@davec5153
So brave of the Italians to declare war once Germany defeats France
@themissingpeace7956
Weak and incompetent leadership can do more harm than the actual enemy.
@jamessnee7171
To me it boils down to one thing. The French were too slow. The German came in the back door with their forces concentrated and for many reasons the French were unable to assemble a force to stop them fast enough. They were always a dollar short and a day late. One can blame fossilized Generals and command structure or obsolete tactics or the poor moral of the troops (just some of them, who happened to be at the point of the attack), or above all to me, the lack of modern communication equipment. French Headquarters did not even have a phone much less a radio. They used runners or messengers. Can you believe it? Every time they tried to counterattack hardly any French units showed up on time making the attacks uncoordinated (or much more than they would normally be which isn't saying much) or else the Germans were long gone and miles away from where the French thought they were. To the French the speed of the German advance was simply unbelievable. It blew their minds and they could not cope.
@giannid.7794
at that time, the French army was one of the best in the world in terms of training and equipment, BUT we had a staff of fossilized old-timers from 14-18 who were totally outdated in terms of "modern" warfare and a doctrine for the use of armor that was totally obsolete.
@victor13006
As a French, I think we were defeated so quickly because of these two main reasons : - Bad leadership : army was prepared as if it was quite the same war than in 1914-1918. - Inadequate psychology : we declared war because of agreement with Great Britain and Poland but we were not ready and most of the population did not wanted it and were traumatised because of what happened in WW1 just 20 years before. I think the second one was the most important to explain the surrender when it appeared that Germans were empowered us quite easily.
@selfdo
Combination of many things; any single one of them would probably not have proved fatal, but synergistically, it caused a quick collapse of France's ability to defend Metropolitan soil. 1) Much of the French command and control was utterly obsolete. General Gamelin didn't even have a radio operation and/or telephones; he had riders dispatch daily orders and receive reports from his field army commands. The French Air Force (L'Armee d'Air) had no coordination at all with their army, so what support it could give, until it was wiped out by the Luftwaffe, was often mis-directed and ineffectual. The Germans, OTOH, had learned during the Spanish Civil War, and refined methods during "Case White" (the conquest of Poland) of having Luftwaffe officers, many of whom were also paratroops or airborne anyway, as "FAC" (Forward Air Controllers), working with front-line battalions to direct air strikes. It was the same with their DLM and DCM armored units; their radios didn't even use the same frequency as those of the infantry divisions, and only a company commander of a French tank unit had a two-way radio, with only the larger Char B1s and Somua S--35s having a receiver...which used a ticker-tape printer instead of speakers, due to engine noise! The rest of the French armor used SEMAPHORE flags. 2) The Maginot Line actually succeeded, at least temporarily, in its original purpose, that is, to deter a German attack on the common border with France. It also had the effect of incentivizing Germany to violate the neutrality of the Low Countries. Of course, once the defensive lines of the Somme and the Aisne were penetrated in June of 1940, the supplies to the troops manning the Maginot Line were cut off, and it was attacked on June 14th 1940 by Army Group C, which broke through in three days. Over 150K French troops did hold out in the Maginot forts until the negotiated surrender date of June 25th, 1940, but they were fairly much doomed anyway. 3) Belgium was anxious to stay out of this second war, but was no more able to keep out its enormous German neighbor in 1940 than it had been in 1914. Its King and Army High Command refused to work out joint plans and exercises with the French, particularly in support of their "Dyle Plan", so its coordination with the Allies was spotty. 4) The Luftwaffe quickly gained air superiority over the French L'Armee D'Air, which hampered French troop movements. Furthermore, w/o significant resistance from Allied air forces, the Luftwaffe functioned in the role it was best suited for, as "Flying Artillery" for the Heer. 5) Although the French had MORE tanks than the Germans, and never mind what the BEF added, and overall, their vehicles had better armor and firepower, they were typically ineffective, although the French armor did bloody the Panzers in two succeeding battles in NE Belgium in May 1940, at Hannut and Gembloux. Aside from over half the French tanks being light, two-man models, which were about equal or slightly better than the German Panzer I and Panzer II light tanks, the heavier models were equipped with the ONE-man AXP4 turret, worked by the overburdened tank commander. Like the Renault and Hotchkiss light tanks, this turret had an unusual feature in that the commander's hatch was in the rear of the turret, and it had a built-in seat, so he'd ride looking over the turret! Needless to say, the tactical efficiency of French armor, along with most of them not having a radio, meant that in tank battles their efforts were often wasted. However, Captain Pierre Bilotte, son of a high-ranking general, commanding a Char B1 bis named "Eure", at Stonne on May 16, 1940, utterly devastated a German armored column, wiping out two Panzer IVs and eleven Panzer IIIs, while taking 140 hits from them and anti-tank guns and still was able to fight! This episode did, in a way, backfire spectacularly, as the post-battle analysis served to convince the Germans they needed to develop heavy tanks like the Char B1. 