In a case where soldiers from the other country have invaded and occupied your country I would agree that it would be treason to join them.
However, to me it seems twisted for people to turn on their allies and jump in bed with their former enemies. The French suffered many soldiers killed and many humiliating defeats at the hands of the British. How is it not treason for them to ally themselves with Britain?
Well if you were french you had to choose between Britain and Germany and there is not a single answer , for me it was a choice every person made . For example there were French SS divisions , from other hand there was a French Resistance … :rolleyes:
Big French dilemma. In the 18th and 19th century, England and France had been the ultimate nemesis. But by the 20th century, they had started to become Allies with them, simply because of the rising power of Germany, first the Empire and then the Third Reich.
So if I was a Frenchman, I’d have rather allied myself with the English than the Germans, even without knowledge of the Nazi crimes, out of Geo-political reasons.
I’m sorry I just don’t believe that.
Current facts (according to the UN) have the french population at 61.9 million and here’s the link http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/country_profiles/998481.stm#facts
And the UK at 61 million link here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/country_profiles/1038758.stm#facts
The UK has only just started to catch up with France and the French population has remained stable since WW2, the only reason that it hasn’t dipped is due to the large number of immigrants who rocked up post 1945. So sorry chap not right.
I would also like to refer the honourable gentleman to the following links;
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/fr.html
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/uk.html
I will in due course obtain figures for the WW2 era.
Um, I think you guys are somewhat talking past each other. Scaley, you’re talking about post-WW2 and Modern populations, while Cojimar is talking about 1911… there were quite a couple of major events since then, so who knows? Maybe the French population did experience a boost after WW1, or the British on a decline.
Alternatively, maybe the Australians and Canadians were counted into the 1911 census, which would obviously boost the British population by quite a bit…
Figures for other years around the same time period give similar numbers and most sources I have seen seem to agree on these numbers. Can anyone cite a reliable source that puts Britain’s population from 1910-1920 below that of France?
Hey! you’re right. I’ve never thought of it that way.
My source is International Historical Statistics: Europe 1750-2000. However, this book cites its sources of information so I will investigate those if I have the time.
France’s population might have been affected somewhat by the fact that it did not possess the provinces of Alsace-Lorraine which it lost as a consequence of the Franco-Prussian war.
But Germany was much smaller geographically and in population than Russia (strictly the USSR) so, when it comes to who was going to coque whom, Hitler must have been the coquette.
Yes, you’re perfectly correct about the Soviets being untrustworthy Allies.
Unlike, say, Churchill who considered pressing on and fighting the Soviets after defeating Germany, and who instructed his military planning staff to plan for it. http://www.history.neu.edu/PRO2/
Britain was clearly a real Ally with the USSR, but not vice versa. :rolleyes:
Russian wasn’t alone to chose the allied side by this way.
The USA entered the war on allied side ONLY after attacking the Perl-Harbour by Japanes. Before the american isolationists didn’t wish to go to war at all on any side.
Before the december 1941 USA still had a trade with Japane.
Shall we describe the USA then as not a REAL ally;)
Seems yes, if folow your logic.
I don’t think they were a real allie and that’s why people today don’t class Russia as being a fully ww2 Allie.
… but probably GErmans themself, who spend 80% of their divisions in fight against Red Army DON’T think so.
In reviewing the last comment, I have to admit, that perhaps we know Hitler as a monster from what the media tells us, as is true, no doubt. But, given the lack of free media in Russia at the time, it remains questionable how much of a real monster, Stalin was. Hitler had a very convenient way of hiding his treachery from the Germans when it came to the Jews, but when Hitler died, the truth came out. With Stalin, yes we did hear stuff about his treachery, but lets face it, even today, the media is not exactly forthcoming on all issues in Russia, because of various factors. I highly doubt anyone could say anything bad about Stalin after the war, while he was still alive. The world was/is even today, more interested in the attrocities committed by Hitler than by Stalin. Afterall, Russia was not the enemy; they were helping defeat Germany, so why blame the hero when the Vilalin germany is in the spot light. I think Hitler’s attrocities overshaddow Stalin. As I can recall in school, I never ever heard of anything bad spoken, or taught in school, but everyone heard about Hitler.
Cheaven is spelt Chevan. 
Frankly, I’ve never truly considered the French as Allies at all (after all, if one looks at the Versailles Treaty and the provisions in it largely insisted upon by Foche, it is clear France started WW2, a war that, like WW1 and Viet Nam it could Not finish, and from which the Allied Nations rescued it).
To me the term “Allies” means UK & Commonwealth, plus USA, and occasionally the Soviets when some form of co-operation could be extracted from them (example, the “shuttle-bombing” raids where US aircraft landed in Soviet territory after bombing Italian or German territory.
China, like Thailand I have (rightly or wrongly) always regarded as nominal Ally, at best.
Yes, I realise what I have expressed here is far from the commonly accepted view, but while I hold to it, I also wish to offend no-one.
Respectful Regards, Uyraell.
Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say France started WW2 - but the Treaty of Versailles definitely placed the Foundation on which the Nazis were able to build their regime.
