France is a mess
If you want to understand what’s happening politically in France – including the recent elections – I recommend reading this article.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
If you want to understand what’s happening politically in France – including the recent elections – I recommend reading this article.
Somewhat O/T, but it seems that a female Secret Service agent attached to Trump’s detail took an unannounced, unauthorized break while on duty to breast feed.
https://x.com/susancrabtree/status/1824059727766290534
Yes, but it’s a HOT mess.
Aux armes, citoyens,
Formez vos bataillons,
Marchons, marchons!
Qu’un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!
France, they’re always there when they need us!
Well, they were here when we needed them.
Yes they made Yorktown happen. But it is France!
“Well, they were here when we needed them.”
True and we repaid that debt in WWII.
Actually, Geoffrey — doesn’t The Great War count in the debt replacement tally? In costs and lives by the US, it was much closer to the American Revolutionary War than WWII.
Sgt. Joe Friday, yes, that’s pretty O/T unless she has French ancestry! (I can’t think of any other connection that would work.)
That was a useful article from Gatestone. I appreciate the fact that it cited many French (indigenous) sources, even though I don’t have huxley’s skill set.
“America saved France in two wars, and they’ve never forgiven us.”
I have no idea where I saw that, although it’s been more than once, but it captures the stereotyped French view of the US, from the POV of an American.
Spent about two days in France, mostly on the way through, years ago. So, no direct experience.
I’ve heard it said you can visit Paris or you can visit France. In the latter place, they like us. I checked out D-Day anniversary activities a couple of months ago. They’re all over the place.
Some towns still have liberation day parades with old US equipment and re enactors in WW II battle dress and de-milled WW II weapons.
Good stuff on youtube, ‘Les Ventes” being one and a tear jerker about a woman who has made it her job to see the Honors are followed and American families can find their ancestor’s grave site and possibly where he may have served or fallen.
My folk spoke French, college and in my father’s case, post-war duties there while recovering from wounds.
When they were visited France back in the late Seventies, they could hear what was being said about them. Paris vs. France.
The assertion that America saved France in the First World War has a kernel of truth, but only a kernel. The truth is, America’s role in the Allied victory, which lay more in the potentialities of American involvement than in actual battlefield achievement, has been elevated to mythic status that portrays America as the savior of the Allied cause. The British are guilty of the same sort of myth-making albeit on a smaller scale.
In act the Allied victory in the Great War was a French victory first and foremost. In the Battle of the Marne in the autumn of 1914 the French soundly defeated the a German army which was then at the peak of its powers (and which many historians still incorrectly believe was at the time the s mightiest and most competent army ever fielded by any nation theretofore at the outset of a war), achieving one of the most consequential victories in the world military history; thereafter, they repeatedly fought the vaunted German army to a standstill — notably, and spectacularly, at the Battle of Verdun — and progressively attrited the German army (with corresponding deleterious effects on the German economy). In the final months of the war in 1918 it was French general Ferdinand Foch, who as commander in chief of all Allied armies directed the Allied armies to final victory after the Germans’ last-gasp Battle-of-the-Bulge spring offensives were first halted and then smashed.
The French carried the brunt of the burden of fighting the war (the British dispute this, but they are wrong) even to the extent of providing the equipment-impoverished American forces with weapons they lacked — e.g., artillery, tanks, machine guns, etc., etc. — and also with the training the doughboy required to fight and survive Western Front warfare.
I could write more on this subject, and have done so in the past, and for publication, but I’ll refrain from doing so here.
IrishOtter
From what I can find, both the French and Brits had a million dead. Unless there was some major tactical difference, it would imply similar efforts against the Germans.
It is true that the Germans were impressed by the Yanks they met–having not lost the flower of the age group–and were aware of millions more in the training camps. The cumulative losses among the Germans without corresponding losses on the US’s side looked pretty serious for 1919.
My point, simply. is this: the notion that the Americans “saved” France is a pernicious myth. So too is the belief that the French were cheese-eating surrender monkeys who depended on Americans to beat the Hun.
Which brings me to another point. When the Yanks began arriving in France in 1917 they were a hapless lot by the standards of warfighting capability and competence. They were ill-trained and ill-equipped for warfare on the Western Front. The French changed all that with rigorous training regimens and massive infusions of weapons, munitions, and equipment. France was, in this instance, the arsenal of Democracy; and the teacher of martial virtues. The successes Americans ultimately achieved were in large measure attributable to French efforts. And it needs be said that those successes were achieved as part of a broad and enormous effort by Allied forces operating in unison against the Germans.
c’est tout des même un peuple formidable, un trés grand peuple, les Français. People should stop telling themselves otherwise.
Yes verdun and the somme shows the french were hardy that they didnt want to change another recurrence in 1940 its not that surprising after the war they fought 16 years in indochina and algeria
Were foch and nivelle foolhardy perhaps dis they lack for bravery i dont think so
Irish.
The successes were attributable to Americans going forward with, as was said in a different war, their khaki shirts for protection.
Interesting story about a US unit completing an assault after, by accident, the artillery necessary to tear up the German wire obstacles (known to the last shell by that time) failed to arrive.
A French delegation was sent to see how that happened. Their conclusion was the Yanks’ big feet defeated the wire obstacle.
Funny, and possibly somewhat relevant. But something about heart might have been involved.
Rich Aubrey:
That’s a charming story but you miss my point entirely. I have made that point twice and I’m not going to repeat it.
I stand corrected on France, but they’re easy to make fun of. The era from the turn of the century 18th to 19th that included the World Wars is one that has been analysed to death but completely misunderstood. For the participants it is over and that is not understood very well but it is over. I trust that’s confusing enough!
Irish
The point you make is already known to most who follow history.
If the US “saved” France, it was by threat.
IMO, such a great effort on your point leaves one wondering howv115,000 of our guys got killed.
To follow up my earlier point–I was interrupted and lost my train of thought–here is a population comparison. The dead of WW I as a proportion of today’s population would be about 450,000 in eighteen months. If we stretch it out to two years as the severely wounded may have survived Armistice Day for a bit, 450,000 dead in two years.
By comparison, the Viet Nam war would, in today’s population, cost about 100,000 dead over ten years, some years being worse than others.
So that would be the social impact of 10,000 dead per year compared to 225,000 dead per year.
It was not nothing to the Americans.