I give the Brits credit for fighting all these years, they saved Europe. The Germans defeated both the French and Brits in France, not something you hear the Brits brag about. France was lost, any way you want to slice it. Why else would the Brits have left?
The Brits knew it and packed for home, leaving all their equipment behind. The French covered their retreat.
I don't want to boost the French: I saw their war museum in Paris and if you believed what you saw in there they won the war pretty much by themselves, a load of bullshit. But I want to give the French that fought their due: Without them the Brits would have lot most their army and would have been screwed too.
"Only 300 000 troops". The Brits fell for the same trick too by the way. Hitler didn't allow anything. His ground troops were exausted and his supply lines over-extended. He let the Luftwaffe have a go at it. If Hitler allowed them to escape, he had a strange way of doing it: with Stukas.
The political situation in France was complicated, to be sure. I think it was torn between Communists and Socialists, much like Germany was previously. A portion of the French were willing to accomodate the Nazi - Socialism over Communism. A lot of political betrayal there. Given the number of French WW1 dead/maimed and the rotten & corrupt political establishment they had, yes, a lot of them said fuck it.
I give the Brits credit for fighting all these years, they saved Europe. The Germans defeated both the French and Brits in France, not something you hear the Brits brag about. France was lost, any way you want to slice it. Why else would the Brits have left? The Brits knew it and packed for home, leaving all their equipment behind. The French covered their retreat.
I don't want to boost the French: I saw their war museum in Paris and if you believed what you saw in there they won the war pretty much by themselves, a load of bullshit. But I want to give the French that fought their due: Without them the Brits would have lot most their army and would have been screwed too.
"Only 300 000 troops". The Brits fell for the same trick too by the way. Hitler didn't allow anything. His ground troops were exausted and his supply lines over-extended. He let the Luftwaffe have a go at it. If Hitler allowed them to escape, he had a strange way of doing it: with Stukas.
The political situation in France was complicated, to be sure. I think it was torn between Communists and Socialists, much like Germany was previously. A portion of the French were willing to accomodate the Nazi - Socialism over Communism. A lot of political betrayal there. Given the number of French WW1 dead/maimed and the rotten & corrupt political establishment they had, yes, a lot of them said fuck it.