Why was France so Bad during WW2? #shorts

[Matthew_Branagan]

They also continued to dispatch orders by motorbike instead of radio and possibly the most important part they rarely ever inspected their infantry

[Chirpysemperboy]

France fought WW2 with a WW1 mentality.

[damemepanda]

Bro they nerfed France to hard after the Napoleonic wars. All my France mains know the pain.

[Corsharkgaming]

Additionally the Maginot line worked exactly as planned, but Belgium leaving the allies in 1936 meant that the French army couldn't stay directly behind the Meuse River and fight the Germans there.

[LovleyLemonade]

France in WW2 is an example of how bad leadership can completely ruin a great army's performance.

[kyle]

The answer is, the French government was more afraid of the French military than they were of the Germans.

[KnottyEvo]

" French military command simply refused to adapt" feel like I have heard that one before...like from 20 years before...

[PB-trze]

France has almost always had a great military presence, but nearly every war you see the same problem happening. They only seem to plan to fight the previous war and have some resistance to modernizing their tactics and strategies.

Had the Germans engaged in the static line warfare the French had planned for, then the war would have been much different. But the idea of fast mobile forces never even was on French radar when it came to combat doctrine.

[roguegen]

Also, bad communication due to lack of radios and a very rigid top-down structure of their army gave field commanders little authority to act on their own. This meant that it took several days for messages to make it to HQ and back again. By the time French soldiers received orders from HQ, the situation had changed entirely, leaving French troops in a perpetual cycle of retreat.

[flamma_larnaque]

Just to break two additionnal cliché :
- France knew that the Ardennes Forest was penetrable for tanks because the French general Massu did it with his tank batallion in 1936.
- France had a tactic similar to Germany's Blitz (only for the tanks concentration) called "Manœuvre d'ensemble"
(Mostly did by Somua that had radio, but not all units were equiped)

[darkestccino]

How I simplify it when explaining it to others is "France prepared for a war of attrition, believing they could take Germany on by themselves. But the Germans rushed with speed and precision, which completely countered the war of attrition strategy the France has set up"

[warhawk]

There was also the fact that French casualties during ww1 were so high that their birth rate declined so the army was actually much smaller this time around. There's also the fact that German tanks were all equipped with radios which allowed them greater ease of coordination whereas French tanks would have to open hatches and wave flags at each other.

[gmanbo]

Popping up remembering the special from WW2 in real time. The officers in command and how that structure was changed close to the battle. Then add on problem with outdated communication equipment. Cut telephone lines created huge communication issues. These 3 were real problems the kicker though was a general distrust of the military and the worry that a military takeover of the government could occur so the military was deliberately hampered through not having a large standing force in France. + This creates a political reason who no French armored division existed. To much potential power in the hands of a single general.

These issues combined crippled the command and control organization of the French military before WW2. Leading to the structure of the French military in France being unable to adapt and adjust with the tempo that the Germans were Attacking.

[joeavent]

G. Gordon Liddy recalled an anecdote from his boarding school days: he had a French roommate that stated...
German mothers told their sons to be tough as nails fior the Fatherland.
French mothers told their boys live and let live.
The campaign was won by the Germans before it began.

[Justjustinp]

It’s like in Civ V when you dominate every war, but then you station your troops across your empire and start focusing on your economy instead of upgrading your troops.

[kriegscommissarmccraw]

It's almost as if the entire generation of fighting men were just _gone_

[benjaminkonikoff]

As i like to say “The infantry were some of the meanest and scariest, the commanders were some of the richest and the laziest”. It’s not the most accurate but I like to think it gets the point across.

[aewhatever]

Yeah also look at the casualties. France did put up a hell of a fight . Germany just didn't waltz in unscathed. Germanys losses were so bad that it hurt future operations.

[tirthasimanta]

"Adapt to change or be left behind"
The oldest lesson in time

[hubanimations]

If I remember correctly as well, French and British units in 1940 that were dedicated armored brigades had no infantry support under the brigade's commander. Also only tank commanders were the only tanks with radios in the French military, so while tanks commanders can receive orders from upper command and coordinate with other commanders, they had to use signal flags or just should really loudly to order tanks beneath them.

Also like you said, most tanks were simply support units assigned to infantry divisions.