Choose a side: Al Qaida declares war on France

Triumph must have been too witty for JR and Ashy Larry.

 

fuckin' worcester guys....always bustin' balls! ;D

 

France was bailed out by a coalition of Allies, of which the U.S. played a major part.

Maybe part of the problem here is the U.S. claiming total responsibility for the Allied victory, particularly when a bunch of countries were in the trenches two years before the Americans showed up.

De Gaulle lead the Free French quite admirably from Algeria. His not being in the country doesn't diminish his considerable achievements.

And Vichy France wasn't the "real" France. C'mon.

 

Read up on the Battle of the Capes.

We owe a lot of our independence to the French.

They get a pass from me.

 

You want to really learn about the French in WWII read "An Army At Dawn" by Rick Atkinson-

It is first of Trilogy he is Doing on WWII

This is about war in North Africa- Starts with US landing in Morroco and Algiers - who are we fighting - non other than the French who are then aligned with the Germans. Once on the run many of the French changed sides.

DeGaulle was upset from the get go because he was not given greater authority in planning landing.

France as a country has a history of cutting and running - it is a very soft country.

 

Hey JR - fuck you - Has the US ever as a country done anything right to suit your tastes?
You must have some french blood in you.

 

You bastard!
I told you that in confidence!

 

Go find some Normandy veterans. Ask them if the contributions of the Maquis groups came before or after American tanks were rolling down the Champs-Elysees. You'll be surprised to find out that it wouldn't have happened without les partisans providing intelligence and sabotaging German facilities beforehand. In fact, you'll probably be dead-on stunned to find out that German troops preferred to surrender to American troops rather than to the Maquis. Ask those Normandy veterans about the Free French 2d Armoured Division under Gen. LeClerc, which landed at Normandy with the rest of the Allies and led the drive to Paris.

For that matter, ask veterans of the Allies' 1943 campaign driving up the Italian boot about how well 100,000 Free French soldiers acquitted themselves.

Bitch all you want about the incompetence and cowardice of politicians of any national stripe (Henri Phillippe Petain is the obvious example, but certainly not the only one --- we have our own politicians who are more interested in promoting themselves than the common good), but don't make the mistake of assuming that a nation's politicians are the same as a nation's people.

 

JR --

Saying the U.S. played a small part in deciding WW I is just wrong. The war was a stalemate until the U.S. joined in and would have stayed that way -- or eventually resulted in revolutions within the involved nations -- if not for American intervention. Its forces were the fresh blood needed to break the stalemate in favor of the allies.

The theory on WW I's effect on the French psyche is interesting. But there were other countries whose psyches were similarly affected. That's how Hitler came to power -- by preying on the national shame in Germany at the time. Weren't those countries devastated, too? Why didn't they become pussies?

And your theory that France was outmanned in WW II is also off-base. In 1939, France had more people in its armed forces than any country except Russia.

As for the statement about Dunkirk, that was a small part of the British army. Big enough that it would have been a major setback for England if the BEF was wiped out, especially since the forces at Dunkirk were veterans (the ones left in England were relatively inexperienced). Hence the retreat, rather than annihilation or capture at Dunkirk.

And no matter what your opinion is on the Xs and Os of the combat part of WW II, remember that the U.S. was supporting a large chunk of the entire allied effort through the lend-lease act.

 

Nazi Germany rolled into France? Look to history ... Nazi Germany did that to a lot of countries (only the Russian winter stopped Hitler's advance on the Eastern Front, because the Red Army certainly didn't slow the swastika down until the winter of 1941-42 gave it a chance to regroup). In fact, one can make a very strong case for the Red Army doing a helluva lot more to wear down Germany between 1942 and 1945 than American forces did.

I'll say it again: Go ask Normandy veterans about the contributions of the Resistance to the successes of D-Day. Ask veterans of the Italian campaign about the contributions of the French.

Actually, the main thing he started "bitching" about was the constitution of the new Fourth Republic, which he felt was too weak. He was correct --- the Fourth Republic was unstable and fell in 1958 due to the pressure caused by the Algerian crisis. Most of what you may consider "bitching" was simply de Gaulle standing up for his nation instead of kowtowing before America.