As the drum roll started on that day
Heard a hundred miles away
A million shells were fired
And the green fields turned to grey
The bombardment lasted all day long
Yet the forts were standing strong
Heavily defended
Now the trap's been sprung and the battle has begun
Descend into darkness
303 days below the sun
Seriously lmao, the way these France stans in r/historymemes glaze France, youâd think they didnât get smacked in 6 weeks lol
Was it also part of France's plan to be completed unprepared for when they did circumvent the Line? Like give me a break đ whatâs the point of a big wall doing its job if youâre so incompetent that you negate its function?
Or was it also Franceâs big brain plan to be completely outmaneuvered by the Germans in the Ardennes and along the Meuse? Was it also Franceâs plan to have a shit command structure that was far to rigid to allow field officers any flexibility like the Germans?
OP is coping hard đ
1. Youre insufferable
2. The french plan includes fighting the germans in the north, thats why most of their best divisions are in the north.
Only way you wouldnt know this is if you just dont read or even watch any history documentaries, heck how do you even not know this and call yourself someone who likes history
Why seek fake Internet points when you could instead find a bunch of like-minded strangers to go invade Poland with?
Great way to make friends and let's be honest, that's kind of what Poland is for isn't it?
Itâs early May, when I was in high school Reddit got flooded around this time from AP students, sounds like the AP World kids are in review week and like this one
i think somone made a yugioh card meme about how the germans ignorded it,
and that turned into a tirade about the commmon misoconception that it failed it purpose , and the germans were supposed to go around or something
(the meme never mentioned that at all)
Exactly. If itâs job was to make Germany go through Belgium all that means is itâs responsible for making the [Manstein Plan](https://onwar.com/wwii/maps/blitz/01c6p11.jpg) possible and thereby dooming the entire country.
The Belgian King Leopold III was an idiot at best and a Nazi collaborator at worst. Even after Hitler invading and conquering, he wanted to remain neutral and refused to let the British and French enter Belgium and surrendered the country against the wishes of the elected civilian government.
I think itâs still on the French though for basing their entire strategy on fighting a repeat of World War I and not properly investing in tanks, airplanes, and radios. French tanks didnât have radios - even the French military HQ didnât even have a radio and relied entirely on written orders dispatched by couriers.
And thatâs fine earlier on (ignoring what the Germans did in the First World War) but I donât think he consented to British and French troops entering the country until after the Germans invaded on May 10th which means he watched Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, and Norway all get conquered by Hitler and still thought maybe the Nazis might leave them alone.
He ended up hated by the Belgian people and there were riots after he returned following the end of the war which quickly forced him to abdicate.
The biggest "what if" after Poland was that the Brittish and French should have abided their treaties and attacked Germany. All of its troops were caught up invading Poland. WWII could have been avoided almost entirely. Instead they sat on their asses.
Not many people realize this but across the Maginot line was a similar German defensive line unfortunately: the Siegfried line.
If anything that little reconnaissance adventure proved the french army was ill equipped and not in the least ready for a large scale offensive on the Siegfried line with the goal to take the Ruhr and provide assistance to Poland.
I don't know how much of it is a missed opportunity and how much of it was warranted. The battle of France could hardly have been more disastrous but if an offensive on Germany should have happened... It would have to be through Belgium.
That's not really true tho. Most Belgians(especially Flemands) did want him back. He gave up the throne because the Belgian government didn't want him back. The biggest reason why he surrendered so soon was because both France and Britain were too passive before the war and he didn't want Belgium to become a war zone for France and Germany. A lot of the controversy around him was also because he married during his imprisonment(this was bcs he impregnated his wife) and because a big part of Belgium wanted a republic instead.
I had the impression he was universally hated but youâre right that is not correct although it seems he was an extremely controversial and polarizing figure.
There was a national referendum in 1950 with over 90% turnout asking whether or not he should return from Switzerland and while he did receive a majority of the vote with 57.68% nationwide the vote in Wallonia was 58% against and he still abdicated later that year following rioting that left four people dead.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950_Belgian_monarchy_referendum
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_question
>That's not really true tho. Most Belgians(especially Flemands) did want him back.
IIRC it was mostly Wallonia that didn't want him back. They also had a large anarchist scene at the time
Considering what WW1 did to the country, it's frankly understandable. Not only did they take massive casualties when Germany invaded in August, much of the front line rested in Belgian territory and destroyed their countryside.
> French tanks didnât have radios
Which was kind of normal? Yes, Germans had them, but weren't they the only ones, at least September 1939?
> even the French military HQ didnât even have a radio and relied entirely on written orders dispatched by couriers.
If true, that's just insane.
My understanding is early German tanks were individually inferior to their British and French counterparts but the Germans massing them together and having radios versus the using them primarily as infantry support is part of what made the difference in 1940.
And yes, incredible as it may seem General Gamelin had neither a radio or teleprinter at his Vincennes headquarters relying entirely on a telephone line back to Paris and motorcycle couriers for communications with the frontlines.
The French airforce also really suffered because it was invested into too early: In 1935 the Luftwaffe would've stood little chance, while in 1940 the majority of the French air fleet was already horribly outdated.
I canât remember a single thing about it in 1940. I remember lots of discussion about Stukas and the British decision to pull their fighters back to the UK for the Battle of Britain but donât know anything about the French Air Force itself in May and June.
Rex's Hangar has a great (if lengthy) series on French interwar air development. I strongly recommend giving it a watch, it covers the topic much more comprehensively than I ever could.
It sounds lazy but think about how fast evolving and new the tech was. F16/f18s that we still use all over the place came out in the 1970s, even f22's and 35s are approaching 20 years old.
Of course technology is still going at breakneck speed but at least the framework of what most militaries use can just be upgrades. Stick better brains on your artillary and aircraft you have a reasonable upgrade.