It was a major factor causing the frustration for many Germans and left them, together with the Depression, longing for a strong hand that would lead them out of this low - a strong leadership that the NSDAP offered them.
Of course you could say that it didn’t become a World War until England and France declared war on Germany - but where they really given any other choice? They promised Poland to protect them against an ever bolder growing Nazi Germany, and they couldn’t just go back to that promise.
It would have been a political disaster not only for the foreign policy but also for the interior. What would the French and English people think of their Governments letting that Germany gain more and more territory, especially since just 20 years ago, they had already shown them once who’s the boss, why not put some pressure on them?
I do not believe that either the French or the British really expected the Germans to have the Military Juggernaut they had, and maybe they were even hoping that Hitler would back off once they showed him they were serious. (A huge miscalculation if they really expected that, though it would explain the rather …‘symbolical’ French invasion of the Saarland)
Did the French and English declarations of war turn the German war of expansion into the Second World War? Probably. Does that mean they started it? Definitely debatable.
I, for one, don’t think Britain and France really had any other choice to declare war on Hitler’s Germany. What bigger favor could the Western Powers have done to him than let him expand his Germany? The confrontation would have happened sooner or later, absolutely no doubt about that in mind, the French had humiliated Germany too much after WW1, and I think both France and the UK knew that.
They only question that was left was whether the war would happen now, or later, when Germany had possibly already expanded into the East and the Balkan, adding a couple million people to its manpower and maybe had even defeated the Soviet Union.
Every nation Germany could annex would strengthen it, but every nation it had to conquer and occupy would weaken it. So even though the timing might not have been the best (especially for France, cough, cough), I believe that an open confrontation with Germany was necessary.
It all would have been in vain, though, had Japan not pulled the US into the war. The UK fought bravely, but without the American aid, they would have had to make peace with Germany sooner or later, no matter how big Churchill’s speeches were.
France was humiliated by Prussia in 1871(the German empire was declared in the hall of mirrors in Versailles),they wanted revenge for the Alsace Lorraine loss.As a result ,generations of students were taught in schools:You will be a soldier. The only thing France needed was an excuse to fight Germany in the hope also to humiliate them.It’s very much like children’s behaviour really.Yes the Treaty of Versailles was far too harsh retrospectively but after the destruction of nothern France, the irreplacable loss of life and the sacrifices endured by the French countrymen ,it felt right at the time for the French government and military staff.
As for the role of France in the second world war,well let’s just say that the trauma of the “great war” moulded military and politicians minds in a defensive stance instead of the offensive attitude adopted by Germany.France had what they wanted ,restoration of the old borders and a victory over their arch ennemy at the time.They just wanted no more fighting and payed a dear price for that way of thinking.
France isn’t for sure to be placed alongside the U.S.S.R,the U.S.A and Great Britain in terms of war effort but it would be a bit too harsh to forget those who died defending their country in 1940.
I guess Belgium,Holland,Yugoslavia,Greece and Poland are as easily forgotten because they lost against the German invader.
Oh, I’m not saying that the French did that out of pure malevolence. They definitely had their historical motivation. But that doesn’t change what they did. They did exactly to the Germans what the Germans had done to them. Wouldn’t you expect a little bit of caution that this behavior might lead to a desire of revenge with the Germans the same way the German treatment created it for them?
I can only agree with you as my previous post shows.
It was pretty much tit for tat in the most immature way.
But again how was the public opinion thinking at this time?
To give you an example,my grandmother was a teenager when the first world war started and was speaking French and German as her mother was from Germany.
She told me one day that she suffered so much from abuse by children and adults alike that she never spoke German again in her life.
god knows what these stupid people have done to her to make her take this decision.
So from whom did she receive the horrible treatment? From the Germans for speaking French, from the French for speaking German or from the English for being part German?
(To my understanding, ‘Kraut-bashing’ has become something of a national sport for the English, right behind Soccer and Rugby)
For anybody who wonders where the Franco-German enmity originated from, even though they had wars before that, it is generally traced back France’s intervention in the Thirty Years’ War, and the following rise of the Bourbon dynasty. From that point on, Austria, back then the leading power of the German states through the Holy Roman Empire, and Bourbon France constantly fought for the supremacy on the European continent, and the Franco-German enmity developed, with kings like Louis XIV and Ministers like Bismarck only increasing it for their own purposes.
The enmity was officially declared as over some time in the 1963, IIRC, when Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle signed a treaty declaring it ended. Since then, Germany and France have together become the leading powers of the European Union and kept close political and economical ties, though they obviously don’t agree on everything, especially regarding foreign and immigration policies.
Sorry, I assumed you knew I was French.My grandmother was born,lived and died in France so the idiots mentioned were French ;).
Her hometown situated in the south eastern part of France wasn’t occupied during WW1.
Anyway I was using a personal example to illustrate the pressure on the French military and government to give what the french people wanted:Revenge and humiliation to Germany promised for 40 years.
The famous “tu seras un soldat” taught to all French schools from 1871 until 1914:
