What could the French have done to halt or even reverse the German

>>1669179
>or were they just too heavily outgunned/outflanked?

They were outsmarted more than anything
The German army was only a little more numerous than France and the BEF combined, it was nothing decisive.
As for the equipment, France had better tanks than Germany

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>>1669215
How did their air forces compare?

>>1669179

Blocking/protecting roads.
Act quick in Belgium.
Better relations with Brits

T. Marc Bloch.

Not sending troops to Belgium and Netherlands would be a great start.
Quickly concentrating armor and mobile infantry (what they had) in armored units instead of dispersing it, though this wouldn't be as effective because French infantry tanks weren't really suited for armored unit warfare.
But it's better than nothing, eh.
If French had one area where they were highly inferior, it's aviation, and solving that problem wouldn't be quick or easy, especially in wartime.

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>>1669220

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>>1669239
laughed

>>1669179
A better/more aggressive High Command.

>>1669215
>They were outsmarted more than anything
That's true but the germans feared a possible counterattack that could have cut the offensive from the rest of the army.
But the french commandment didn't react.

>>1669303
and here a great documentary about the battle of France for french speaker, sadly there's no subtitles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in0TLT2zCUA

>>1669220
i don't know the exact numbers, but in the end the numbers didn't really matter because the french air force was destroyer before it could even take off.

>>1669179

The simplest and best thing for them to do would be diplomatic: If they can convince the Belgians that the Germans are coming in anyway, say sometime during the winter of 1939-40, they can dig in in force behind the Maas and the Dyle. Turning it into an extensive ring of fortified trenches wouldn't completely erase the quality difference between the French and the Germans, but it would go a long way towards minimizing German advantages and maximizing French ones.

I'm not 100% sure it would be winnable, but it would be a vicious, bloody mess for the Germans to advance, and if Hitler doesn't have an easy success, it's still not entirely out of the picture that he'd be deposed if his initial rush into the Low Countries are checked.

>>1669179
Not have socialists in the government. Not have a military elite that refused to listen to military reformers calls to organise armour divisions instead of using their tanks with infantry support a la WW1.

It wasn't equipment or manpower they failed at, it was doctrine, tactics and willingness. That's why French defeat in WW2 is shameful, they were very capable of defeating or at least halting and locking German advance and army, instead due to collaborators in government as well as militarily incompetent ministers they got utterly defeated.

It's almost surreal how many paralels you can draw from Franco-Prussian war as to why they got defeated militarily, which in neither case was a problem of quality or number of troops and equipment.

>>1669382
Can you go into more detail on these parallels? Can you expand upon this idea more? I am interested!

>>1669179
If they had become aware of the Ardennes offensive and moved to counter it, it would have been a disastrous shitshow for the Germans, and ended all hopes of an offensive breakout in 1940.

The French were taken by surprise for a reason: the entire offensive was a huge gamble, with a logistical nightmare as they tried to move a huge army through a few narrow forest roads.

>>1669403
If you read up on why Franco-Prussian war or German invasion in WW2 were such a catastrophic defeats for the French you can draw the parallels yourself.

Essentially it is not an issue of quality of troops or equipment (French had better tanks at the start of WW2, French had better rifles at the start of Franco-Prussian war for example) but rather it's a stagnation of government and a neglect of military infrastructure due political unrest and rapid switch from turmoil to stability back to turmoil (They changed like 3 republics and 2 empires in half a century) that caused bureaucracy to clog down and ruling to be extremely cautious of adopting new military or social tactics as to not trigger another revolution or be considered an enemy of the state. This was especially true during 1930s for France where a lot of military figures before the war were advocating for adaptation of a new kind of warfare as dictated by advance of armour, weaponry and airplanes, amongst which De Gaulle was also one.

A complete anti-thesis of French revolution and Napoleon, which was an age for France that was marked by its rapid adaptation of new doctrine both social and military wise.

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>>1669179

France was in political turmoil for almost the entire 1930's and disunity was still ripe in 1940. The government was extremely corrupt with blatant cases of embezzlement, fraud by special interests, corrupt awarding of armament deals, etc. In 1934 the Stavisky scandal (an embezzler protected by the government) came extremely close to sparking a coup, right-wingers and WWI veterans eventually rioted and attempted to storm the French parliament, 15 were killed fighting the police and the government eventually resigned because of it.

The French communist and radical socialist parties then allied to form the 'Popular Front' led by Leon Blum, which allowed them to win the 1936 legislative elections and caused even further polarization. The right wing, which again included the majority of WWI vets, adopted the slogan "Better Hitler than Blum," which should give you an idea of just how divided France actually was and how significant of a fifth column existed.

