French Surrender 1940... what ever happened

[Johnnie]

Much of these items were basically symbolic. The ceremony in the same railway car, the destruction of the site, and the eventual destruction of the railway car, ect. The Wikpedia article states that the terms were harsher than the Allied terms on Germany at the end of the First War. I'm not sure how they get that, and once again, as you say it is a matter of perspective. In comparing the two surrender terms, I make these notes: Three fifths of France was occupied, but sizeable portions of Germany were taken from it. In addition, sizable portions of the industrial areas of Germany were also occupied. France was required to carry the cost of occupation. So was Germany as well as being required to pay extremely high war reparations which devastated the economy along with the Great Depression. The French fleet was alowed to stay under French control. The German fleet was required to surrender in mass, and then ended up scuttling itself.
In regards to the Frech fleet, I have learned some things that make the issue more clear to me. If Hitler was afraid that the French would continue the war from North Africa, then I can see how he was eager to simply nuetralise the fleet as soon as possible. In researching the situation, I just found out that Algeria was not a colony, but was actually considered part of France proper. They could have continued the war from there.
This is a fascinating part of the history of the war, and I think the complications of the French situation are often overlooked.

Cheers,
Johnnie

Well dear Johnnie, it depends from the point of view.
This is what I found on wikipedia about the armistice France - Germany and it seems a little different from our point of views.
Let's take a look.


When Adolf Hitler received word from the French Government that they wished to negotiate an armistice, Hitler selected Compiègne Forest near Compiègne as the site for the negotiations. As Compiègne was the site of the 1918 Armistice ending the Great War with a humiliating defeat for Germany, Hitler saw using this location as a supreme moment of revenge for Germany over France.

In the very same railway carriage in which the 1918 Armistice was signed (removed from a museum building and placed on the precise spot where it was located in 1918), Hitler sat in the same chair that Marshal Ferdinand Foch had sat in when he faced the defeated German representatives. After listening to the reading of the preamble, Hitler - in a calculated gesture of disdain to the French delegates - left the carriage, leaving the negotiations to his OKW Chief, General Wilhelm Keitel.
As commented in William Shirer's book Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, the armistice terms imposed on France were far harsher than those France had imposed on Germany in 1918. They provided for German occupation of three-fifths of France north and west of a line through Geneva, Tours and the Spanish border so as to give the German Navy access to all French Channel and Atlantic ports. All persons who had been granted political asylum had to be surrendered and all occupation costs had to be borne by France. A minimal French Army would be permitted. As one of Hitler's few concessions, the French Navy was to be disarmed but not surrendered, for Hitler realized that pushing France too far could result in France fighting on from French North Africa. The unoccupied third of France was ostensibly left free to be governed by the French, until a final peace treaty would be negotiated, and was eventually occupied by Germany in 1942 in Case Anton.

The French delegation - led by General Charles Huntziger - tried to soften the harsher terms of the armistice, but Keitel replied that they would have to accept or reject the armistice as it was. Given the military situation that France was in, Huntziger had "no choice" but to accede to the armistice terms. None of the French delegation, believing the war would last just a few more weeks now that Great Britain was fighting alone, objected to a clause that said all French POWs were to remain prisoners until the end of all hostilities with the British. A million and a half Frenchmen were thus forced to spend the next five years in prisoner of war camps. The cease-fire went into effect on 25 June 1940, 0:35.

Afterwards, the carriage was moved to Berlin as a trophy. It was later destroyed by the Germans at the end of the war.
The Armistice site was demolished by the Germans on Hitler's orders three days later, The carriage itself was taken to Berlin as a trophy of war, along with pieces of a large stone tablet which bore the inscription (in French):

HERE ON THE ELEVENTH OF NOVEMBER 1918 SUCCUMBED THE CRIMINAL PRIDE OF THE GERMAN REICH. VANQUISHED BY THE FREE PEOPLES WHICH IT TRIED TO ENSLAVE.
The Alsace-Lorraine Monument (depicting a German eagle immolated by a sword) was destroyed and all evidence of the site was obliterated, with the notable exception of the statue of Marshal Foch: Hitler intentionally ordered it to be left intact so that it would be honoring only a wasteland. The railroad car itself was taken to Crawinkel in Thuringia in 1945, where it was destroyed by SS troops and the remains buried.>>,

Well, Adolf was Adolf, even when he did it ... softly, isn'it?

[Johnnie]

I certainly agree with you that the French soldiers who fought in the 1940 campaign carried an unfair burden for the mistakes of generals and political leaders. It seems to be human nature to not blame those responsible for disasters, but instead to blame those who were unable to avert the disaster no matter how hard they try. Certainly not just a French experience.

Cheers,

Johnnie

Hello Jack,
As far as i'm concerned you can make jokes about Rugby, football, french women, french president, even french people, everything you want in fact, but not about those men, most of them were brave and died on their soil....Now everybody knows that the Battle of France was lost because of the leaders, the tactics and the atmosphere that was reigning in the prewar years. But after 1945, when the french soldiers of 1940 went back from captivity, each single of them had to assume the defeat that occured five years earlier. Leaders were new or victorious, the french forces took part in the final victory, and there was no place for the losers of 1940...it's always the underling who gets the blame....and believe me they didn't deserve this kind of treatment from their own nation...that's why this joke made me react like this....old stereotypes and german propaganda are not dead yet...
but....don't push too much on football as well....
cheers!

[PlaceOfBayonets]

WW2 French rifle for sale

Never fired and only dropped once.

Oh god stop guys! The French lost near 700,000 troops at Verdun but the Germans never passed.

Wilhelm

[Johnnie]

Hmmmm. Different war, and different campaign, but I agree that snide remarks about the French military are indeed counterproductive here.

Cheers,
Johnnie

Oh god stop guys! The French lost near 700,000 troops at Verdun but the Germans never passed.

Wilhelm

[Steve Sherlock]

Actually, the railroad coach was destroyed in an allied bombing raid during the war, not by the Germans.

Steve

[Jean-Loup]

"WW2 French rifle for sale

Never fired and only dropped once."

Then you better get the british rifle of 1940: never fired and also only droped once; but on a beach.

[Chris Boonzaier]

Oh god stop guys! The French lost near 700,000 troops at Verdun but the Germans never passed.

Wilhelm

700 000 is way over the figure, but suffice to say, the WW1 German honourbook memorial to the infantry rates the French infantryman as the main and most dangerous foe, the Brits coming a close second.

General Giap fought the Japanese, French and Americans and rated the French soldiers as his hardest foe.

All jokes aside, and believe me, noone has made more French jokes than me... Jokes about the French Army are usually some people whose minds are too simple to understand what happened in 39-41 on a European level, or who are simply "collectors" with little or no knowledge of history other than that th folks back them had way cool panzerwrappers. WW1 is waaayy to complictaed for them to form a picture and they know nothing about the why's of the giving up of the colonies.

I think the older hands on the forum will recognise all this from way back in 2000-2001?

[Johnnie]

Your right. I too have a large volume of French military jokes that I save for lighthearted bantering with French military types (and I'm sure you have heard some of their own jokes about Amis).
All of the wartime documents that I have read have mucho finger pointing at both French politicians and generals, but always high regard for the French soldier himself. I believe these jokes didn't materialise until the postwar political strain between de Gaulle's government and the British and Americans.
I think a similar situation exists in regards to the Italian soldier who was on the recieving end of a very effective Allied propoganda campaign.
That and the postwar American gun press armchair general writers who loved to write volumns about what junk Carcano rifles were, without ever actually testing one that wasn't completely worn out in any kind of legitimate test. Therfore we have the stereotypes of the dissolusioned French soldier who dropped his rifle and ran at the first sight of a German panzer, and the vino drinking mandolin playing Italian who was carrying dangerous rifles that wouldn't work right so learned to throw his hans up at the first opportunity.
The nice thing about being able to study history with a nuetral attitude is that you learn to cut through the propoganda.

