Very interesting your analysis. However, I discussed this alot with my grandfather who was an officer in the BEF (British Expeditionnary Force) and finished by being evacuated in Dunkirk. He was absolutely ASHAMED by the BEF, and the complete lack of any will to support the French. His division literally fled to Dunkirk, leaving the French on their one to do the job... while the French were actually counting on them to plug important holes. Until his last days, he just could not get over it, telling over and over that it was the British who fled and droppend their guns. Not the French. Ironically... and how many times have we seen this in history... its the others who get blamed for what you precisely did... In particular, he recalls a shamefull British retreat of the entire communication and mapping services... literally handing the tactical maps into the arms of the Germans. Until his last days, he was ashamed and frequently went back to France after the war to apologize to his french friends. It's stunnig even here how nothing is said about the collapse... of the British Army aswell...
What a fascinating insight and something I think that has been lost over the years. Its interesting to see those views and add much needed context to the discussion. Thank you.
(I'm french) First, it's very nice to read that from your grandfather. I enquired a lot about that moment of the war. This propaganda is stupid and unfair. But the ones to blame in the british army and britain of this time are the ones at the head of the army. And now it's the americans propaganda since 2003 wich definitely turned a good friend of them into a foe (one more). But soldiers obey, if the army's command had gave him the order to rush to his death he would have done it. I can understand that your grandfather felt guilty. But he is not the one who should feel this way.
In fact with time he understood the single stance of the British Gov was: How to transform a pitiful defeat into a something more glorious. And it worked: blame the others, turn a retreat into a glorious evacuation. My GDad was mad. He was very accurate in his details and constantly told me to beware how the Brits tend to rewrite history for their own glory. Everyone does it though. He also insisted how the '100 days to victory' following the 2nd battle of the Marne, 1918... was turned into a glorious British victory run. Turns out that the credit was well... less British... and much down to Foch and the French Army. But thats another story. However, if you type Marne 2nd Battle or '100 day to victory'... well, surprise, what do you see? British soldiers... historians have alot of work to do!!
The shame is not on the shoulders of the soldiers of brits or french army. It's horrible how your gramps was feeling, that's events beyond the individual will. At least i hope he enjoyed the time spend with his friends.
I wouldn’t blame either the British or the French, for being less than enthusiastic, to partake in another war, not much more than 20 years after the horrific slaughter of WW1. The French casualties in WW1 were atrocious. It’s important to remember that in 1940, Britain and France were democracies, whereas Germany was ruled by a fanatical dictatorship.
So nice to see a balanced perspective. I am American and an ardent Francophile, which many idiotic Americans ridicule due to the rapid Nazi victory on 1940. 1500 years of French history and that's all they know.
The US attitude is especially ironic given that the US Army was so thoroughly routed in the Ardennes that a British general had to take control. According to Bruce Clarke, the best performing U.S. general in the battle, Eisenhower was happy to let Montgomery keep command because he expected an absolute disaster and wanted to spread the blame.
@@jayfrancis3020 Also Brits (especially Montgomery) had the experience of the terrific and humiliating defeat of 1940. The myth of the alone France responsible of the 1940 failure appeared many many years after WWII. For example, the last french troops which had been taken in UK ports after Dunkirk, were known as the heros of Dunkirks which have permitted to save most of the BEF, british people was knowing it and when the french disembark in Dover, Plymouth etc... the british civilians and the british troops present there applaused the french soldiers. not so cowards finally ? The winners make History. USA which hadn't knknown the salt of the defeat and had never been truly in danger were not able to apprehend the german offensive in the ardennes. the US plan was the best in the world, they had been a bit slowed in Normandy but excepted that, the rush through France was a ballad in tehir mind... they forgot that the brish forces and french resistance had been there to permit it softer and nicer. Eisenhover was a great planner, a good global strategist, but he was not good to "react" to a "surprise". In december 1944; German losses on the eastern and also in the western front were terrific, they had no primary resurces (mainly oil and food) nor men reserves, all was calculated to win easily. No one predicted the 2 last german counter offensives of december 1944(ardennes) and january 1945 (Nordwind, Alsace)... Then when the german launched the tigers I and II, the panthers and the last elite troops in the ardennes, American generals were stunned, unable to react instantly. it's then easier when you have some allies which have known defeats against the same enemies... Monty was well experienced, non only because of 1940 but because in the desert warfare, he learnt to not base his own judgement and anlysis on optimistic view and on appearances. The 8th army had a true superiority to the afrika korps and the italians, but it took time to win, with its share of victories, defeats, attacks and counter-attacks... you thought the desert fox was definitively beaten (el alamein I), he came back and needed el alamein II and the US/allied landing in french north africa and even after that, the kasserine pass is the perfect example of the american unconsciousness of the reality of the war : you may be overwhelmind superior in numbers, in shape, in supplies, in air force etc... on the paper... BUT the fight has still to be done properly and being over confident is often the main reason of the most terrific desillusions.... Many have considered that Monty was too "cautious" and over-prudent. When you place yourself in the skin of Monty, when you have his experience, you can't be and think differently. BTW they called him the uncautious for the Arnhem Bridge (it was a great effort, which succeded at 80%, which is great in WWII)... A bridge too far ? maybe... maybe not.
Sometimes It would be wise to remind Americans that without the French navy, I am not sure they would have obtained their independence, and I am not just talking about the Battle of Chesapeake.
@@tonio3920 Non only the Navy. French diplomacy involved Spain and Netherlands in the equation : it brought 2 big naval powers in the balance, obliging the british navy to share its ships all around the globe to protect her naval way to their colonies and authorise to save the aximum of primary resurces UK needed. Then French gold was involved alot without counterpart. Guns, weapons, uniforms, food, military lessons/formationshas been provided by French, permitting to Washington army to survive when they were in great disarray in Valley forge after many defeats at the beginning. I think that the independence was saved like in the 4 first years, not because french army and navy were involved but because it permitted Washington to keep an army when they were in true difficulty. Once the bad years had passed and once French involved her full weight and Spain and Dutch, the independence was secure.
As the grandson of a French reservist pilot in both WWI and II, the only survivor of his squadron with his captain in 1940, I am grateful every time Anglo people correct the deeply nauseating loud rumours coming from a country that was happy to stand by, watch and make money until the Germans declared war on them. The French Air Force was the first to bomb Berlin and destroyed as many Luftwaffe planes as they lost. That was 200 less German planes over London during the Blitz.
As french, I really want to thank you for this video. I'm so enraged when I see the lack of respect for French soldiers of 1940. It's mainly from people who know absolutely nothing about the Campagne de France, but thanks to video like this one, mentality begin to change... Slowly. English spoken people begin to know more about Stonne battle, Montcornet counter offensive (which almost saw Guderian being captured by the french), the story of the Cadet de Saumur etc, and mentality begin to change. You have a truely excellent book (in French) by Dominique Lormier : Comme des lions (like lions) that really show that French soldiers of 1940 didn't lack of any courage or will to fight. They were great men and great soldiers, we have to remember and salute their sacrifice and give them back, their true place in history.
It would have been very difficult for the Germans to completely crush the beachhead, they simply didn't have the required forces onsite. Nevertheless there were fierce fights going on with all combatants either trying to get out or lay siege. The Panzer Halt! order was a big help, but then OKW was reasonably spooked by the attacks by the BEF at Arras along with other French efforts to sever the Corridor and they always were leery of a hidden Allied counterstrike as they did not have the clarity in the fog of war. Also, the Wehrmacht never would have guessed that many Brits (and French) would get out because The ROYAL NAVY had no idea they could get that many out...
@@dougnockles29 It wasn't just Arras that irritated OKW; the Panzer divisions were in a critical shape after continously advancing. The tanks needed fuel and maintenance, the men needed food and rest; there was the battle for France ahead ...
@ottovonbismarck2443 I agree, just trying to shorten my responses here. I think it wasn't just one cause and usually never is. In addition to the exhaustion the infantry and other rear echelon forces were still struggling with the cadence of the Fall Gelb and consolidating their positions. In The Blitzkrieg Legend, Freiser also postulates that the Halt Order was a way for OKW and Hitler to reign in his unruly generals they saw as borderline out-of-control and to reestablish order on their panzer divisions running amuck and abusing the 'mission-to-tactics" delegative authority typical of the Prussian lineage of the Heer. In addition, my own speculation is that the "fog of war" and chaos prevented any absolute German victory in having everything go their way because up until that point the stars had aligned and Germany had been incredibly lucky. The French had also been very lucky but theirs was unfortunately all bad and at some point, luck runs out. Germany and the Wehrmacht in general did not recognize the sealift capability of Britannia maritime as even the Royal Navy didn't think they'd get more than 11,000 out initially! The Germans would have happily traded 11k sad and wet men for the chance to inflict serious losses on the Royal Navy (and Airforce) especially their destroyer arm - as the Allies had done to the Kriegsmarine in Norway. The Dunkirk thing is a giant hindsight myth with some infamous “Hitler’s Fault” German generals “Monday Morning Quarterbacking” in their postwar memoirs. I’ll check but not sure if this channel has done a “Hitler Let the BEF Go at Dunkirk” edition but they should. It’s even dumber than the FDR-Pearl Harbor LIHOP trash. Cheers...
@@dougnockles29 There are still so many things unsolved. I'm afraid AH can't tell us what he thought and Guderian and Manstein lie through their teeth. I believe everybody in Germany was convinced that the British would eventually ask for peace. They were beaten and out of the picture for the battle for France. Someone with smaller bollocks than Churchill might have given up ... I say German corps and division commanders ignoring orders and running wild was the best that could happen. They understood the local situation and they didn't allow the French to dig in. If the French had time to dig in, they usually put up a tough fight. If your headquarters don't know where you are, how would the enemy know ? It's not exactly something you can plan for, thus very risky, but it doesn't waste precious time either. As for Norway: I'd happily trade some (badly designed) destroyers and cruisers for an uninterupted flow of iron ore from Sweden and Norway; besides, most of the crews survived. Btw, these Narvik-destroyers were supposed to be gone before the RN showed up, but their supply ships with fuel and ammo were all sunk on their way to Narvik, IIRC courtesy of RN submarines. All but one which came from the secret German base in Northern Russia ... Norway was a case of good and bad luck switching sides permanently. Shortly before entering the Fjord, Warspite was supposedly hit by a U-boat, but the torpedo detonators failed. A votre santé, Monsieur ! 🙂
I don't know how many times I've heard the old joke "French rifle for sale. Never fired and only dropped once.". John McCain was even telling it to insult the French after they'd refused to join in on the US invasion of Iraq. I've long known it was a myth and of all the myths I've heard about WWII, I think that one irritates me the most.
There are a number of comments from across the pond that are a bit rich coming from a country that might not have existed without French assistance, about a military that was very highly regarded until 1870 & who themselves were so keen to steer clear of involvement that comments about them turning up late are quite common.
So you are saying the French weren't idiot enough to follow W.? Hardly an insult. And the joke originates from Full Metal Jacket, not the debacle of 1940. But bear in mind that the French lost 90,000 dead is six weeks and the US suffered 417,000 in over 4.5 years of fighting. I'm pretty sure the ones chirping here are the cowards that would have favored Isolationism in 1940 and probably the ones that stood by as MAGA-4F-in-Chief pissed all over McCain and his service in Vietnam along with the "suckers" in the Cemetaries in France...
@@GrubHuncher Define "winning". Does anyone really win war? Watching an ex-concentration camp inmate driving a bulldozer pushing piles of emaciated corpses into a mass grave after "victory" takes a lot of joy out of winning. The US lost in Vietnam but also won in some respects. We did largely win the Cold War. Lost the battle, won the war. Bu8t there are always more wars to win and lose..
@@dougnockles29 I first heard the joke when I was a kid, and that was the 1960s. While it was used in "Full Metal Jacket", that's not where it originated. Beyond that, I agree with the rest of your comment. One thing that's always amazed me is how those who most vociferously supported Bush's invasion of Iraq when the debate was ongoing are the same people who now call it a "stupid war" and blame it all on Hillary Clinton because she voted to authorize Bush's use of military force. It's like living in Bizzaro World.
Honestly, this is great stuff. The French made mistakes, but it’s nice to see some of these myths get taken down. You guys just got another subscriber.
I do like to see the balance restored. There's been some nasty rhetoric and memes over the years. Good one Tom. Love to see a show about France after Dunkirk
Apparently, the cadets at a French Cavalry school held up the German advance for several days with their training weapons. The surviving wounded were carried out past Germans standing at parade attention.
Not apparently, it really did happen. And the German commander even allowed them to flee to a non occupied zone. In Lille too (you can see a pic of this event at the beginning, the Germans also allowed French troops to parade in arms after they surrendered following a fierce resistance. My grandfather was captured there
My ancestors had to leave alcase in order to expand the prison colony system. Say Diversey in english, german and then en français. Which one sounds best, with purpose, for the rest of what you/others are saying at the time?
Thank you for having a thought for the French soldiers who sacrificed themselves in Dunkirk and Lille to allow the evacuation of allied troops. The responsibility for defeat rests with General Gamelin. Sending the Giraud army unnecessarily to the border of the Netherlands instead of keeping it in reserve was one of his many mistakes. Thank you to our British friends for this historical work on this dramatic period.
So nice to hear a shout out to Martin Alexander - many fond memories from my time at Aberystwyth. The French government may have lacked the ability to conduct effective offensive warfare in 1940, but the French soldier had no lack of courage, and no lack of opportunities to prove that.
Howdy there folks! Tom’s presentation on the French army in 1940 made me want more on France’s military from mid-1930s to the 1940 battles. Gave me a new perspective, learned lots.
Along side the Communication issues in the French army, it didn't help that they had sent the 7th army ( I think it was one of their reserves ) towards the Netherlands, and thus without a reserve on the front it was harder to cut off the Germans spear head. They did all that they could anyway, and the Germans in the end respected their fighting spirit so much that they allowed them to keep their weapons and march past saluting. Great show guys.
Yeah, well, that is my criticism on this historian Tom Jones; "sending off your mobile armies across to Narvik and Belgium doesnt help your own french defensive plans..". FFS , never heard of international political COMMITMENT ?!?! I tell you WHY this is an UTTERLY STUPID remark of a Historian nota bene: The belgians and Dutch and Norwegians FOUGHT in the BELIEF thatthe Brits and French were GOING TO SEND FORMIDABLE military help! If The french and brits would have made CLEAR that they will NOT send help (as in MANY cases was the case!!) then the Dutch and belgians and norwegains WOULD NOT EVEN HAVE RESISTED AT ALL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tell me arm chair fokkin historians; HOW would THAT benefit the greater strategic situation for the brits and / or the french ?!?!?
also: what complete IMBECILE french army high command it would be ..if you send off ONLY and ALL of your reserves army towards a distant place ?!??! If anything , it STILL puts blame on the french HQ for NOT HAVING ANY OTHER PROPER RESERVES ARMY atthe ready behind the frontlines ?!?! duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh !!!!
@@oddballsok I think you have misinterpreted his point. He was making a statement to push back against the myth of a passive, non-committal French Army in the war. His point was that the French took a proactive role in the war, aiding Norway in its defense and establishing a front in Belgium to prevent its capture. His argument supports your points.
Very good to see Tom and Woody debunking the ridiculous "French cheese-eating surrender monkey" myth.⭐⭐⭐ In fact, I have become very sick and tired of it for quite a while ago as I became more familiar with WW2 in general. American politicians and celebrities take a considerable blame for perpetuating this myth in my opinion. (These Americans should review how US forces in the ETO performed in 1942-43. US forces had to overcome their own learning curve in both North Africa and in Italy, although, in this instance, it was less about the radios but more about learning how the German operated in general. Tsk, tsk, tsk ...) Meanwhile, it is the historians' job to provide the context required to understand why decision-makers made whatever decisions they made and why armies fought the way they did. I could understand why the French forces lagged behind in wireless communications. Just take a cursory look at the Red Army and you will notice more or less the same. We must remember that widespread use of battlefield radios was still new in the first couple of years of WW2. This is something that had to be figured out before someone could sit down and write textbooks about.
As de Gaulle said to Stalin after the Soviet Union had lost 100,000 km2 of its territory : "The French did not lack courage in 1940, they lacked space."
Very pleased to see this. A lot of years ago I studied the 1940 campaign intensively. Initially my purpose was to learn more about the extremely flexible German doctrines and I remained impressed, but the more I studied the less I could regocnise the then usual image of a total hopeless and lacklustre French effort. Yes, their intelligence and command, control and especially communications were disastrous, but had some German commanders (Guderian , Rommel etc) not disobeyed orders and kept racing for the Channel, the German attack probably would have bogged down and the war turned into the attrional war the French were so well prepared for. That probably would have Hitler suddenly choke on his Apfelstrudel and a peace agreed on, or the Germans would be crushed in 1941 by a French-British offensive. The 1940 campaign was a much more close run thing than we usually recognise, and what a difference it would have made on the world today! Anyway the US/British firepower based doctrines of late WWII resembles the French doctrine of 1940 much more than it resembles German Blitzkrieg. The biggest difference was the Wallies having lots of radios and planes by mid/late WWII, but still a very cautious and methodical approach. After WWII NATO keenly tried to learn from German Auftragstaktik (mission tactics). They/we got quite a distance, but still quite cumbersome with elaborate written orders compared to Blitzkrieg. Especially in manoeuvre, but also capable of very swift focus of firepower. Perhaps not the worst "compromise" - through history firepower usually beats maneuvre.