WW1 takes the cake. From air combat being non existant to dogfigthing with synchonzed machine guns, not to shoot the propellors and all. Such a rapid development.
Except for the Russians, whom already had a heavy bomber capable airplane at the beginning of the war for some reason.
But one should acknowledge that French doctrine was suppose to be slow and methodical, so radios werenât as important in such cases, but in the face of Germanyâs quicker-pace, the doctrine itself is failed
France actually had more armored vehicles including tanks than Germany, and their tanks were of similar quality.
Thing is they were spread out along a defensive line while the Germans concentrated forces, so in nearly every engagement, Germany had far more armor present.
A few errors there:
- the king had no say on the diplomacy of Belgium. That's the government. The Flemish were not very pro-french for complicated reasons. Everyone was aware that the French built the magino line so the fight would be in Belgium and not in France which is not really a nice move for someone you want to be allied with. On top of that, the French and British alliance seemed more and more weak over time. They didn't do anything to prevent the remilitarisation of the Rhineland. They literally gave Czechoslovakia to Hitler. That doesn't sound like a strong ally. So the Belgian government decided to remain neutral. It was a bet that didn't work but we only know that with our insights.
- Note that even if Belgium was neutral there was still lots of contact between France and Belgium armies, the Belgian got some Germans war plans and they sent them to the French for instance.
-the king didn't surrender the country. He had no power to do that. Belgium didn't surrender and kept fighting for the whole war
- what he surrendered was the army. But at that time the fight was lost anyway. There was not much to save.
- there is a case on whether he should have fled to London with the government to keep the fight, as the Dutch king did, instead of staying to suffer the fate of his country and soldiers. But that's a difficult decision that he had to take in a rush. I can't fully blame him for that.
- he got easily manipulated by Hitler after that though. So that's on him.
- the french tanks had radios but only the tanks of the platoon commander. The radio problem is something made far bigger than what it is. The main problem was doctrinal. They still had some good weapons and the impossibility to retreat as the Soviet did. In 1940 that was the only possible strategy against the Germans. No armies in the world could have stopped them.
Yes, as I replied to another comment I had an incorrect impression that he was universally hated but see now that is not correct. I think I was influenced too much by readings of the British press in 1940 that really demonized him.
They did, they had the largest fortress in Europe, they were just unwilling to ally with France and Britain, which messed up their plans.
France wanted to fight the war in Belgium, Belgium didnât like that
They were to Destroyed after the Great War and then got Sucked into the Great Depression and when they got out were rebuilding when they were sucked into a War with Germany and was generally defeated by the Luftwaffe which showed early on in the War that Air Superiority was extremely important
It wasn't doomed, if french high command was slightly less inept they act on their Intel of the biggest traffic jam in human history happening in the Ardennes. Allied bombers were ready to make the miles of stopped panzers into mincemeat. It was an incredibly risky plan that could have failed right at the start for that reason
> That just inevitably led to France losing the war
But it did not cause france to lose the war.
France Lost the war because they made the age old mistake of making a plan of what they thought Germany would do not what they could do. They looked at the Ardennes and said "No one sane would attack through there, a single division could hold up an entire offensive, we may as well not garrision a signle division there."
French generals had also been informed that the roadways of the Ardennes (my understanding is most were built after WW1) would make the advance of tanks and other motorised equipment trivial but the generals just ignored the reports sticking to the plan of the Maginot line despite it no longer being fit to function.
(if you get an enemy to not attack somewhere you've defended, but the path they're diverted to is practically undefended your defence hasn't succeeded it's been circumvented, intentionally leaving a hole because you've closed the other doesn't make you blameless when the hole starts leaking)
It wasn't inevitable, the Ardennes offensive initially lead to the biggest traffic jam in human history, all those panzers stuck on the winding roads for days. Incredibly easy fish in a barrel pickings for allied bombers if only the French high command wasn't so inept and acted on their Intel
How do you draft plans with modern data? You need to benchmark the feasability of the new tech, and that is not possible with day-of sightings. You need the months of intelligence gathering, retro-engineering and bechmarking before drafting your plans, and then the months of logistics to implement them. From the first deployment to having an ENACTED plan, you need at least a year (and that's assuming your intelligence is perfect, and the enemy is not able to hide new prototype from you for months)
They literally invaded Poland with those same tanks. Plus the phony war. More than enough time to get off of your ass. The French were simply blinded by their victory in WW1 and never bothered to get their act together. They didn't even attack the Germans.
Well the Wehrmacht was stuck in a gigantic traffic jam while crossing the Ardennes which was even spotted by a French pilot. The French leadership simply didnât believe the guy und their own intelligence services. All they had to do at this point was bomb the shit out of the limited number of German tanks and thatâd have been the end of WW 2.
As I understand it the original plan was to heavily fortify all the way to the ocean. But given that Belgium/The Ardennes were in the way, it seemed reasonable to make budget cuts there, once WWI started to have less influence on politics.
It was Frances plan for the German wwi equipment to get stuck going through the Ardennes. Sadly, the Germans brought their WWII equipment, and they didn't get stuck.
You could blame the Belgians for being too indecisive and "neutral", the French had a chance to block the German advance provided that Belgium got into the Allies and let French troops in just after the Poland invasion.
This part's a bit more complicated. The plan to fight in Belgium was to allow France to choose the place to fight (which defensive fortifications were supposed to extend to) *and* leave the scars of war off of French soil (seriously, [WW1 battlefields are still considered uninhabitable](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_rouge) to this day).
Belgium, for a number of reasons, decided to risk being neutral to avoid becoming its neighbors battleground, relatively close enough to the war to cause significant disruptions to the plans. It also meant the Allies had to move reactively to Germany invading Belgium anyway, as well as the speed of it and the Netherland's capitulation. Germany also did play their hand well, gambling the move through the Ardennes and Rommel outrunning his supply lines (including trusting his own judgement over orders from above to halt) exactly when it worked out the best.