I'm not sure a country so divided could have resisted much more. It's only within the last 30 years that the extent of collaboration has been openly discussed, but a great deal of French citizens found Vichy France to be much more to their liking than the leftist governments they had opposed for the last decade.

>>1669179
no one wanted to fight whites in France, likewise with germans to french they viewed themselves as family.

>>1669451
This, vichy was far superior.
The Napoleonic events changed the lives of the VOLK for the worse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9XNzcqA42s

>>1669484
I don't know whether you're just pretending to be retarded or actually retarded. This delusion, holy shit.

>>1669498
>being this idiotic
Propaganda from the top does not affect the views of the folk, who saw Germans as people bringing a new order, free from the corrupt parliamentarians and exploiters, it was a new revolution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPDWfND9c88

>>1669498
French government declared war on Germany and French people did not want to kill Germans their own blood, so the government fled and the people accepted the new government in Vichy or worked with Germans in military territory against Britain.

>>1669179

https://youtu.be/As5xJt7NaJ8?t=2494

>>1669509
>>1669505
>>1669484
Americans should be banned from /his/.

>>1669581
if a workers party tossed out your warmongering corrupt impoverishing government and brought to you maximum rights and work pay would you oppose them? they also guarantee your peoples future and power.

>>1669220
French air force actually did ok, but the fuck up on the ground made it hard for pilots.

They did a lot of casualties to the german, which is important before the battle of england

to answer op, they could have done better, especially with that french invasion when germany was busy with poland but overall it would have need major changes much before the start of the war

Ok I'm sure I'm missing some complexities but surely the French would have expected the Germans to go through the Low Countries just as they did in WW1 and fortify that area?

>>1669659
The idea was to force them to go there to make UK join the party.

It would also delay themand give time to organize the defence to repulse them.

But belgium was uppity about the idea of a wallat their border, and poor intelligence led france to believe germans couldn't pass in the ardennes forest. that's why the soldiers there were the shittiest, literally the oldest, because hey they won't attack here

>>1669673

The UK had already "joined the party".

>>1669659

Well, they did, but the best line of defense was neutral Belgium. And the Belgians were still trying to calm things down, and wouldn't allow French troops to move into their country before the Germans did so.

So that meant that when the war did indeed break out (most of the "Battle of France" happened in Belgium) you had people rushing in only a few hours after the Germans did and preparing defenses over the span of hours-days (depending on how well the Belgians held up, which was usually not very) instead of months.

>>1669673
>>1669706
Thanks, so it was Belgium's fault basically?

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>>1669245
They are going to have those soon.

>>1669716

What is "fault"? You could say it's as much France and Britain's fault for not making it clear to Belgium that such steps were necessary. Or America's fault for being the primary moderating influence that allowed Germany to re-arm in the first place. Or the USSR's fault for hosting the training to the Heer that allowed them to move to fast.

>>1669719
Why would they need a tower? You can fly them anywhere to be recharged, commercial drones will likely have landing spots dotted around the city at cheaper locations.

>>1669723
>america is armed
>france is armed
>britain is armed
>poland is armed
>germany becomes armed
>something special

>>1669230
sending it to belgium could have worked had they send it to the right location
if the french troops had actually gone to the ardennes and fortified that area as best as they could the german offense could have been halted given those areas are notoriously poor for armor warfare
the problem was they assumed the germans would never even attempt it and when they did they were heavily outflanked

>>1669179

The Germans spent 20 years breeding like rabbits

The French spent 20 years infighting and not breeding.

Go figure

>>1669215
Tanks with better guns/armor, but not multi crew turrets or radios.

>>1669451
10/10 post.

I also think the French had very little idea how bad the Nazis really were.

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Daily reminder that Petain attempted to put Leon Blum on trial for losing the war.

Daily reminder that Blum managed to turn the trial around and embarrass the fuck out of Vichy and Petain to the point that Hitler made them halt the trial.

Daily reminder that Vichy France was so incompetent that they let a Socialist Jew successfully defend himself at a Nazi-backed fascist show trial.

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riom_Trial

>>1670121
>Blum even defended the French Communist Party (PCF), declaring about Jean-Pierre Timbaud, a Communist who had been executed along with 26 other communist hostages in retaliation for the assassination of a Nazi official (Karl Hotz), the following: "I was often opposed to him. However, he has been executed by a firing-squad and died singing the Marseillaise... Thus, I have nothing to add concerning the PCF."

