"We surrender" Said the French
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The French actually have quite a proud military history. During WW1 they fought very fiercely against the Germans in Verdun, and the whole thing with Napoleon comes to mind. Certain they aren't any more cowardly than any other bunch of people.
The reason why they got stuck as "surrender monkeys" is due to the fact that during WW2, the French military was run by incompetent buffoons who placed more importance on having the right connections and "class" than having any skill. They also failed to modernize or contemplate their own weakness.
As a result, Germany totally surprised them. German military tactics were very aggressive, emphasising the use of air, infantry and armored units all at the same time to win. Say what you like about the Germans (and I don't have many nice things to say about them to be honest), they had good military leaders (excluding Hitler, who, thankfully, was a complete nitwit playing general).
Now the french weren't completely complacent - they maintained a pretty large army, and their technology was, at the time, not much different from what the Germans had. But they were being governed by old generals whose principle combat experience was in serving each other tea. As a result, they leadership was far too cautious, and at the same time, far too arrogant. To cautious and scared to challenge Hitler, yet far too arrogant to ever believe that Germany would have the gall to invade Poland.
In keeping with this the French adopted a Turtle strategy - building the Maginot line - a great big hell of an armed line bordering Germany. However, they got lazy and never finished building it to cover all of the French border - the border with Belgium was left completely exposed. The French did station some divisions, knowing that the Germans might try to attack.
However, once again, they got too complacent. There is a large forest called the Ardennes on the border of France and Belgium. The French thought that no army could possibly move through it, and so they placed almost nothing at that part of the border.
Lo and behold the Germans came through the forest. To the French, this was shocking - someone was using a NEW military tactic?! A NEW way of fighting?! How absurd! Static lines of offense and defense were all the rage in the 30's you see.
This allowed the Germans to walk right around France's precious Maginot line. This threw the French into chaos.
The actual French soldiers on the field were quite good and fought well - however their commanders were stupid, old, and criminally unimaginative. So overcome with horror and confusion, they issued stupid orders, with half of them telling their soldiers to "hold position" and the other half telling their soldiers to rush about with no real plan. Simply put, they were caught completely off guard.
And so they surrendered. By the time a clear picture of events was established, it was already too late for France. German had already won. It was not cowardice - it was bad planning by a bunch of aristocratic generals who made General Haig look like a genius.
Now there's also the case of French civilians suddenly turning heel, throwing down their miniature british flags in exchange for miniature german flags. But that wasn't anyone - and really, what would YOU have done? At that time, the horrors of the Holocaust were unknown and the Nazis (at the time) didn't seem like the complete evil bastards they were. Imagine if, in your nation, a very strong military force rolls into your neighbour hood. Your entire army is defeated, and your government has surrendered. Are YOU going to pick up your two-bit rifle and charge at a tank? What good would that do?
The French also had a determined, patriotic, if not very effective, resistence. The entire "surrender monkey" trope got started because some French started spitting on and insulting the British after it became clear that they had lost. And that was inexcusable yes, but that was hardly all of France.
The reason why they got stuck as "surrender monkeys" is due to the fact that during WW2, the French military was run by incompetent buffoons who placed more importance on having the right connections and "class" than having any skill. They also failed to modernize or contemplate their own weakness.
As a result, Germany totally surprised them. German military tactics were very aggressive, emphasising the use of air, infantry and armored units all at the same time to win. Say what you like about the Germans (and I don't have many nice things to say about them to be honest), they had good military leaders (excluding Hitler, who, thankfully, was a complete nitwit playing general).
Now the french weren't completely complacent - they maintained a pretty large army, and their technology was, at the time, not much different from what the Germans had. But they were being governed by old generals whose principle combat experience was in serving each other tea. As a result, they leadership was far too cautious, and at the same time, far too arrogant. To cautious and scared to challenge Hitler, yet far too arrogant to ever believe that Germany would have the gall to invade Poland.
In keeping with this the French adopted a Turtle strategy - building the Maginot line - a great big hell of an armed line bordering Germany. However, they got lazy and never finished building it to cover all of the French border - the border with Belgium was left completely exposed. The French did station some divisions, knowing that the Germans might try to attack.
However, once again, they got too complacent. There is a large forest called the Ardennes on the border of France and Belgium. The French thought that no army could possibly move through it, and so they placed almost nothing at that part of the border.
Lo and behold the Germans came through the forest. To the French, this was shocking - someone was using a NEW military tactic?! A NEW way of fighting?! How absurd! Static lines of offense and defense were all the rage in the 30's you see.
This allowed the Germans to walk right around France's precious Maginot line. This threw the French into chaos.
The actual French soldiers on the field were quite good and fought well - however their commanders were stupid, old, and criminally unimaginative. So overcome with horror and confusion, they issued stupid orders, with half of them telling their soldiers to "hold position" and the other half telling their soldiers to rush about with no real plan. Simply put, they were caught completely off guard.
And so they surrendered. By the time a clear picture of events was established, it was already too late for France. German had already won. It was not cowardice - it was bad planning by a bunch of aristocratic generals who made General Haig look like a genius.
Now there's also the case of French civilians suddenly turning heel, throwing down their miniature british flags in exchange for miniature german flags. But that wasn't anyone - and really, what would YOU have done? At that time, the horrors of the Holocaust were unknown and the Nazis (at the time) didn't seem like the complete evil bastards they were. Imagine if, in your nation, a very strong military force rolls into your neighbour hood. Your entire army is defeated, and your government has surrendered. Are YOU going to pick up your two-bit rifle and charge at a tank? What good would that do?
The French also had a determined, patriotic, if not very effective, resistence. The entire "surrender monkey" trope got started because some French started spitting on and insulting the British after it became clear that they had lost. And that was inexcusable yes, but that was hardly all of France.
I don't think the French generals were particularly awful.
They had two problems - firstly, a promise to guarantee the safety of Belgium and, if necessary, the Netherlands. Secondly, the British wanted the Belgian and the Dutch coast secure to stop the Germans running airforce sorties into the UK. Thus when Germany attacked, they felt compelled to rush forces there to stop those countries being overrun, and the rest is history.
However, had they not had these political impositions, they would probably have fought a defence in north-east France, where their armoured and motorised divisions would not have been exposed, and where they'd have been able to concentrate their forces, and they would have had their supply lines close and the German's stretched. In all likelihood, they would still have lost due in the end to tactical inferiority of the troops and the Luftwaffe's air supremacy, but it would have been one hell of a difficult fight.
They had two problems - firstly, a promise to guarantee the safety of Belgium and, if necessary, the Netherlands. Secondly, the British wanted the Belgian and the Dutch coast secure to stop the Germans running airforce sorties into the UK. Thus when Germany attacked, they felt compelled to rush forces there to stop those countries being overrun, and the rest is history.
However, had they not had these political impositions, they would probably have fought a defence in north-east France, where their armoured and motorised divisions would not have been exposed, and where they'd have been able to concentrate their forces, and they would have had their supply lines close and the German's stretched. In all likelihood, they would still have lost due in the end to tactical inferiority of the troops and the Luftwaffe's air supremacy, but it would have been one hell of a difficult fight.
Funniy enough, i heard that the French regard the British as the "surrender monkeys" for pulling out of France in 1940.
Actually, most historians agree that the knight's fighting style wasn't possible until at least the eighth century when the stirrup arrived from Asia. A mounted charge with a lance is impossible without one because the shock of impact would throw the rider from the saddle. True, knightly cavalry charges are thought to have developed in France in the eleventh century.Spitfire175 said:
They were DAMN close. If memory serves, the French suffered massive losses, second to pretty much just the Russians. When WW2 came around, most French remembered "Why didn't we just give up last time?" and everyone ran for their French-German dictionaries for "I just crapped my pants, can I give up now?"
Really? That's rather silly considering the BEF was tiny compared to the French and German armies, the BEF was under French command and was part of their plan to deal with German aggression, over 100,000 French troops were evacuated during Operation Dynamo and that the BEF staying in France would have accomplished nothing but more casualties.Nickolai77 said:
To be fair to the average French citizen, it probably did look like the British were abandoning France.
On the other hand, the average French citizen probably didn't readily understand the fact that an army with its supply lines cut is only a short time away from being an ammoless and foodless bunch of POWs that won't be fighting anyway.
On the other hand, the average French citizen probably didn't readily understand the fact that an army with its supply lines cut is only a short time away from being an ammoless and foodless bunch of POWs that won't be fighting anyway.
Are you suggesting knights just *poof* appeared on the battlefields? Of course the early knights didn't fight like 12th century nobles. But the idea of a heavliy armoured pofessional soldier who fought on horseback, wielding cavalry spears and longswords is much, much older than the norman knights. Parthian cataphracts? Roman pretorians? Byzantine imperial guard? Heavy cavalry all the way. Cataphracts had used lances since ~200BC, it was not a new invention.gh0ti said:
However, true, in normandy the stirrup enabled the rapid development of heavy cavalry, but the western concept of a knight, the mounted, armoured professional soldier is a roman idea. Who obviously copied their other neighbours in the east, the parthians, the samaritans and other mounted warfare specialists.
That is correct, Edward III had a magnificent idea in 1337: I'm the king of England AND France. Which then led to a bloody business which didn't end well for either participant.NeutralDrow said:
They weren't occupied during WW1. They held the lines against Germany with Britain. They would have won that war anyway.Berethond said:
No, I didn't mean to imply that there was no such thing as heavy cavalry before the eleventh century, just that it developed quite separately from the eastern tradition. By the time the cataphract was a mainstay of the Roman Empire, the western provinces were beginning to fall from Roman control. The effect of the mercenaries (such as the Sarmatians) would not have lasted through the 'Dark Ages' to then give rise to knights - the dominant barbarian peoples of this time (such as the Franks) fought almost exclusively as heavy infantry, riding their horses to battle and then dismounting. Even further east, the Byzantines appear to have abandoned the cataphract at some point in the early middle ages, and then resumed their use later. The development of the western 'knight' has more to do with the rapid proliferation of castles in France between the 9th and 12th centuries than a gradual evolution from Roman times.Spitfire175 said:
Largely agreed.gh0ti said:
A "knight" was a social class more than anything, they just happened to be the people with the money to afford a horse and heavy armour. At the time of 1066, knights charged with swords or light lances, and only wore chainmail. Heavy lances and plate to make heavy shock cavalry were later advances.
As for cataphracts, the Byzantines seem to have used them throughout their entire history. However, whereas in the 6-7th century they sometimes used armies almost exclusively of cataphracts and horse archers, later on they reintroduced infantry a lot more, possibly due to a general military and economic decline.
Hehe that's really funny, a tad bit exagerated, but still funny. The best part is nobody can get offended because it insults just about everyone.LockHeart said:
Castles were more of a consequence of knighthood, rather than the cause of it. It was Charlemange who introduced "knighthood", i.e. not having to pay taxes and a bit of land in exchange for military service. Castles appeared later, as the houses of the knights.gh0ti said:
I'm not suggesting the evolution of knights is a direct line from parthian cataphracts to 15th century heavy lancers, just that the idea for a professional soldier, fighting on horseback and having an impressive social status was not developed separately in two palces, but slowly spread through Europe, in the wake of the strong Roman legacy(there was a bit of a pause at one point) and the appareent effectiveness of the new inventions (some re-invented), such as the wooden saddle, indeed the stirrup and partly the stuck up infantry tactics that originated from way back.