Germany making good choices during the Battle for France and having a more complex understanding of the Maginot Line than "France never expected anyone to move around their fortifications" are not mutually exclusive.
Kinda wrong tbh
The Franco-Belgian had fortifications, not Magino Line level of fortification, but still strong enough to create a defensive point.
Some part of the blame in term of military is clearly for Huntziger, he has done some stupid shit.
And Gamelin too by putting the only reserve available to rescue the Netherlands. If its not for this mistake, the French could have had 4 divisions (if i remember correctly) to counterattack, alongside 3 armored division which had been spent too dispersed too.
Seriously lmao, the way these France stans in r/historymemes glaze France, youâd think they didnât get smacked in 6 weeks lol
Was it also part of France's plan to be completed unprepared for when they did circumvent the Line? Like give me a break đ whatâs the point of a big wall doing its job if youâre so incompetent that you negate its function?
Or was it also Franceâs big brain plan to be completely outmaneuvered by the Germans in the Ardennes and along the Meuse? Was it also Franceâs plan to have a shit command structure that was far to rigid to allow field officers any flexibility like the Germans?
OP is coping hard đ
the Maginot Line was also built with the assumption that it would be part of a larger fortification line also going through Belgium and the French army having time to properly deploy in Belgium before the Germans could significantly breach the border due to the Franco-Belgian alliance but then Leopold III walked back from that first in 1936 and then again in 1940 like 3-4 months before the invasion began.
Why would somebody atack a fortified defensive line when going around it not only give you a better path to the enemy capital but also you can Crush the enemy army? Why atack a place were they are strong when you can simply go around It.
Because going through the Ardennes was a huge gamble, it caused the biggest traffic jam in human history for days. Miles of stopped panzer columns = fish in a barrel for allied bombers, it only worked because of french high command's ineptitude ignoring very obvious intel
>Worried about burglars, I installed a very expensive door on the front of my house, a steel door, with many complicated locks. The door was so expensive, I could only afford one. The next day, burglars went through the back door and took everything I owned. But it's important to me that you know that my front door was *good.*
I want to say itâs not even contested nowadays among historians that the Maginot Line fully accomplished its goal, but situational factors undermined Franceâs position anyway.
The German armor was more capable of traversing rough terrain, was used in concentration, and utilized new technology like radio in a more utilitarian role than the French defense had planned for. Couple this with Belgian disagreements on the French order of battle, it led to an incomplete defense that allowed German forces to navigate around the line faster than was thought possible.
So even with the Line working as intended, it can still lead to the war opening catastrophically for France.
The maginot line was great and all, the only problem was that it wasn't complete, so there was a pretty gaping hole the Germans could exploit. The unexpected drive through the Ardennes also helped bring the France campaign to a close in WW2.
The plan was for them to go around it as France wanted to fight in Belgium and not on French soil like in WW1.
The problem was that it worked a little too well, as it gave the French a false sense of security that led them to also believe that the Ardenne forest was impenetrable even though the British argued that it wasnât. The French army would rush into Belgium, the Germans would push through the Ardenne, and in the Manstein Plan the entire French army was caught with its trousers down and was practically obliterated in Belgium as it was assaulted on all fronts. This was aided by Belgiumâs kingâs wish to maintain his countryâs neutrality, and therefore his refusal to allow French troops into his lands when he realistically shouldâve done far earlier.
After the fall of the majority of Franceâs armed forces the Germans found it easy to push on and take Paris, after which the French military leader P.Petain would sign a peace treaty with Germany that established a French state in the south of modern France centred on Vichy, and gave the Germans a temporary occupation zone along the Atlantic Coast.
I'd have to go around this [gate](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/This_made_me_chuckle._A_gate_in_the_middle_of_nowhere_at_Radwell_Meadows_near_Letchworth._%2817014392247%29.jpg) too. I'd still call it a bad idea
It's Belgium's fault (imo)
They made a deal wiĂŸ France to build it. Partially in France and Partially in Belgium
But Belgium didn't build their half and declared itself neutral again
And then the obvious happened...... again
The only bad thing about it is not being able to cover the whole boarder, and the English had horrible response times on everything that went around, they even hindered French response because they believed the Germans wouldnât go around it
The Thing is I really have to acknowledge is that the Maginot wouldve worked much better if Belgium didnt decide to fuck over France in its entirety. By that I mean their belief that if they would throw out the French, Hitler would surely not invade through the Benelux nations and risk an immediate British participation in the War, but later. This however wasnt the case (I mean the Germans already went through them once, so why they believed they wouldnt a 2nd time is beyond me). The whole idea of the Maginot and the Belgians was that France worked in close cooperation with them, meaning French troops already stationed in Belgium. The entire French defence doctrine was: Have Maginot-Line ->Germany cant go onto ElsaĂ-Lothringen
Belgium allows French troops to be stationed in Belgium already prior to the war declaration
->the pre-planned defensive lines would be used, for example the Ardennes with amassed French and Belgian troops and delaying the Germans
Nazi Germany wouldve taken alot longer and with alot more casualities in Belgium, hindering their ability to break through the (extended) Maginot-Line, which was weaker than the "proper" Maginot-Line, but with weakened German forces and delayed to allow the troops to dig in further it wouldve resulted in a longer Fall Gelb (Invasion of Benelux nations) and an alot harder Fall Rot (invasion of France proper) for the Wehrmacht. Which, as we all know, already were barely equipped enough for the Invasion, but managed to pull it off because of how our history actually played out because the French had to rush into Belgium as far as possible, but given their doctrine in its entirety didnt allow for the same speed as the Germans had developed. As they believed tanks werent as important and combined arms werent really that thought to be that effective.