@@danieleyre8913 A bit of an oversimplification, but yes, a fair point. I recall the Germans also found essentially an underwater 'bridge' walkway that was hard to see. A concrete walkway that could support vehicles and was camouflaged by just a few inches or cm's or water above it. I am not sure how aware the French of its existence but they either forgot about it or neglected to blow it up. The North Vietnamese would later use a similar trick in the Vietnam War to disguise resupply routes from US bombing. Just one of the many little things went wrong for the French while a lot went right for the Heer...
@@danieleyre8913 As a french, I cannot assure you how much this is frustrating to learn about May 40, because the more I do, the more I see how with just a little bit of luck for our army, things would have gone so differently. It was THAT close.
The Germans who fought the French in '40 did NOT insult them or belittle their efforts. An officer under Rommel's command was quoted saying, 'The poilu at Sedan has nothing to apologize for' [Wietersheim, 'Panzer Diary']. The cold fact is that the Wehrmacht was specifically designed from the ground up to defeat the French Army of 1940. Their entire mission in life was to avenge Compiegne in 1918, and they did so with great skill. But that takes absolutely nothing away from the French soldiers who stood their ground and fought. They fought with old equipment and older doctrine under officers who were just as hidebound and blinkered. Most of the French Army fought with one hand tied behind its back and one boot nailed to the floor and STILL won the respect of the victors.
Many thanks to Tom. I know about Bataille de France but was desperate to hear one day "no the French didn't run like rabbit in 1940". I'm really waiting the Case Red. My father fought in Attigny in 18eme RI (36DI) and I know it was bloodies days from 9 to 11 June 1940.
Another frenchman here. Thank you for a great discussion. The lack of communication and the slowness of movement to redeploy were experienced first hand by both my grand-fathers. One of them was involved in supply transportation and the other being a swift runner was a communication carrier -until he was shot upon reaching a commanding post by the Germans, and kept as a prisoner until 1943 when he returned with a missing lung and a destroyed hip. But the war was just starting for the family. Their kids -teenagers at that point- joined the maquis de l'Armagnac and then integrated in the French force that took La Rochelle and continued fighting all the way into Germany.
Tom was fascinating to listen to as he has done such obvious sound research. From what I remember from watching the 1970s World at War episode about the fall of France then, was that it was the French government officials and the high command who showed a lack of flexibility and resolve. The poor French Armies fought well, but gave up hope once the government packed it in. This was no walkover as Tom has elaborated well. Being of French descent I must add "Vive Le France!"
@@Chiller11 It was my introduction to WW2 when I was a teen. It still holds up today even though it is somewhat dated. The best part about it was that many of the people interviewed were still fairly young with fresh memories.
@@iangreenhalgh9280 Agreed, but not all ran. The colonial troops from North Africa put up some fierce resistance which caused the Germans some delay, and many of the first class units, such as the armored cavalry divisions and several Infantry Divisions slowed the advance, but they were too few I'm afraid. One thought though, I think that the units that ran from the panzers were mostly the reserve units, called up but with limited anti-tank capabilities. Hard to stop a tank with rifles.
@@iangreenhalgh9280 Thanks for the reply. I haven't read up on my May 1940 history in some time. I will have to take a little time to refresh my memory, but you are right as I remember now. Appreciate o fellow live chatter keeping me honest. Fascinating subject, isn't it? Cheers.
@@iangreenhalgh9280 qui a fuient ? qui a rembarqué à Dunkerque pour un retour en Angleterre après seulement 10 jours de combats ? qui a laisser 842 tanks , 230 000 tonnes de munitions , 470 000 tonnes de carburants etc.etc.etc. les anglais .
As a former academic historian of modern France, I'm impressed by the balance and detail of this presentation. For English-speaking readers who want to know more, may I add a couple of recommendations: "The Fall of France" by Julian Jackson and "Strange Victory" by Ernest May. I'd also like to put a couple of points to you: first, should we not make more of Sedan? This sector was manned by second line troops - recalled reservists with inadequate training and equipment - since the French High Command concentrated their best troops for the drive into Belgium where as you rightly point out they did pretty well. The Germans had taken a big gamble by punching south through the Ardennes - treating their westward advance through Belgium as a "matador's cape" to disguise the sword thrust. When they succeeded in crossing the Meuse in force and the French attempts to "colmater" the gap failed, it turned a local problem into the seeds of a disaster, Second, the political context is crucial - you are right to point out that the French were still fighting pretty effectively (in places) after Dunkirk, but when in mid-June the French Government, under huge pressure from Pétain and Weygand (who had replaced Gamelin) refused to consider the option of moving abroad and continuing the fight from the their overseas territories (as the Dutch had done), and announced that they would seek an armistice, the soldiers in the field quite understandably saw little point in continuing to fight.
Thank you for the kind words. The operations at Sedan weren't the point of the talk and wasn't in the scope of what I was trying to address however. It's a campaign that I could talk about for hours but the scope of this was to address specific points.
@21nickik I believe that to be a major contributing factor, however, contrary to popular belief, there were sufficient forces in the region of Sedan that, had they have acted sooner and more rapidly, would have been sufficient to stop, if not reverse the 3 Panzer divisions at Sedan.
I have to wonder if there was anything the Brits could have done to make the second BEF less of a shambles, and if that could have propped up the French government’s resolve.
@@21nickik It would have just made the western campaign a little longer to win for the germans. French army has no capacity of moving, no air support, no training, bad communications, bad at almost all.
The battle of France in May-June 1940 usually get less attention historically. It's easy to jump right over that to Dunkirk. The best in depth examination of the battle of France I've seen is "Case Red: The Collapse of France" by Robert Forczyk. Even after the Dunkirk evacuation, there was a great deal of heavy, costly fighting. The losses suffered by the Luftwaffe left it weakened and ill prepared when it came time for the Battle of Britain.
Most of the Luftwaffe loses during the Battle of France were from the RAF, not the FRENCH Air Force. French pilots flew one sorty a day on average. French air command withdrew its fighters to south west France out of the battle, while demanding more and more RAF squadrons to be transferred to France from Britain. The Dewoitine fighter was barely used in fighting - the majority were kept in reserve and later used by the Luftwaffe.
@@wuffothewonderdog the deficiencies of French Air Force command and control came home to roost. They had no Dowding let alone a Dowding System to coordinate their fighters to counter the German sorties. Dowding himself visited their command centre in 1939 and left the room immediately upon seeing how unsophisticated and laissez-faire the control and coordination, compared to his system. Ref: Battle of Britain: Dowding & The First Victory; Ray (2002)
@@wuffothewonderdog You are aware that about a third of the French air force flew no sorties…and the total sorties is divided up among ALL French units… The RAF accounted for roughly half of the losses and 1/3 of the damaged air planes in the Luftwaffe during the battle of French, Belgium and the Netherlands barely scraped over 100 together and we know that the LW lost roughly 1400 planes with more than double to triple that in damaged airplanes that needed replacing. The French air force had more planes than they had fully trained pilots available also and they were following, just like the RAF early on, a strategic plan with relative low number of sorties. When you check sorties by units and earmark which units were allocated to what duties… suddenly the number of sorties, mostly fighter sorties here, raises to within the same ball park as the RAF sorties. If I have ten units who are all being worked up and not available for deployment counting them towards the ‘available’ numbers and diving the total sorties by all of the units gives a wry, very misleading number. On the other hand he RAF did MUCH better then the FAF in organising themselves, and even with poor tactics they scored better then the FAF relatively speaking. If you added all the planes in the UK to the total and then divide up sorties for the RAF the same way…the RAF would ALSO suddenly look really poorly. The FAF wasted a lot of opportunities due to poor AA support so close in airfields were vulnerable which meant hey we’re not used and the support would need to come from further back which reduced time above the targets/objectives, the French COC was lagging behind and often completely forgot to inform certain units or the orders arrived way, way to late to be of any use (an example was a bomber unit directed to a location that the Germans had left behind a few days ago for example and suffering horrible losses to get there for no reason effectively). What fought fought well and accounted quite favourably against the LF and in the end it meant that while they lost tactically on a strategic level it helped and ensured the Battle for Britain had a lot less heavy lifting to do early on. The FAF and the RAF destroyed or damaged close to 30% of the LF, about 2/3 of these losses were forced to be pulled back for severe repairs or even outright replacements, during the battle for France and a bit less then half of those totals were from the FAF (they had less killed but more damaged and severely damaged LW planes on their tally then the RAF) which did massively impact both the Battle for Britain and later on the invasion of the Soviet Union due to a almost disproportionate loss total for their bomber and dive bomber units.
@@yannichudziak9942 Edward Spears (Assignment to Catastrophe) tells of waiting for Churchill to arrive for a meeting with Paul Renault, the French PM, at a French military airfield during the Battle of France. Suddenly the airfield was attacked by the Luftwaffe. French fightrr pilots refused to leave their lunches and also refused to allow RAF pilots to man theirt armed and ready planes to fight the Germans. Both Gamelin and Weygand had been staff officers all their time in the military. Neither had commanded troops in action. Yet France blames us for everything. 95% of the French troops evacuated at Dunkirk elected to be returned to a France which had capitulated. Nice place to visit on holiday but I'd let the Germans have them next time. They got on very happily with each other 1940-44.
My Grand-Father - 91ième Régiment d’Infanterie, “Sans peur et sans reproche” - was mortally wounded at the battle of Stonne. The regiment started the war with 80 officers and 3000 men. Three weeks after the beginning of the combats, only 500 were left. The 91ième did not retreat a single time under the German assaults, but only on orders and to avoid being outflanked. I always have to hold back my tears when I see the words “Died for France” on his grave. Thank you for this video.
Frenchman here. This rewriting of history by the Anglo-Saxons that we have been experiencing for decades is also the reason why the film "Napoleon" was very poorly received in France. We are in a world “dominated” by the English language and American cultural power. The historical disinformation of the Anglo-Saxons does enormous harm. Thank you for providing such a video which puts a certain amount of information in its rightful place. And as a reminder, in a few months the German steamroller has brought Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, Czechoslovakia to its knees...etc. The 2 largest European forces (fr, uk) were unable to resist and thwart this advance. We can look at our navel to determine what went wrong, but let's not forget the power of the aggressor.
Excellent episode. The French had just begun production of a semiautomatic rifle, the MAS 44, at the St Etienne armoury in the Vichy area of France. The plan had been to issue the semiautomatic rifle to all regular troops and the bolt action MAS 36 would be used by the reserves. The plan was derailed by the surrender of France in 1940. The French workers successfully hid the existence of the semiautomatic rifle from the Germans by disguising the tooling as bolt action tooling.
@@Industrialitis Yes, the Poles had possibly the best design of all with the wz38M. I’m surprised the Germans didn’t produce that one. They used the Poles to produce Mausers and Vis wz35 pistol.
The French workers also successfully sabotaged the weapon industry from 1938 trough the communist trade union called CGT. In France the "manufacture d'armes" were state owned ( M.A.C, M.A.B, M.A.S) Curiously private owned companies such as Renault or Somua or Panhard were able to produce more tanks or armored véhicules than the "manufactures d'armes " were able to produce machine guns and guns to equip them. In spring 1940 they were full parks of armoured french vehicules which were waiting for their weaponry for weeks and months. These brand new vehicules were very appreciated by the German invader. The CGT acted exactly the same during Indochina war and Algeria war. Sabotaging equipment ( Indochina) or even giving them to the insurgents ( AA52 machine guns were more common among ALN fighters in the 50's than in French army units) Bloody commies traitors.
great video! as some one who has an intense interest in the french army in 1939-1940 this video is by far the most even handed and accurate analysis on the subject!
I talked to French Army veteran a number of years ago and he told me that they were surrounded. They ran out of food and ammunition, nothing to fight with, so they surrendered. He was surprised that he was allowed to go home and was not put in a POW camp.
I'm French and I highly doubt your statement, the army was well equipped and one of the best in Europe. We've lost because of poor political and martial decisions and because the Marechal Pétain overthew the President's authority and made a radio call on June 17th for everyone to surrender to the germans. Many soldiers kept fighting and a lot of others joined the resistance as the communist deputy Charles Tillon calls for the resistance before De Gaulle even does !
@@KaptifLaDistillerie You make excellent points. I am only quoting one man. He would have continued to fight he told me if they had not run out of food and ammunition in his battalion.
@@larrydemaar409 do you remember where he was stationed ? Because from what my grandpa and great grandpa told me, they didn't suffer any shortage of supplies up until late 1940 when the germans took over. The germans also got a lot of unused supplies, tanks and artillery from us and since the defeat, the entire French industry and transportation (namely trains) were devoted to the german "cause"...
@@larrydemaar409 I live in Bordeaux and we have a big souvenir of this in the form of a giant blockhaus that's actually a submarine dockyard in the north of the city
@@KaptifLaDistillerie He was born on February 12, 1921 in Charmes, France and died on April 29, 2011. He told me that he walked home. Checking with a friend to see if they remember where he was when he surrendered.
Great presentation, very well researched and quite comprehensive over the 30’. Well done Tom and Woody. May i add that, in terms of equipment, the French army was equipped with B1’s, which were better than their german counterparts at the time both in terms of firepower and armour and fully equipped with radios. The germans had to use their 88 flak guns to penetrate their armour. The Devoitine 520 fighter planes were more than a match to their german counterparts as well.
The french and British had just as good if not better tanks than the Germans and their armoured troops were just as well trained as the panzer troops. The problem was the French and British employed their tanks piecemeal in small units rather than in multiple divisions. The allied tankers were simply overwhelmed by the sheer weight of numbers of the Germans.
Referring to the "Butcher of Stonne", Capitaine Bilotte: while he was VERY successful in his Char B1 against German armor and AT guns, he also was supposed to be a company leader. The reason why he went on a solo rampage was because all the other Char B1 of his company broke down. I wouldn't call this a superior tank. Somua S.35 was a much better design, but most of the crews weren't properly trained yet. IIRC, deliveries only started in early 1940. Dewoitine 520 was indeed equal to the Bf109. German pilots flew 5 missions per day, French pilots flew 2. And D.520 was usually outnumbered. Nevertheless, the Luftwaffe lost some 1000 aircraft and crews in the French campaign, which didn't play out well during the following Battle of Britain.
Great community here. Thanks for your comments folks. The “butcher of Stonne” was Lt Doumercq and his B1bis “Ricquewihr” who ran over German soldiers in a trench and routed other units scared at the sight of his bloodied tank (this happened the day following Bilotte’s exploits). You make an excellent point regarding CPT Bilotte but i thought he got separated from the rest of his unit. I wasn’t aware that the other tanks broke down, so thanks for the heads up. His tank (named “l’Eure”) still single handedly destroyed 13 panzer III and two AT guns. It had 140 hit marks at the end of the battle and survived. Some of the other issues i know of regarding the B1b is that it was a slow tank and it was supposed to be used in combination with reconnaissance units but these latter were never fielded.
Better? Eeeeh... in some aspects, at least. It was thickly armoured (The hull had 60 or 65 mm on the front, 55 mm on the sides. With measures taken perpendicularly, without factoring the angling in.), had a devastating AT 47 mm turret gun, but the internal ergonomy was just shite: one-man turret, so an over-worked tank chief, radio inoperable in noisy conditions (when the engine was running) because it had no noise filter, no intercom for the crew, and it was slow and its range was... meh. It could drive for five hours before needing to be refueled which, for an MBT of the era, is far too little for anything else than defensive operations and short-ranged offensives. Oh, and I forgot the fact that its turret's design made it impossible for the crew chief to quickly pop out, scan the area, and designate targets. And the way the French tanks were refueled... oh, my. That was really hare-brained. But I digress. Ok, it was designed to tank up many shots, breach through enemy lines and open the way for lighter, faster forces and tanks. But it would really have needed quite a few improvements. And such needs for improvements were taken into account, but far too late.
@@ottovonbismarck2443 Superior tank? It was far better armoured and its armament, although ill-placed, was enough to checkmate in one strike any tank fielded by the Germans in 1940 But well... it had some flaws and, especially, the tactical and strategical doctrines... left greatly to desire.
French strength in "methodical battle" was compromised while on the move. They could defeat the Germans in a stand up fight (Gembloux Gap) but once the Germans broke through, and made it a running fight, the French could not keep up. They also didn't seem to be able to put together any coordinated attacks from any force larger than a division in the May battles. I believe this was tied to France's dependence on dispatch riders when on the move.
it is effectively that, while the French divisions had set up radio communications all the way from Div. HQ down to the battalion, with option to have individual companies be linked into the network (in the TO&E at least, in practice there were production issues limiting the deployment) above that level it was wholly reliant on dispatch riders and telephone lines, which severely hindered any efforts to make a concerted defence, not to mention that while a radio link existed between the air and the ground, the ground units could only receive, and had to communicate their intentions to the air with the use of signal panels, which severely limited the effectiveness of any cooperation
Its important to consider that the french prestige suffer not only because of military defeat but also, probably even more, for political capitulation. In contrast to the polish, dutch, norwegian and then greek goverments, that keep figthing in exile, the french autorities collapse and the legal goverment of the country leave the war.... I tink that these fact damage the french status as a world power more than the defeat in theb1940 campaign
les forces françaises libres commander par le Général CHARLES DE GAULLES , les femmes et les hommes dans Résistance Française . Oui il y a eu la honte d'un gouvernement qui collaborait avec les nazis . mais c'est aussi oublier que la royauté britannique les Windsor était pro - nazi
@@jaguarbrave8453 De Gaulle wasnt the french goverment in 1940. The desition to capitulate or not wasnt his to made. He decided to disobey his orders and continue the figth, but it was a personal desition, not an official one. Also, the number of french military officers and political autorities that follow him was, initially, very small. The "free french" were a small number of disidents, not the french state.
