Who did more to help the Allies win WW2 Fance or Austrailia?

[Brenus]

not only did they "get invaded", but after the governement was pushed out to vichy, the LEGITIMATE government of the french began is collaboration policies with germany

French industries began to mobilize behind the german war machine

the french did more help us LOSE the was than win it
and if the LEGITIMATE french government had had its way, de gaulle wouldnt have even gone to england

LEGITIMATE: When did the French vote for Petain? It was a coup d'Etat, not a democratic election wich put him as a President. Petain was a dictator, friend with Franco and welcome the French defeat... He was popular for a moment, but lost this support when the plunder of France was too obvious. It is probably what you quote as French Industries began to mobilize.
If the French, even Petiniste would have put all what was left with the Germans, I am not sure that Malta would have succeeded resisting the assault and Rommel would have been defeated. The French had the second Navy in the Mediterranean sea. Even after Mers el Kebir, Dakar, Madagascar the Vichy France didn't declare war against the Allies.
And why the US didn't imposed a Governorate or something like that if France wasn't considered as allied?
Stop prejudices and study history, please...

[ICantSpellDawg]

LEGITIMATE: When did the French vote for Petain? It was a coup d'Etat, not a democratic election wich put him as a President. Petain was a dictator, friend with Franco and welcome the French defeat... He was popular for a moment, but lost this support when the plunder of France was too obvious. It is probably what you quote as French Industries began to mobilize.
If the French, even Petiniste would have put all what was left with the Germans, I am not sure that Malta would have succeeded resisting the assault and Rommel would have been defeated. The French had the second Navy in the Mediterranean sea. Even after Mers el Kebir, Dakar, Madagascar the Vichy France didn't declare war against the Allies.
And why the US didn't imposed a Governorate or something like that if France wasn't considered as allied?
Stop prejudices and study history, please...

coup d'etat?
it was like hell

the president appointed the vice-premier to the position of prime minister after PM Reynaud resigned

that is legitimate

they had alternatives, such as moving the government - but decided that an armistice with Germany would have been the better alternative

your country then eliminated the offensive capabilities of the French Navy as they were seen as a likely enemy in the years that were to come

the third republic was then VOTED OUT OF EXISTANCE by a MAJORITY in the assembly after all of this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vichy_Government

[sharrukin]

Vichy France allied with Germany?

German aircraft would have been able to interdict the Gibralter straits, sealing off the mediterranean to most British shipping. The only way to resupply Egypt and the troops fighting Rommel would be around africa and the through the Suez canal. The British Malta convoys had a free ride until they got to within range of German aircraft flying out of Cagliari on Sardinia. It was a close thing as it was, but if they had been subject to air attack from Vichy French territory as well they would have failed.

French troops allied with the Germans would almost certainly have tipped the balance in the desert in favour of Rommel. The addition of hundreds of French pilots and aircraft alone would have given the advantage to the Germans.

Full cooperation with Germany would have greatly increased industrial production from the factories inside Vichy territories. In june of 1940 when fighting the Germans the Dewoitine-520 fighter was being delivered at the rate of 10 a day. Four fighter groups were deployed against the Germans and destroyed 147 German aircraft vs 85 lost. If all of this had been in service to the Axis powers Britain would have been defeated in the desert and very possibly during the Battle of Britain as well. The British were able to fend off the Germans in this very hard fought aerial battle but the addition of the French airforce may well have spelled defeat at this critical time.

The Vichy French were NOT allies of the Germans and it is well for us that they were not.

[Brenus]

Wrong, the III Republic was dissolved by the majority of the Deputies present at the moment. Pierre Laval just prevent all the Deputies opposed to this motion to show-up or didn't organise their travel or worst (not in his mind) just sent them somewhere else.
It was a coup, like Napoleon did, like his nephew (Napoleon the III) did.
And even under theses circumstances, plan went wrong and was near to collapse. They had to put some deputies under arrest and moved troops inside the building...
Just the fact they dissolved the Republic is the proof it was a coup, and it was illegitimate...
The 17th of June, Petain surrendered, the 18th de Gaulle made his speech from London...
I don't like De Gaulle too much, but the legitimacy was on his side...

And you still don't answer the question: Why the US and UK didn't put a transitional administration in France like they did for all German Allies, as you suggest France was?

