In your opinion, is it realistic to assume that France could have maintained her national independence without British intervention, and later American assistance, during WWI?
I feel France wouldn't have lasted more than a year or two, given that she was greatly outnumbered in terms of manpower, and that she was not nearly as industrialized as Germany. Without the British, and later without the American assistance which finally broke the stalemate, I don't think the French would have survived the German invasion.
Loic
I think it's debatable, but american help was not vital although it certainly acted as a catalyst for the end of the war.
Personally, I think Germany would never have been able to win the war as long as she was fighting a war on two fronts. The Schlieffen Plan was constructed around the assumption that France would raise the white flag in a matter of months and thus allowing the army high command to throw all their resources to fighting the Russians. In the end, Germany found herself in an unenviable position where where she was locked in a stalemate on the Western Front (recall Petain's famous cry at Verdun: Ils ne passeront pas!) and where she had to regularly bail out her incompetent Austro-Hungarian ally on the Eastern Front. Indeed, Tsarist Russia's only notable victories during the war all happened against the hapless and haphazard Austro-Hungarian army.
Man to man, I am sure Germany would have prevailed. She possessed the technology to overrun her continental rivals although Britain still held the upper edge at sea. In the end, Germany was vastly outnumbered. Her two major allies were useless as far as I am concerned. Turkey, however, stood valiantly against the Commonwealth forces at the Battle of Gallipolli but we must remember that her defence was marshalled both by Ataturk as well as German tactical officers.
Porthos, I think you confused the France of 1914 with that of a generation later when the Second World War came knocking on her door. The Frenchmen of 1914 were still smarting over the lose of Alsace-Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 and their will to fight was much stronger than that of their sons.
Since it is not strictly a European War, I'd also like to add that colonial regiments from the French colonies also helped incisively although many of their contributions have been downplayed. The question you ought to ask, Porthos, is if France could have stood alone without any foreign help, be it from her allies or from her colonies.
My answer would still be yes.
Loic
An addition: There is inconsistency between the title of this thread and your stated question. On the one hand, you were asking if France could have defeated Germany; on the other, you asked if France could have avoided defeat by Germany.
greg in noord-frankrijk
loic wrote:
Since it is not strictly a European War, I'd also like to add that colonial regiments from the French colonies also helped incisively although many of their contributions have been downplayed. The question you ought to ask, Porthos, is if France could have stood alone without any foreign help, be it from her allies or from her colonies.
Regiments from the colonies certainly helped, to some extent. Out of 4 million Frenchmen mobilised to fight Germany (like if ~ 30 million men from the US or ~ 130 million from China would be fighting today), 560.000 were natives from the colonies, 17 % of whom died vs 35 % for the 4-million contingent in general. This means the death rate for metropolitans was close to 40 %. North-Africans were then considered the fittest to endure harsh weather conditions in Northern France while Black Africans and Malgaches, although viewed as good soldiers, were reported to be too sensitive to bitter winters and also hit by cohorts of European diseases. Indochinese were thought to be poor soldiers and were assigned to police units by the État-Major. However, the French population was grateful to the soldiers of the colonies who are reported to have been copiously applauded during victory parades in 1918. And later on la Grande mosquée de Paris was being erected in the early 20s in recognition for the sacrifice of the Muslim troops.
loic wrote:
The Frenchmen of 1914 were still smarting over the lose of Alsace-Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 and their will to fight was much stronger than that of their sons.
That is a myth. The campaign of 1940 was one of the bloodiest ever : 100.000 French soldiers killed in six weeks. It's a bit like if 1.300.000 Chinese soldiers or 300.000 US troops died in 40 days (compare with 3.000 US soldiers in almost 4 years in Iraq & 58.000 in Vietnam in 11 years). Verdun "only" took 160.000 Frenchmen in ~ 40 weeks (not days).
Irrintzi
thanks to them:
the indochineses, the africans, the people of the Maghreb, the Caledonians, the Caribbeans...
Nous français nous avons un peu oublié le cadeau de ses peuples qui se sont sacrifiés pour notre liberté!
Loic
I must admit my deficiencies as far as the Second World War was concerned as I did not study it in any great detail in school. However, capitulation in a month is not impressive. The fact that a good number of Frenchmen were ready to rally around Marshall Petain speaks volumes for the defeatist mood which has prevailed in the country by then.
She could have chosen to fight on by retreating to Algeria where as General de Gaulle succintly put it, 'the might and resources of the French empire would be thrown towards the liberation of la patrie'.