@@marianocuevillas8601 yes but not all France capitulation... Many french fight with Ally all the war... And french résistance... France is considerate Victorious country in the end of War... And french have Many Victory in History.... Charlemagne Empire .... The first crusad ... Cent year War .... Louis XIV ... Napoléon ect ect ect...WW1...
La France était envahi... Que pouvais t'il faire....il on préféré se rendre pour éviter des mort inutile ... On ne peu pas leur en vouloir les anglais était rentrée chez eux... Grâce à l'aide des français.... Les allemands avais une meilleure stratégie et utilisais des techniques modernes d'invasion... 20 millions de russe sont mort pour obtenir la victoire Les allemands était très fort.... Les américains sont arriver a la fin même si il on été très important pour la victoire final il on subi que très peu de perte comparer au russe ou la majorité de l'armée Allemande les afrontais Seulement 500 000 américain mort pour les d'eux guerre mondiale... La France a perdu 2 millions mort avec les deux guerres mondiales...
Pétain was ambassador in Spain during the beginning of the spanish civil war and had a clear inclination toward Franco. This is a hintergrund fact that is decisive to understand the armistice.
It's true and thanks to his links with Franco,Petain could negociate with him and Churchill the supply of the Free Zone with food when this zone was overpopulated and under hunger crisis.
He was as well comploting with caution and secretly against the republic during the years before the war(he had notably links with la Cagoule).Fascists and other far right organizations were seeing him as their providential man.He strongly opposed(along with Laval)to franco-soviet military alliance which was one of the great missed opportunity to stop Hitler.The assassination from Barthou by oustachis and Navachine by la Cagoule were crucial to block it.I don't know if Pétain has any responsability in this but that is another suspicion to add.Also he was opposed to the reinforcement from Sedan since he was the advocate of the opinion that a german mobile force wouldn't be able to go through.He also played a negative role as a war minister during the mid thirties by diminishing the military budget despite the nazi threat.
Thank you for helping clear up so many misconceptions. The French have gotten a bum rap for too long in the US, mostly undeserved. Great presentation, folks!
I watched this show a 2nd time this morning. Tom really made down some salient points: Why go to Norway if they didn't want to fight? - the Maginot Line actually worked as intended because the Germans didn't try assault it head on - French artillery used according to their war doctrine was devastating to German infantry - French doctrine emphasised a anvil like defence to wear down the Germans, so they could then perform manoeuvre warfare later on. (This is being replicated by both sides in Ukraine to force a breakthrough) - bad communications for the mobile French forces doomed them to counter the German thrusts when they came. - French tanks led well could defeat the panzers - German infantry firepower wasn't superior to the French. I had raised the French 1940 myth on a comment to WW2TV a few months back, so delighted Tom tackled it so well. Of course, like any good presentation, it leaves me wanting more and I would be delighted if he could return again for a deeper dive into some of the battles he mentioned: Stonne, Gombleux Gap, Hainaut. Great work and let's cast that despicable slur by President Bush to the bin where it belongs.
Hello, I’m french and i do reenactment of battle of France on the Maginot Line… still beautifuls videos to see about american learning our history 🇫🇷❤️🇺🇸
I’ve always wondered what would have happened had the French retreated to the south of France and hung on. With a strong fleet, along with the Royal Navy to ensure resupply from the south, could they have hung on and counter-attacked?
The Allies failed to stop the Germans in Belgium in May, failed in France in June, so why would it work with considerably weaker forces in southern France in July?
No. Most of the population and virtually all of the industry was in central and northern France. The rump state that became Vichy was just a shadow of France itself.
There is a book called “et si la France avait continué la guerre” (if France have continue the fight) that is a collective work from French wargamer community and specialized historians. The scenario is that French government under de Gaulle leadership retreat toward North Africa with all engineers, industrial armement machine, gold reserves, troops and political institutions. A big part of the army is fighting to death in order to evacuate as much people under the protection of the French Navy. The book is so well written that it’s totally dépressive to read. Because it’s what SHOULD have happen. The 1940 is still a huge trauma in France and is the principal reason why the Nuclear arsenal is such a big sacrifice on the French budget. Since 1940 we are obsess that this defeat will never happen again.
@@paulbourguignon3632 Ah ces uchronies de français qui cherchent a faire gagner la France en 1940... Ça ne tient pas la route. Il n'y a aucune industrie en Afrique du Nord capable de maintenir l'armée, même pas une fabrique de cartouches. Il n'y a pas de ports pour la Marine. Pour évacuer une armée équipée et quelques industries il faut au moins 3 mois. On n'assemble pas une flotte de navire en claquant des doigts. L'industrie soviétique a pu se relocaliser car elle n'a emprunté que des voies ferroviaires, les trains venaient littéralement chercher les machine devant les usines pour les transporter directement devant l'usine nouvelle. Pour aller en Afrique il faut un transfert naval, ce qui pose des contraintes bien plus importantes. De plus, quelles centrales énergétiques en Algérie aurait pu alimenter une petite industrie pour maintenir l'armée ? Et je suppose que les allemands sont censé laisser faire ? En 1943, alors que Rommel s'est fait bouter hors d'Egypte et de Tripolitaine, alors quel l'armée allemande est perdue dans l'immensité de la Russie, que la Luftwaffe est moribonde, que la marine italienne est coulée presque intégralement, les allemands arrivent a transférer en Tunisie une armée entière, chars Tigres inclus... Aller poursuivre l'armée française en Afrique aurait été un jeu d'enfant. D'autant plus que les paras allemands n'avaient pas encore connu le massacre de Crète et étaient gonflés a bloc. Vraiment, cette idée d’évacuation était et reste du pur fantasme. Heureusement que Pétain a signé l'armistice et a collaboré, un gauleiter aurait traité la France comme la Pologne ou les Pays-Bas, là ou 80 % des juifs ont été raflés et 100% de la production industrielle au service de l'armée allemande. (80% des juifs français n'ont pas été exterminés, une part non négligeable de la production a été détournée pour les besoins des français) Je ne suis pas chauvin, je regarde la situation avec raison, la gloire de continuer le combat au prix d'une souffrance accrue du peuple français ne m'excite pas du tout.
@paulbourguignon3632 The fact that it's from "wargamers" tells you everything. De Gaulle was a political minnow, he had no chance of leading a change of the French Gouvernment let alone gathering armaments, engineers and whatever else to Algérie.
Battle of Stone is one my favorite story, i encourage everyone to go search for some détails on this one. A big thanks for sharing this qualitative work on this period.
Rifle wise they had the bolt action MAS36. But they had limited number of automatic rifles, and if the war had started a bit later the numbers of these would have been pretty significant
I would say the mainstay rifle of the time was the Berthier Modèle 1916 (the one seen in the thumbnail). Only professional units had reequipped with the MAS36 by the time the Germans crossed the border. There were no problems with the number of FM24/29 light machine guns in infantry outfits as far as I know.
@@Frenchy849 from memory, the semi automatic MAS40 was intended to be the main weapon for professional front line units, with the cheaper to produce bolt action MAS36 to be used by the rest. A few MAS40 were in use during the Battle Of France, but if the war had started a year or 2 later the number would have been significant.
What is also fascinating is to see post WW2 French fighting doctrine in Europe. Most people tend to focus on the “Guerre Revolutionaire” doctrine of French forces in Indochina…and the “Quadrillage” doctrine in Algeria…. whereas, based on the footage of French Forces in exercises in Europe in the 1950’s/1960’s, they seemed to have grasped a great deal of the lessons of 1940. A doctrine of fast movement with AFV’s and light tanks and the widespread use of the sub machine gun. Then the obvious improvement in their uniform’s mobility and utility. This combined with the greater understanding of the use of paratroopers, shows how they really learned from their mistakes.
The french realised in 1937 that they needed to built a panzer type army similar to Germany. However this would take four years therefore there plans were based on what to do in the meantime
The lack of radio communications was the operational Achilles' Heel of the French Army of May-June 1940. Having radios = modern warfare. Not having radios = C-cubed in the same manner as any army of antiquity. The British fought the Battle of Jutland with C-cubed not much changed since Nelson at Trafalgar. This enabled the Germans set the operational tempo, an economy of action that gave the Germans the edge they needed to win. Another major issue was simply one of resources. In *1914* France went to war with half the population and 1/3 of the industrial base of Germany. The German Army of 1940 was one built from scratch with a virtually blank check. The French Army of 1940 was one affected profoundly by The Great Depression, and the inertia of pre-existing, still serviceable hardware that in and of itself worked, but not modernized. An excellent presentation!
The greatest weakness of French equipment was the artillery. Its backbone was still the "French 75" of WWI fame. This was a low angle gun that had been designed for direct fire, but had received modifications to improve its indirect fire ability. However, it couldn't conduct the plunging fire of a howitzer, it's range was insufficient, and it's shell was simply too small. It embodied a mobile doctrine that was completely obsolete. It's worst characteristic was its inability to hit targets on hilltops. The flat trajectory would either flu completely over the hill of hit well short. However, the 75mm was free, so it remained in service. Meanwhile, the Germans had moved on to the 105mm howitzer as their basic artillery weapon, which was nearly a an order of magnitude more effective. The French army also lacked enough of the heavy, long-range guns that were essential for the counter-battery fight and for interdiction. With a doctrine that "firepower kills," the French army simply assumed that the guns would be there, but did nothing to acquire them in time.
Not entirely accurate, the old 75mm was being refitted and the targeting systems and such brought it up to similar levels of quality as the German equivalents but in 1935 and 1936 they started to bring in many more 105 mm guns, first the shorter barrelled version in 1935 and the longer barrelled one came in from 1936. By 1939 they had roughly 4000 105mm guns for example, a very, very large amount of those were the newer 1935/1936 models, this is listed as in service in their army logistics.(in contrast the German army had for example an estimated 7500 artillery guns available for the battle of France…not counting anti-tank guns) It just was that they had close to ten thousands of the 75mm gun still by this point, at least about a half were the modernised versions. The wiki seems to claim there is less then 14k artillery pieces in the allied arsenal and in other places that the whole of the Maginot line had less artillery then a single German division ‘’As for artillery, a single German infantry division brought more firepower to the table than the entire Maginot Line. Against the 21x 135mm heavy and 34x 75mm medium guns of the fortifications, a German infantry division fielded 40x 105mm medium guns, and 14x 150mm heavy guns, along with 20x 75mm infantry guns’’’. Which is very, very strange since there was 142 artillery forts in the Maginot line…so…over half of the artillery forts had no guns?? Strange… Seems a bunch of the book references I found are either missing part of the sentences compared to the original copies or are very badly misleading by referring to a fortress group in the Maginot line as the whole of the Maginot line among other things or books have copied directly from some Wikipedia stubs without checking the sources :(.
@@yannichudziak9942 The Maginot line proper, excluding the SE front, the extension, the interval position, 81mm mortars, and the 1932 R anti-tank gun (a French 75 mounted so that it could not be used for indirect fire) counted 106 guns and howitzers. Kaufmann's count of 135mm howitzers is 39 in the Maginot Line proper. Given the sheer length the fortified line, the low density of artillery is shocking. I don't see the line you quoted from "The wiki" on the English Wikipedia page. While it doesn't present a single, clear inventory, it indicates much larger numbers that your quote.
The french army was tactically ready (but in the air?), but failed on a *strategical* level, mainly because of bad timing caused by poor communication at the higher level. The german command took the initiative thank to a better *awareness* , intelligence and reactivity at large scale, supported by more efficient transmission of relevant data and orders. In a few occasions, the German forces even used spies equipped with radio inside the French territory, behind the front lines.
Great presentation. Very interesting that he touched on the battles of Hannut and Gembloux in mid-May. Would be nice to see a full presentation/session on those two battles. I seem to recall that one of those represented quite a large tank battle for the time. Good point on command, control and communications at 18:17, on being a major factor (for failure). And to go on a tangent, a presentation on radiotelephony/radio communications in WWII (from prior to the conflict, on to its evolution among the antagonists during the conflict) could make a nice show. Or even a series on the tech of WWII? (If that hadn't been done already).
Thank you for this well articulated talk about the Battle of France. The communication problem seems to be the main factor to explain the issue. It also looks like the French high command had no Plan B in case the Germans did not engage according to the French plan! Moreover Marshall Pétain had his own plan for taking power. The defeat of the French armies then came as a "divine surprise". In this regard, he was opposed to a capitulation of the French armies (a military decision) and favored an armistice, a political act that prevented a continuation of the war by the French forces (overseas troops and an intact and powerful navy). Moreover Pétain could make the previous French governments (and not the military, ie his colleagues) responsible for the defeat. This lead to the disastrous parody of justice of Riom. The Germans would have been unable in 1940 to land and occupy North Africa without involving Spain that was already exhausted by the bloody civil war. Not to speak of the necessity to rule the whole France without the collaboration of as a prestigious and popular leader such as Pétain.
there seemed to have been no plan B effectively, there were no effective reserves to counter the German push, as the Prioux cavalry corps, which was supposed to act as the fire brigade was exhausted in delaying actions to let the Infantry take position, there was also a lack of equipment that would have proven useful in the defense, as for example anti tank mines existed in the french table of equipment of the infantry units since 1936, but no actual orders for the equipment seemed to have taken place before 1939, leading to that piece of equipment to be in constant short supply, same for radios as the cavalry was planning on a dense network between it's armoured units, down to individual vehicles having a set, but fabrications started late despite models being ready in general it seems there was a lack of any urgency to equip the army until war were declared, add in the strikes orchestrated by the communists which added further delays and the previously mentioned lack of effective radio and plan B, and you have a recipe for disaster
It should be noted that the British could have sent more troops to France. Yes they sent 500,000 troops so not a small force, but small by comparison to the other forces. The Germans had 3 million troops and the French Army had 2.2 million troops. If the British had sent more troops then Dunkirk may not have been necessary. In theory they could have stopped the German attack through the Ardense if they had more divisions to counter the German Armored attack.
Even this is overstating British contribution. French had ~94 divisions. British had no more than 10 and 3 of them not complete. This is against population of 42 and 47 mln people. It's rather shocking this simple fact isn't cover¢er of every history of the campaign.
@@sumivescent yes once I was watching a documentary on the campaign it was made by the British. While it said the number of British troops, it quickly called the British force highly mobile, skipping over the numbers as if they are irrelevant. The British write about the battle of France, throwing the French under the bus claiming they were unreliable, meanwhile, they fled at Dunkirk.
Great presentation! Tom Jones put an entirely "new to me" perspective on the Fall of France. I learned much from viewing this episode! In all my years of studying WW2 I have never "maligned" the fighting qualities of the individual soldier. However, I feel the French High Command, it's doctrine, and it's decisions made in 1940 deserve to be "maligned". That their communications infrastucture and lack of modern radio equipment, was in the poor state that it was is unforgiveable.
It may be useful to recognize that the US, UK, and USSR got their asses kicked in the first year to 6 months. The difference was that they were able to retreat until they figured out how to fight.
Considering the fight they put up in WW1, people expected better of them. The French troops fought well. The problem was that for the most part they were poorly prepared and led.
thank you from a proud french boy . in france, we learn the same wrong things and it' s very difficult to ground up with these myths. i' m proud of my ancestors, they are proud and strong. sometimes you lose, sometimes you win. but my grandfather was a strong guy, defending his country thank you again for the rehabilitation of my frenchs grandfathers, I love them for their sacrifices, they deserve honours.
Great presentation! Sixty Days That Shook The West by Jacques Benoist-Mechin goes well past Dunkirk and into the political effects of Fall Gelb as well.
To think that the French would simply 'lie down' and let themselves and their country be overrun is completely ridiculous. Specially after sacrificing so much in ww1. At that time Germany had the best army in Europe and by ww2 had mobile warfare, rearmed with advanced weaponry and innovated their tactics. Already trialled in Poland and elsewhere. And as a Brit I would say the only thing that saved us from the same fate was the 26 mile wide gap of water between us.
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Nice Episode, thank you. The Magino Line thing really is deeply routed, even among some Bunker lovers I know.
