Why did the French surrender to the Germans without a fight during WWII?
Was there a strategy behind such move? The French must have known they would not be alone, and that the combined forces of the allies (The USA, Britain, and Russia) would crush the Germans. I just can’t understand why they gave up without a fight. Your thoughts?
We fought, but our strategy was crap, our moral was bad (we had lost 1 400 000 young men in WW1), our government was unstable, our economy was in recession, and the Germans were militarily just like we were in the Napoleonic Era: Unstoppable ! (at least until the Russian winter…)
The Battle of France is our greatest defeat and one of the greatest victories ever (from the enemies’ point of vue).
Let’s recall that in 1,5 years in WW1, the USA lost 120 000 soldiers, and that in the 6 weeks of the Battle of France, around 100 000 French soldiers were killed, that gives you an idea of the violence of the fighting, very far from the "the French just dropped their rifles" theory described by (sorry to say it) completely ignorant people or (not sorry to say it) a**holes.
Anyway, the Germans just outclassed us. Remember that the British were fighting alongside us against the Germans, and that they were having their butt kicked so hard too, that they did the only intelligent thing to do (that they did many, many times in the past), hide on their island to prepare a real defense/offensive.
Unfortunately, we French didn’t have any island to retreat to….
Churchill himself said that without the British Channel, Britain would have fallen even faster than France.
To all the people who said the French never won a war, always surrendered etc…, you really, really, really, REALLY should learn history !
And about changing sides, that’s Italy !
France started and ended both world wars on the same side.
Actually, the Germans occupied only the northern part of France. The southwestern portion remained as a satellite state of Germany, called Vichy France. Far from surrendering even after this, France’s government-in-exile fought throughout the war, generating a large force from her her overseas empire. Under General DeGaulle, these Free French troops operated in many theatres of the war, including the D-Day invasion.
Also, the French Resistance movement contributed a lot to the war effort against Germany.
But aslo
aside, the French military was woefully obsolete in two major areas. One was fortifications, the Maginot line was expected to do significant damage to attacking Germans. The Germans largely bypassed or found other ways to neutralize the fortifications of the Maginot Line. The second was doctrine. Although France had more tanks than Germany at the beginning of the war, they planned only to use them as support for infantry, which was considered to be the primary weapon of the war. This view had grown out of the trenches of WWI and could not stand against German blitzkrieg strategies. Their tanks were spread out and could not deal with the massive concerted assaults made by the German panzer divisions.
Then there’s the fact that the French leadership didn’t have the political will to order their forces to hold to the last man or to execute retreating soldiers and aslo
France suffered in WW1. They wanted security (or at least a sense of it)
Coz the french r toad licking whores
They had no strategy. Prior to the invasion, soldiers were trained with weapons, but how to drop them and quickly raise the white flag.
that’s what the french do.
the only military jobs that the french has is white flag wavers & surrender negotiators.
i was not born at that time if i had i could make not to surrender
The French have a Cowardace History of changing sides in the course of a war,
Semper Fi
They would have been at the centre of the battle, and would have lost far more civilians than they actually did.
It was a pragmatic decision.
I don’t judge whether it was right or wrong, but it could well be that secret french resistance fighters, within, and the free french without, did more to harm the Third Reich than formal armies, who would inevitably been defeated at great cost of life.
They did fight. They just had a really bad plan.
They put their effort to the east along the French-German border and were not prepared to fight against an attack from Belgium.
Their force was based on infantry and used tanks as infantry support vehicles, so they did not have mobile forces that could respond.
The British, French and some other countries fought a retreat all the way to Dunkirk.
So it was not just a plan to surrender like you cliam.
Five points
1) Because Germany was too strong as it had been preparing for war for years, whereas France was largely unprepared.
2) France based much of its forces in anticipation of German attack at the Maginot Line, which Germany went around.
3) Blitz-krieg tactics spread fear in the civilian population
4) Its easier to surrender than to lose so many civilian lives.
5) You state that France must have known that the USA, Britain and Russia would together crush the Germans. Well, actually, they wouldn’t have known, as at this stage of the war it was only Britain.
The French did not surrender without a fight. The Germans simply bypassed most of the French defenses.
France had spent a huge amount of money and resources building the Maginot line, a huge wall of defenses along the German border, with artillery, machine gun posts, and observation posts many layers thick. Had the Germans entered France across their mutual border, the Maginot Line would have turned the German forces into hamburger and scrapmetal.
Instead, the Germans invaded the Low Countries, and entered France from Belgium, going around the Maginot Line. The weapons of the Maginot line could not turn to fire behind them, and most of the French forces were rendered unable to fight the Germans because of this.
The forces that COULD fight were hopelessly outnumbered and outclassed by the well trained, well equipped, and motivated German soldiers, and they lost every engagement.
Even after the fall of France, the French kept fighting. You may be familiar with the term "Maquis"? or you may have heard the French
"Vive La Resistance"? perhaps you could google the biography of Charles de Gaulle?
Very smart.
The French declared Paris city of light and open to all.
They considred Paris city of civilization and did not want any destruction or harm for these great treasures.
Very wise move instead of Stupid Bravado.
Paris was saved foer all human kind.
Finally, the German were defeated and Paris was liberated.
The French were getting ready to fight a war like WW1. They were expecting another stalmate trench warfare type of war. They built a defensive line called the Maginot Line and its purpose was to stop germany at the border of France. What germany did was go through Belgium and the Netherlands and went around the Maginot Line. So the french army that was in the Maginot Line was surronded so they had no other choice except surrender. With nothing else in the way it was on to paris and the surrender of France. Southern France signed an armisitice and became Vishy France or basicly a puppet government of Germany. So the reason why the french surrendered to the germans very quickly was because the french made the same mistake that was made in WW1.
The reason you can’t understand how the French gave up without a fight is because they didn’t. They fought hard for a month but were outmanuevered and overwhelmed. You might want to brush up on your WWII history.