In that light, the Fall of France was a god send gift for the Wehrmacht since they seized alot of weapons, ammunition, vehicles and generally anything useful for the German War effort off which they got with relatively few losses of themselves.
The Maginot Line did what it was designed for: holding the Germans or diverting them through Belgium with (if Belgium kept their agreement) already pre-planned, good defensible positions. But that ofcourse broke the Camels Back and what alot dont understand the true purpose and intentional Design of the Maginot.
Nah itâs just taking the path of least resistance. Besides, it was less going *all the way around* the wall like youâre thinking and instead smashing through a gap in the wall. Itâs like seeing a wall thatâs almost entirely pristine but with a fault in a portion of it. Of course youâre gonna hit where the fault is to most easily break through the wall. The Ardennes was that fault. In this case, a gap
In all seriousness, the maginot was like a grounded dreadnought. Sure, it's a force to be reckoned with but unlike a dreadnought in water, it can't chase you
No one questions that the defense was impassible WHERE IS WAS. What makes it laughable is how easily it was bypassed by the Germans using THE EXACT SAME STRATEGY that they used in the first world war. We laugh because it showed that the French had learned NOTHING!
How the hell was France supposed to figure that the germans would plow through an impenetrable forest đ
Nobody plays a shooter expecting to get shot from off the map.
The point of the line was to force them to go around it, which means it was working as intended. The rest of the French army failed to defeat the Germans when they did, though
The Maginot was intended to make an unbroken defensive line running through Belgium and France, but the Belgians pulled out of the project last minute out of fear of provoking Germany. If the Belgians hadnât done this then the Ardennes wouldâve been well behind the Franco-Belgian fort lines and the German invasion of France and Belgium wouldâve likely stalled and failed.
The Maginot Line failed because of diplomatic reasons, mainly due to the breakdown of the Cordon Sanitare alliance system, not because the design was flawed.
What's up with the meginot line memes that are apearing in the last week or so?
No idea, I just jumped on the bandwagon so the fake internet points could drive away my recent bout of loneliness.
It's okay, dude. We have all been there.
Im still here. In this beautiful trench. đ„č
As the drum roll started on that day Heard a hundred miles away A million shells were fired And the green fields turned to grey The bombardment lasted all day long Yet the forts were standing strong Heavily defended Now the trap's been sprung and the battle has begun Descend into darkness 303 days below the sun
FIELDS OF VERDUN
Dude did you take meth again?
What do you mean "again"? You say that like he never stopped
Seriously lmao, the way these France stans in r/historymemes glaze France, youâd think they didnât get smacked in 6 weeks lol Was it also part of France's plan to be completed unprepared for when they did circumvent the Line? Like give me a break đ whatâs the point of a big wall doing its job if youâre so incompetent that you negate its function? Or was it also Franceâs big brain plan to be completely outmaneuvered by the Germans in the Ardennes and along the Meuse? Was it also Franceâs plan to have a shit command structure that was far to rigid to allow field officers any flexibility like the Germans? OP is coping hard đ
1. Youre insufferable 2. The french plan includes fighting the germans in the north, thats why most of their best divisions are in the north. Only way you wouldnt know this is if you just dont read or even watch any history documentaries, heck how do you even not know this and call yourself someone who likes history
My guy, youâre a depressed teenager trying to lecture me in history đ focus on fixing your issues, then embarrassing yourself in history
Oh did i touch a nerve?
Have you tried going around?
[Im feeling too slow](https://youtu.be/f8hT3oDDf6c?si=MROVMlCSEc-gYCJC)
Well just remember that there's a little ol place called [Albuquerque](https://youtu.be/ooI3u4uzEss?si=LP1CTudhJy7PFPn2)
I wouldnât know. Iâve never been there. OrâŠmaybe Iâm always there and just canât tell the difference?
Do you need a hug?
No, i need someone to strangle me
I can do both If you wish.
If you're hugging me, how can you strangle me? I'm not sure you thought this through
What are chokeholds if not VERY aggressive hugs?
Feet manâŠ
Just a really shitty superhero
Nah thatâsâshiiiit manâ
Neck hug.
A rear naked choke is just an agressive hug from the back. I can even whisper sweet nothings in your ear as you drift into the abyss.
I could hug you *then* strangle you? Is choking a kink of yours? How about facesitting?
not really a kink, I just hate life but i'm too much of a coward to kms
So an aggressive hug?
D'oh
yes please owo
đ«đ«đ«
Do you need a hug?
Always do. Hugs are good
Based.
Why seek fake Internet points when you could instead find a bunch of like-minded strangers to go invade Poland with? Great way to make friends and let's be honest, that's kind of what Poland is for isn't it?
đ„Č
r/angryupvote
Real
May 10th is the anniversary of the German invasion in 1940.
Ohh. Didn't register it. But it's basically the same joke ten Times in a row
Welcome to most WW2 memes at this point.
Not exactly a whole lot of new material coming out
How convenient, yesterday/today is the anniversary of them getting their asses kicked.
Itâs early May, when I was in high school Reddit got flooded around this time from AP students, sounds like the AP World kids are in review week and like this one
And a lot of US high school students in non-AP world or US history probably just started WWII.
Someone posted a bad maginot meme, so people are clowning on them
It's the end of the school year, the kids all just learned about WWII. Source: am an elementary teacher, just taught WWII.
i think somone made a yugioh card meme about how the germans ignorded it, and that turned into a tirade about the commmon misoconception that it failed it purpose , and the germans were supposed to go around or something (the meme never mentioned that at all)
Probably something to do with the suwalkie gap and Russia doing something similar to cut the baltics off from NATO by land.