20:00 yes, BUT the german Plans did not count on overcomming the maginot line at all. It was to trap the allies in thinking that the main push came through the low countries, which they fell for and send the most capable armies there, and then the germans came through the ardennes and undercut the armies, effectively cutting them in half and pushed them out of mainland france where they had to surrender or evacuate in op Dynamo. I really love the show, but to say that the magino line was so brilliant, thats why they were only overcome at the end of Fall Rot is just wrong. it totally was a great defence but it was overcome this late because the battle plan was to go around it and then mop it up. :) Peace and Love from germany
I didn't say that. I said that the Maginot Line did its job in protecting the French border where it was positioned. It was a deterrent and as you've agreed, it worked. It is also a fact that attacks against the line from the front weren't very successful and its also true that the Germans only took it very late on in the campaign.
The German plan also included a ruse the French fell for completely (due to French memories of German WW1 advance, & importance of industry in that area). The Germans tricked the French into keeping something like 40+ divisions behind the (actually unfinished) Maginot line, west of Sedan, whilst facing only about 15 German divisions. This freed up German divisions elsewhere, & is why the Maginot line area held out so long. The French finally moved their reserves, leaving the Maginot Line as unsupported outposts, which then fell when the Germans did actually attack.
@eric-wb7gj this is why I mentioned the Mechelen incident. From the French perspective, it was entirely reasonable to assume that the Germans were going to run their main strike through Belgium. The Germans themselves planned exactly that up until mid February 1940.
I had a West Point military series that covered every encounter in the war and I remember reading that the plan for the Maginot line was not as intended when it was built. There was supposed to be a railway underground to connect everything and a large mobile contigent to keep from being flanked or overrun. The general who taught the course defended the line and wrote if it had been done as intended the war may have gone quite differently alas for budget cuts.@@Emchisti
In 1949, Churchill's memoirs (Their Finest Hour) identified incorrect strategic assessment (low threat in the Ardennes) and failure to maintain an adequate strategic reserve as the key factors leading to France's defeat. Nothing about any unwillingness to fight by the French. Add some commentary of their poor communications infrastructure and he was pretty much there in 1949.
Thank you from France ! 1938, 1939, 1940, the Brits, the Frenchs, the Belgians, the Germans, the Pols, the Russians, all the others... Aflter a decade of political romance, my country does its best to combinate mistakes and unluck.
Glad to see a balanced reassessment of the French army of 1940 offered by a British historian. This reassessment has been ongoing in France in the last 20 years or so, but has not really reached the English-speaking public. Yet, the idea of the French surrendering without a fight is so ingrained in the psyche and even culture of Anglophones, with all the derogatory jokes popping up anytime the word "French" is uttered, that except for those who are genuinely interested in learning about History, I'm not really convinced the perception in the general public is likely to change anytime soon, unfortunately... In any case, thank you Woody and Dr Jones! Any chance of a full length video on the subject? :) Just a few notes regarding the issue at hand: Although the French did have some radios, they often broke down and didn't always send or received messages properly, as mentioned by numerous accounts and reports during and after the battle. In terms of equipment, the MAS36 rifle was good, but only 150,000 had been delivered to troops in May 1940... so not many. The last French troops to surrender were Maginot troops and did so in early July around two weeks after the Armistice had been signed. I'm surprised about what Mr Jones says about ammunition being available in large amount, as there are numerous French accounts stating that ammunition was too often lacking , especially for AA but not exclusively.
As in every case, even amongst the superbly and lavishly equipped British and Americans later in the war, they sometimes had localised ammunition shortages. We're talking degrees here, but in general and specifically in the armies ending Belgium the French took A LOT of ammunition. This is attested to by the Germans who fought the French. The French would often fire upwards of 200 shells an hour from divisional artillery just to provide fire that made the Germans uncomfortable, as opposed to having targets to actually kill. When this was the case, they would saturate the line with fire.
@@Emchisti yes I should have been more accurate. I was not thinking about artillery when I mentioned that. On the second day of the German offensive, General Corap, commander of the 9th Army covering the Meuse, got a message from HQ asking him to save his AA ammunition as there was no stock available in the short term.
@Raph1805 a lot is often lost in translation online! In terms of small and ammunition and one thing I didn't mention in the video was that each Infantryman carried a lot of SAA and *generally* SAA was available to them when that ran out. As ever, we can always find examples where this isn't the case and, it should be noted, these examples stay with us in the narrative - very few soldiers complain loudly that they have enough ammo!
I'mfrom the US and have been aware of the nonsense about France for many years. I think a lot of people repeatihis stupidity are from the US where WW2 isn't taught well at all it's all ignorance but not malice they simply don't know what they are talking about. This current younger generation has almost no interest in history and again it's barely taught to them in school.
What pains pe tge most is everyone saying the Maginot Line was useless when it did exactly what it was supposed to do and even surpassed expectations in a lit of places
So the French were prepared to fight the last war and to fight it really well where the Germans were fighting a new war. Like the example of radios - German tank crews were able to call in air support while the French tank crews in their far superior tanks had signal flags.
It is unfortunate that the French Army failed to invest in the most important category of equipment for an army to function. The radio was the key implement of mobile warfare. The United States Army effectively implemented the second stage of the French pre-war doctrine in Italy because it invested heavily in radio communications.
The story I heard was they were paranoid about operational security so degraded its importance. "legend has it" (so take with salt, way more than a pinch) that in WW1, French code breakers/wireless intercept staff could not always read what the German Radio Signals were saying, but by 1917 were able to identify the "tapping" style of a LOT of the individual German Wireless operators. They may not be able to read what was sent, but they would know who sent it and therefore which unit was sending it. I'm not sure about the truth of it, but if true, knowing that X unit was in Y place at the front could tell you a lot. Units had reputations. Suddenly all the units that had reputations for being good attacker units have been rotated out of the front line? You might want to start looking for hints of where the attack is coming.
@@jon-paulfilkins7820 that was true and they also started to break the codes because they learned to recognise the individual operators because they knew what they had as habits and what sort of mistakes they would make resulting in them starting to break the codes faster and faster. They also worked a lot on radio jamming but… this was not a mobile thing and what they were trying to jam was not the shorter range radio’s most tank units for example used. When you combine this the hard line base communications and trusted messengers would defeat that sort of things. And the few places with proper radio set ups had very, very high security set ups which… caused other problems, you needed to decrypt things massively so it would take ages to decrypt.
Firstly, as a Frenchman, thank you for this fair depiction of french forces during the Battle of France. Secondly, another reason for the french defeat can be found in "Le choix de la défaite" by Professor Annie Lacroix-Riz, which I warmly recommend. Essentially, she demonstrates how, in the 1930's, a sizeable proportion of the french upper classes decided they'd rather have Hitler than socialism : "Plutôt Hitler que le Front Populaire", and did everything within their power to sabotage french defense from the inside while supporting Nazi Germany's war effort.
Funny you should mention that as I've just finished Dr Chrs Millington's book on the hist of fascism in France. It helps explain a lot of the thinking and paranoia at the top of French society in the 1930s. I'd heartily recommend it.
I visited the grave of my great uncle, who was killed in the retreat to Dunkerque, and the small cemetery has as many,if not more, French graves as British, which tells a story. However, I'm also reading "Premier Combat" ,which is a book of Jean Moulin's diaries when he was a Prefet during the Fall of France. He writes in there about his dismay at the number of deserting French soldiers mixed in with the refugees fleeing the invasion and occupation. Although, he does point out that, because of the collapse of large parts of the French military command structure, many just didn’t know what to do without that organisation. Interesting subject.
Ah! Jean Moulin, a real resistance hero, betrayed to the Milice with included within its ranks Mitterrand who, as President of France, was able to re-write his wartime in Lyons.
poland a month, greece 20 days. yugoslavia 12 days, netherland 4 days, denmark 2 days. Germans got to moskov in 6 month while sovjets needed 2,5 years to kick them out. US, British and all the Allied Forces needed 6 month to take back what germans took in 6 weeks. The French fought as brave as all the others.
Thanks and very informative. I am so tired of the " cheese eating surender monkey" jibes which I knew were untrue - you only have to look at WW1 French casualties to see that is rubbish. But good to have a fact based rebuttal.
The anglophone world pays too much attention to Dunkirk in the BoF (and my father was there) to the neglect of both the hard fighting thereafter, and indeed the injection of both more British units and the return of French troops from Dunkirk to western France. My father went on to fight the French in Syria and that too was a hard fight.
If the Saar offensive at the beginning of the war had been prosecuted more vigorously, could the French have broken through or at least forced the Germans to pull troops back from Poland? Also, I'd read a book about Allied tank forces that suggested that if Rommel's thrust through the Ardennes had failed, the war might have bogged down to WWI type stagnant warfare. Considering that the British outproduced the Germans in every category just by themselves... this would not have favoured the Germans.
No french army couldn't. At this time the army wasn't mobilised, the war production of weapon only begun. For more the french army has no capaacity of manoeuvring, only able to do static defense. The Sarre "offensive" was a little thing and couldn't be more than that.
@@BFVKThe Poles in cooperation with the French had broken the German enigma codes a few years before 1939 and found out a lot about the German military strengths and dispositions.
Good evening Thank you for your superb work, which is necessary and which will pay tribute to the courage and sacrifice of our veterans of 1940 to the British, American and English-speaking public. I was able to observe many very interesting themes on your TH-cam channel, being a Frenchman already very interested in French military history, I also have a very great interest in British and American military history and that of other countries . I think I will find a lot of interesting topics on your channel 👍 you gain a new subscriber, thank you , Merci 🙂 Cordialy
Merci Monsieur pour avoir fait cette mise au point et avoir donné les faits du mieux que vous pouviez! C’est à votre honneur! Thanks a lot Mister to have done this mise au point and to have given the facts in the best way you could! To your honour! S.Mayer Québec
Lots of myths. What wasn’t a myth was the lack of a viable battle plan, or the ability to adapt tactics when that plan fails. That’s on the French general staff not the men actually fighting.
Gamelin proved to be a complete disaster as the French commander-in-chief, basically making every mistake that one could make. Weygand was a better soldier, but came in too late to have any chance to turn the tide, and proved all too willing to welcome Pétain and end the French republic (though at least he always refused the collaboration with Germany).
Let me ask you this: what was Germany's equivalent of "adapting tactics" if the Panzer Corridor was somehow cut off that they lost their vanguard armored forces? I agree the French GS had much to answer for and there were those in the French command that thought they should not shoot-their-wad but pushing everything into Belgium and to wait and see a bit. But actually the French DID ADAPT TACTICS! They, under Gen. Weygand, actually developed the "hedge-hog" defense against panzer formations to slow them down and it did indeed work very well. The problem was that you cannot win without a reaction force to counterattack and the French mobile force was pretty much spent after the first 10 days in Belgium. The hedge-hog defense was essentially the basis NATO's 'Active Forward Defense' strategy prior to Air Land Battle 2000...
@dougnockles29 excellent point and why the distinction between Case Yellow and Case Red needs to be made, in terms of French tactics and overall strategy.
Yes yes, Cases Red and Gelb, also Fall Rot was far more similar to the Wehrmacht/Heer battle plan they executed in Poland with a more conventional infantry/artillery approach and the panzers more in a support and calvary role. Fall Gelb was initially much closer to Rot and evolved from the Reichswehr Fall Blau plans that were very rudimentary.....@@Emchisti
Thank you for this update on history. Historians knew perfectly well the role of France in WWII but for political reasons (GW Bush to punish France for not supporting the 2nd Iraq War, while we know that Bush blatantly lied) or ego ( all British or American trolls), France has been unjustly slandered for years. It was about time Bristish historians corrected this.
I forgot to mention that this sort of very accurate video are a great thing... sure, you missed or let aside some points, but the important point was to show that all is not forcely white or black... and Clichés are clichés. thanks for that. From a former staff sergeant in french army, tankist, 2nd to platoon leader on AMX 30 B then to mechanised infantry platoon on AMX 10P... still serving for my 30th years, Adjudant (master Sergeant) in french Gendarmerie, twice injuried, a NDE.
Really enjoyed this. Sorry I missed the live broadcast. A thought about the historiography of war in general. I'm most familiar with the US Civil War primarily because I spent a long career in the public history of that war. While historiography is usually an ongoing process there are key moments when there are opportunities for huge changes in scholarship. For the Civil War there was the passing of the generation that fought the war. As that happened it created an opportunity to reinterpret the war away from the War of the Rebellion antipathy between the two to a more unification, Lost Cause perspective. That was done at a deliberate cost. We're in a similar moment of change now. It's an opportunity to challenge preconceptions and, in this case, build scholarship based on interpretation based on primary sources and solid analysis instead of the political/social/supremacy motivations that characterize Lost Cause historiography. It's a lesson worth learning. It seems to me this series is actively engaged in that effort. Thanks.
My thoughts, I have read a couple of books on this subject. The primary one was by Len Deighton called Blitzkrieg. Also I did read the Dunkirk book on which the movie was based which naturally went into much more detail than the movie. A third book was about the Dirty Fifth, the Fifth Royal Tank Regiment which fought from the beginning to the end of the war. It has some interesting perspectives of France 1940. But the most interesting thing was the strike through the Ardennes, it was unexpected and the French forces failed to react. When the Germans burst out of the Ardennes the French continually set defensive positions that the Germans simply ignored, annihilating that defence in depth strategy. The French had the armour to hand to oppose the river crossings by Gudarian. They simply took up positions on the flanks with their amour and watched the Germans sail by. The French troops were never in question with regards to their fighting prowess. But their command structure from Weygand on down was culpable in losing the battle for France due to their lack of imagination in fighting a modern war. Weygand, who kept pulling back the French airforce without using them, was particularly suspect. He was a massive Anglophobe and never included the British HQ Staff in his planning or orders. These found their way to Gort via secondary means. Weygand completed tours of the battlefields and wasted huge amounts of time before issuing orders. Almost all the time British operations were meant to occur in conjunction with French forces the French never showed up because of the lousy communications. There is a tale of the German movement through the Ardennes being held up by a French bunker. The soldiers were equipped with the 20mm Hotchkiss A/T gun and they held out for quite a few hours. But it never occurred to the French Command to equip them with radio or even a phone. If they had, a whole German armoured division could have been attacked from the air while strung out and hemmed in, but the French never considered the Ardennes a serious threat. Lack of imagination. I specifically put Weygand solely front and centre as the reason for the fall of France. It is highly suspicious that he fled to Southern France and became a member of the Vichy Government.
They did but it wasn't exclusively the french that defended the perimeter and the British that were evacuated. Both British and French troops were evacuated and both British and French troops held the perimeter. Approximately 100,000 French troops made it out on ships and approximately 40,000 British troops were captured in and around Dunkirk.
@@toomuchstupididty6311 yes they were. A second BEF was landed in France and it fought the Germans south of the Somme before it too had to be evacuated when France surrendered. The British also thought of holding Brittany to continue to fight the Germans but again this idea was scrapped after France surrendered.
Very interesting your analysis. However, I discussed this alot with my grandfather who was an officer in the BEF (British Expeditionnary Force) and finished by being evacuated in Dunkirk. He was absolutely ASHAMED by the BEF, and the complete lack of any will to support the French. His division literally fled to Dunkirk, leaving the French on their one to do the job... while the French were actually counting on them to plug important holes. Until his last days, he just could not get over it, telling over and over that it was the British who fled and droppend their guns. Not the French. Ironically... and how many times have we seen this in history... its the others who get blamed for what you precisely did... In particular, he recalls a shamefull British retreat of the entire communication and mapping services... literally handing the tactical maps into the arms of the Germans. Until his last days, he was ashamed and frequently went back to France after the war to apologize to his french friends. It's stunnig even here how nothing is said about the collapse... of the British Army aswell...
What a fascinating insight and something I think that has been lost over the years. Its interesting to see those views and add much needed context to the discussion. Thank you.
(I'm french) First, it's very nice to read that from your grandfather.
I enquired a lot about that moment of the war.
This propaganda is stupid and unfair.
But the ones to blame in the british army and britain of this time are the ones at the head of the army.
And now it's the americans propaganda since 2003 wich definitely turned a good friend of them into a foe (one more).
But soldiers obey, if the army's command had gave him the order to rush to his death he would have done it.
I can understand that your grandfather felt guilty. But he is not the one who should feel this way.
In fact with time he understood the single stance of the British Gov was: How to transform a pitiful defeat into a something more glorious. And it worked: blame the others, turn a retreat into a glorious evacuation. My GDad was mad. He was very accurate in his details and constantly told me to beware how the Brits tend to rewrite history for their own glory. Everyone does it though. He also insisted how the '100 days to victory' following the 2nd battle of the Marne, 1918... was turned into a glorious British victory run. Turns out that the credit was well... less British... and much down to Foch and the French Army. But thats another story. However, if you type Marne 2nd Battle or '100 day to victory'... well, surprise, what do you see? British soldiers... historians have alot of work to do!!
The shame is not on the shoulders of the soldiers of brits or french army.
It's horrible how your gramps was feeling, that's events beyond the individual will.
At least i hope he enjoyed the time spend with his friends.
I wouldn’t blame either the British or the French, for being less than enthusiastic, to partake in another war, not much more than 20 years after the horrific slaughter of WW1. The French casualties in WW1 were atrocious. It’s important to remember that in 1940, Britain and France were democracies, whereas Germany was ruled by a fanatical dictatorship.
So nice to see a balanced perspective. I am American and an ardent Francophile, which many idiotic Americans ridicule due to the rapid Nazi victory on 1940. 1500 years of French history and that's all they know.
