Ils ne passeront pas! -- Marshall Petain at Verdun
I made that statement as a joke... But I will go so far as to say that the war was won by not only the French, but a whole host of other nations as well. The measure of the contribution made by the French to the final outcome is certainly not any more outstanding than the contributions made by those that crossed the Channel or the Atlantic.
Je ne comprends pas pourquoi certains sont donnés le crédit excessif pour un travail exécuté par tous.-- Raven6
Their 'winning' that war and it's cost to the German nation set in motion the next world war. The Reparations Cost to Germany was designed to humiliate, denigrate, and shame the German people has a whole: It was not about true reparations. The decisions that were made did not take into the human heart. Most people are willing to accept being responsible for a debt they owe: It's another matter to deliberately doom the next (and next, after that) generation of their children while shaming their parents. Human nature. Good in some ways, bad in others. I'm still angry at the countries that helped set in motion the attacks on us, so I'm probably guilty of bad thoughts towards those countries. Would I want to deliberately set in motion a plan to utterly shame those nations? I'd like to think I wouldn't, but I'd have to ask for the Grace of the Lord if I were honest about it. Sorry for the lecture. (History's not in a vacum.)
The Great War burned the fight/courage/honor gene out of the French gene pool.