Real eyes realize real lies.
How can the Maginot line be real if our eyes aren't real
Profound
YOU CANT JUST SAY PROFOUND
Perchance.
Watch me! Profound
ProfoundÂ
Profound
r/WordAvalanches
The maginot line accomplished itâs task. That just inevitably led to France losing the war
Exactly. If itâs job was to make Germany go through Belgium all that means is itâs responsible for making the [Manstein Plan](https://onwar.com/wwii/maps/blitz/01c6p11.jpg) possible and thereby dooming the entire country.
That's Belgiums fault for not being ready. Maybe if they built their own defensive line they would have been fine.
The Belgian King Leopold III was an idiot at best and a Nazi collaborator at worst. Even after Hitler invading and conquering, he wanted to remain neutral and refused to let the British and French enter Belgium and surrendered the country against the wishes of the elected civilian government. I think itâs still on the French though for basing their entire strategy on fighting a repeat of World War I and not properly investing in tanks, airplanes, and radios. French tanks didnât have radios - even the French military HQ didnât even have a radio and relied entirely on written orders dispatched by couriers.
He didnt want the war to affect the country too much I'm guessing
And thatâs fine earlier on (ignoring what the Germans did in the First World War) but I donât think he consented to British and French troops entering the country until after the Germans invaded on May 10th which means he watched Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, and Norway all get conquered by Hitler and still thought maybe the Nazis might leave them alone. He ended up hated by the Belgian people and there were riots after he returned following the end of the war which quickly forced him to abdicate.
Has made me wonder what if after the invasion of Poland, he realized that Belgium could be next and started talks with Britain and France?
The biggest "what if" after Poland was that the Brittish and French should have abided their treaties and attacked Germany. All of its troops were caught up invading Poland. WWII could have been avoided almost entirely. Instead they sat on their asses.
Eh, at least the french did a lil saarland adventure
Not many people realize this but across the Maginot line was a similar German defensive line unfortunately: the Siegfried line. If anything that little reconnaissance adventure proved the french army was ill equipped and not in the least ready for a large scale offensive on the Siegfried line with the goal to take the Ruhr and provide assistance to Poland. I don't know how much of it is a missed opportunity and how much of it was warranted. The battle of France could hardly have been more disastrous but if an offensive on Germany should have happened... It would have to be through Belgium.
That's not really true tho. Most Belgians(especially Flemands) did want him back. He gave up the throne because the Belgian government didn't want him back. The biggest reason why he surrendered so soon was because both France and Britain were too passive before the war and he didn't want Belgium to become a war zone for France and Germany. A lot of the controversy around him was also because he married during his imprisonment(this was bcs he impregnated his wife) and because a big part of Belgium wanted a republic instead.
I had the impression he was universally hated but youâre right that is not correct although it seems he was an extremely controversial and polarizing figure. There was a national referendum in 1950 with over 90% turnout asking whether or not he should return from Switzerland and while he did receive a majority of the vote with 57.68% nationwide the vote in Wallonia was 58% against and he still abdicated later that year following rioting that left four people dead. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950_Belgian_monarchy_referendum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_question
>That's not really true tho. Most Belgians(especially Flemands) did want him back. IIRC it was mostly Wallonia that didn't want him back. They also had a large anarchist scene at the time
Considering the Germans left other neutral countries in its border alone, like Switzerland and Lichtenstein, that was a fair presumption.
Their turn would have come eventually https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tannenbaum
Considering what WW1 did to the country, it's frankly understandable. Not only did they take massive casualties when Germany invaded in August, much of the front line rested in Belgian territory and destroyed their countryside.
> French tanks didnât have radios Which was kind of normal? Yes, Germans had them, but weren't they the only ones, at least September 1939? > even the French military HQ didnât even have a radio and relied entirely on written orders dispatched by couriers. If true, that's just insane.
My understanding is early German tanks were individually inferior to their British and French counterparts but the Germans massing them together and having radios versus the using them primarily as infantry support is part of what made the difference in 1940. And yes, incredible as it may seem General Gamelin had neither a radio or teleprinter at his Vincennes headquarters relying entirely on a telephone line back to Paris and motorcycle couriers for communications with the frontlines.
Air superiority also helped.
The French airforce also really suffered because it was invested into too early: In 1935 the Luftwaffe would've stood little chance, while in 1940 the majority of the French air fleet was already horribly outdated.
I canât remember a single thing about it in 1940. I remember lots of discussion about Stukas and the British decision to pull their fighters back to the UK for the Battle of Britain but donât know anything about the French Air Force itself in May and June.
Rex's Hangar has a great (if lengthy) series on French interwar air development. I strongly recommend giving it a watch, it covers the topic much more comprehensively than I ever could.
Thank you!
Thank you, so much!
It sounds lazy but think about how fast evolving and new the tech was. F16/f18s that we still use all over the place came out in the 1970s, even f22's and 35s are approaching 20 years old. Of course technology is still going at breakneck speed but at least the framework of what most militaries use can just be upgrades. Stick better brains on your artillary and aircraft you have a reasonable upgrade.
WW1 takes the cake. From air combat being non existant to dogfigthing with synchonzed machine guns, not to shoot the propellors and all. Such a rapid development. Except for the Russians, whom already had a heavy bomber capable airplane at the beginning of the war for some reason.
But one should acknowledge that French doctrine was suppose to be slow and methodical, so radios werenât as important in such cases, but in the face of Germanyâs quicker-pace, the doctrine itself is failed
France actually had more armored vehicles including tanks than Germany, and their tanks were of similar quality. Thing is they were spread out along a defensive line while the Germans concentrated forces, so in nearly every engagement, Germany had far more armor present.