Yup, without the French the US revolution most likely would have failed and George Washington would have been hung.
The US attitude is especially ironic given that the US Army was so thoroughly routed in the Ardennes that a British general had to take control. According to Bruce Clarke, the best performing U.S. general in the battle, Eisenhower was happy to let Montgomery keep command because he expected an absolute disaster and wanted to spread the blame.
@@jayfrancis3020 Also Brits (especially Montgomery) had the experience of the terrific and humiliating defeat of 1940. The myth of the alone France responsible of the 1940 failure appeared many many years after WWII. For example, the last french troops which had been taken in UK ports after Dunkirk, were known as the heros of Dunkirks which have permitted to save most of the BEF, british people was knowing it and when the french disembark in Dover, Plymouth etc... the british civilians and the british troops present there applaused the french soldiers. not so cowards finally ?
The winners make History. USA which hadn't knknown the salt of the defeat and had never been truly in danger were not able to apprehend the german offensive in the ardennes. the US plan was the best in the world, they had been a bit slowed in Normandy but excepted that, the rush through France was a ballad in tehir mind... they forgot that the brish forces and french resistance had been there to permit it softer and nicer.
Eisenhover was a great planner, a good global strategist, but he was not good to "react" to a "surprise". In december 1944; German losses on the eastern and also in the western front were terrific, they had no primary resurces (mainly oil and food) nor men reserves, all was calculated to win easily. No one predicted the 2 last german counter offensives of december 1944(ardennes) and january 1945 (Nordwind, Alsace)... Then when the german launched the tigers I and II, the panthers and the last elite troops in the ardennes, American generals were stunned, unable to react instantly. it's then easier when you have some allies which have known defeats against the same enemies... Monty was well experienced, non only because of 1940 but because in the desert warfare, he learnt to not base his own judgement and anlysis on optimistic view and on appearances. The 8th army had a true superiority to the afrika korps and the italians, but it took time to win, with its share of victories, defeats, attacks and counter-attacks... you thought the desert fox was definitively beaten (el alamein I), he came back and needed el alamein II and the US/allied landing in french north africa and even after that, the kasserine pass is the perfect example of the american unconsciousness of the reality of the war : you may be overwhelmind superior in numbers, in shape, in supplies, in air force etc... on the paper... BUT the fight has still to be done properly and being over confident is often the main reason of the most terrific desillusions.... Many have considered that Monty was too "cautious" and over-prudent. When you place yourself in the skin of Monty, when you have his experience, you can't be and think differently. BTW they called him the uncautious for the Arnhem Bridge (it was a great effort, which succeded at 80%, which is great in WWII)... A bridge too far ? maybe... maybe not.
Sometimes It would be wise to remind Americans that without the French navy, I am not sure they would have obtained their independence, and I am not just talking about the Battle of Chesapeake.
@@tonio3920 Non only the Navy. French diplomacy involved Spain and Netherlands in the equation : it brought 2 big naval powers in the balance, obliging the british navy to share its ships all around the globe to protect her naval way to their colonies and authorise to save the aximum of primary resurces UK needed. Then French gold was involved alot without counterpart. Guns, weapons, uniforms, food, military lessons/formationshas been provided by French, permitting to Washington army to survive when they were in great disarray in Valley forge after many defeats at the beginning. I think that the independence was saved like in the 4 first years, not because french army and navy were involved but because it permitted Washington to keep an army when they were in true difficulty. Once the bad years had passed and once French involved her full weight and Spain and Dutch, the independence was secure.
As the grandson of a French reservist pilot in both WWI and II, the only survivor of his squadron with his captain in 1940, I am grateful every time Anglo people correct the deeply nauseating loud rumours coming from a country that was happy to stand by, watch and make money until the Germans declared war on them. The French Air Force was the first to bomb Berlin and destroyed as many Luftwaffe planes as they lost. That was 200 less German planes over London during the Blitz.
The French certainly deserve more credit in the defeat of the Third Reich.
"a country that was happy to stand by, watch and make money until the Germans declared war on them"....what is this country ? 😂
@@goldorakrak8939The US, duh
@@NDScalio I guess you don't understand French humour...🤣
"The French Air Force was the first to bomb Berlin" not exactly, it was the French Navy, with one single plane
As french, I really want to thank you for this video.
I'm so enraged when I see the lack of respect for French soldiers of 1940. It's mainly from people who know absolutely nothing about the Campagne de France, but thanks to video like this one, mentality begin to change... Slowly.
English spoken people begin to know more about Stonne battle, Montcornet counter offensive (which almost saw Guderian being captured by the french), the story of the Cadet de Saumur etc, and mentality begin to change.
You have a truely excellent book (in French) by Dominique Lormier : Comme des lions (like lions) that really show that French soldiers of 1940 didn't lack of any courage or will to fight.
They were great men and great soldiers, we have to remember and salute their sacrifice and give them back, their true place in history.
En comparant avec ce qu’est devenu cette armée c’est encore plus saisissant
Comme je dis souvent, la France a 1500 ans d'histoire et le plupart des américains ne connaissent que la défaite de 1940.
Not all English are ignorant of the French army in 1940.
No respect well deserved, especially for abandoning Poland.
@@MIMALECKIPLWhere do you come from ?
Needed to be said. It is important to remember also that a lot of the rear guard at Dunkerque were French.
If I was evil, I'd say the French made the evacuation possible.😜 If I was honest, I'd say the Germans were in no position to catch the BEF.
It would have been very difficult for the Germans to completely crush the beachhead, they simply didn't have the required forces onsite. Nevertheless there were fierce fights going on with all combatants either trying to get out or lay siege.
The Panzer Halt! order was a big help, but then OKW was reasonably spooked by the attacks by the BEF at Arras along with other French efforts to sever the Corridor and they always were leery of a hidden Allied counterstrike as they did not have the clarity in the fog of war. Also, the Wehrmacht never would have guessed that many Brits (and French) would get out because The ROYAL NAVY had no idea they could get that many out...
@@dougnockles29 It wasn't just Arras that irritated OKW; the Panzer divisions were in a critical shape after continously advancing. The tanks needed fuel and maintenance, the men needed food and rest; there was the battle for France ahead ...
@ottovonbismarck2443 I agree, just trying to shorten my responses here. I think it wasn't just one cause and usually never is. In addition to the exhaustion the infantry and other rear echelon forces were still struggling with the cadence of the Fall Gelb and consolidating their positions.
In The Blitzkrieg Legend, Freiser also postulates that the Halt Order was a way for OKW and Hitler to reign in his unruly generals they saw as borderline out-of-control and to reestablish order on their panzer divisions running amuck and abusing the 'mission-to-tactics" delegative authority typical of the Prussian lineage of the Heer. In addition, my own speculation is that the "fog of war" and chaos prevented any absolute German victory in having everything go their way because up until that point the stars had aligned and Germany had been incredibly lucky. The French had also been very lucky but theirs was unfortunately all bad and at some point, luck runs out.
Germany and the Wehrmacht in general did not recognize the sealift capability of Britannia maritime as even the Royal Navy didn't think they'd get more than 11,000 out initially! The Germans would have happily traded 11k sad and wet men for the chance to inflict serious losses on the Royal Navy (and Airforce) especially their destroyer arm - as the Allies had done to the Kriegsmarine in Norway. The Dunkirk thing is a giant hindsight myth with some infamous “Hitler’s Fault” German generals “Monday Morning Quarterbacking” in their postwar memoirs. I’ll check but not sure if this channel has done a “Hitler Let the BEF Go at Dunkirk” edition but they should. It’s even dumber than the FDR-Pearl Harbor LIHOP trash. Cheers...
@@dougnockles29 There are still so many things unsolved. I'm afraid AH can't tell us what he thought and Guderian and Manstein lie through their teeth. I believe everybody in Germany was convinced that the British would eventually ask for peace. They were beaten and out of the picture for the battle for France. Someone with smaller bollocks than Churchill might have given up ...
I say German corps and division commanders ignoring orders and running wild was the best that could happen. They understood the local situation and they didn't allow the French to dig in. If the French had time to dig in, they usually put up a tough fight. If your headquarters don't know where you are, how would the enemy know ? It's not exactly something you can plan for, thus very risky, but it doesn't waste precious time either.
As for Norway: I'd happily trade some (badly designed) destroyers and cruisers for an uninterupted flow of iron ore from Sweden and Norway; besides, most of the crews survived.
Btw, these Narvik-destroyers were supposed to be gone before the RN showed up, but their supply ships with fuel and ammo were all sunk on their way to Narvik, IIRC courtesy of RN submarines. All but one which came from the secret German base in Northern Russia ... Norway was a case of good and bad luck switching sides permanently. Shortly before entering the Fjord, Warspite was supposedly hit by a U-boat, but the torpedo detonators failed.
A votre santé, Monsieur ! 🙂
I don't know how many times I've heard the old joke "French rifle for sale. Never fired and only dropped once.".
John McCain was even telling it to insult the French after they'd refused to join in on the US invasion of Iraq.
I've long known it was a myth and of all the myths I've heard about WWII, I think that one irritates me the most.
There are a number of comments from across the pond that are a bit rich coming from a country that might not have existed without French assistance, about a military that was very highly regarded until 1870 & who themselves were so keen to steer clear of involvement that comments about them turning up late are quite common.
@@chrissouthgate4554
Not to mention from a country that hasn’t actually won a war in 80+ years
So you are saying the French weren't idiot enough to follow W.? Hardly an insult. And the joke originates from Full Metal Jacket, not the debacle of 1940. But bear in mind that the French lost 90,000 dead is six weeks and the US suffered 417,000 in over 4.5 years of fighting. I'm pretty sure the ones chirping here are the cowards that would have favored Isolationism in 1940 and probably the ones that stood by as MAGA-4F-in-Chief pissed all over McCain and his service in Vietnam along with the "suckers" in the Cemetaries in France...
@@GrubHuncher Define "winning". Does anyone really win war? Watching an ex-concentration camp inmate driving a bulldozer pushing piles of emaciated corpses into a mass grave after "victory" takes a lot of joy out of winning. The US lost in Vietnam but also won in some respects. We did largely win the Cold War. Lost the battle, won the war. Bu8t there are always more wars to win and lose..
@@dougnockles29 I first heard the joke when I was a kid, and that was the 1960s. While it was used in "Full Metal Jacket", that's not where it originated.
Beyond that, I agree with the rest of your comment. One thing that's always amazed me is how those who most vociferously supported Bush's invasion of Iraq when the debate was ongoing are the same people who now call it a "stupid war" and blame it all on Hillary Clinton because she voted to authorize Bush's use of military force.
It's like living in Bizzaro World.
Honestly, this is great stuff. The French made mistakes, but it’s nice to see some of these myths get taken down. You guys just got another subscriber.
I do like to see the balance restored. There's been some nasty rhetoric and memes over the years. Good one Tom. Love to see a show about France after Dunkirk
Apparently, the cadets at a French Cavalry school held up the German advance for several days with their training weapons. The surviving wounded were carried out past Germans standing at parade attention.
Les cadets de Saumur
@@didierpaya9069 There should be a movie about it... if there isn't one already.
@@brunozeigerts6379 It's disturbing to admit that our enemy had more respect for us, and deserved more respect than our ally.
(i'm french)
Not apparently, it really did happen. And the German commander even allowed them to flee to a non occupied zone. In Lille too (you can see a pic of this event at the beginning, the Germans also allowed French troops to parade in arms after they surrendered following a fierce resistance. My grandfather was captured there
My ancestors had to leave alcase in order to expand the prison colony system.
Say Diversey in english, german and then en français. Which one sounds best, with purpose, for the rest of what you/others are saying at the time?
Thank you for having a thought for the French soldiers who sacrificed themselves in Dunkirk and Lille to allow the evacuation of allied troops. The responsibility for defeat rests with General Gamelin. Sending the Giraud army unnecessarily to the border of the Netherlands instead of keeping it in reserve was one of his many mistakes. Thank you to our British friends for this historical work on this dramatic period.
So nice to hear a shout out to Martin Alexander - many fond memories from my time at Aberystwyth. The French government may have lacked the ability to conduct effective offensive warfare in 1940, but the French soldier had no lack of courage, and no lack of opportunities to prove that.
Howdy there folks! Tom’s presentation on the French army in 1940 made me want more on France’s military from mid-1930s to the 1940 battles. Gave me a new perspective, learned lots.
Along side the Communication issues in the French army, it didn't help that they had sent the 7th army ( I think it was one of their reserves ) towards the Netherlands, and thus without a reserve on the front it was harder to cut off the Germans spear head. They did all that they could anyway, and the Germans in the end respected their fighting spirit so much that they allowed them to keep their weapons and march past saluting. Great show guys.
General Georges complained about this diversion of forces a couple of times to General Gamelin, to no avail.
Yeah, well, that is my criticism on this historian Tom Jones; "sending off your mobile armies across to Narvik and Belgium doesnt help your own french defensive plans..".
FFS , never heard of international political COMMITMENT ?!?!
I tell you WHY this is an UTTERLY STUPID remark of a Historian nota bene:
The belgians and Dutch and Norwegians FOUGHT in the BELIEF thatthe Brits and French were GOING TO SEND FORMIDABLE military help!
If The french and brits would have made CLEAR that they will NOT send help (as in MANY cases was the case!!) then the Dutch and belgians and norwegains WOULD NOT EVEN HAVE RESISTED AT ALL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tell me arm chair fokkin historians; HOW would THAT benefit the greater strategic situation for the brits and / or the french ?!?!?
also: what complete IMBECILE french army high command it would be ..if you send off ONLY and ALL of your reserves army towards a distant place ?!??!
If anything , it STILL puts blame on the french HQ for NOT HAVING ANY OTHER PROPER RESERVES ARMY atthe ready behind the frontlines ?!?!
duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh !!!!
@@oddballsok I think you have misinterpreted his point. He was making a statement to push back against the myth of a passive, non-committal French Army in the war. His point was that the French took a proactive role in the war, aiding Norway in its defense and establishing a front in Belgium to prevent its capture. His argument supports your points.
Very good to see Tom and Woody debunking the ridiculous "French cheese-eating surrender monkey" myth.⭐⭐⭐ In fact, I have become very sick and tired of it for quite a while ago as I became more familiar with WW2 in general. American politicians and celebrities take a considerable blame for perpetuating this myth in my opinion. (These Americans should review how US forces in the ETO performed in 1942-43. US forces had to overcome their own learning curve in both North Africa and in Italy, although, in this instance, it was less about the radios but more about learning how the German operated in general. Tsk, tsk, tsk ...) Meanwhile, it is the historians' job to provide the context required to understand why decision-makers made whatever decisions they made and why armies fought the way they did.
I could understand why the French forces lagged behind in wireless communications. Just take a cursory look at the Red Army and you will notice more or less the same. We must remember that widespread use of battlefield radios was still new in the first couple of years of WW2. This is something that had to be figured out before someone could sit down and write textbooks about.
As de Gaulle said to Stalin after the Soviet Union had lost 100,000 km2 of its territory : "The French did not lack courage in 1940, they lacked space."
Very pleased to see this. A lot of years ago I studied the 1940 campaign intensively. Initially my purpose was to learn more about the extremely flexible German doctrines and I remained impressed, but the more I studied the less I could regocnise the then usual image of a total hopeless and lacklustre French effort. Yes, their intelligence and command, control and especially communications were disastrous, but had some German commanders (Guderian , Rommel etc) not disobeyed orders and kept racing for the Channel, the German attack probably would have bogged down and the war turned into the attrional war the French were so well prepared for. That probably would have Hitler suddenly choke on his Apfelstrudel and a peace agreed on, or the Germans would be crushed in 1941 by a French-British offensive. The 1940 campaign was a much more close run thing than we usually recognise, and what a difference it would have made on the world today! Anyway the US/British firepower based doctrines of late WWII resembles the French doctrine of 1940 much more than it resembles German Blitzkrieg. The biggest difference was the Wallies having lots of radios and planes by mid/late WWII, but still a very cautious and methodical approach. After WWII NATO keenly tried to learn from German Auftragstaktik (mission tactics). They/we got quite a distance, but still quite cumbersome with elaborate written orders compared to Blitzkrieg. Especially in manoeuvre, but also capable of very swift focus of firepower. Perhaps not the worst "compromise" - through history firepower usually beats maneuvre.
The entire German success came down to an extremely risky pontoon crossing at Sedan. Had that not succeeded…
@@danieleyre8913 A bit of an oversimplification, but yes, a fair point. I recall the Germans also found essentially an underwater 'bridge' walkway that was hard to see. A concrete walkway that could support vehicles and was camouflaged by just a few inches or cm's or water above it. I am not sure how aware the French of its existence but they either forgot about it or neglected to blow it up.
The North Vietnamese would later use a similar trick in the Vietnam War to disguise resupply routes from US bombing. Just one of the many little things went wrong for the French while a lot went right for the Heer...
@@danieleyre8913 As a french, I cannot assure you how much this is frustrating to learn about May 40, because the more I do, the more I see how with just a little bit of luck for our army, things would have gone so differently.
It was THAT close.
