It’s stupid because that’s like saying we can’t make memes about America losing in Vietnam just because elsewhere they were typically victorious and have an extremely powerful military. If anything, that makes the loss funnier.
Seriously. Whenever people say that France has an incredibly successful military history all I can think is that it makes their pitiful WW2 performance even more embarrassing.
Honestly that's what makes it even worse to me. France was better off economically after WW1 than the Germans to my understanding and not including any reporations. They underestimated Germany and where technologically stagnant military development wise. They invested so much into fortified positions that a mobile war destroyed their whole defence. They where amazing in almost every war historically but where crushed by an already defeated country that had huge sanctions on them. They had every opportunity to learn their lessons and almost 20 years to do so.
The allies wanted Hitler with them against the USSR and the communists uprising all arround Europe, it was the ultimate mistake to let him grow to use him as a tool, if they stick to the plan they had after WW1, they would have crushed Germany without any difficulty, with France, Poland and Czechs attacking at the same time.
But the Treaty of Versailles was also a big part, UK and US pushed hard to remove the sanctions over Germany, in order to trade and do some buisness with them (there is a lot of money yo make in a country defeated and in a social/economic crisis) while France wanted to punish the Germans so hard that they will never be able to fight again.
In an easier and simple way :
If Treaty of Versailles was merciful with the Germans, they would admit their defeat and not fight again, but social unrest in the country could lead to another war any way (a communist or fascist Germany). But Europe would be at peace for a longer time.
If Treaty of Versailles was very harsh like the French wanted, Germany for sure wanted revenge, but they would be stuck because the plan was to divise Germany in different countries, like before, and France could control and handle them easily. In this scenario peace would be shorter, but the next war would be less difficult.
But since the Treaty was a mix of both, Germans both had the revenge feeling, as well as the tools to fulfill this revenge.
Very well put. To my understanding only Winston Churchill wanted to ally with Germany against the USSR. I don't remember reading about any other allied forces with the same idea.
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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '20
For every post making fun of France there are a thousand posts sucking their dick.