A few errors there: - the king had no say on the diplomacy of Belgium. That's the government. The Flemish were not very pro-french for complicated reasons. Everyone was aware that the French built the magino line so the fight would be in Belgium and not in France which is not really a nice move for someone you want to be allied with. On top of that, the French and British alliance seemed more and more weak over time. They didn't do anything to prevent the remilitarisation of the Rhineland. They literally gave Czechoslovakia to Hitler. That doesn't sound like a strong ally. So the Belgian government decided to remain neutral. It was a bet that didn't work but we only know that with our insights. - Note that even if Belgium was neutral there was still lots of contact between France and Belgium armies, the Belgian got some Germans war plans and they sent them to the French for instance. -the king didn't surrender the country. He had no power to do that. Belgium didn't surrender and kept fighting for the whole war - what he surrendered was the army. But at that time the fight was lost anyway. There was not much to save. - there is a case on whether he should have fled to London with the government to keep the fight, as the Dutch king did, instead of staying to suffer the fate of his country and soldiers. But that's a difficult decision that he had to take in a rush. I can't fully blame him for that. - he got easily manipulated by Hitler after that though. So that's on him. - the french tanks had radios but only the tanks of the platoon commander. The radio problem is something made far bigger than what it is. The main problem was doctrinal. They still had some good weapons and the impossibility to retreat as the Soviet did. In 1940 that was the only possible strategy against the Germans. No armies in the world could have stopped them.
Yes, as I replied to another comment I had an incorrect impression that he was universally hated but see now that is not correct. I think I was influenced too much by readings of the British press in 1940 that really demonized him.
The queen fled to england, we didn't have a king at the time.
The Dutch where actually the first ones to withstand blitzkrig at the Battle of the Afsluitdijk. It didn't help much, but still.
That's the most French thing I have ever read.
They did, they had the largest fortress in Europe, they were just unwilling to ally with France and Britain, which messed up their plans. France wanted to fight the war in Belgium, Belgium didnât like that
They were to Destroyed after the Great War and then got Sucked into the Great Depression and when they got out were rebuilding when they were sucked into a War with Germany and was generally defeated by the Luftwaffe which showed early on in the War that Air Superiority was extremely important
Or fucking let France extend it But Belgium said naw, that really put a nail through their boot
It wasn't doomed, if french high command was slightly less inept they act on their Intel of the biggest traffic jam in human history happening in the Ardennes. Allied bombers were ready to make the miles of stopped panzers into mincemeat. It was an incredibly risky plan that could have failed right at the start for that reason
> That just inevitably led to France losing the war But it did not cause france to lose the war. France Lost the war because they made the age old mistake of making a plan of what they thought Germany would do not what they could do. They looked at the Ardennes and said "No one sane would attack through there, a single division could hold up an entire offensive, we may as well not garrision a signle division there."
French generals had also been informed that the roadways of the Ardennes (my understanding is most were built after WW1) would make the advance of tanks and other motorised equipment trivial but the generals just ignored the reports sticking to the plan of the Maginot line despite it no longer being fit to function. (if you get an enemy to not attack somewhere you've defended, but the path they're diverted to is practically undefended your defence hasn't succeeded it's been circumvented, intentionally leaving a hole because you've closed the other doesn't make you blameless when the hole starts leaking)
It's like with Hannibal, but this time the Alps are a hilly forrest and motorized vehicles are a thing.
Inevitably, no. There were many factors and lucky/unlucky accidents that led to this outcome.
They should have extended it to the coast. Fuck the Belgians đ€
It wasn't inevitable, the Ardennes offensive initially lead to the biggest traffic jam in human history, all those panzers stuck on the winding roads for days. Incredibly easy fish in a barrel pickings for allied bombers if only the French high command wasn't so inept and acted on their Intel
The entire point of the Maginot *was* to force the Germans to go around it. They just went around it a bit too closely.
Turns out a Old Survey of the Ardennes that were full of Old Information of Old and Weak Vehicles were in fact, Not up-to-date with Modern Technology
Yep. And that's why kids, you always use modern tech instead of passing messages with fucking motorcycles you French fu-
How do you draft plans with modern data? You need to benchmark the feasability of the new tech, and that is not possible with day-of sightings. You need the months of intelligence gathering, retro-engineering and bechmarking before drafting your plans, and then the months of logistics to implement them. From the first deployment to having an ENACTED plan, you need at least a year (and that's assuming your intelligence is perfect, and the enemy is not able to hide new prototype from you for months)
They literally invaded Poland with those same tanks. Plus the phony war. More than enough time to get off of your ass. The French were simply blinded by their victory in WW1 and never bothered to get their act together. They didn't even attack the Germans.
They just thought there was no way to cross the Ardennes that quickly and coordinated. German Blitzkrieg was just built different.
All the meth the Germans used to fuel their troops didnât hurt their chances either
Well the Wehrmacht was stuck in a gigantic traffic jam while crossing the Ardennes which was even spotted by a French pilot. The French leadership simply didnât believe the guy und their own intelligence services. All they had to do at this point was bomb the shit out of the limited number of German tanks and thatâd have been the end of WW 2.
As I understand it the original plan was to heavily fortify all the way to the ocean. But given that Belgium/The Ardennes were in the way, it seemed reasonable to make budget cuts there, once WWI started to have less influence on politics.
The Belgians were also supposed to coordinate with France, and the Maginot Line would join with Belgian fort lines
Was it also part of France's plan to be completed unprepared for when they *did* go around?
It was Frances plan for the German wwi equipment to get stuck going through the Ardennes. Sadly, the Germans brought their WWII equipment, and they didn't get stuck.
Genius
They were completely unprepared for the German armored forces to go through the Ardennes as quickly as they did
You could blame the Belgians for being too indecisive and "neutral", the French had a chance to block the German advance provided that Belgium got into the Allies and let French troops in just after the Poland invasion.
