Posted on 11/13/2018 10:53:06 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
President Donald Trump escalated his verbal assaults against France on Tuesday, suggesting that Americas stalwart European ally would have been vanquished in both world wars if not for the military firepower provided by the United States.
Trump tweeted about a suggestion by French President Emmanuel Macron that Europe build up its militaries because the continent can no longer depend on the U.S. for defense. Macron had also said Europe needs to protect itself against cyberthreats from China, Russia and the U.S.
Macrons comments were inaccurately reported and Trump continues to misrepresent them, seemingly for political hay. The French leaders office said Trump had lumped together Macrons remarks on protecting against cyber-threats and interference in our democracies from China, Russia and even the United States with Macrons later statement on military defense....
(Excerpt) Read more at columbian.com ...
When you get right down to it, France hasn’t “won” a war since 1789, and that was only because it was an internecine conflict!
Many historians argue that WWII was simply a continuation of WWI.
If the U.S. stayed out of Wilson’s WWI folly, The Central Powers would have won and history much different and no WWII as we know it now. I think America would have to fight eventually even if we did not save France’s butt in WWI.
And, the United States of America would not exist without France, who backed us in our independence from the United Kingdom. So, we paid them back.
That is true.
Had we not intervened in WWII Europe the Soviets would have pushed all the way to the Atlantic.
Absolutely. They did not have enough steel
Britain was only in WW1 to defend the Belgians right to neutrality. They rarely worked well with the French and a lot of the time, when they did work with the Brits, the French never left their trenches.
Certainly not the second. FDR was part of the war before official declaration, providing material support to Russia. Without that support Russia would likely have fallen, thus Germany would keep its hold on France.
For the first, well the forces were in stalemate. Russia leaving the war could have been argued the turning point for the Allies.
Ironically France falling so quickly in WWII might have been a good thing. It caught the Soviets off-guard, they expected Germany, France and England to get bogged down in another war of attrition that would have bled all of them dry, making the entire continent easy pickings for the Red Army.
Except the US was sending aid to Russia before the war started.
Hitler’s V2s and probably a NUKE would have defeated the Soviets
The European war could actually have ended with a Pax Germana.
What am I missing here?
Before the US began her war on the Nazis, France was already defeated. They had a bunch of puppets we can refer to as Vichy acting as administrators.
They win when led by a Corsician (Napoleon) or a woman (Joan of Arc).
The point of DeGaulle's June 18, 1940 speech (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_of_18_June) was:
(a) Admitting the Germans got the jump on France; (b) conceding that the Germans held the main French territory (France itself); but (c) insisted that the war could be carried on from the many and far flung components of the still extant empire.
A similar comparison would be if the USA was occupied, but patriots still held TX, AK & HI. Would the war be over?
A second and very important point is this: because Hitler had driven out all the Jews, the Nazis never even began preliminary investigations into atomic weapons.
While the US was of course first, both FR & UK were were right behind. While we can't re-write history, without the development of atomic weapons, the Germans were going to be eventually defeated.
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