
We’re robbin’ it: Armed thieves at a McDonald's are captured by 11 French Special Forces soldiers who were in the restaurant Robbers raid McDonald's in Ecole-Valentin, near Besancon, eastern France But they found 11 elite special forces soldiers who shot and overpowered them .... But the soldiers, who had their weapons with them but out of sight, played it cool until they had the chance to strike and could minimise the danger to other customers.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Over time I have come to realize that France in 1940 is one of those classic “it’s complicated” situations, rather than the shallow “cheese eating surrender monkey” image of popular lore (which I once accepted).
*The sentiment of the (woefully undersupported) troops was one of “I see they didn’t learn their lesson” and “if we gotta, we gotta”.
*The officer corps was more neo-monarchist than anything. They admired order and authority...not the existing government.
*The politicians were the “surrender monkeys”, really. And, “democracy” was both a foreign concept and one that had given the appearance of weakness in Europe.
*Communism was very strong in prewar France...and remember, before June 22, 1941 Germany was the Soviet Union’s ally. The Communists were a strong force behind France’s inability to rearm in a timely fashion...from political obstruction right down to actual sabotage at the factories.
Also consider (though the French would prefer you not)...among the merchant class and “bourgeoisie” (for lack of a better term) there was strong support for Naziism, at least as far as nationalism and the image of order and unity. For them Communism was the greater threat.
Think metrosexual pajama boy vs. some of the toughest SOB's you could ever meet.
After WWI, they were shocked by the small losses for so great a victory.
No radios: tanks were thought of mainly as infantry support. The French and British had no idea of combined arms operations. The Germans did.
I read once that Hitler became alarmed at the speed of the German advance as they approached the Channel and ordered a pause. Without that pause, the Germans might have captured the entire BEF.
Bravo, manifique!
Lets also not forget the vast majority of French soldiers who were evacuated at Dunkirk returned to France to fight again.
Despite pleading for them to regroup in England to fight again some day they returned home.
A good many were killed, the rest spent the war as POWs which included slave labor.
It wasn’t just Hitler. The Germans had exposed flanks, and the initial counterattacks at Arras made them want to bring up the second echelon troops. (The pause was actually initiated by the front line Generals, but the General Staff and Hitler approved it.)
While we tend now to think of the armored thrusts of the Germans, in fact, most of the invasion force was horse powered or on foot. The two day pause gave the infantry a chance to catch up, and supplies as well.
One of the armored divisions was pulled to create a reserve force to deal with anticipated additional counterattacks.
The allies actually had more tanks than the Germans, and some of the French tanks were more powerful. So the pause was reasonable, although in hindsight, appears unnecessary.
The biggest problem was the Germans spent the period between wars preparing for combat while the French looked for ways to avoid a fight. The Maginot Line was a classic example. Millions of Francs spent on defenses that ultimately proved useless, depleting resources that could have been directed toward new weapons, particularly aircraft. The French were simply not psychologically prepared for another world war.
Worse that that, a French general proved in a war game held in something like 1936 that the German advance through the Ardennes was possible. It was hushed up to prevent panic and scandal as the money was going to the Maginot Line. Even in 1940 reports of a German buildup pointing to an attack through the Ardennes was ignored.
BULL! and I still refuse to eat French fries!
Think Duncan Hunter’s sons versus Mitt Romney’s boys.
I used to bash the French.
Then last year I went to Normandy, and saw the US flags all throughout the region and saw how the folks there still love Americans.
France isn’t just Paris, and even Paris wasn’t that bad.
Speaking of French armor
The Char B1 Bis had a 75 mm gun mounted in the hull, and a 47 mm in the turret. Panzer III F (what would have been available in 1940) had a 37mm main gun. Panzer IV did have a 75 mm gun.
The Maginot line was very effective. The Germans left it alone until the situation in northern France was well in hand, and the morale of the French troops was shot.
The problem was that it stopped just north of the start of the Belgian border, for bad reasons (political) and good (high water table and soft soil made difficult the construction of deep, heavy, emplacements.
It was the biggest waste of money in military history.
Even the best soldiers can be had by being caught in a situation they were not prepared for.
An Athenian Fleet was forced by a storm to take shelter on the island of Sphacteria. Now that low brush covered island was just off the coast of the Pelloponese and not too far from Sparta.
Athenian Marines being uneasy and feeling they were in a very vulnerable spot, on their own initiative, began to build fortified positions. The soldiers clasped their hands behind their backs and carried mortar to tie the blocks of rocks together.
Soon the Spartan got word that the Athenians were building fortifications on Spartan territory and mistakenly assumed they were planning a permanent fortress.
The Spartans sent 200 of their top soldiers using a short bridge built of boats and covered with boards to cross onto the island. The Spartans attacked and immediately pushed the Athenians off the islands back on to their boats.
In the meantime tho, Athenian ships had broken the bridge leaving the Spartans stranded. The Spartans began to pay high prices to anyone who would swim the channel with food and supplies. They even gave freedom to helots who did so.
Now Cleon, a demagogue got in front of the Athenian assembly and criticized the Athenian General. He said that if he was the General, he would have the Spartans in chains within a day.
When he said this the General resigned and told Cleon that he could be general and he expected him to put the Spartans in chains within a day. Cleon then tried to back out but the assembly would not let him. So Cleon was forced to lead the attack.
As soon as Cleon landed he did start a fight and it was not going well until a fire started. The heavy dead brush on the island somehow trapped the Spartans and they did something no one expected.
They surrendered. Cleon led them back to Athens in chains, I assume with a big grin on his face.
4 June the ‘Dunkirk Miracle’; 14 June Paris falls.
True France was not gone on 4 June.
Only a hollow shell was left.
Hitler thought ‘blitzkrieg’ was a “silly word”. The Germans used a new method of battle order, “schwerepunct” or ‘main emphasis’/heavy point. Stukas as flying artillery using their sirens, massed tanks in what they perceived to be a weak point in the French line, mobile grenadiers moving beside them, then around just behind the French front, surrounding and isolating strong points. They were determined to avoid another ‘trench’ war.
Joachim “Blowtorch” Peiper used this tactic in Russia, speeding through villages and setting thatch-roofed buildings on fire, along with Kurt “Panzer” Meyer.
Irony was that before the war deGaulle was arguing for such a fluid, mobile use of armor, but was outranked.
Rommel’s 7th ‘Ghost division’ same thing. They come through the Ardennes, something that many said couldn’t be done, bypassing the heavily fortfied Maginot line and went through France in short order with their Mark IIs, IIIs and some good captured Czech armor and weapons. The French fought bravely, but were simply overwhelmed.
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