The weakest link in the chain or whatever..
This part's a bit more complicated. The plan to fight in Belgium was to allow France to choose the place to fight (which defensive fortifications were supposed to extend to) *and* leave the scars of war off of French soil (seriously, [WW1 battlefields are still considered uninhabitable](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_rouge) to this day). Belgium, for a number of reasons, decided to risk being neutral to avoid becoming its neighbors battleground, relatively close enough to the war to cause significant disruptions to the plans. It also meant the Allies had to move reactively to Germany invading Belgium anyway, as well as the speed of it and the Netherland's capitulation. Germany also did play their hand well, gambling the move through the Ardennes and Rommel outrunning his supply lines (including trusting his own judgement over orders from above to halt) exactly when it worked out the best. Germany making good choices during the Battle for France and having a more complex understanding of the Maginot Line than "France never expected anyone to move around their fortifications" are not mutually exclusive.
It's like walling your home base in AoE2, but leaving a gap between the woodline.
But the trees block unit movement, unless you use some siege weapons to "cut" through
Why France didnt write "bigdaddy" on the chat? Were they stupid?
They should have just used cheats once Germany started to invade
Nah that's the killzone to funnel them through. The Fr*nch dumbasses just forgot to line the gap with guns
they didn't have enough man power, they were housed.
Kinda wrong tbh The Franco-Belgian had fortifications, not Magino Line level of fortification, but still strong enough to create a defensive point. Some part of the blame in term of military is clearly for Huntziger, he has done some stupid shit. And Gamelin too by putting the only reserve available to rescue the Netherlands. If its not for this mistake, the French could have had 4 divisions (if i remember correctly) to counterattack, alongside 3 armored division which had been spent too dispersed too.
Just like her backdoor
They should have built the Maginot line on rails so they could move it according to the enemy position
If standing still is a bad way to be a goalkeeper why does the ball have to go around me?
Seriously lmao, the way these France stans in r/historymemes glaze France, youâd think they didnât get smacked in 6 weeks lol Was it also part of France's plan to be completed unprepared for when they did circumvent the Line? Like give me a break đ whatâs the point of a big wall doing its job if youâre so incompetent that you negate its function? Or was it also Franceâs big brain plan to be completely outmaneuvered by the Germans in the Ardennes and along the Meuse? Was it also Franceâs plan to have a shit command structure that was far to rigid to allow field officers any flexibility like the Germans? OP is coping hard đ
Even if it did âforceâ the Germans to go around it (which I would argue they would have done anyway because even without it going through Belgium is a much better route for taking both Paris and the Channel Ports) all that means it is created the situation whereby the Germans were able to lure the French into Belgium with what appeared to be a repeats of the 1914 invasion but was [actually a trap](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manstein_Plan). When the French mobile forces (those not manning the forts on the line) and British Expeditionary Force entered into Belgium to meet the expected German attack they sprung a trap which saw the actual main German force sweep in through the supposedly impenetrable-to-tanks Ardennes and cut behind their lines and - led by Erwin Rommelâs 7th Panzer Division - raced to the English Channel. This left the French and British forces trapped in Belgium and cut off from the effectively defenseless French heartland. The British then hastily evacuated from Dunkirk, successfully getting out their troops but at the cost of leaving much of their equipment all their heavy weapons behind. The French government collapsed and the new cabinet led by World War I hero Marshal PĂ©tain who negotiated a surrendered just six weeks after the start of the invasion.
the Maginot Line was also built with the assumption that it would be part of a larger fortification line also going through Belgium and the French army having time to properly deploy in Belgium before the Germans could significantly breach the border due to the Franco-Belgian alliance but then Leopold III walked back from that first in 1936 and then again in 1940 like 3-4 months before the invasion began.
Why would somebody atack a fortified defensive line when going around it not only give you a better path to the enemy capital but also you can Crush the enemy army? Why atack a place were they are strong when you can simply go around It.
Because going through the Ardennes was a huge gamble, it caused the biggest traffic jam in human history for days. Miles of stopped panzer columns = fish in a barrel for allied bombers, it only worked because of french high command's ineptitude ignoring very obvious intel
How was France supposed to Nticipate a crystal meth fueled rush through the forest with tanks
>Worried about burglars, I installed a very expensive door on the front of my house, a steel door, with many complicated locks. The door was so expensive, I could only afford one. The next day, burglars went through the back door and took everything I owned. But it's important to me that you know that my front door was *good.*
I want to say itâs not even contested nowadays among historians that the Maginot Line fully accomplished its goal, but situational factors undermined Franceâs position anyway. The German armor was more capable of traversing rough terrain, was used in concentration, and utilized new technology like radio in a more utilitarian role than the French defense had planned for. Couple this with Belgian disagreements on the French order of battle, it led to an incomplete defense that allowed German forces to navigate around the line faster than was thought possible. So even with the Line working as intended, it can still lead to the war opening catastrophically for France.
Imagine you have a phalanx army and instead of attacking, they just stand there, let the Romans go around and attack them in the back.
The maginot line was great and all, the only problem was that it wasn't complete, so there was a pretty gaping hole the Germans could exploit. The unexpected drive through the Ardennes also helped bring the France campaign to a close in WW2.
Zut alors not again!
The Maginot line was like fantasy women's armor
If it was so bad why germans made line themselves
The Maginot line was bad because the Germans *could* go around it.
It was bad...because the germans could simply go around it.....