The Germans who fought the French in '40 did NOT insult them or belittle their efforts. An officer under Rommel's command was quoted saying, 'The poilu at Sedan has nothing to apologize for' [Wietersheim, 'Panzer Diary'].
The cold fact is that the Wehrmacht was specifically designed from the ground up to defeat the French Army of 1940. Their entire mission in life was to avenge Compiegne in 1918, and they did so with great skill.
But that takes absolutely nothing away from the French soldiers who stood their ground and fought. They fought with old equipment and older doctrine under officers who were just as hidebound and blinkered. Most of the French Army fought with one hand tied behind its back and one boot nailed to the floor and STILL won the respect of the victors.
Many thanks to Tom. I know about Bataille de France but was desperate to hear one day "no the French didn't run like rabbit in 1940". I'm really waiting the Case Red. My father fought in Attigny in 18eme RI (36DI) and I know it was bloodies days from 9 to 11 June 1940.
Another frenchman here. Thank you for a great discussion. The lack of communication and the slowness of movement to redeploy were experienced first hand by both my grand-fathers. One of them was involved in supply transportation and the other being a swift runner was a communication carrier -until he was shot upon reaching a commanding post by the Germans, and kept as a prisoner until 1943 when he returned with a missing lung and a destroyed hip. But the war was just starting for the family. Their kids -teenagers at that point- joined the maquis de l'Armagnac and then integrated in the French force that took La Rochelle and continued fighting all the way into Germany.
Thank you Tom and Paul for the presentation.
Tom was fascinating to listen to as he has done such obvious sound research. From what I remember from watching the 1970s World at War episode about the fall of France then, was that it was the French government officials and the high command who showed a lack of flexibility and resolve. The poor French Armies fought well, but gave up hope once the government packed it in. This was no walkover as Tom has elaborated well. Being of French descent I must add "Vive Le France!"
I loved World at War. As an American kid Laurence Olivier sounded so authoritative.
@@Chiller11 It was my introduction to WW2 when I was a teen. It still holds up today even though it is somewhat dated. The best part about it was that many of the people interviewed were still fairly young with fresh memories.
@@iangreenhalgh9280 Agreed, but not all ran. The colonial troops from North Africa put up some fierce resistance which caused the Germans some delay, and many of the first class units, such as the armored cavalry divisions and several Infantry Divisions slowed the advance, but they were too few I'm afraid. One thought though, I think that the units that ran from the panzers were mostly the reserve units, called up but with limited anti-tank capabilities. Hard to stop a tank with rifles.
@@iangreenhalgh9280 Thanks for the reply. I haven't read up on my May 1940 history in some time. I will have to take a little time to refresh my memory, but you are right as I remember now. Appreciate o fellow live chatter keeping me honest. Fascinating subject, isn't it? Cheers.
@@iangreenhalgh9280 qui a fuient ? qui a rembarqué à Dunkerque pour un retour en Angleterre après seulement 10 jours de combats ? qui a laisser 842 tanks , 230 000 tonnes de munitions , 470 000 tonnes de carburants etc.etc.etc. les anglais .
As a former academic historian of modern France, I'm impressed by the balance and detail of this presentation. For English-speaking readers who want to know more, may I add a couple of recommendations: "The Fall of France" by Julian Jackson and "Strange Victory" by Ernest May. I'd also like to put a couple of points to you: first, should we not make more of Sedan? This sector was manned by second line troops - recalled reservists with inadequate training and equipment - since the French High Command concentrated their best troops for the drive into Belgium where as you rightly point out they did pretty well. The Germans had taken a big gamble by punching south through the Ardennes - treating their westward advance through Belgium as a "matador's cape" to disguise the sword thrust. When they succeeded in crossing the Meuse in force and the French attempts to "colmater" the gap failed, it turned a local problem into the seeds of a disaster, Second, the political context is crucial - you are right to point out that the French were still fighting pretty effectively (in places) after Dunkirk, but when in mid-June the French Government, under huge pressure from Pétain and Weygand (who had replaced Gamelin) refused to consider the option of moving abroad and continuing the fight from the their overseas territories (as the Dutch had done), and announced that they would seek an armistice, the soldiers in the field quite understandably saw little point in continuing to fight.
Thank you for the kind words. The operations at Sedan weren't the point of the talk and wasn't in the scope of what I was trying to address however. It's a campaign that I could talk about for hours but the scope of this was to address specific points.
The real failure is Breda. If the 7th Army had been in place to counterattack at Sedan, the whole war changes fundamentally.
@21nickik I believe that to be a major contributing factor, however, contrary to popular belief, there were sufficient forces in the region of Sedan that, had they have acted sooner and more rapidly, would have been sufficient to stop, if not reverse the 3 Panzer divisions at Sedan.
I have to wonder if there was anything the Brits could have done to make the second BEF less of a shambles, and if that could have propped up the French government’s resolve.
@@21nickik It would have just made the western campaign a little longer to win for the germans.
French army has no capacity of moving, no air support, no training, bad communications, bad at almost all.
The battle of France in May-June 1940 usually get less attention historically. It's easy to jump right over that to Dunkirk. The best in depth examination of the battle of France I've seen is "Case Red: The Collapse of France" by Robert Forczyk. Even after the Dunkirk evacuation, there was a great deal of heavy, costly fighting. The losses suffered by the Luftwaffe left it weakened and ill prepared when it came time for the Battle of Britain.
Most of the Luftwaffe loses during the Battle of France were from the RAF, not the FRENCH Air Force. French pilots flew one sorty a day on average. French air command withdrew its fighters to south west France out of the battle, while demanding more and more RAF squadrons to be transferred to France from Britain. The Dewoitine fighter was barely used in fighting - the majority were kept in reserve and later used by the Luftwaffe.
@@wuffothewonderdog the deficiencies of French Air Force command and control came home to roost. They had no Dowding let alone a Dowding System to coordinate their fighters to counter the German sorties. Dowding himself visited their command centre in 1939 and left the room immediately upon seeing how unsophisticated and laissez-faire the control and coordination, compared to his system.
Ref: Battle of Britain: Dowding & The First Victory; Ray (2002)
@@wuffothewonderdog
You are aware that about a third of the French air force flew no sorties…and the total sorties is divided up among ALL French units…
The RAF accounted for roughly half of the losses and 1/3 of the damaged air planes in the Luftwaffe during the battle of French, Belgium and the Netherlands barely scraped over 100 together and we know that the LW lost roughly 1400 planes with more than double to triple that in damaged airplanes that needed replacing.
The French air force had more planes than they had fully trained pilots available also and they were following, just like the RAF early on, a strategic plan with relative low number of sorties.
When you check sorties by units and earmark which units were allocated to what duties… suddenly the number of sorties, mostly fighter sorties here, raises to within the same ball park as the RAF sorties.
If I have ten units who are all being worked up and not available for deployment counting them towards the ‘available’ numbers and diving the total sorties by all of the units gives a wry, very misleading number.
On the other hand he RAF did MUCH better then the FAF in organising themselves, and even with poor tactics they scored better then the FAF relatively speaking.
If you added all the planes in the UK to the total and then divide up sorties for the RAF the same way…the RAF would ALSO suddenly look really poorly.
The FAF wasted a lot of opportunities due to poor AA support so close in airfields were vulnerable which meant hey we’re not used and the support would need to come from further back which reduced time above the targets/objectives, the French COC was lagging behind and often completely forgot to inform certain units or the orders arrived way, way to late to be of any use (an example was a bomber unit directed to a location that the Germans had left behind a few days ago for example and suffering horrible losses to get there for no reason effectively).
What fought fought well and accounted quite favourably against the LF and in the end it meant that while they lost tactically on a strategic level it helped and ensured the Battle for Britain had a lot less heavy lifting to do early on.
The FAF and the RAF destroyed or damaged close to 30% of the LF, about 2/3 of these losses were forced to be pulled back for severe repairs or even outright replacements, during the battle for France and a bit less then half of those totals were from the FAF (they had less killed but more damaged and severely damaged LW planes on their tally then the RAF) which did massively impact both the Battle for Britain and later on the invasion of the Soviet Union due to a almost disproportionate loss total for their bomber and dive bomber units.
@@yannichudziak9942
Edward Spears (Assignment to Catastrophe) tells of waiting for Churchill to arrive for a meeting with Paul Renault, the French PM, at a French military airfield during the Battle of France. Suddenly the airfield was attacked by the Luftwaffe. French fightrr pilots refused to leave their lunches and also refused to allow RAF pilots to man theirt armed and ready planes to fight the Germans.
Both Gamelin and Weygand had been staff officers all their time in the military. Neither had commanded troops in action. Yet France blames us for everything. 95% of the French troops evacuated at Dunkirk elected to be returned to a France which had capitulated. Nice place to visit on holiday but I'd let the Germans have them next time. They got on very happily with each other 1940-44.
never trust a French person true comment if ever their was one.@@wuffothewonderdog
My Grand-Father - 91ième Régiment d’Infanterie, “Sans peur et sans reproche” - was mortally wounded at the battle of Stonne. The regiment started the war with 80 officers and 3000 men. Three weeks after the beginning of the combats, only 500 were left. The 91ième did not retreat a single time under the German assaults, but only on orders and to avoid being outflanked. I always have to hold back my tears when I see the words “Died for France” on his grave. Thank you for this video.
Frenchman here. This rewriting of history by the Anglo-Saxons that we have been experiencing for decades is also the reason why the film "Napoleon" was very poorly received in France.
We are in a world “dominated” by the English language and American cultural power. The historical disinformation of the Anglo-Saxons does enormous harm.
Thank you for providing such a video which puts a certain amount of information in its rightful place.
And as a reminder, in a few months the German steamroller has brought Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, Czechoslovakia to its knees...etc. The 2 largest European forces (fr, uk) were unable to resist and thwart this advance. We can look at our navel to determine what went wrong, but let's not forget the power of the aggressor.
Thanks, but Napoleon was poorly received in the UK too
Excellent episode. The French had just begun production of a semiautomatic rifle, the MAS 44, at the St Etienne armoury in the Vichy area of France. The plan had been to issue the semiautomatic rifle to all regular troops and the bolt action MAS 36 would be used by the reserves. The plan was derailed by the surrender of France in 1940. The French workers successfully hid the existence of the semiautomatic rifle from the Germans by disguising the tooling as bolt action tooling.
same with the Belgians, they were right about to adopt what would become the FN 49 in 1939. The designer was able to escape in 1940.
@@Industrialitis Yes, the Poles had possibly the best design of all with the wz38M. I’m surprised the Germans didn’t produce that one. They used the Poles to produce Mausers and Vis wz35 pistol.
The French workers also successfully sabotaged the weapon industry from 1938 trough the communist trade union called CGT.
In France the "manufacture d'armes" were state owned ( M.A.C, M.A.B, M.A.S)
Curiously private owned companies such as Renault or Somua or Panhard were able to produce more tanks or armored véhicules than the "manufactures d'armes " were able to produce machine guns and guns to equip them.
In spring 1940 they were full parks of armoured french vehicules which were waiting for their weaponry for weeks and months.
These brand new vehicules were very appreciated by the German invader.
The CGT acted exactly the same during Indochina war and Algeria war.
Sabotaging equipment ( Indochina) or even giving them to the insurgents ( AA52 machine guns were more common among ALN fighters in the 50's than in French army units)
Bloody commies traitors.
The Germans would have had access to Czech weapons, some of the finest of the period@@Chiller11
Je ne savais pas ça, tu as de bonnes sources à consulter ? Passionant !
great video! as some one who has an intense interest in the french army in 1939-1940 this video is by far the most even handed and accurate analysis on the subject!
I talked to French Army veteran a number of years ago and he told me that they were surrounded. They ran out of food and ammunition, nothing to fight with, so they surrendered. He was surprised that he was allowed to go home and was not put in a POW camp.
I'm French and I highly doubt your statement, the army was well equipped and one of the best in Europe. We've lost because of poor political and martial decisions and because the Marechal Pétain overthew the President's authority and made a radio call on June 17th for everyone to surrender to the germans. Many soldiers kept fighting and a lot of others joined the resistance as the communist deputy Charles Tillon calls for the resistance before De Gaulle even does !
@@KaptifLaDistillerie You make excellent points. I am only quoting one man. He would have continued to fight he told me if they had not run out of food and ammunition in his battalion.
@@larrydemaar409 do you remember where he was stationed ? Because from what my grandpa and great grandpa told me, they didn't suffer any shortage of supplies up until late 1940 when the germans took over.
The germans also got a lot of unused supplies, tanks and artillery from us and since the defeat, the entire French industry and transportation (namely trains) were devoted to the german "cause"...
@@larrydemaar409 I live in Bordeaux and we have a big souvenir of this in the form of a giant blockhaus that's actually a submarine dockyard in the north of the city
@@KaptifLaDistillerie He was born on February 12, 1921 in Charmes, France and died on April 29, 2011. He told me that he walked home. Checking with a friend to see if they remember where he was when he surrendered.
Great presentation, very well researched and quite comprehensive over the 30’. Well done Tom and Woody. May i add that, in terms of equipment, the French army was equipped with B1’s, which were better than their german counterparts at the time both in terms of firepower and armour and fully equipped with radios. The germans had to use their 88 flak guns to penetrate their armour. The Devoitine 520 fighter planes were more than a match to their german counterparts as well.
The french and British had just as good if not better tanks than the Germans and their armoured troops were just as well trained as the panzer troops. The problem was the French and British employed their tanks piecemeal in small units rather than in multiple divisions. The allied tankers were simply overwhelmed by the sheer weight of numbers of the Germans.
Referring to the "Butcher of Stonne", Capitaine Bilotte: while he was VERY successful in his Char B1 against German armor and AT guns, he also was supposed to be a company leader. The reason why he went on a solo rampage was because all the other Char B1 of his company broke down. I wouldn't call this a superior tank. Somua S.35 was a much better design, but most of the crews weren't properly trained yet. IIRC, deliveries only started in early 1940.
Dewoitine 520 was indeed equal to the Bf109. German pilots flew 5 missions per day, French pilots flew 2. And D.520 was usually outnumbered. Nevertheless, the Luftwaffe lost some 1000 aircraft and crews in the French campaign, which didn't play out well during the following Battle of Britain.
Great community here. Thanks for your comments folks. The “butcher of Stonne” was Lt Doumercq and his B1bis “Ricquewihr” who ran over German soldiers in a trench and routed other units scared at the sight of his bloodied tank (this happened the day following Bilotte’s exploits). You make an excellent point regarding CPT Bilotte but i thought he got separated from the rest of his unit. I wasn’t aware that the other tanks broke down, so thanks for the heads up. His tank (named “l’Eure”) still single handedly destroyed 13 panzer III and two AT guns. It had 140 hit marks at the end of the battle and survived. Some of the other issues i know of regarding the B1b is that it was a slow tank and it was supposed to be used in combination with reconnaissance units but these latter were never fielded.
Better? Eeeeh... in some aspects, at least. It was thickly armoured (The hull had 60 or 65 mm on the front, 55 mm on the sides. With measures taken perpendicularly, without factoring the angling in.), had a devastating AT 47 mm turret gun, but the internal ergonomy was just shite: one-man turret, so an over-worked tank chief, radio inoperable in noisy conditions (when the engine was running) because it had no noise filter, no intercom for the crew, and it was slow and its range was... meh. It could drive for five hours before needing to be refueled which, for an MBT of the era, is far too little for anything else than defensive operations and short-ranged offensives.
Oh, and I forgot the fact that its turret's design made it impossible for the crew chief to quickly pop out, scan the area, and designate targets.
And the way the French tanks were refueled... oh, my. That was really hare-brained. But I digress.
Ok, it was designed to tank up many shots, breach through enemy lines and open the way for lighter, faster forces and tanks. But it would really have needed quite a few improvements. And such needs for improvements were taken into account, but far too late.
@@ottovonbismarck2443
Superior tank? It was far better armoured and its armament, although ill-placed, was enough to checkmate in one strike any tank fielded by the Germans in 1940
But well... it had some flaws and, especially, the tactical and strategical doctrines... left greatly to desire.
French strength in "methodical battle" was compromised while on the move. They could defeat the Germans in a stand up fight (Gembloux Gap) but once the Germans broke through, and made it a running fight, the French could not keep up. They also didn't seem to be able to put together any coordinated attacks from any force larger than a division in the May battles. I believe this was tied to France's dependence on dispatch riders when on the move.
it is effectively that, while the French divisions had set up radio communications all the way from Div. HQ down to the battalion, with option to have individual companies be linked into the network (in the TO&E at least, in practice there were production issues limiting the deployment) above that level it was wholly reliant on dispatch riders and telephone lines, which severely hindered any efforts to make a concerted defence, not to mention that while a radio link existed between the air and the ground, the ground units could only receive, and had to communicate their intentions to the air with the use of signal panels, which severely limited the effectiveness of any cooperation
Truth is that only the German army was capable of a fluid moving battle.
Its important to consider that the french prestige suffer not only because of military defeat but also, probably even more, for political capitulation.
In contrast to the polish, dutch, norwegian and then greek goverments, that keep figthing in exile, the french autorities collapse and the legal goverment of the country leave the war....