6) As many have covered, the "Dyle Plan" had a fatal flaw as executed: It left the French frontier next to the southeastern part of Belgium, i.e., the Ardennes, "defended" by the least-capable of the reservist "Series B" divisions. Gamelin et al didn't believe that Germany would send tanks through the winding roads of the Ardennes at all, believing that it'd take ten days to get through; it took the lead elements of the seven panzer divisions ten HOURS. The timing of the break-through at Sedan couldn't have been more unfortunate, and more an accident than any planning with foresight; the cream of the French forces, engaged in what were then massive tank battles at Hannut and Gembloux, were surprised by the bulk of the Panzers crashing through their rear, and, once they'd broken through, had a clear path to either Paris and/or the Channel Coast. Many also believed that the Germans would instead bypass Paris to the SOUTH, going down the Loire valley, the reverse of how Patton's Third Army did it four years hence, and reach the Channel at Cherbourg, bagging the entirety of the French Army and still forcing the BEF to evacuate. 7) The breakthrough reveal another fatal flaw of the French Army: lack of MANPOWER. What had driven things like the Maginot Line was the utter paucity of available French young men for military service in 1939-1940; what would have been the reserve had perished in the testicles of their would-be fathers at Sedan and Verdun in the Great War. Many of what Americans would later term "Retreads" had to be pressed into service, i.e., older WWI vets that were less fit, and, memories of officers and generals indifferent to them, were less inclined to fight to the death AGAIN. There are still many myths that circulate: that the French were fighting the previous war (to some extent yes, but so did the British and the Germans likewise), that they relied on the Maginot Line solely to defend their frontier (untrue, there was no "Maginot-Line Mentality", indeed, Gamelin's desire to go on the offensive as soon as he felt he could is part of what led to France's crushing defeat), and, the worst, the "Cheese-eating Surrender Monkeys" trope. Ninety-Two thousand "Mort pour la Patrie" belies that notion, and, indeed, the French resistance along the Somme and Aisne rivers, during the final German offensive, "Operation Red", when their overall position was hopeless, belies any notions of French cowardice.
@BruceWayne_213
France: Do i look like a joke to you? Germany: Pretty much!
@regular-k2t
Defeated. Six weeks. It’s why the French built the Eiffel Tower. So Adolph could see the White Flag from his office window.
@gotthelfschwab1272
War is a matter of organisation and recognizing every chance and challenge and it doesn't just only start when a war begins.
@matthewmcmacken6716
Maginot Line was... "Imagine, no line"
@vantom6194
not just the french but also the BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE..
@YedolfWesler
Operation Barbarossa should have been delayed years. Stalin would have sold Germany the oil.
@joelex7966
Very good pointing out that the French and British had the greater military force but lacked a plan so they basically refought WWI. The Germans used a very different approach. You neglected to mention that Britain and France actually declared war on Germany. That is what precipitated the invasion. Hitler wanted war but he wanted it in 1945.
@PhilMcCrackin-f3n
I mean, sometimes ''luck'' is a real thing. The story I heard was that originally the Germans were going to attack along the same axis they had in 1914.. and the British and French were waiting for them. But the actual plan, with dates, maps, troop deployments etc fell into the hands of the Allies when a German plane flew of course and was shot down, the French recovered the plans and were relieved they had guessed correctly. Hitler forced his Generals to come up with a new plan on the spot.. which is why they went through the Ardennes... which WAS essentially unpassable.. the Germans had traffic jams that lasted for days and if the Allied air forces had of spotted them, well it was game over for Hitler before the ball has even been kicked. But once they had gotten through, well they were behind the allied forward defences and Guderian, Rommel et al caused havoc.
@genequist3859
The French get a bad rap for failing to fend off the Germans, but it's undeserved. Up until that point France was a major world power and all throughout history had been a feared military force. After WWI it was unthinkable that Germany would be able to launch a major offensive again. But when they did, they did so with modern tactics and industrial tech. They caught all of Europe with their pants down, not just the French. Even the British probably would have eventually fallen had it not been for American and (arguably moreso) Soviet intervention. Stopping Germany and the other Axis powers really took a worldwide effort and significant human cost.
@nmpu6324
The reason why France was defeated by Germany in 1940 early was not because of weak soldiers, bad equipment, or insufficient numbers. The decisive reason was that they abandoned the defensive strategy that they had been using for 20 years just before the outbreak of the war and adopted a half-hearted offensive strategy of meeting the German army in Belgium. If they had had eight months between the outbreak of the war and the start of the fighting, they could have filled the Flanders and Ardennes regions, which could have become battlefields, with defensive positions like Kursk. Since the Maginot Line had thwarted the German army from directly attacking France, wouldn't it have been completely different from the actual history if they had turned the border area with Belgium into a defensive position and had the German army jump in there? They could have settled the matter diplomatically with a draw, or they could have held out until the Soviet Union intervened. First of all, changing the method half-heartedly just before or during something is obviously going to cause confusion and have a negative impact on the outcome because they are doing something they are not familiar with. I'll be frank with you. In 1940, France lost because it chose to attack rather than defend.
@mirkojorgovic
RAF and French air forces were good , but often lacked in cooperation with field troops.
@McDago100
The French and British tanks, were never a match for an 88mm Flak 36. Then again, this weapon was destroying JS2 tanks in the final days.
@awangsafrisafri476
Historic info. Say no to war
@jpmtlhead39