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re: The bloodiest day in French history took place 109 years ago today...
Posted on 8/22/23 at 4:21 pm to red sox fan 13
Posted on 8/22/23 at 4:21 pm to red sox fan 13
quote:
People imagine WW1 as trench warfare but like 1/3 of the deaths happened in 1914 before the trench network was settled in. Case in point this post.
Huge numbers died in 1918 as well once the armies got out of the trenches again and re-ignited maneuver warfare with the German spring offensive and then the arrival of the Americans.
The U.S had something like 150,000 casualties in the war and was only really involved during a handful of months in the summer and fall of 1918.
0
Posted on 8/22/23 at 4:28 pm to RollTide1987
The Ardennes has seen a lot of death.
Posted on 8/22/23 at 4:36 pm to Indefatigable
quote:
There really wasn't anything wrong with the French Army in 1940, other than how it was led. They just got hit in the mouth and were too outflanked to recover.
Well, aside from tactics and doctrine and a good chunk of the hardware. French tanks only had a radio in one tank per unit, the rest were expected to watch him and follow his lead.
Picture yourself as the CO of a Char B1.bis unit, on paper the most invincible tank on the battlefield. BUT - you're in a one man turret, trying to look out the viewports, traverse and aim the secondary gun, load and fire it, all while communicating on the radio (no throat mic), direct your own crew, including the driver who basically has to aim the hull-mounted main gun, and lead your unit of tanks as well.
The incompetence operationally extended top to bottom. When they did get into a head-on engagement, they did reasonably well man to man, tank to tank, but that's about it.
Posted on 8/22/23 at 4:37 pm to lsupride87
quote:
They “rolled over” in WWII because they literally almost lost an entire generation worth of men to be able to fight
The French resistance fighters were some bad marther farkers.
Posted on 8/22/23 at 4:40 pm to glassman
That's even worse.
——Hmmm…10,000 fewer deaths is worse?
——Hmmm…10,000 fewer deaths is worse?
Posted on 8/22/23 at 4:43 pm to RollTide1987
Posted on 8/22/23 at 4:46 pm to Indefatigable
quote:
The BEF was basically the only reason WW1 didn't end with Germany encircling the French Army and taking Paris in a few weeks, as they did in 1870 and 1940.
It can be argued that, had the Brits not been so valiant and the French not finding a redoubt at the Marne, the world would have been better off with a swift German victory.
I think it's episode...2 of Blueprint for Armageddon (if you haven't listened to it, do so.) where Carlin says as much.
Posted on 8/22/23 at 4:53 pm to fr33manator
quote:I would agree with this. A lot less needless death and a possible peace with honor as opposed to Versailles, no Nazism and no (or at least a very different) WWII, and with a quick knock out of France they could have turned full brunt toward Russia and ended the war without having to import Lenin and Bolshevism to disrupt Russia at home. Also, we may be slightly ahead of our world in science since Germany at that time was so chock full of them.
the world would have been better off with a swift German victory
Posted on 8/22/23 at 4:54 pm to RollTide1987
One of the main things about WWI still not well understood even to this day, was the gargantuan scale of casualties suffered by the French Army. The truth of the matter is the French suffered losses a scale that eclipsed both the British and the Germans in battle after battle. But the French Army had a complete stranglehold on information coming from the front. Battles that were at best pointless offensives that accompanied nothing besides mountains of dead Frenchmen, or even defeats, were portrayed to the public and even the government as victories. The French media, people, even the government were completely in the dark about the scale of their losses or even what was really going on at the front. When the soldiers at the front reached their breaking point in 1917 and mutinied, for the few people who found out about it, and it wasn’t many, it came as a complete shock. They had no idea how horrendously the French Army had suffered for, by then, almost three years. More than one respected historian in WWI has speculated that had the French people and government known the scale of the slaughter of French soldiers, France would have sued for peace as fast as they could.
This post was edited on 8/22/23 at 4:57 pm
Posted on 8/22/23 at 5:12 pm to glassman
quote:the carnage of ww1 is hard tovget your mind around
27,000 in one day. US lost 68,000 total in Vietnam. That's just an astounding number.
Posted on 8/22/23 at 5:23 pm to red sox fan 13
quote:
Also, we may be slightly ahead of our world in science since Germany at that time was so chock full of them.
I wonder if humanity gets to the moon sooner rather than blowing each other to smithereens, or if the war was a necessary evil to stem that research?
Posted on 8/22/23 at 5:39 pm to fr33manator
quote:
the world would have been better off with a swift German victory.