I tink that these fact damage the french status as a world power more than the defeat in theb1940 campaign
les forces françaises libres commander par le Général CHARLES DE GAULLES , les femmes et les hommes dans Résistance Française . Oui il y a eu la honte d'un gouvernement qui collaborait avec les nazis . mais c'est aussi oublier que la royauté britannique les Windsor était pro - nazi
Yes but général de Gaulle not capitulation
@@jaguarbrave8453 De Gaulle wasnt the french goverment in 1940. The desition to capitulate or not wasnt his to made.
He decided to disobey his orders and continue the figth, but it was a personal desition, not an official one.
Also, the number of french military officers and political autorities that follow him was, initially, very small. The "free french" were a small number of disidents, not the french state.
@@marianocuevillas8601 yes but not all France capitulation... Many french fight with Ally all the war... And french résistance... France is considerate Victorious country in the end of War...
And french have Many Victory in History.... Charlemagne Empire .... The first crusad ... Cent year War .... Louis XIV ... Napoléon ect ect ect...WW1...
La France était envahi... Que pouvais t'il faire....il on préféré se rendre pour éviter des mort inutile ... On ne peu pas leur en vouloir les anglais était rentrée chez eux... Grâce à l'aide des français.... Les allemands avais une meilleure stratégie et utilisais des techniques modernes d'invasion...
20 millions de russe sont mort pour obtenir la victoire
Les allemands était très fort.... Les américains sont arriver a la fin même si il on été très important pour la victoire final il on subi que très peu de perte comparer au russe ou la majorité de l'armée Allemande les afrontais
Seulement 500 000 américain mort pour les d'eux guerre mondiale... La France a perdu 2 millions mort avec les deux guerres mondiales...
Pétain was ambassador in Spain during the beginning of the spanish civil war and had a clear inclination toward Franco. This is a hintergrund fact that is decisive to understand the armistice.
It's true and thanks to his links with Franco,Petain could negociate with him and Churchill the supply of the Free Zone with food when this zone was overpopulated and under hunger crisis.
He was as well comploting with caution and secretly against the republic during the years before the war(he had notably links with la Cagoule).Fascists and other far right organizations were seeing him as their providential man.He strongly opposed(along with Laval)to franco-soviet military alliance which was one of the great missed opportunity to stop Hitler.The assassination from Barthou by oustachis and Navachine by la Cagoule were crucial to block it.I don't know if Pétain has any responsability in this but that is another suspicion to add.Also he was opposed to the reinforcement from Sedan since he was the advocate of the opinion that a german mobile force wouldn't be able to go through.He also played a negative role as a war minister during the mid thirties by diminishing the military budget despite the nazi threat.
Sorry, it was not "during the beginning of the spanish war" but in 1939, after the war finished.
Thank you for helping clear up so many misconceptions. The French have gotten a bum rap for too long in the US, mostly undeserved. Great presentation, folks!
Hehe funny that Paul mentions Case Red by Forcazyc. It just arrived today at my house since I wanted to learn more about the french campaign :)
Woody/Tom. Thanks for a great presentation. Really interesting and well researched. Bob
I watched this show a 2nd time this morning. Tom really made down some salient points:
Why go to Norway if they didn't want to fight?
- the Maginot Line actually worked as intended because the Germans didn't try assault it head on
- French artillery used according to their war doctrine was devastating to German infantry
- French doctrine emphasised a anvil like defence to wear down the Germans, so they could then perform manoeuvre warfare later on. (This is being replicated by both sides in Ukraine to force a breakthrough)
- bad communications for the mobile French forces doomed them to counter the German thrusts when they came.
- French tanks led well could defeat the panzers
- German infantry firepower wasn't superior to the French.
I had raised the French 1940 myth on a comment to WW2TV a few months back, so delighted Tom tackled it so well. Of course, like any good presentation, it leaves me wanting more and I would be delighted if he could return again for a deeper dive into some of the battles he mentioned: Stonne, Gombleux Gap, Hainaut.
Great work and let's cast that despicable slur by President Bush to the bin where it belongs.
It's spelt Gembloux and Hannut...
@@hatoup3360pedantry for the win, as if two slightly misspelled place names undermine the very thoughtful points the user was making...
@@cybertronian2005 just trying to make things easier/faster for him, no undermining whatsoever intended!
Hello, I’m french and i do reenactment of battle of France on the Maginot Line… still beautifuls videos to see about american learning our history 🇫🇷❤️🇺🇸
I’ve always wondered what would have happened had the French retreated to the south of France and hung on. With a strong fleet, along with the Royal Navy to ensure resupply from the south, could they have hung on and counter-attacked?
The Allies failed to stop the Germans in Belgium in May, failed in France in June, so why would it work with considerably weaker forces in southern France in July?
No. Most of the population and virtually all of the industry was in central and northern France. The rump state that became Vichy was just a shadow of France itself.
There is a book called “et si la France avait continué la guerre” (if France have continue the fight) that is a collective work from French wargamer community and specialized historians. The scenario is that French government under de Gaulle leadership retreat toward North Africa with all engineers, industrial armement machine, gold reserves, troops and political institutions. A big part of the army is fighting to death in order to evacuate as much people under the protection of the French Navy. The book is so well written that it’s totally dépressive to read. Because it’s what SHOULD have happen. The 1940 is still a huge trauma in France and is the principal reason why the Nuclear arsenal is such a big sacrifice on the French budget. Since 1940 we are obsess that this defeat will never happen again.
@@paulbourguignon3632 Ah ces uchronies de français qui cherchent a faire gagner la France en 1940...
Ça ne tient pas la route. Il n'y a aucune industrie en Afrique du Nord capable de maintenir l'armée, même pas une fabrique de cartouches. Il n'y a pas de ports pour la Marine.
Pour évacuer une armée équipée et quelques industries il faut au moins 3 mois. On n'assemble pas une flotte de navire en claquant des doigts. L'industrie soviétique a pu se relocaliser car elle n'a emprunté que des voies ferroviaires, les trains venaient littéralement chercher les machine devant les usines pour les transporter directement devant l'usine nouvelle. Pour aller en Afrique il faut un transfert naval, ce qui pose des contraintes bien plus importantes.
De plus, quelles centrales énergétiques en Algérie aurait pu alimenter une petite industrie pour maintenir l'armée ?
Et je suppose que les allemands sont censé laisser faire ?
En 1943, alors que Rommel s'est fait bouter hors d'Egypte et de Tripolitaine, alors quel l'armée allemande est perdue dans l'immensité de la Russie, que la Luftwaffe est moribonde, que la marine italienne est coulée presque intégralement, les allemands arrivent a transférer en Tunisie une armée entière, chars Tigres inclus...
Aller poursuivre l'armée française en Afrique aurait été un jeu d'enfant. D'autant plus que les paras allemands n'avaient pas encore connu le massacre de Crète et étaient gonflés a bloc.
Vraiment, cette idée d’évacuation était et reste du pur fantasme.
Heureusement que Pétain a signé l'armistice et a collaboré, un gauleiter aurait traité la France comme la Pologne ou les Pays-Bas, là ou 80 % des juifs ont été raflés et 100% de la production industrielle au service de l'armée allemande. (80% des juifs français n'ont pas été exterminés, une part non négligeable de la production a été détournée pour les besoins des français)
Je ne suis pas chauvin, je regarde la situation avec raison, la gloire de continuer le combat au prix d'une souffrance accrue du peuple français ne m'excite pas du tout.
@paulbourguignon3632
The fact that it's from "wargamers" tells you everything.
De Gaulle was a political minnow, he had no chance of leading a change of the French Gouvernment let alone gathering armaments, engineers and whatever else to Algérie.
Battle of Stone is one my favorite story, i encourage everyone to go search for some détails on this one.
A big thanks for sharing this qualitative work on this period.
Rifle wise they had the bolt action MAS36. But they had limited number of automatic rifles, and if the war had started a bit later the numbers of these would have been pretty significant
I would say the mainstay rifle of the time was the Berthier Modèle 1916 (the one seen in the thumbnail). Only professional units had reequipped with the MAS36 by the time the Germans crossed the border.
There were no problems with the number of FM24/29 light machine guns in infantry outfits as far as I know.
@@Frenchy849 from memory, the semi automatic MAS40 was intended to be the main weapon for professional front line units, with the cheaper to produce bolt action MAS36 to be used by the rest. A few MAS40 were in use during the Battle Of France, but if the war had started a year or 2 later the number would have been significant.
@katywalker8322 that is correct. MAS-40 for the regular troops, MAS-36 for the reserve & colonials.
What is also fascinating is to see post WW2 French fighting doctrine in Europe. Most people tend to focus on the “Guerre Revolutionaire” doctrine of French forces in Indochina…and the “Quadrillage” doctrine in Algeria…. whereas, based on the footage of French Forces in exercises in Europe in the 1950’s/1960’s, they seemed to have grasped a great deal of the lessons of 1940. A doctrine of fast movement with AFV’s and light tanks and the widespread use of the sub machine gun. Then the obvious improvement in their uniform’s mobility and utility. This combined with the greater understanding of the use of paratroopers, shows how they really learned from their mistakes.
The french realised in 1937 that they needed to built a panzer type army similar to Germany. However this would take four years therefore there plans were based on what to do in the meantime
It was classical case of lions led by donkeys. The very casualty numbers show French soldiers were ready to die in defence of their country!
Fantastic conversation and a topic i would like to learn more about. I hope to see Tom again.
The lack of radio communications was the operational Achilles' Heel of the French Army of May-June 1940. Having radios = modern warfare. Not having radios = C-cubed in the same manner as any army of antiquity. The British fought the Battle of Jutland with C-cubed not much changed since Nelson at Trafalgar. This enabled the Germans set the operational tempo, an economy of action that gave the Germans the edge they needed to win.
Another major issue was simply one of resources. In *1914* France went to war with half the population and 1/3 of the industrial base of Germany. The German Army of 1940 was one built from scratch with a virtually blank check. The French Army of 1940 was one affected profoundly by The Great Depression, and the inertia of pre-existing, still serviceable hardware that in and of itself worked, but not modernized.
An excellent presentation!
The greatest weakness of French equipment was the artillery. Its backbone was still the "French 75" of WWI fame. This was a low angle gun that had been designed for direct fire, but had received modifications to improve its indirect fire ability. However, it couldn't conduct the plunging fire of a howitzer, it's range was insufficient, and it's shell was simply too small. It embodied a mobile doctrine that was completely obsolete. It's worst characteristic was its inability to hit targets on hilltops. The flat trajectory would either flu completely over the hill of hit well short. However, the 75mm was free, so it remained in service. Meanwhile, the Germans had moved on to the 105mm howitzer as their basic artillery weapon, which was nearly a an order of magnitude more effective.
The French army also lacked enough of the heavy, long-range guns that were essential for the counter-battery fight and for interdiction.
With a doctrine that "firepower kills," the French army simply assumed that the guns would be there, but did nothing to acquire them in time.
Not entirely accurate, the old 75mm was being refitted and the targeting systems and such brought it up to similar levels of quality as the German equivalents but in 1935 and 1936 they started to bring in many more 105 mm guns, first the shorter barrelled version in 1935 and the longer barrelled one came in from 1936.
By 1939 they had roughly 4000 105mm guns for example, a very, very large amount of those were the newer 1935/1936 models, this is listed as in service in their army logistics.(in contrast the German army had for example an estimated 7500 artillery guns available for the battle of France…not counting anti-tank guns)
It just was that they had close to ten thousands of the 75mm gun still by this point, at least about a half were the modernised versions.
The wiki seems to claim there is less then 14k artillery pieces in the allied arsenal and in other places that the whole of the Maginot line had less artillery then a single German division ‘’As for artillery, a single German infantry division brought more firepower to the table than the entire Maginot Line. Against the 21x 135mm heavy and 34x 75mm medium guns of the fortifications, a German infantry division fielded 40x 105mm medium guns, and 14x 150mm heavy guns, along with 20x 75mm infantry guns’’’. Which is very, very strange since there was 142 artillery forts in the Maginot line…so…over half of the artillery forts had no guns?? Strange…
Seems a bunch of the book references I found are either missing part of the sentences compared to the original copies or are very badly misleading by referring to a fortress group in the Maginot line as the whole of the Maginot line among other things or books have copied directly from some Wikipedia stubs without checking the sources :(.
@@yannichudziak9942 The Maginot line proper, excluding the SE front, the extension, the interval position, 81mm mortars, and the 1932 R anti-tank gun (a French 75 mounted so that it could not be used for indirect fire) counted 106 guns and howitzers. Kaufmann's count of 135mm howitzers is 39 in the Maginot Line proper. Given the sheer length the fortified line, the low density of artillery is shocking.
I don't see the line you quoted from "The wiki" on the English Wikipedia page. While it doesn't present a single, clear inventory, it indicates much larger numbers that your quote.
The french army was tactically ready (but in the air?), but failed on a *strategical* level, mainly because of bad timing caused by poor communication at the higher level. The german command took the initiative thank to a better *awareness* , intelligence and reactivity at large scale, supported by more efficient transmission of relevant data and orders.
In a few occasions, the German forces even used spies equipped with radio inside the French territory, behind the front lines.
Great presentation. Very interesting that he touched on the battles of Hannut and Gembloux in mid-May. Would be nice to see a full presentation/session on those two battles. I seem to recall that one of those represented quite a large tank battle for the time.
Good point on command, control and communications at 18:17, on being a major factor (for failure).
And to go on a tangent, a presentation on radiotelephony/radio communications in WWII (from prior to the conflict, on to its evolution among the antagonists during the conflict) could make a nice show. Or even a series on the tech of WWII? (If that hadn't been done already).
Thank you for this well articulated talk about the Battle of France. The communication problem seems to be the main factor to explain the issue. It also looks like the French high command had no Plan B in case the Germans did not engage according to the French plan! Moreover Marshall Pétain had his own plan for taking power. The defeat of the French armies then came as a "divine surprise". In this regard, he was opposed to a capitulation of the French armies (a military decision) and favored an armistice, a political act that prevented a continuation of the war by the French forces (overseas troops and an intact and powerful navy). Moreover Pétain could make the previous French governments (and not the military, ie his colleagues) responsible for the defeat. This lead to the disastrous parody of justice of Riom.
The Germans would have been unable in 1940 to land and occupy North Africa without involving Spain that was already exhausted by the bloody civil war. Not to speak of the necessity to rule the whole France without the collaboration of as a prestigious and popular leader such as Pétain.
there seemed to have been no plan B effectively, there were no effective reserves to counter the German push, as the Prioux cavalry corps, which was supposed to act as the fire brigade was exhausted in delaying actions to let the Infantry take position, there was also a lack of equipment that would have proven useful in the defense, as for example anti tank mines existed in the french table of equipment of the infantry units since 1936, but no actual orders for the equipment seemed to have taken place before 1939, leading to that piece of equipment to be in constant short supply, same for radios as the cavalry was planning on a dense network between it's armoured units, down to individual vehicles having a set, but fabrications started late despite models being ready
in general it seems there was a lack of any urgency to equip the army until war were declared, add in the strikes orchestrated by the communists which added further delays and the previously mentioned lack of effective radio and plan B, and you have a recipe for disaster
It should be noted that the British could have sent more troops to France. Yes they sent 500,000 troops so not a small force, but small by comparison to the other forces. The Germans had 3 million troops and the French Army had 2.2 million troops. If the British had sent more troops then Dunkirk may not have been necessary. In theory they could have stopped the German attack through the Ardense if they had more divisions to counter the German Armored attack.
Even this is overstating British contribution. French had ~94 divisions. British had no more than 10 and 3 of them not complete. This is against population of 42 and 47 mln people. It's rather shocking this simple fact isn't cover¢er of every history of the campaign.
@@sumivescent yes once I was watching a documentary on the campaign it was made by the British. While it said the number of British troops, it quickly called the British force highly mobile, skipping over the numbers as if they are irrelevant. The British write about the battle of France, throwing the French under the bus claiming they were unreliable, meanwhile, they fled at Dunkirk.
Great presentation! Tom Jones put an entirely "new to me" perspective on the Fall of France. I learned much from viewing this episode! In all my years of studying WW2 I have never "maligned" the fighting qualities of the individual soldier. However, I feel the French High Command, it's doctrine, and it's decisions made in 1940 deserve to be "maligned". That their communications infrastucture and lack of modern radio equipment, was in the poor state that it was is unforgiveable.
The Germans had gained previous experience from fighting in Spain civil war, Poland, Denmark and Norway. The French? Well I don't know...
Ton is another presenter who needs a longer episode after this taster.
It may be useful to recognize that the US, UK, and USSR got their asses kicked in the first year to 6 months. The difference was that they were able to retreat until they figured out how to fight.
This whole series has been excellent - how does Paul keep up the energy? Respect, mate.
Considering the fight they put up in WW1, people expected better of them. The French troops fought well. The problem was that for the most part they were poorly prepared and led.
thank you from a proud french boy .
in france, we learn the same wrong things and it' s very difficult to ground up with these myths.
i' m proud of my ancestors, they are proud and strong.
sometimes you lose, sometimes you win.
but my grandfather was a strong guy, defending his country
thank you again for the rehabilitation of my frenchs grandfathers, I love them for their sacrifices, they deserve honours.
Great presentation!