Cheers,
Johnnie

700 000 is way over the figure, but suffice to say, the WW1 German honourbook memorial to the infantry rates the French infantryman as the main and most dangerous foe, the Brits coming a close second.

General Giap fought the Japanese, French and Americans and rated the French soldiers as his hardest foe.

All jokes aside, and believe me, noone has made more French jokes than me... Jokes about the French Army are usually some people whose minds are too simple to understand what happened in 39-41 on a European level, or who are simply "collectors" with little or no knowledge of history other than that th folks back them had way cool panzerwrappers. WW1 is waaayy to complictaed for them to form a picture and they know nothing about the why's of the giving up of the colonies.

I think the older hands on the forum will recognise all this from way back in 2000-2001?

[JPhilip]

Hello Gentlemen,
If the french quick defeat in 1940 was a surprise for the whole world, it has been a tremendous shock for the french people, which was under the propaganda influence until the final collapse. No one in France at the time could imagine that the sons would collapse where the fathers did stand up for years and finally won. Other times, other tactics....French soldiers won the Great war with their allies, and after this big "butchery" French people was fed up with wars and no one had enough imagination to think that 20 years later the germans would come back...

[Johnnie]

Thats understandable. On paper, France had the most powerful military in Europe.


Cheers,
Johnnie

Hello Gentlemen,
If the french quick defeat in 1940 was a surprise for the whole world, it has been a tremendous shock for the french people, which was under the propaganda influence until the final collapse. No one in France at the time could imagine that the sons would collapse where the fathers did stand up for years and finally won. Other times, other tactics....French soldiers won the Great war with their allies, and after this big "butchery" French people was fed up with wars and no one had enough imagination to think that 20 years later the germans would come back...

[Tim G]

Hitler didn't want to place french warships under german control to avoid scaring UK as he planned a separate peace with britons. that's why he let a big part of the french fleet go to North Africa to be lay up. Same thing than for the Dunkerque battle. Hitler stopped the Panzer and his army to allow the BEF to re-embark for UK, just to treat tactfully the british and have a separate peace...as simple as that.

As for the treatment of France that you seem to find quite fair, like i wrote it previously, he wanted France to become a neutral state, so he couldn't apply the same treatment than for Poland...

Hi Philip, interesting slant on things, if i may make the following observations.

1 Letting the brits out of dunkirk may be a valid point vis a vis potential peace offering and all, however we have to accept the fact that the germans were as stunned as we were with thier advances, many a german general was advocating a slow down to enable every one to catch thier breath as it were,thier were serious doubts as to weather they were not just placing thier necks in some sort of noose. The armies leadership had a vast institutional memory of what the french and british soldier was actually capable of, they were not totally aware of how bad things had got in both of our armies hence thier element of caution. The actuall fact that the likes of Rommel who was a superb field commander broke the halt order and essentially read it right was what kept them going.

2 The french fleet i think was good move from Mr Hitler. It left the future vichy gov with some teeth ( at least on paper) retained a bit of national pride and was a massive threat to the brits at that time( lets face it the french fleet in being was at that time superbably equiped with many relativley modern ships) The british government was left with a very difficult choice, cope with that threat by having to post major units to respond thus locking them down, or have to take direct action against folks who very recently were our allies.
No matter what folks say , Churchill was actually quite enamoured with the french, the final decision that was taken was not something i would have liked to contemplate. It was however taken and the fleet was bombarded in port. Were we right to do this ? Who knows what would have happend had we not. As for the kriegsmarine taking over the vessels, with who ? I dont believe for a second that the KM had tens of thousands of spare sailors hanging around and the time it would take to come up to speed with new vessels? I reckon it would be a good 12-15 months before they would have been considerd fit for service with all of the necassary support elements in place.

