Are we turning into France?

[El Mudo]

I recently started reading a book on the French army mutinies of 1917, when I ran into this passage
about republican France in the years before the First World War


...Among these political parties, the republicans of the centre and the moderate left were in the majority. They represented varying shades of republican thought and drew their strength from the working classes and from the politcal opinion molders.....

...About the only common ground upon which all the republicans closed ranks was their doctrines of opposition to the influence of the Catholic Church(since traditionally the Church was royalist, conservative and reactionary) and opposition to the restoration of the monarchy. This community of interest was strong enough to ensure that the French minesterial governments would be formed from among the republican parties, but it was not enough to give each government any particular strength or any lengthy tenure in office.

The sucessive governments were almost invariably coalitions based on compromise and generally contained the same faces. It was a system that really satisfied no one-the royalists had no king, the clericals were forced to witness the receding infulence of the church, the conservative republicans could see their own left was becoming progressively more socialist, and the parties of the far left knew they were a very long way from obtaining any real measure of political power. As a result, lacking both direction and purpose, France was constantly torn by a sucession of political feuds and shabby government scandals


That last paragraph there really got me thinking of how much that sounds like our government today, with the exception of the stuff about the royalists, but i guess you could say that would be our extreme right. I don't know if all republican types of government end up in the same way as in paragraph 3, but I sure would hope we end up better than the French Third Republic did...

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[keithy_19]

Its politics. What do you expect?

Formerly...
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[Heavy]

Are we turning into France?

Relax with that...

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[El Mudo]

Relax with that...



Actually, for a while there the French had the best army in the world, until the Germans made them look stupid in the Franco-Prussian war, but even after that fiasco, they were still very good, even through World War 1. I think they get a bad rap about WW2 tho, the Maginot Line and static warfare in general became obsolete after the sucessfulness of the tank was shown by the British at Cambrai, and I guess you really couldn't blame them for not keeping up with the times, heck at the beginning of WW1 they still though elan and the bayonet could beat machine guns. But after the Germans cut France in two strategically, at that point resistance became futile because there were no more ports left...

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This message was edited by El Mudo on 1-7-04 @ 11:07 PM

[Se7en]

They deserve the criticism thrown at them for WW2.

The French army was broken in WWI. Understandable, given that they bore the invasion into their homelands and fought valiantly through many impossibly brutal years against the German war machine (who without a doubt was THE best army in the world at the time), but after the mutinies of 1917, they were never the same again.

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[TheMojoPin]

I CALL DIBS ON OUR MAGINOT LINE!!!

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[El Mudo]

They deserve the criticism thrown at them for WW2


Do they really though? To be fair to the French, no one had EVER used tanks as an offensive weapon like the Germans did(they had to resort to blitzkrieg because of supply shortages), and they had the two greatest tank generals ever in Guderian and Rommel. The French never really thought the tank would become the weapon that it did, and neither did we...witness the Sherman...you think a country with our industrial complex could have come up with a tank that didn't stink...the french still believed in fixed fortifications, how could they have known that era was dead as we do now?

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[curtoid]

The French bashing is very, very silly, especially considering how much French blood is mixed in with the American population. Not only are they one of the few major allies we've ever had that we haven't been at war with, but without them Frogs, George Washington would have had a much tougher time.

At some point the WW2 rhetoric needs to stop - the moral superiority from a country that has had it's fair share of things in our own history to be embarrassed about only continues to paint us more and more on the outside of the rest of the world.

As the world's only superpower we should start acting a little bit more contrite and a little less like a bully.

Actually, for a while there the French had the best army in the world

They still have one of the premiere special ops forces in the world - one that would have come in very handy in Iraq if we had bothered not to create a war on our own time table.

[KOP]

This message was edited by KOP on 1-8-04 @ 9:15 AM

[monsterone]

you know, i've been wondering why i smoke cigarettes, wear a beret, shower very little, and act rude to everyone. well, that's wrapped up.


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[A.J.]

The French never really thought the tank would become the weapon that it did, and neither did we

Well, this guy did:

http://www.newgenevacenter.org/portrait/ww2/patton.jpg

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[Tall_James]

Are we turning into France?


MON DIEU!


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[high fly]

Mudo, there was a good movie on the French army mutinies starring Kirk Douglas.

As for a good book on the 3rd Republic, I recommend The Decline and Fall of the Third Republic by William Shirer.
There are also some good passages in The Gathering Storm by Churchill.
By the time WWII came around, France was in no shape to fight. The losses in WWI were severe, and the country was also damaged psychologically. Economically, things were tough, and the society was fractured enough to make governing nearly impossible.
Some governments lasted only a few of days and allies could not be counted on.
Today we see the League of Nations as a bust, but back then it was different and to get an understanding of the times, one must see such things from the perspective of those very times.

I'd also point out that back in our Civil War times, I seem to recall that the Republican Party was the progressive party of it's day...

" and they ask me why I drink"




This message was edited by high fly on 1-8-04 @ 3:04 PM

[El Mudo]

Well, this guy did:



Well there are always exceptions to the rule. Heck, Petain went against the Young Officers ideas of the "School of Attack" when they were first proposed.

I don't think we realize the extent of how WW1 really changed everything in Europe. In the first 8 months of 1916 the French took over 800,000 casualties. In the first SIX WEEKS of the war in 1914 they took over 600,000 casualties out of the first 1.3 million troops in the field, including 66% of the officers. Entire generations of young men dissapeared. So you can see why the French(and the British) were so reluctant to fight another war, that they would go the lengths of giving Hitler the Sudetenland in exchange for not starting up another war.

The League of Nations didn't work because it had no power without the United States, if Wilson had bended on the issue just a little bit and given in to what the moderates, maybe things would have turned out differently

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[high fly]

There were many opportunities for WWII to be headed off, particularly in the early 30s.

Disarmament was a big fad, even if done unilaterally.
Roosevelt's offer to mediate in '37 or '38 was turned down.
Italy started out opposing Hitler in Austria but was driven into Hitler's camp by the sanctions folowing her moves into Abysinnia.

" and they ask me why I drink"

[TheMojoPin]

Mudo, there was a good movie on the French army mutinies starring Kirk Douglass.

"Paths of Glory".

GREAT film.

Though if you saw a film starring "Kirk DouglASS", you might have been watching something else altogether.

And as for bashing the French over WW2...the old saying is that "you always start off fighting the next war like the last one." As it's been explained, the Germans blew EVERYONE away with their modern form of warfare. If they hadn't tried to fight two major fronts at the same time, they would have had it locked.

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[monsterone]

Are we turning into France?


this could help

http://www.partydomain.co.uk/d-commerce/media/fdkitfrenchman.jpg




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[East Side Dave]

Are we turning into France?


I hope not! I don't have any white flags lying around! Just kidding, French people! You're silly little hats (berets) rule!

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[high fly]

(editing "Douglass" to "Douglas")
Mojo, you like to make me cringe.

" and they ask me why I drink"

This message was edited by high fly on 1-8-04 @ 3:13 PM

[El Mudo]

this could help



Didn't you just use that in The_Fat_Mole's "Racism.." thread??

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