[Dan(9698)]

France had more tanks and troops than Germany at the start of WWII.

Their problem was they had 80 year old generals.

[Dan(9698)]

I forgot to add one of the features of their tanks.

They had one speed forward, and three reverse.

[Grand Old Partisan]

This article is right. Much as the French deserve criticism today, they did fight hard against the Nazis in 1940. Individual soldiers fought very hard, and they lost tens of thousands of men in just six weeks of fighting. Problem was, their generals and strategy were terrible. Remember, France put up much more of a fight against the Nazis than did Greece, Norway, Czechoslavakia, and Denmark.

French collaboration with the Nazis after 19400 is another matter. The French Resistance is portrayed as a much bigger deal than it really was. Slammed as the Nazis were on the Eastern Front, they held down the French with their little finger. My favorite illustration of this is that in the weeks before D-Day, General von Runstedt used to go on long walks -- by himself! -- through Norman towns.

[vbmoneyspender]

Bingo. And as far as who did more damage to the Germans in a single operation, Keegan makes a convincing argument in Six Armies in Normandy that the Normandy operation clearly cost the Germans more in men and material than their defeat at Stalingrad. Keegan goes on to argue, quite persuasively I might add, that the defeat inflicted on the Germans in Normandy cost the Germans even more than the worst defeat they suffered on the Russian front, which was when the Soviets destroyed Army Group Centre in 1944.