[ICantSpellDawg]

Wrong, the III Republic was dissolved by the majority of the Deputies present at the moment. Pierre Laval just prevent all the Deputies opposed to this motion to show-up or didn't organise their travel or worst (not in his mind) just sent them somewhere else.
It was a coup, like Napoleon did, like his nephew (Napoleon the III) did.
And even under theses circumstances, plan went wrong and was near to collapse. They had to put some deputies under arrest and moved troops inside the building...
Just the fact they dissolved the Republic is the proof it was a coup, and it was illegitimate...
The 17th of June, Petain surrendered, the 18th de Gaulle made his speech from London...
I don't like De Gaulle too much, but the legitimacy was on his side...

And you still don't answer the question: Why the US and UK didn't put a transitional administration in France like they did for all German Allies, as you suggest France was?

you were born in 59 and majored in history, so i will stop arguing - even though i thought legitimacy was on the vichy side


what i dont understand is how the legitimacy could have possibly gone with degaulle
he was elected to be nothing
DeGaulle held no political office that i can remember before the war
he was just a high-up general
and what do you mean "transitional administration"?
he was the transitional authority into the 4th Republic i thought

i am most probably wrong - but is there anyone else who agrees with Brenus so that i don't feel so bad modifying my opinion because of the rebuttal of one?

[Brenus]

I born in 59 and graduated in history but I can be wrong, too often on my own judgment.

I understood what you said and I disagreed because your analysis was based on partial information. To be totally honest, none of the protagonists had legitimacy, neither Petain nor De Gaulle.
The last legitimate PM was Reynauld and after France disappeared as an independent country and state. The President had no power in the III Republic.

Petain betrayed his own country, taking power by a coup. He betrayed the Jews in France allowing the Racial Law that the German never asked him to do. He stripped these men who fought bravely in Verdun, under his command, of their nationality, their medal, their Legion d’Honneur and gave then to the Nazi.
He accepted the Collaboration and he met with Hitler.
Because of his status of Hero, he fouled French patriots who could have gone to England to fight earlier.

De Gaulle got his legitimacy because his arrogance to proclaim he was the real France. He was one of the rare general with a short success against the Germans (even it was over estimated by his followers) at Montcornet. He was briefly sous secretaire in the ministry of Defense. But from 700 men and women he succeeded to build an army about 500 000 men and to be part of the signatory of the Nazi’s capitulation (Gal De Lattre) and even Japan (Gal Leclerc) which always amaze me for the last part. He also succeeded to convince the Communist party and their FTPF to join the democratic debate (and to give-up the idea of armed revolution) and to recognise him as the leader of liberated France. He succeeded to unite all the different movements of Resistance under his authority (the French resistance was made of all the spectrum of the political landscape, from Royalists, Conservators to Socialists and Communists).
So, he won his legitimacy inside France but also outside. Roosevelt deeply distrusted him (he started after Dakar), Churchill had also his doubts even he recognise in De Gaulle a real patriot.
So, at the end he got his legitimacy.

The Transitional Administration was a body created by the Allies to administrate the countries allied with Germany. As I understood you were saying that France was an enemy of the Allies, to pinpoint the mistake, I just made the point.
For what I know, it was in the intention of Roosevelt to imposed this status to France because the vacuum of power and only De Gaulle will to enforce his own administration in the liberated territories put the Allies in no choice than to comply or to face BIG problems in France (200 000 civilians in arms and 500 000 troops). And the war wasn’t over.

[ICantSpellDawg]

As I understood you were saying that France was an enemy of the Allies, to pinpoint the mistake, I just made the point.

ah

ok - i just meant technically enemies- not literally
but it was an iffy statement anyway

[el_slapper]

ah

ok - i just meant technically enemies- not literally
but it was an iffy statement anyway

The main help they've got from France was done through plundering. For example, the powerful Toulon fleet - which had the most modern equipments(except for electronics & radars, but Germans could have easily added those) of their time, did sink itself when the German tried to seize it..... Plundering also when they did capture 250 brand new Somua Tanks at the doors of their factory . But direct aid was limited to some Renault trucks(Renault's factory were nationalized at the liberation as a punition).