Anyway, it is interesting that Porthos chose to ask a question about the first world war instead of the second; I've always found the first to be far more fascinating than its later-day counterpart. If only Franz Ferdinand (the Archduke, not the indie band) had chosen to heed advice and give Sarajevo a skip on his visiting itinerary, events in the Balkans would continue to remain only a localised affair. War would not have claimed the lives of a lost generation. But the world as we know it today would be vastly different.
Akoni
The Von Schlieffenplan was not done properly. The new general in charge; Helmut Von Moltke changed Von Schlieffen's plan and didn't go through the south of the Netherlands as intended + Von Moltke sent more men to the left wing while it was intended to send more men to the right wing. Also Belgium was more powerful than the Germans had expected. You all know the concequences of those mistakes.
Porthos
Hey Akoni, as a Dutchman, do you feel any sort of cultural affinity toward the Germans, or affection (aside from the two world wars of course), being that they are your ethnic cousins and speak a language very similar to your own? Or do you feel closer to the English or anyone else, other than the Flemings?
Porthos
Akoni wrote:
The Von Schlieffenplan was not done properly. The new general in charge; Helmut Von Moltke changed Von Schlieffen's plan and didn't go through the south of the Netherlands as intended + Von Moltke sent more men to the left wing while it was intended to send more men to the right wing. Also Belgium was more powerful than the Germans had expected. You all know the concequences of those mistakes.
The new general lacked the stomach and daring that the originator of the plan posessed. Had the original plan been put into effect, i think Paris would have fallen in a rather quick period of time. Had France and the low countries been knocked out of the war in the beginning as did happen in WWII, Germany would have greatly outnumbered her opponents in the field on the continent, being that she would only have to fight the Russians, while being able to devote nearly all her resources and manpower to the eastern front, along with help from her two allies in the east. If all of their combined forces were concentrated on Russia, there is no way she could have lasted.
The French put forth a valiant effort in the first world war. Let us not forget however, that British contributions were essential throughout the war, as France would have been outnumbered and outflanked by the Germans without British assistance on the ground. Particularly in the initial stages, British aid was vital, as attempts to circumvent the French troops in the north on their way to Paris on the part of the Germans was blocked by British troops.
In the last great offensive of the war, British aid was also invaluable, especially considering that a large portion of the French army had lost the will to fight, and were mutinying in large numbers.
Loic,
How do you figure that France would be able to stand alone in the western front, when they barely held their own when they had help from the Brits all along, and American help toward the end?
fab
Quote:
Hey Akoni, as a Dutchman, do you feel any sort of cultural affinity toward the Germans, or affection ?
I don't think that the affection is necesserally lonked with the cultural proximity. Let's see Spain and Portugal, which have very close cultural proximity doesn't really feel much affection toward the other.
It could be the same for Dutch and Germans, or with USA and English-sepaking Canada.
On the other hand I can have a lot of affection, for various resons with a country that is culturally very different from mine.
To answer the first question, I don't think we could have really defeated the Germans, even if the resistance was very active. But I tend to think that the Hitler's regime would'nt have last for ever and would have been ended on day - like most dicatures, at the death of Hitler. There would have been few risks that his successor would be as extremist, and Germany would had recover to democracy by herself - the Germans may would rejected the system once it had become enough less oppressive to do so.
greg in noord-frankrijk
loic wrote:
If only Franz Ferdinand (the Archduke, not the indie band) had chosen to heed advice and give Sarajevo a skip on his visiting itinerary, events in the Balkans would continue to remain only a localised affair. War would not have claimed the lives of a lost generation. But the world as we know it today would be vastly different.
War would have broken out anyway, in my view. Everything was ready.
loic wrote:
I must admit my deficiencies as far as the Second World War was concerned as I did not study it in any great detail in school. However, capitulation in a month is not impressive. The fact that a good number of Frenchmen were ready to rally around Marshall Petain speaks volumes for the defeatist mood which has prevailed in the country by then.
The whole problem rests first with what the notion of capitulation is supposed to mean at all and then with when that notion took form in the first place — and I'm not talking only about military operations related to la Bataille de France as such, which was a complete disaster (so complete that some points need be raised). De Gaulle, then considered by some as a simple pawn in the hands of Churchill, thought that an armistice was nothing less than capitulation. Churchill did not think exactly so as he changed his mind in two days' time : he urged Reynaud to sign an armistice with Hitler for the Métropole (16 June) then offered an union totale franco-britannique the day after.
For some capitulation is a long process that began at least ten years before 1940, with many visible warnings : 1933 (Hitler), 1936 (Rhineland, Spain), 1938 (Austria, Czechoslovakia) & 1939 (Poland) — (France was in a state of latent civil war and overt political dereliction in those years).