Maybe. I don’t think the US would be the nation we are now, though.
WWI put us on the path to what we would become during WWII.
With the war dragging on for years the way it did, the Allies relied on the US for tons of supplies. Carlin called it a great exchange of wealth from Europe to America. I think the Allies still win the war without the US military getting involved, but I don’t think they win without US supplies.
Posted on 8/22/23 at 6:16 pm to glassman
Estimates of Ukranian losses range between 300 - 350 thousand men. Incredible when you think most of those men, had a life, family, spouses, children, hope and aspirations for a future. In the blink of an eye, that all ended for them.
Man is a violent creature. I fear the senseless slaughter will never end until some mad tyrant (or a morally bankrupt politician) pulls the trigger and launches nukes.
We should pray to the God of Abraham morning, noon, and night to soften the hearts of enemies.
War is hell, and the absence of God is hell.
Man is a violent creature. I fear the senseless slaughter will never end until some mad tyrant (or a morally bankrupt politician) pulls the trigger and launches nukes.
We should pray to the God of Abraham morning, noon, and night to soften the hearts of enemies.
War is hell, and the absence of God is hell.
This post was edited on 8/22/23 at 6:17 pm
Posted on 8/22/23 at 6:42 pm to RollTide1987
That's almost three divisions
Posted on 8/22/23 at 6:55 pm to Indefatigable
"Had von Moltke sent Kluck and Bulow's armies on a wider swing towards the Channel, or not siphoned off their reserve divisions to the East, the world would be a very different place."
I think the world would have been a better place. The resulting Treaty Of Versailles laid the conditions for the rise of Hitler, and millions of people dying due to WW2.
Kaiser Wilhelm probably would have loosened his grip on France over time, except for Alsace-Larraine and small parts of France, and Europe probably would have returned to normal after 10 yrs. or so.
I think the world would have been a better place. The resulting Treaty Of Versailles laid the conditions for the rise of Hitler, and millions of people dying due to WW2.
Kaiser Wilhelm probably would have loosened his grip on France over time, except for Alsace-Larraine and small parts of France, and Europe probably would have returned to normal after 10 yrs. or so.
Posted on 8/22/23 at 6:56 pm to lsupride87
quote:
They “rolled over” in WWII because they literally almost lost an entire generation worth of men to be able to fight
They didn't even "roll over". The Battle of France lasted six weeks and something like 85,000 Frenchmen were killed. It was more like a first round knock out.
Posted on 8/22/23 at 7:09 pm to WestCoastAg
quote:
the carnage of ww1 is hard tovget your mind around
Until you read the "Psychology of Military Incompetence." The Euro/Brit mindset and the attitudes of their officers and NCOs is well documented.
Stop doing what isn't working. Don't just "try harder." Leadership 101.
Posted on 8/22/23 at 7:16 pm to FIREAWAY
quote:
The only thing that keeps Europe at peace is its lack of guts.
This
Posted on 8/22/23 at 7:18 pm to TigerHornII
quote:
Well, aside from tactics and doctrine and a good chunk of the hardware. French tanks only had a radio in one tank per unit, the rest were expected to watch him and follow his lead.
The French military were definitely behind the times when it came to armor support. The British were as well. When Germany invaded France in 1940 there wasn't a single British armored division on the Continent. The French didn't have their armor grouped in divisions like the Germans did, nor did they use them in similar ways. Whereas the tank was central to German offensive military doctrine, to the French the tank was more for infantry support.
It must also be said that the Germans were VERY lucky in 1940. Had Allied fighter/bomber command not have fallen hook, line, and sinker for the feint into Belgium, there would have been NOTHING to protect those German panzer columns in the Ardennes from being bombed to the seventh level of Hell by Allied airpower. It was a high-risk gamble that paid off in the end. And much of that was due to incompetence at the highest levels of Allied command as well as the initiative of German commanders at the tactical level.
The drive through the Ardennes succeeded so well and so rapidly that German commanders at the corps and army level started to get nervous and ordered the panzer columns to halt. Commanders like Guderian and Rommel simply found workarounds and loopholes in their orders which enabled them to continue the advance.
This post was edited on 8/22/23 at 7:23 pm
Posted on 8/22/23 at 8:28 pm to RPC4LSU
quote:
The French have had problems with mostly inept military and political leadership since Napoleon.
The french cursed themselves with making martyrs of King Louis XVI and his Queen plus the sacrilege of Notre Dame enthroning their god of reason.
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