Re: [OT] Frog Bashing

--- Alan E Brain <aebrain@webone.com.au> wrote:

> >Of course we know how long the defense of 
> >France in '39 lasted. What was it a week or two?
> 
> Actually, the whole year.

Most people are counting only from the beginning of
the German offensive.

> The collapse came in May 1940. Not 1939. At a time
> when the US was squeezing
> out the last drops of foreign currency France
> possessed to sell her such outstanding
> war machines as the Cutiss Hawk and Brewster Buffalo
> (and at an ENORMOUS markup.)

Oh, darn.  God forbid us neutrals should be neutral. 
Kind of stretching a point to criticize the US for
it's arms sales policy when one takes into account the
French's policy on arms sales since WWII.  It seems to
be cash and carry, even if you're a maddog lunatic
dictator, a flamingly obvious communist, own nuclear
weapons pointed at France's major ally, or otherwise
are well off the deep end.

At any rate, the French were also acting fairly
stupidly, exporting antitank weapons and other heavy
weapons that could have been used to arm the
formations of expatriate Poles that were sitting idle
with no heavy weapons.	
 
> French resistance stiffened markedly after the
> initial breakthrough. Basically,

Not noticably.	I mean, they didn't actually beat the
Germans at any point.

After the French lost their country and most of their
empire to collaborationist cowards (not actually
Germans, just their toadies), they continued to
pretend they were a great power and a major ally, not
just a handful of beggars.  Egotism is grating--but
it's even more grating coming from a houseguest that
got evicted from his former apartment and has a choice
between sleeping on the streets or living in your
spare bedroom.

As one of Churchill's advisor's once put it, "The
problem with Charles de Gaulle is that he thinks he's
Joan of Arc."

Churchill's response was "No, the problem is that my
bishops won't let me burn him."

> But I will say that had I been French ( shudder! )
> I'd be very very pissed-off
> at the lack of justice in some of the criticisms.
> Especially from people who
> had such inglorious debacles as the Fall of
> Singapore, the great skedaddle at
> Kasserine, etc in their countries' military history.

Uh, every country has had military failures in their
history.

The rest of us feel superior to the French because we
manage NOT to get our home countries overrun 2.5 times
in 70 years.  Besides which, while we have Vietnam,
the French have Algeria and Indochina the first time
around, and a hell of a lot of other cock-ups.	In
fact, one is hardpressed to think of a sucessful
French military operation since Napoleon Bonaparte
dropped dead with the exception of the task force that
covered the Coalition's left flank during Desert
Storm.	Fortunately, there were no Iraqis out there,
because I doubt the USAF could tell the difference
between French armored cars driven by Frenchmen and
French armored cars driven by Iraqis.  

They are also pretty damn egotistical and have some
serious failures in their military and civil culture
which causes them to be percieved poorly.  For
instance, my old Squad Leader in German had run the US
SFOR Mine Action Center as an E-6 Staff Sergeant.  A
French captain rolls in and asks to speak to the OIC. 
He replies he's in charge.  The French guy laughs in
his face and insists on speaking to a "responsible
officer."
Ask SSG Easter why he detests French officers and
there's a real reason.	

John

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