Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site abnji.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!mhuxv!abnji!jca From: jca@abnji.UUCP (james armstrong) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: DeGaulle and the French Message-ID: <338@abnji.UUCP> Date: Mon, 18-Feb-85 13:09:02 EST Article-I.D.: abnji.338 Posted: Mon Feb 18 13:09:02 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 19-Feb-85 08:31:17 EST References: <3907@ucla-cs.ARPA> Lines: 124 >I don't think that France and DeGaulle were perfect all the time. >But the description made by the article of ltmolloy@ima.UUCP, <474@ima.UUCP>, >seems to me a bit too dark, and inexact. I agree it was not very precise. >>..... Ike, leading the Axis powers .... >Axis powers = Germany, Italy, Japan. (Perhaps he was thinking of now? Axis was an enemy of communism, we are enemies of communism, therefore the Axis was our ally :-) >>...... French incompetence in military matters. ... >We could discuss this point on a general basis. Anyway, between WWI and WWII, >the decided strategy was the use of a static line of defense (la ligne Maginot) >between Germany and France. It did not work very well in 1940. French incompetence in military matters: 1. 100 Years War 2. French & Indian War 3. Franco Prussian War 4. World War One 5. World War Two 6. Indochina 7. Algeria need I go on? >>... The Germans, swiping through the Maginot line,.... >They passed round the Maginot line, through the Ardennes, in neutral Belgium. The Maginot Line extended to the English Channel. It was just not finished (Or for that matter, started along much of its length). Picture the US now stating that our only deterent to nuclear attack is the Star Wars system. You say, "But it's not finished!" That was the Maginot Line. >>... DeGaulle, as incompetent as the rest of the French military, ... >Between WWI and WWII, DeGaulle was fighting the French military establishment. >The tactic he proposed was to be used by the Germans and the Allied forces, >with some success. > >> ...DeGaulle was intentionally ignored by Eisenhower ... >You can add Roosevelt too. DeGaulle was denied any representativity during >the war, when he was recognized by Churchill and all the French resistants >(except may be the communists). DeGaulle was not liked or supported by much of the French resistance until he was successful. Churchill liked him and selected him as the head of the French resistance, even though there were people of higher rank who wanted to resist the Axis. History has shown that Churchill did not make a bad choice. (I suggest you read his account of the invasion of French North Africa.) The problem with much of the French resistance was that they were more anti-Ally than anti-Nazi. Ships of the French Navy engaged ships of the Royal Navy near Dakar. Why? Admiral Darlan of the French Navy was an extreme anglophobe. Darlan eventually did the right thing. When Germany was occupying the rest of France in 1943, he gave the orders to scuttle the French Fleet in Toulon. The size of the fleet would have had a substantial effect on the war effort in Egypt and Africa, and later in the invasion of Italy. >> To say the least DeGaulle was infuriated. >Sure! The US plan for France after the liberation was to administer this >country in the same way as Germany: as an occupied land. At the same time the >allied forces landed in Normandy (with some French troups), the >DeGaulle's administration arrived too. In all liberated towns, there were >the Free French administration and the US military one. After a while, >the US agreed to let DeGaulle alone. Until the invasion of France, much of the French were collaborating with the Nazis. The Free French were in the minority. There were very few problems for the Germans occupying France, as opposed to the Germans in Czechoslavokia, Poland, Norway, etc. >>DeGaulle pretended to retake Paris, and appeared to liberate the >>city of lights. >While a lot of French resistants were struggling in Paris, the Allied >plan was to avoid to fight in Paris. The fear for the French was that >the German would destroy the insurgents, and the town. This was indeed >the nazis plan. Fortunately, the German officer in charge of the town >(Von Schaultitz) did not applied the orders of Hitler to destroy the >town, and the French troops entered the town. The Allies fear was for a very stiff defence of Paris which would ruin the city. The Germans could have holed up in Paris and slowed the war by 6 months. >> NATO membership was conditional, yet aide was sought. But constantly >>DeGaulle was president of France mainly from 1958 to 1969. During this >period, he decided France to stay in NATO, but not in the military >organisation. He was looking toward a kind of neutralism between the >two blocks. In case of crisis (Berlin, 196?), he standed firmly on the >side of Kennedy. At this time, the US were not giving any aide, as far as >I know. No military aide, but France received alot of economic aide for a long time after the war. I feel that the French are suffering from a severe national inferiority complex. (I am not a psychiatrist, so am probably misusing these words.) Throughout much of their history, they were humiliated by the English. Eventually, the ideals of the French and English grew together, hence the alliance in WWI. Here, though, the complex gets worse. France was numerically strong, but without the English and later American troops, they would have been crushed. In WWII, they were quickly crushed by a numerically inferior but better organized Germany, and the English speaking peoples had to get them out of their mess again. I think they resent that. Napoleon, you say? Wasn't he beaten by a numerically inferior British force under the command of the Duke of Wellington at some town in Belguim? Waterloo, wasn't it? This national resentment goes a long way to explaining their actions with respect to NATO, military aide, etc. Just to "get back" at their allies and saviors. -- James C Armstrong, Jnr. { ihnp4 || allegra || mcnc || cbosgb } !abnji!jca "She's real enough. Android's legs don't blister."