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What's wrong with the French is very simple - ever since the end of the First World War, they have been vulnerable to a school of thought which says that surrender is preferable to war. This is not a school of thought which has, fortunately, caught on elsewhere with the exceptions of Berkeley and Hampstead. I recommend William Shirer's excellent book, "The Collapse of the Third Republic" for more information.

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MadIvan, well said. And I would add that Britain fell under the appeasement trap in the 1930s for understandable reasons having lost a generation of men in WWI. they genuinely feared war and knew how futile it could be from that experience. But brave men like Churchill resisted the fatal attraction of appeasement, that coddling evil was worse than fighting it. He wasnt listened to until too late.
The failed policies of appeasement led to Hitler conquering Europe. JohnGalt, that was a *bad thing*. It was an avoidable *bad thing* - if France and Britain had stood up to Germany in 1936, instead of waiting until several nations were under nazi rule, Hitler could have been contained. He wasnt and war resulted.

Mr JohnGalt is off on the deep end im afraid, if he really thinks it was just fine for the Germans to occupy Paris (and by extension the rest of Europe). Destruction of democracy, persecution of ethnic minorities, like gypsies, annilation of the Jews, jailing and murder of political dissidents and nationalist opponents, not to mention a militarized society ... hint: bad things, not good. Thankfully Churchill and Roosevelt demanded unconditional surrender. No half-measures. For that reason, we NEVER have to re-fight WWII, like was are about to re-fight Saddam. We didnt 'contain' or 'check' our enemies, we destroyed them and killed their ideologies and power bases completely.

I hope to heck we do the same in Iraq and can do the same to Al Quaeda.

As for William Shirer, his book Rise and Fall of the Third Reich was also great. It's a bit shallow to condemn a man politics as a way of judging his work (ad hominem). but if you want a conservative view of the war, read Winston Churchill's history on it.

I suggest you folks quit reading leftwing journalists and start reading conservative historians.

As for Churchill being a historian; my goodness, that is like Clinton's biography being the staple of understanding the 1990s. Why don't you start with at least a moderate liberal like AJP Taylor and then try a Conservative like Clive Ponting?

I think it was just fine? Now you are acting like a feminized liberal ascribing feelings to my reading of events. You folks were taught well by the lefties, I'll say that much.

Hitler was dually elected by his people on a platform of correcting the wrongs of the Versailles Treaty. As a supporter of the German Conservative Monarchist position, I would never have let Kaiser Whilhelm abdicate in favor of lawless Jacobism you Wilsonians so worship.