That said, Pétain's personal appeal to the people (his contribution in Verdun was most likely to be remembered rather than his activities as ambassadeur extraordinaire en Espagne — franquiste bien sûr), and decision to negotiate a cease-fire, put the fight to an end (not the other way round). As I wrote before, the Battle of France was the bloodiest ever fought on the métropolitan soil (the Battle of Normandy caused 150.000 casualties, injured or killed, among all belligerents).
Akoni
Porthos wrote:
Hey Akoni, as a Dutchman, do you feel any sort of cultural affinity toward the Germans, or affection (aside from the two world wars of course), being that they are your ethnic cousins and speak a language very similar to your own? Or do you feel closer to the English or anyone else, other than the Flemings?
I myself don't dislike Germans, the Germans I've met are funny. But I don't feel a cultural affinity toward the Germans, I think the German and Dutch cultures are different somehow. I went to Bremen in 2005 and noticed that the city and its people look different from a random Dutch city and its people. The further south you go in Germany the more different from the Netherlands it is.
A lot of Dutch people make fun of the Germans, asking them to return their grandparents bicycles etc. (Almost all bicycles were confiscated by the Germans in WWII). In the world of sports I'd say there is a healthy rivalry between Germany and the Netherlands.
I think the Dutch culture is very different from any culture, since the 16 century there is a kind of "looseness" which makes the Dutch culture much different from lets say the English.
Benjamin [inactive]
Akoni wrote:
But I don't feel a cultural affinity toward the Germans,
Well I do. I always seem to laugh at their jokes. Actually, I must say that I have a very very high opinion of the Germans in general, but maybe I've just been lucky.
Fredrik
I too like Germans very much, when they are not too uptight.
Porthos
Akoni wrote:
Porthos wrote:
Hey Akoni, as a Dutchman, do you feel any sort of cultural affinity toward the Germans, or affection (aside from the two world wars of course), being that they are your ethnic cousins and speak a language very similar to your own? Or do you feel closer to the English or anyone else, other than the Flemings?
I myself don't dislike Germans, the Germans I've met are funny. But I don't feel a cultural affinity toward the Germans, I think the German and Dutch cultures are different somehow. I went to Bremen in 2005 and noticed that the city and its people look different from a random Dutch city and its people. The further south you go in Germany the more different from the Netherlands it is.
A lot of Dutch people make fun of the Germans, asking them to return their grandparents bicycles etc. (Almost all bicycles were confiscated by the Germans in WWII). In the world of sports I'd say there is a healthy rivalry between Germany and the Netherlands.
I think the Dutch culture is very different from any culture, since the 16 century there is a kind of "looseness" which makes the Dutch culture much different from lets say the English.
So, answer this. Do you feel more of a cultural closeness with the English or with the Germans?
Porthos
Fredrik wrote:
I too like Germans very much, when they are not too uptight.
I can't say I notice any major differences in the temperment of Germans, Dutchmen, Englishmen, etc. They all seem reserved to me.
Akoni
Porthos wrote:
So, answer this. Do you feel more of a cultural closeness with the English or with the Germans?
With the English, but other Dutchmen might say the Germans.
Porthos wrote:
I can't say I notice any major differences in the temperment of Germans, Dutchmen, Englishmen, etc. They all seem reserved to me.
There's quite a large difference between the temperaments of the Germans, Dutch and English. + it all depends on the situation someone is in.
Benjamin [inactive]
Porthos wrote:
Fredrik wrote:
I too like Germans very much, when they are not too uptight.
I can't say I notice any major differences in the temperment of Germans, Dutchmen, Englishmen, etc. They all seem reserved to me.
I know what you mean. I don't really have enough experience of Dutch people to comment on them, but I agree that the overall 'temperament' of English and German people is rather similar, and I can see how that might seem even more so from an American perspective. I couldn't really describe the differences though — I'm just thinking of how Germans tend to be a bit 'faster' and slightly more time-conscious, that sort of thing. Seriously, the speed at which people put a plate on a table or take a plate off a table is faster in Germany than in England.
Porthos
Well I don't know about Germans, but if a certain blonde, blue eyed, Dutch beauty named Nienke is any accurate representation of Dutch girls in general, then I must say that I like the Dutch very much.
Quote:
With the English, but other Dutchmen might say the Germans.