Just my two bucks worth guys

regards
Tim

[Johnnie]

Some good points reference the French fleet. And granted that hindsight is always easy, even 12 to 15 months of trainup time for these massive and effective warships would have been a lot cheaper than building them themselves, and may have made a major differnece a year down the road.
Intersting subject for conjecture.

Johnnie

Hi Philip, interesting slant on things, if i may make the following observations.

1 Letting the brits out of dunkirk may be a valid point vis a vis potential peace offering and all, however we have to accept the fact that the germans were as stunned as we were with thier advances, many a german general was advocating a slow down to enable every one to catch thier breath as it were,thier were serious doubts as to weather they were not just placing thier necks in some sort of noose. The armies leadership had a vast institutional memory of what the french and british soldier was actually capable of, they were not totally aware of how bad things had got in both of our armies hence thier element of caution. The actuall fact that the likes of Rommel who was a superb field commander broke the halt order and essentially read it right was what kept them going.

2 The french fleet i think was good move from Mr Hitler. It left the future vichy gov with some teeth ( at least on paper) retained a bit of national pride and was a massive threat to the brits at that time( lets face it the french fleet in being was at that time superbably equiped with many relativley modern ships) The british government was left with a very difficult choice, cope with that threat by having to post major units to respond thus locking them down, or have to take direct action against folks who very recently were our allies.
No matter what folks say , Churchill was actually quite enamoured with the french, the final decision that was taken was not something i would have liked to contemplate. It was however taken and the fleet was bombarded in port. Were we right to do this ? Who knows what would have happend had we not. As for the kriegsmarine taking over the vessels, with who ? I dont believe for a second that the KM had tens of thousands of spare sailors hanging around and the time it would take to come up to speed with new vessels? I reckon it would be a good 12-15 months before they would have been considerd fit for service with all of the necassary support elements in place.

Just my two bucks worth guys

regards
Tim

[Tim G]

Some good points reference the French fleet. And granted that hindsight is always easy, even 12 to 15 months of trainup time for these massive and effective warships would have been a lot cheaper than building them themselves, and may have made a major differnece a year down the road.
Intersting subject for conjecture.

Johnnie

Had the KM actually put those vessels to good use or even retained the crews
and put them to sea, i suspect the Royal Navy may have had a very good run for thier money.

Had they lost some of the larger units that early i think the convoys may have been extremely vulnerable. The larger units were needed to tie down the likes of bismark ,tirpitz , sharnehorst et al. If they had been able to deploy....
well suffice to say .......very bad news. Ultimatley it would all be conjecture,
had they been succesfull perhaps the main man might not have had such a downer on the KM.

[Johnnie]

The subject of the fate of the French fleet has always facinated me. France had some very powerfull, effective and inovative warships at the time. It got relatively little chance to demonstarte it's potential prior to the Armistice, and spent it's time holed up in ports, only to be devastated by a former ally. A true human and historical tradgety.
And even those who actually joined the Free French cause semed to have been relegated to minor duties.

Johnnie

Had the KM actually put those vessels to good use or even retained the crews
and put them to sea, i suspect the Royal Navy may have had a very good run for thier money.

Had they lost some of the larger units that early i think the convoys may have been extremely vulnerable. The larger units were needed to tie down the likes of bismark ,tirpitz , sharnehorst et al. If they had been able to deploy....
well suffice to say .......very bad news. Ultimatley it would all be conjecture,
had they been succesfull perhaps the main man might not have had such a downer on the KM.

[Chad1]

the French

Yeah, I think the French get an undeserved bad rep.

Look at Russia. They lost much much more than France, but they were so big that it still wasn't enough to lose it all.

In WWI, the French held on. In that war, everyone rags on the Austrians and the Italians. I don't care how tough you are. Lemberg sounds like one place I wouldn't want to have been. How about somewhere along the Isonzo?

Man to Man, we are all pretty much equal. It is in the preparation and leadership that the difference is made, plus a few other factors like economics and, of course, the inexplicable.