Sixty Days That Shook The West by Jacques Benoist-Mechin goes well past Dunkirk and into the political effects of Fall Gelb as well.
Excellent perspective from Tom, with a review of doctrine, senior leadership faults and communications issues - and all in 30 mins 👍
Outstanding show!
Yes it was!
To think that the French would simply 'lie down' and let themselves and their country be overrun is completely ridiculous. Specially after sacrificing so much in ww1. At that time Germany had the best army in Europe and by ww2 had mobile warfare, rearmed with advanced weaponry and innovated their tactics. Already trialled in Poland and elsewhere. And as a Brit I would say the only thing that saved us from the same fate was the 26 mile wide gap of water between us.
Nice Episode, thank you. The Magino Line thing really is deeply routed, even among some Bunker lovers I know.
thank you as a french history fan this give me hope for a better futur where people simply know history :')
This was great thank you.
Excellent, really good to see the erroneous post ww2 historys being corrected,well done Sir!
20:00 yes, BUT the german Plans did not count on overcomming the maginot line at all. It was to trap the allies in thinking that the main push came through the low countries, which they fell for and send the most capable armies there, and then the germans came through the ardennes and undercut the armies, effectively cutting them in half and pushed them out of mainland france where they had to surrender or evacuate in op Dynamo. I really love the show, but to say that the magino line was so brilliant, thats why they were only overcome at the end of Fall Rot is just wrong. it totally was a great defence but it was overcome this late because the battle plan was to go around it and then mop it up. :) Peace and Love from germany
I didn't say that. I said that the Maginot Line did its job in protecting the French border where it was positioned. It was a deterrent and as you've agreed, it worked. It is also a fact that attacks against the line from the front weren't very successful and its also true that the Germans only took it very late on in the campaign.
The German plan also included a ruse the French fell for completely (due to French memories of German WW1 advance, & importance of industry in that area). The Germans tricked the French into keeping something like 40+ divisions behind the (actually unfinished) Maginot line, west of Sedan, whilst facing only about 15 German divisions. This freed up German divisions elsewhere, & is why the Maginot line area held out so long. The French finally moved their reserves, leaving the Maginot Line as unsupported outposts, which then fell when the Germans did actually attack.
@eric-wb7gj this is why I mentioned the Mechelen incident. From the French perspective, it was entirely reasonable to assume that the Germans were going to run their main strike through Belgium. The Germans themselves planned exactly that up until mid February 1940.
I had a West Point military series that covered every encounter in the war and I remember reading that the plan for the Maginot line was not as intended when it was built. There was supposed to be a railway underground to connect everything and a large mobile contigent to keep from being flanked or overrun. The general who taught the course defended the line and wrote if it had been done as intended the war may have gone quite differently alas for budget cuts.@@Emchisti
Thanks for that superb episode. Please add my vote for a French Airforce show.
In 1949, Churchill's memoirs (Their Finest Hour) identified incorrect strategic assessment (low threat in the Ardennes) and failure to maintain an adequate strategic reserve as the key factors leading to France's defeat. Nothing about any unwillingness to fight by the French. Add some commentary of their poor communications infrastructure and he was pretty much there in 1949.
Thank you from France !
1938, 1939, 1940, the Brits, the Frenchs, the Belgians, the Germans, the Pols, the Russians, all the others...
Aflter a decade of political romance, my country does its best to combinate mistakes and unluck.
the maginot line showed how the french were pure genius.
Glad to see a balanced reassessment of the French army of 1940 offered by a British historian. This reassessment has been ongoing in France in the last 20 years or so, but has not really reached the English-speaking public.
Yet, the idea of the French surrendering without a fight is so ingrained in the psyche and even culture of Anglophones, with all the derogatory jokes popping up anytime the word "French" is uttered, that except for those who are genuinely interested in learning about History, I'm not really convinced the perception in the general public is likely to change anytime soon, unfortunately...
In any case, thank you Woody and Dr Jones!
Any chance of a full length video on the subject? :)
Just a few notes regarding the issue at hand:
Although the French did have some radios, they often broke down and didn't always send or received messages properly, as mentioned by numerous accounts and reports during and after the battle.
In terms of equipment, the MAS36 rifle was good, but only 150,000 had been delivered to troops in May 1940... so not many.
The last French troops to surrender were Maginot troops and did so in early July around two weeks after the Armistice had been signed.
I'm surprised about what Mr Jones says about ammunition being available in large amount, as there are numerous French accounts stating that ammunition was too often lacking , especially for AA but not exclusively.
As in every case, even amongst the superbly and lavishly equipped British and Americans later in the war, they sometimes had localised ammunition shortages. We're talking degrees here, but in general and specifically in the armies ending Belgium the French took A LOT of ammunition. This is attested to by the Germans who fought the French. The French would often fire upwards of 200 shells an hour from divisional artillery just to provide fire that made the Germans uncomfortable, as opposed to having targets to actually kill. When this was the case, they would saturate the line with fire.
@@Emchisti yes I should have been more accurate. I was not thinking about artillery when I mentioned that.
On the second day of the German offensive, General Corap, commander of the 9th Army covering the Meuse, got a message from HQ asking him to save his AA ammunition as there was no stock available in the short term.
@Raph1805 a lot is often lost in translation online! In terms of small and ammunition and one thing I didn't mention in the video was that each Infantryman carried a lot of SAA and *generally* SAA was available to them when that ran out. As ever, we can always find examples where this isn't the case and, it should be noted, these examples stay with us in the narrative - very few soldiers complain loudly that they have enough ammo!
I'mfrom the US and have been aware of the nonsense about France for many years. I think a lot of people repeatihis stupidity are from the US where WW2 isn't taught well at all it's all ignorance but not malice they simply don't know what they are talking about. This current younger generation has almost no interest in history and again it's barely taught to them in school.
What pains pe tge most is everyone saying the Maginot Line was useless when it did exactly what it was supposed to do and even surpassed expectations in a lit of places
So the French were prepared to fight the last war and to fight it really well where the Germans were fighting a new war. Like the example of radios - German tank crews were able to call in air support while the French tank crews in their far superior tanks had signal flags.
It is unfortunate that the French Army failed to invest in the most important category of equipment for an army to function. The radio was the key implement of mobile warfare. The United States Army effectively implemented the second stage of the French pre-war doctrine in Italy because it invested heavily in radio communications.
The story I heard was they were paranoid about operational security so degraded its importance. "legend has it" (so take with salt, way more than a pinch) that in WW1, French code breakers/wireless intercept staff could not always read what the German Radio Signals were saying, but by 1917 were able to identify the "tapping" style of a LOT of the individual German Wireless operators. They may not be able to read what was sent, but they would know who sent it and therefore which unit was sending it.
I'm not sure about the truth of it, but if true, knowing that X unit was in Y place at the front could tell you a lot. Units had reputations. Suddenly all the units that had reputations for being good attacker units have been rotated out of the front line? You might want to start looking for hints of where the attack is coming.
@@jon-paulfilkins7820 that was true and they also started to break the codes because they learned to recognise the individual operators because they knew what they had as habits and what sort of mistakes they would make resulting in them starting to break the codes faster and faster.
They also worked a lot on radio jamming but… this was not a mobile thing and what they were trying to jam was not the shorter range radio’s most tank units for example used.
When you combine this the hard line base communications and trusted messengers would defeat that sort of things.
And the few places with proper radio set ups had very, very high security set ups which… caused other problems, you needed to decrypt things massively so it would take ages to decrypt.
Firstly, as a Frenchman, thank you for this fair depiction of french forces during the Battle of France.
Secondly, another reason for the french defeat can be found in "Le choix de la défaite" by Professor Annie Lacroix-Riz, which I warmly recommend. Essentially, she demonstrates how, in the 1930's, a sizeable proportion of the french upper classes decided they'd rather have Hitler than socialism : "Plutôt Hitler que le Front Populaire", and did everything within their power to sabotage french defense from the inside while supporting Nazi Germany's war effort.
Funny you should mention that as I've just finished Dr Chrs Millington's book on the hist of fascism in France. It helps explain a lot of the thinking and paranoia at the top of French society in the 1930s. I'd heartily recommend it.
I visited the grave of my great uncle, who was killed in the retreat to Dunkerque, and the small cemetery has as many,if not more, French graves as British, which tells a story.
However, I'm also reading "Premier Combat" ,which is a book of Jean Moulin's diaries when he was a Prefet during the Fall of France. He writes in there about his dismay at the number of deserting French soldiers mixed in with the refugees fleeing the invasion and occupation. Although, he does point out that, because of the collapse of large parts of the French military command structure, many just didn’t know what to do without that organisation.
Interesting subject.
Ah! Jean Moulin, a real resistance hero, betrayed to the Milice with included within its ranks Mitterrand who, as President of France, was able to re-write his wartime in Lyons.
Absolutely brilliant presentation. Much food for thought.
poland a month, greece 20 days. yugoslavia 12 days, netherland 4 days, denmark 2 days. Germans got to moskov in 6 month while sovjets needed 2,5 years to kick them out. US, British and all the Allied Forces needed 6 month to take back what germans took in 6 weeks. The French fought as brave as all the others.
I thought that Denmark was 30 minutes...
Another great show as I have come to expect. Well Done 👍
Thanks and very informative. I am so tired of the " cheese eating surender monkey" jibes which I knew were untrue - you only have to look at WW1 French casualties to see that is rubbish. But good to have a fact based rebuttal.
The anglophone world pays too much attention to Dunkirk in the BoF (and my father was there) to the neglect of both the hard fighting thereafter, and indeed the injection of both more British units and the return of French troops from Dunkirk to western France. My father went on to fight the French in Syria and that too was a hard fight.
Great vidéo ! Thanks for all french soldiers fighting for freedom in 1940 !
Good content but this subject deserves much more detailed treatment.
Indeed, we will do a deeper dive at some point
really enjoying the whole myth series!
Hopefully in future having Tom presenting is not unusual...
Tom so so interesting thank you
great presentation
If the Saar offensive at the beginning of the war had been prosecuted more vigorously, could the French have broken through or at least forced the Germans to pull troops back from Poland?
Also, I'd read a book about Allied tank forces that suggested that if Rommel's thrust through the Ardennes had failed, the war might have bogged down to WWI type stagnant warfare. Considering that the British outproduced the Germans in every category just by themselves... this would not have favoured the Germans.
No french army couldn't.
At this time the army wasn't mobilised, the war production of weapon only begun. For more the french army has no capaacity of manoeuvring, only able to do static defense. The Sarre "offensive" was a little thing and couldn't be more than that.
@@BFVKThe Poles in cooperation with the French had broken the German enigma codes a few years before 1939 and found out a lot about the German military strengths and dispositions.
Good evening
Thank you for your superb work, which is necessary and which will pay tribute to the courage and sacrifice of our veterans of 1940 to the British, American and English-speaking public.
I was able to observe many very interesting themes on your TH-cam channel, being a Frenchman already very interested in French military history, I also have a very great interest in British and American military history and that of other countries .
I think I will find a lot of interesting topics on your channel 👍
you gain a new subscriber,
thank you , Merci 🙂
Cordialy
Thank you for this.
Merci Monsieur pour avoir fait cette mise au point et avoir donné les faits du mieux que vous pouviez!
C’est à votre honneur!
Thanks a lot Mister to have done this mise au point and to have given the facts in the best way you could!
To your honour!
S.Mayer Québec
"The Blitzkrieg Legend" has good information on the invasion of France.
Lots of myths. What wasn’t a myth was the lack of a viable battle plan, or the ability to adapt tactics when that plan fails.
That’s on the French general staff not the men actually fighting.
Gamelin proved to be a complete disaster as the French commander-in-chief, basically making every mistake that one could make. Weygand was a better soldier, but came in too late to have any chance to turn the tide, and proved all too willing to welcome Pétain and end the French republic (though at least he always refused the collaboration with Germany).
Let me ask you this: what was Germany's equivalent of "adapting tactics" if the Panzer Corridor was somehow cut off that they lost their vanguard armored forces? I agree the French GS had much to answer for and there were those in the French command that thought they should not shoot-their-wad but pushing everything into Belgium and to wait and see a bit. But actually the French DID ADAPT TACTICS! They, under Gen. Weygand, actually developed the "hedge-hog" defense against panzer formations to slow them down and it did indeed work very well. The problem was that you cannot win without a reaction force to counterattack and the French mobile force was pretty much spent after the first 10 days in Belgium. The hedge-hog defense was essentially the basis NATO's 'Active Forward Defense' strategy prior to Air Land Battle 2000...
@dougnockles29 excellent point and why the distinction between Case Yellow and Case Red needs to be made, in terms of French tactics and overall strategy.
Yes yes, Cases Red and Gelb, also Fall Rot was far more similar to the Wehrmacht/Heer battle plan they executed in Poland with a more conventional infantry/artillery approach and the panzers more in a support and calvary role. Fall Gelb was initially much closer to Rot and evolved from the Reichswehr Fall Blau plans that were very rudimentary.....@@Emchisti
The plan was viable, but it had a single weakness that the Germans exploited
Excellent presentation. France's defensive strategy has some decent parallels with the UK's anti-invasion defences.
Thank you for this update on history. Historians knew perfectly well the role of France in WWII but for political reasons (GW Bush to punish France for not supporting the 2nd Iraq War, while we know that Bush blatantly lied) or ego ( all British or American trolls), France has been unjustly slandered for years. It was about time Bristish historians corrected this.
Great observation at 15:35 about the coordination. Your radios are absent if you underappreciate communication and coordination.
I forgot to mention that this sort of very accurate video are a great thing... sure, you missed or let aside some points, but the important point was to show that all is not forcely white or black... and Clichés are clichés. thanks for that. From a former staff sergeant in french army, tankist, 2nd to platoon leader on AMX 30 B then to mechanised infantry platoon on AMX 10P... still serving for my 30th years, Adjudant (master Sergeant) in french Gendarmerie, twice injuried, a NDE.
Really enjoyed this. Sorry I missed the live broadcast. A thought about the historiography of war in general. I'm most familiar with the US Civil War primarily because I spent a long career in the public history of that war. While historiography is usually an ongoing process there are key moments when there are opportunities for huge changes in scholarship. For the Civil War there was the passing of the generation that fought the war. As that happened it created an opportunity to reinterpret the war away from the War of the Rebellion antipathy between the two to a more unification, Lost Cause perspective. That was done at a deliberate cost. We're in a similar moment of change now. It's an opportunity to challenge preconceptions and, in this case, build scholarship based on interpretation based on primary sources and solid analysis instead of the political/social/supremacy motivations that characterize Lost Cause historiography. It's a lesson worth learning. It seems to me this series is actively engaged in that effort. Thanks.
My thoughts, I have read a couple of books on this subject. The primary one was by Len Deighton called Blitzkrieg. Also I did read the Dunkirk book on which the movie was based which naturally went into much more detail than the movie. A third book was about the Dirty Fifth, the Fifth Royal Tank Regiment which fought from the beginning to the end of the war. It has some interesting perspectives of France 1940. But the most interesting thing was the strike through the Ardennes, it was unexpected and the French forces failed to react. When the Germans burst out of the Ardennes the French continually set defensive positions that the Germans simply ignored, annihilating that defence in depth strategy.
The French had the armour to hand to oppose the river crossings by Gudarian. They simply took up positions on the flanks with their amour and watched the Germans sail by. The French troops were never in question with regards to their fighting prowess. But their command structure from Weygand on down was culpable in losing the battle for France due to their lack of imagination in fighting a modern war. Weygand, who kept pulling back the French airforce without using them, was particularly suspect. He was a massive Anglophobe and never included the British HQ Staff in his planning or orders. These found their way to Gort via secondary means. Weygand completed tours of the battlefields and wasted huge amounts of time before issuing orders. Almost all the time British operations were meant to occur in conjunction with French forces the French never showed up because of the lousy communications.
There is a tale of the German movement through the Ardennes being held up by a French bunker. The soldiers were equipped with the 20mm Hotchkiss A/T gun and they held out for quite a few hours. But it never occurred to the French Command to equip them with radio or even a phone. If they had, a whole German armoured division could have been attacked from the air while strung out and hemmed in, but the French never considered the Ardennes a serious threat. Lack of imagination. I specifically put Weygand solely front and centre as the reason for the fall of France. It is highly suspicious that he fled to Southern France and became a member of the Vichy Government.
I'm French nice video thanks a lot. Thanks for stopping French bashing 🙌
I think that the French defended the Dunkirk evacuation does not get enough credit.
I had a friend who was a Dunkirk survivor and he had a LOT of admiration for the French.
They did but it wasn't exclusively the french that defended the perimeter and the British that were evacuated. Both British and French troops were evacuated and both British and French troops held the perimeter. Approximately 100,000 French troops made it out on ships and approximately 40,000 British troops were captured in and around Dunkirk.
@@tigerland4328the difference being that the french were sent back to continue the fight, not the british.
@@toomuchstupididty6311 yes they were. A second BEF was landed in France and it fought the Germans south of the Somme before it too had to be evacuated when France surrendered. The British also thought of holding Brittany to continue to fight the Germans but again this idea was scrapped after France surrendered.
@@tigerland4328 yep, checked it. Didnt know at the time, thank for the clarification.
Thank you