See, I sort of find this puzzling, because from my perspective, it always seems like the English are the odd men out. They're off the continent, they drive on a different side of the road, they don't use the Euro, they have a different numbering system for shoe sizes, they have more of a traditional "Anglo-Saxon" - liberal economy, they have a much closer connection to the U.S. politically, they have the unique history that goes along with the heritage of the British Empire, their language is more distant from Dutch than German is due to a large influx of French and Norse words, along with an insane case of semantic shift, and they drink tea instead of coffee (traditionally). They are also from an ethnological perspective, a bit more different from the Dutch than the Germans are, because of the supposed Celtic lineage among the English as well.
So, I would have assumed that you would have naturally chosen the Germans over the English in response to my question. But in some ways, England seems to have more in common with Holland than Germany.
The architecture and climate seems to be more similar, along with the general ambiance of some regions in the countryside (terrain of East Anglia and parts of the Netherlands). I would say northern Germany could be included with all of this as well, but southern Germany has more of a central European ambiance like Austria. They share a history as maritime nations, while Germany for the most part does not. Historically, they were both mainly Protestant countries, while about half of Germany was Catholic. Dutch and English share a common ground in that they did not undergoe the HGCS. And the Dutch and British were allies against Germany in the two world wars.
Akoni, why did you pick the English?
But overall, I think the Dutch and Germans have more in common than the Dutch and English. Others feel free to share your opinions on the matter....
Benjamin [inactive]
Porthos wrote:
But overall, I think the Dutch and Germans have more in common than the Dutch and English. Others feel free to share your opinions on the matter....
I think it's somewhat negligible. I've never really given any thought to this before, to be honest.
I think that traditional British shoe sizes are technically obsolete now anyway, although they are still used to a fairly large extent. However, this, along with the side of the road people drive on, is extremely superficial.
I'd also be a bit careful about trying to infer too much from received wisdom about attitudes towards European integration and foreign policy, because this tends to be dictated by leading politicians and other powerful individuals and organisations who have vested interests, and the EU is also a very new concept. Look at Switzerland, for example.
Fredrik
Porthos wrote:
Quote:
And the Dutch and British were allies against Germany in the two world wars.
Psychologically perhaps, but the Netherlands was neutral in WW1.
Quote:
Historically, they were both mainly Protestant countries, while about half of Germany was Catholic.
Although the offical image of the Netherlands always was Protestant, there has always been a large Catholic minority (today a majority in sheer numbers) in the Netherlands, primarily in the south.
Quote:
but southern Germany has more of a central European ambiance like Austria.
I find it strange when people always cite Austria as the prime example of a "Germanic, Catholic, central European culture". In reality, Austria is just a lot of Alpine valleys and one over-dimensioned metropolis capital. Austria often feels as much a satelite of Bavaria and Southern Germany in general as the other way around. In short, when the Austrians aren't Austrian-Hungarian, they're just Bavarian hillbillies.
Porthos:
Perhaps the Dutch share the closest cultural affinity with neither the English nor the Germans, but with the Belgians and the rest of the heirs of the Burgundian state?
Akoni
I picked the English because my family probably came from somewhere in the UK a very very long time ago. My last name is Kemmeren which is pronounced the same as Cameron. Kemmeren is not the name of a town in the Netherlands, nor is it a name of an area/farmland.
In WWI the Dutch were closer to the Germans. The German emperor moved to the Netherlands after WWI for shelter.
Fredrik wrote:
Perhaps the Dutch share the closest cultural affinity with neither the English nor the Germans, but with the Belgians and the rest of the heirs of the Burgundian state?
This is most likely the case.
Benjamin [inactive]
Fredrik wrote:
Quote:
Historically, they were both mainly Protestant countries, while about half of Germany was Catholic.
Although the offical image of the Netherlands always was Protestant, there has always been a large Catholic minority (today a majority in sheer numbers) in the Netherlands, primarily in the south.
Likewise, it is sometimes suggested that about 20% of people in England are at least notionally Roman Catholics. Most regular chuch-goers in England are Roman Catholics anyway.
fab
Quote:
Well I don't know about Germans, but if a certain blonde, blue eyed, Dutch beauty named Nienke is any accurate representation of Dutch girls in general, then I must say that I like the Dutch very much.
I don't want to generalise but I was disapointed by the Dutch girl's stereoptype of beautiful "model-style' blond-haired girl (also with Swedish). Most of them are blond/blue eyed but seem to have a quite masculine/unattractive attitude and are not as beautiful as the stereotype would make think. Of course that's just a personal opinion based on a superficial feeling during my recent trips there.... I might probably be partly wrong.
Fredrik
LOL, welcome to Scandinavia!
