Comments by "John Burns" (@johnburns4017) on "Why was France so Ineffective in WWII? (1940) | Animated History" video.

  1. Prof Adam Tooze: "There’s always a problem in history of determining after something’s happened what the balance of probabilities was before it happened. And the German plan is a plan which is again a spectacular gamble, and it succeeds because the forces in the German offensive are concentrated in an extraordinarily tight pack which is going to drive through the Ardennes in a single offensive move all the way across northern France to the Channel. This is an operation of unprecedented logistical risk and gives the opponents of Germany - Britain, France, Belgium and Holland - the chance, if they’re sufficiently well organised, to mount a devastating counterattack on Germany and on the pincer moving across northern France. And for this reason the Germans fully understand that if this plan fails they’ve lost the war. So it’s, rather than simply the result of a series of coincidences, more that the Germans are simply taking a very, very high risk gamble. The gamble bears the possibility of total victory, which is what they ultimately achieve over France, but also a risk of catastrophic defeat which they’re fully conscious of." Wages of Destruction, Page 371. "The German army that invaded France in May 1940 was far from being a carefully honed weapon of modern armoured warfare. Of Germany's 93 combat ready divisions on May 10 1940, only 9 were Panzer divisions, with a total of 2.438 tanks between them. These units faced a French army that was more heavily motorised, with 3,254 tanks in total." ....Half the German tanks that invaded the west were armed only with a machine gun!! The German Army was not on equal footing with the French when in fact it was vastly inferior. "By May 1940 Britain had 7 regiments equipped with 28 light tanks plus 44 scout carriers each. There was also 1 regiment of armoured cars with 38 Morris light reconnaissance cars. There was also an Army Tank brigade with two regiments of infantry tanks. That gave a total of 308 tanks 23 of which had a 2pdr gun the rest had machine guns. Ist Armoured Division started to arrive in France from late May. However many of the Cruiser tanks were so recently issued that their crews had only been half trained on them and many lacked wireless sets, sighting telescopes and even armour piercing ammunition." -Source The Great Tank Scandal, David Fletcher Dutch, Belgian, UK & French tanks in total were 4,200 tanks. Prof Tooze, page 371/372. "Nor should one accept unquestioningly the popular idea that the concentration of the Germans tanks in specialised tank divisions gave them a decisive advantage. Many French tanks were scattered amongst the infantry units, but with their ample stock of vehicles the French could afford to do this. The bulk of France's best tanks were concentrated in armoured units, that, on paper at least, were every bit a match for the Panzer divisions."
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  2.  @andrewuy1294  By May 1940 the BEF was only 394,165 men, 9% of all allied forces.
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  3. @The Armchair Historian The French contribution 1944/45 was not "massive". The many French Resistance units were run and supplied by the British. It was only good when large armies moved, cutting communications and transport links, otherwise a waste of time asa fighting force. Good for getting allied pilots home and flying again and some intel. The French forces integrated into allied armies pre D-Day were only divisions. By May 1945 a liberated France had enlisted all men having an army of 1.2 million. This was supplied by the US and UK. It was poorly trained and equipped, based in France under US command mainly. It might have done well against the German eyes & ears units, not much else.
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  4.  @lee8830  The US had the best navy and fighter planes in 1940? Are you kidding?
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  5.  @MaximKretsch  The British had a large air force, especially bombers, and the largest nay in the world. All these consumed many, many men.
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  6.  @zxKAOS1  When NAZI POW's were taken to the UK at war's end, they were also shocked at just how untouched the UK was.
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  7.  @MaximKretsch  The French had a massive army, with more and better tanks than the Germans. The British were to concentrate on air and sea. That was pre-arranged. The British only had 9% of all ground forces.
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  8.  @MaximKretsch  The British were decoding the German enigma all through WW2. They knew pretty well what the German position was and what the French position was. General Gort had no faith in the French army, considering it mostly a shambles, although they did have some very good units as the Germans found out. Gort decided to pull his men out rather than allow them to be POWs. Gort's force could not defeat the millions of Germans coming his way. One third of British casualties in France were on the troopship the Lancastria in St.Nazaire. A screw up allowing a lone German plane in.
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  9.  @MaximKretsch  The British did warn the French with the French knowing themselves through air reconnaissance. British forces were on the coast. They thought it was too wooded to go through, as did the US forces in 1944, who again were informed by the British of the build up. But the French and British totally underestimated the build up. To the French the British forces were the junior members, below the Belgians, who had larger forces than the British on the ground. Wages of Destruction by Prof Adam Tooze Page 378 "If Allied bombers had penetrated the German fighter screen over the Ardennes they could have wreaked havoc amongst the slow-moving traffic. Never before had so many motor vehicles been concentrated on such a small segment of the European road network, and the potential for gridlock loomed far larger amongst German worries than the supposedly impassable terrain of the Ardennes. On both 11 and 12 May 1940 the advance of Panzer Group Kleist threatened to degenerate into the world's worst traffic jam." "highly inflammable fuel tankers were interspersed with the fighting vehicles at the very front with the armoured fighting vehicles" "The plan called for the German armoured columns to drive for three days and nights without interruption". ....The drivers were put on "speed" pills. Tooze: "in the East, no single disaster of the Red Army can compare to the Anglo-French debacle of May 1940. Bitter fighting continued across the French heartland for another month, but the battle was over." Through allied incompetence, rather than anything special the Germans had done, the Germans achieved a victory beyond their wildest dreams.. They could not believe what they had done. They were in a euphoric haze.
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