OTOH, french resistance's role is often misunderstood. The amount of destructions delivered is really negligible. Their main effect was on logistics. It took seven weeks for Germans based in Brittany to reach combat in Normandy - mainly because local resistants were constantly limiting the possibilities to deploy efficiently by forcing the forces to defend themselves 24/24. They finally reached the front at nearly full strength - but at a time the tide could no more be stopped! The dream of Hitler was a landing in France so that he could crush its opponents there - but he couldn't gather enough troops for that quickly enough due to the combined effects of air bombings & local resistance.

[Papewaio]

OTOH, french resistance's role is often misunderstood.

The Mouse was French?

[Brenus]

The Mouse was French?

Can you explain? I don't understand... Is it a joke or something funny. Sorry, I need the subtitles...

[ShadesPanther]

I think he is refering to the movie Valiant (kids computer generated film) I think where a mouse was the leader of the resistance

[Papewaio]

The White Mouse... Nancy Wake.

[Brenus]

I am impressed by the woman. Thanks for the link. I don’t want to be too much technical, but, by law, she WAS French. She was one of the women who JOINED the resistance
But, still:
Historian Robert Paxton contends that the number of active Resistance participants officially recognized after the war was "about 2% of the adult French population [or about 400,000]." H e goes on to say that "there was no doubt, wider complicities, but even if one adds those willing to read underground newspapers, some two million persons, or around 10% of the adult population, seem to have been willing to take that risk." However, historian John Sweets argues that while "a definition that is limited to active members of organized groups has the advantage of greater precision, such a limitation may prohibit an adequate appreciation of the phenomenon of resistance." Sweets maintains that "the existence of an extensive network of sympathizers and accomplices beyond the framework of the organized resistance has sometimes been overlooked or underestimated in scholarly accounts of the Vichy period."

They were helped by the trained agents of the Special Operation Operative and many of the paid the high price in fighting the Nazi occupation. Torture, deportation, execution, villages burned to the ground.
It was not the high politicians or the general who fled to London, North Africa or USSR, nor the adventurers of the OSS or the SOE who constituted the French Resistance. They were ordinary men and women from all origins and political landscape. They were without uniforms or proper arms, living in the shadows defied and fought the might of the Nazi military machine and Vichy collaborators.
They just wanted the invaders out. They were helped by Republican Spanish, anti-fascist Italian, anti-Nazi Germans, and other nationalities (some apparently New Zealander). They have to be remembered.

But excepted if the all the rest of the world parachuted their communists and their women on France, the vast majority was French.
If a proof of the contrary is provided, my grand father (and grand mother) from my mother’s side were Partisans, I will able to apply for a New Zealander citizenship.

On a monument in France is written: Ou je meurs renait la Patrie, Where I died re-births my country.

[Meneldil]

No Russia was. He certainly had no love for the French and I have no doubt that he wanted to take back the land lost after the first world war. However if France and Britain had alled with him I dont see any way he could then turn around and attack France.

Well, from what Hitler said to some highly important Nazi people, he feared France much more than USSR (at least until he saw his army kicked our butts in a few weeks). He knew France and UK would never have allied with him, and he signed the Germano-sovietic pact only because he feared France and UK would side with USSR and invade Germany on 2 fronts just as during WWI.

I haven't read 'Mein Kampf' (sp?) -it's not published in France, unhappilly -, so I can't really say what he was thinking about France when he was in jail, but there are account of how he wanted France to be 'hammered and trampled' as soon as possible, cause it has always been 'Germany most powerful opponent' as early as 1934.

About Vichy and De Gaulle, neither of those was legitimate. If French were kinda happy during the first few months of the Vichy State, they quickly understood that Petain's aim was to do whatever the Germans wanted.
Petain was known for being a combative guy, and as he fought (and won) against the Germans during WWII, people thought he would manage to sign a defeat in the honor, yet he just did the contrary and agreed with every decision made by the 3rd Reich.
On the other hand, De Gaulle had no democratic support, though he was supported by the vast majority of the population. He could very well have turned into a populist dictator in 1946, but he didn't.

[Papewaio]

I am impressed by the woman. Thanks for the link. I don’t want to be too much technical, but, by law, she WAS French. She was one of the women who JOINED the resistance

Actually she has multiple-citizenships. It is a bit of a wonder though a foreign raised person would become the most sought at person in the French Resistance by the Nazis... Yes I am having sport here... you need to read more about Nancy Wake to see here true feelings about the Australian government (not good ).