Benjamin [inactive]
Fredrik wrote:
LOL, welcome to Scandinavia!
Lol — I've often had the impression that many French men often find that the behaviour of Northern European women is too 'masculine'. Like when this French footballer went to play for Manchester United or something, he wrote that he was shocked to find that the women there seemed to drink a lot of alcohol, and complained that English woman seemed to have the same attitude as the men towards sexual relationships.
fab
Quote:
In reality, Austria is just a lot of Alpine valleys and one over-dimensioned metropolis capital. Austria often feels as much a satelite of Bavaria and Southern Germany in general as the other way around. In short, when the Austrians aren't Austrian-Hungarian, they're just Bavarian hillbillies.
Autria is of course surely much less important than it was in the past, but the fact is that it is organised in a centralized state since much longer than Germany, and Austria was a very important power when Bavaria was not part of Germany, which did not exicsted, but tented more to evoluating in its orbit before being integrated in Germany.
Actually it is hard to say that Austria is just a lot of Alpine Valleys. Big parts of its populated territory is a plain, from Vienna to Salsbourg.
Porthos
fab wrote:
Quote:
Well I don't know about Germans, but if a certain blonde, blue eyed, Dutch beauty named Nienke is any accurate representation of Dutch girls in general, then I must say that I like the Dutch very much.
I don't want to generalise but I was disapointed by the Dutch girl's stereoptype of beautiful "model-style' blond-haired girl (also with Swedish). Most of them are blond/blue eyed but seem to have a quite masculine/unattractive attitude and are not as beautiful as the stereotype would make think. Of course that's just a personal opinion based on a superficial feeling during my recent trips there.... I might probably be partly wrong.
Well I was referring to a certain girl I "came into contact with".
Fredrik
Yes, of course northeastern Austria, the vale of the Danube, is rather flat, but isn't it more famous for being the ancestral home of Hitler's family than any outstanding culture. Who has heard much about Linz?
My point is that it surprises me when the present republic of Austria is treated as a significant quantity. Of course, during the Habsburg Empire "Austrian" denoted things of great importance (never mind that the Alpine regions we today think of as Austria was among the most unimportant and least developed parts of the Austrian empire), but since WW1 Rest-Österreich or Deutsch-Österreich as they initially called it, has been a very negligible quantity. But my view might be too German-coloured. In Germany Austria is seen as a charming, quaint little semi-foreign holiday paradise, probably similar to how Ireland is seen in the UK.
fab
Maybe, but Germany is a recent concept, things could also have been the inverse: in the case Germany didn't intergrated Bavaria, baden-Wurtemberg, but those regions would have integrated the Austro-hungarese empire instead (which was among the three European biggest powers only 100 years ago) - and the whole Europe would be different : we would have the biggest and more powerful country just at the core of it; a big central European, landlocked and catholic german-speaking nation: Austria. Instead of this German empire, coming from the Baltic area annexed some German-speaking region of central Europe, but failed to annexed Austria.
Loic
Benjamin wrote:
Fredrik wrote:
LOL, welcome to Scandinavia!
Lol — I've often had the impression that many French men often find that the behaviour of Northern European women is too 'masculine'. Like when this French footballer went to play for Manchester United or something, he wrote that he was shocked to find that the women there seemed to drink a lot of alcohol, and complained that English woman seemed to have the same attitude as the men towards sexual relationships.
Actually, I thought it was David Ginola who said that. By the way, he was never a Red Devil; he played for Spurs (or Tottenham Hotspurs to the uninitiated).
But I could be wrong and maybe it was Eric Cantona who said that.
Loic
Just want to add my penny's worth of Scandivanian girls. My school has an exchange programme with Jonkoping University in Sweden and every semester, a relatively large cohort comes over for a stint.
When I was at the library today, I happened to be in the vicinity of a group of the Swedish exchange students. All of them were reasonably attractive creatures, but I'd like to add that almost all of them would be considered fat by our standards. Since they were wearing tank-tops, I do not need to be an observant pervert to notice that none of them have flat stomachs.
Based on this admittedly small and potentially highly biased sample, I'd like to infer that Swedish girls of university-going age are rather pretty and meaty.
But I don't feel a cultural affinity toward the Germans, I think the German and Dutch cultures are different somehow. I went to Bremen in 2005 and noticed that the city and its people look different from a random Dutch city and its people. The further south you go in Germany the more different from the Netherlands it is.
(Almost all bicycles were confiscated by the Germans in WWII). In the world of sports I'd say there is a healthy rivalry between Germany and the Netherlands.
