Yes, you're all right, and I should take back my post. The French lost 1.8 million of their young men in WWI, the highest death number of all the combatants. The carnage was so bad that the French didn't want another war, but they punished Germany so bad in the Versailles Treaty that it wasn't all that surprising that an upstart little monster like Hitler could be possible.
A noble tragedy to be sure. They died fighting for their homeland.
But at least as noble and heroic is the sacrifice put forward by foreigners to liberate another's land.
Your reply needs little further comment.... but nicely put. Your analysis of that terrible Versailles Treaty brings to mind a cartoon in an English newspaper. Many years before WW2 and mentioning the humiliation of a defeated foe. It showed a stork bearing a child and the swaddling cloth dated 1940. It indicated a second world war.
To add to it, the absolute disintegration of the German currency in order to pay reparations. The 50 million mark postage stamp and so on. Germany almost went communist after.
On the cemetery so sacred to Canadians, I think it shows a certain degeneracy. Possibly no backbone, who knows?. Yet, in countless other cemetaries, British, Commonwealth graves are absolutely imaculate in France- I have seen the photographs. I presume the doughboys have their cemeteries well tended. (Over there, over there).
Lastly, the Marshall plan saved Germany. I do not think they remember. No more blood shed for Europe. (Says I).