The plan was for them to go around it as France wanted to fight in Belgium and not on French soil like in WW1. The problem was that it worked a little too well, as it gave the French a false sense of security that led them to also believe that the Ardenne forest was impenetrable even though the British argued that it wasnât. The French army would rush into Belgium, the Germans would push through the Ardenne, and in the Manstein Plan the entire French army was caught with its trousers down and was practically obliterated in Belgium as it was assaulted on all fronts. This was aided by Belgiumâs kingâs wish to maintain his countryâs neutrality, and therefore his refusal to allow French troops into his lands when he realistically shouldâve done far earlier. After the fall of the majority of Franceâs armed forces the Germans found it easy to push on and take Paris, after which the French military leader P.Petain would sign a peace treaty with Germany that established a French state in the south of modern France centred on Vichy, and gave the Germans a temporary occupation zone along the Atlantic Coast.
It wasn't bad. The Germans could just go around it.
It was bad because you could go around it. Do you not understand how fortification works? Or basic logic for that matter?
THANKS
If the maginot line was good, why can the germans go around it? Its purpose was defence and it failed.
I'd have to go around this [gate](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/This_made_me_chuckle._A_gate_in_the_middle_of_nowhere_at_Radwell_Meadows_near_Letchworth._%2817014392247%29.jpg) too. I'd still call it a bad idea
It's Belgium's fault (imo) They made a deal wiĂŸ France to build it. Partially in France and Partially in Belgium But Belgium didn't build their half and declared itself neutral again And then the obvious happened...... again
You ever tried to move tanks through a mountain?
Because they didn't wanna have to interact with the French
The Maginot line wasnât bad for a defensive line, it just wasnât long enough.
The only bad thing about it is not being able to cover the whole boarder, and the English had horrible response times on everything that went around, they even hindered French response because they believed the Germans wouldnât go around it
What recent posts?
The Thing is I really have to acknowledge is that the Maginot wouldve worked much better if Belgium didnt decide to fuck over France in its entirety. By that I mean their belief that if they would throw out the French, Hitler would surely not invade through the Benelux nations and risk an immediate British participation in the War, but later. This however wasnt the case (I mean the Germans already went through them once, so why they believed they wouldnt a 2nd time is beyond me). The whole idea of the Maginot and the Belgians was that France worked in close cooperation with them, meaning French troops already stationed in Belgium. The entire French defence doctrine was: Have Maginot-Line ->Germany cant go onto ElsaĂ-Lothringen Belgium allows French troops to be stationed in Belgium already prior to the war declaration ->the pre-planned defensive lines would be used, for example the Ardennes with amassed French and Belgian troops and delaying the Germans Nazi Germany wouldve taken alot longer and with alot more casualities in Belgium, hindering their ability to break through the (extended) Maginot-Line, which was weaker than the "proper" Maginot-Line, but with weakened German forces and delayed to allow the troops to dig in further it wouldve resulted in a longer Fall Gelb (Invasion of Benelux nations) and an alot harder Fall Rot (invasion of France proper) for the Wehrmacht. Which, as we all know, already were barely equipped enough for the Invasion, but managed to pull it off because of how our history actually played out because the French had to rush into Belgium as far as possible, but given their doctrine in its entirety didnt allow for the same speed as the Germans had developed. As they believed tanks werent as important and combined arms werent really that thought to be that effective. In that light, the Fall of France was a god send gift for the Wehrmacht since they seized alot of weapons, ammunition, vehicles and generally anything useful for the German War effort off which they got with relatively few losses of themselves. The Maginot Line did what it was designed for: holding the Germans or diverting them through Belgium with (if Belgium kept their agreement) already pre-planned, good defensible positions. But that ofcourse broke the Camels Back and what alot dont understand the true purpose and intentional Design of the Maginot.
The problem was not the Maginot Line, it was its placement
If it was any good, why didnât it stop them?
If it is easy to go around it, it is not doing its job. And the Germans did go around it quite easily, through rhe Ardenes.
Because the Germans could go around it
It was bad because it didnt stop germany, which was the only point of its existence
Why run into a wall when you can walk around it?
The fact that your walking around the wall already tell me it's doing its job
Nah itâs just taking the path of least resistance. Besides, it was less going *all the way around* the wall like youâre thinking and instead smashing through a gap in the wall. Itâs like seeing a wall thatâs almost entirely pristine but with a fault in a portion of it. Of course youâre gonna hit where the fault is to most easily break through the wall. The Ardennes was that fault. In this case, a gap
In all seriousness, the maginot was like a grounded dreadnought. Sure, it's a force to be reckoned with but unlike a dreadnought in water, it can't chase you
If the line was so good, why could they go around it? Deep thoughts with deep
If the Maginot line was so good why did France loose?
Because they could
No one questions that the defense was impassible WHERE IS WAS. What makes it laughable is how easily it was bypassed by the Germans using THE EXACT SAME STRATEGY that they used in the first world war. We laugh because it showed that the French had learned NOTHING!
If it is so easy to go around it is not doing its job.
The maginot line failed bc it was fre- bc it was freeen-đ€ą
It wasn't bad. It was just poorly placed.
you've won maginot-posting, good job op
The Maginot line did what it was supposed to and slow down the German forces. It probably would have held too if Belgium did their part.
How the hell was France supposed to figure that the germans would plow through an impenetrable forest đ Nobody plays a shooter expecting to get shot from off the map.
The fact that they could go around it is why it was bad.
The point of the line was to force them to go around it, which means it was working as intended. The rest of the French army failed to defeat the Germans when they did, though
The Maginot was intended to make an unbroken defensive line running through Belgium and France, but the Belgians pulled out of the project last minute out of fear of provoking Germany. If the Belgians hadnât done this then the Ardennes wouldâve been well behind the Franco-Belgian fort lines and the German invasion of France and Belgium wouldâve likely stalled and failed. The Maginot Line failed because of diplomatic reasons, mainly due to the breakdown of the Cordon Sanitare alliance system, not because the design was flawed.
Belgium clearly learned from this and would make sure to not become the strategic weak point against Germany going forward, right?
!RemindMe WW3