Petain Status:

BLOWN
THE
FUCK
OUT

>>1670121
Should just have killed them without trial like the commies did with anyone found to the right of Lavrenty Beria after "Liberation".

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>>1670155
Yes, they should have. Or maintained an actual show trial like the Nazis did.

But that would be smart. And Vichy wasn't smart.

>>1669803

>Germany has a habit of trying to expand itself in Europe and upset the balance of power
>gets its arms taken off them for trying to do so once before
>arms themselves again under a leader who is overly irredentist

That's pretty special.

>>1670201
>Germany has a habit of trying to expand itself
Go look at a map, Germany did not expand any land that wasn't German.

>>1670226
>the Sudetenland was German
Bohemia and Moravia were crown properties of the Habsburg Empire, and the shitty Prussian-derived Bavarian-helmed Third "Reich" had no claim to them.

>>1670226

I didn't know the rest of Czechoslovakia was German. Oh wait it wasn't.

Nor was half of Poland. Nor half of France.

>>1670238
Germany wasn't English, American, or Soviet and they occupied it.

>>1670233
The third Reich was not Prussian or Bavarian it was a new Germany.

>>1670244

Yes, when you lose a war, you typically get occupied.

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>>1670166
Vichy was too pure for this world.

>>1670253
Then by your own admission it had no claims to "German" lands outside its borders.

>>1669426
>They changed like 3 republics and 2 empires in half a century

Actually from 1790 to 1870 2 monarchies, 3 republics and 2 empires.,

>>1670274
A successor to the HRE and German Empire.

>>1670301
Then it has no claims to lands it did not own to begin with.

>>1669220
French alone had more combat aircraft. Bf109 was marginally better than the best French planes, but not enough to make a difference.
However the French made the mistake of holding 80% of their aircraft in reserve instead of committing them to the theater. The Germans committed nearly everything.
Brits did the same thing. They had like 14 fighter squadrons out of 40+ committed, and saved the Spitfires for home defense.

>>1670312
Austria is Germany, Bohemia was never not a part of Austria.

>>1670315
>Austria is Germany

Bismarck literally fought a war to prove otherwise, Wehraboo. You can't have it both ways.

>>1669621
IIRC preliminary aerial reconnaissance actually spotted the German advance through the Ardennes, but was dismissed as a quack sighting (possibly due to interservice rivalries?). Not that I exactly blame French command for this - it's a pretty narrow forest.

>>1669179
>WWI
>France puts most of their forces against Elsass-Lothringen
>Germany predicts this with the Schlieffen plan and tries to outsmart France by sweeping through the Low Countries as the Schlieffen Plan dictated
>ultimately succeeds in passing through Belgium and Luxembourg, but are stopped in France for taking too long

>WWII
>HA! Those Krauts will never try that again. The Maginot will stop them.
>Germany does the exact same thing in order to go around the Maginot
>Ending result sees Britain forcefully removed from the continent and most French forces tied up around the Maginot

What I'm curious about is how the French didn't see that coming.

>>1670737
No strategic planning worth a damn in either war. Think of the French High command everything the German General Staff or STAVKA wasn't.

>>1670328
Not the same guy, but Austria is both. It was before 1866 then it wasn't. Then after WW1 it was, and now it'll probably go the way of the Dutch or Lorraine. Just one of those things that flips when its convenient for either side.

>>1670737
>Germany does the exact same thing in order to go around the Maginot
The Maginot was specifically installed to make Germans go through Belgium or neutral Swiss mountains.
What was unforseen was that the Germans flanked through the Ardennes, thought to be impassable for logistics to support an armored offensive.

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>>1670737
They did see it coming. The point of the Maginot was that they could garrison that area with less men and send the main body of French troops into Belgium to meet the expected German attack. The problem was, the Germans came through the Ardennes forest, which the French assumed was impassible for a modern army, in between the Maginot line and the French troops in Belgium, cutting them off (pic related)

It wasn't even a bad idea: the majority of the German high command wanted to go through Belgium like WWI, which would have seen them running right into most of the French army and getting bogged down. But Hitler made the ballsy move to listen to Manstein and go through the Ardennes (which is why the stupid meme that Germany lost the war because of Hitler's interference needs to die: Hitler usually followed his generals, but when he didn't he was right as often as we was wrong).

>>1670737
First, understand that French Forces in Alsace Lorraine were on a (failed) offensive in the first world war.

Second, understand that Germany is a larger nation than France. By a scope comparable to Russia and Germany. If you take age demography into account, the difference is actually worse. France can match Germany pound for pound and still lose. So they need to find measures that save manpower. This is the purpose of the Maginot line. It let them put a skeleton force defending their border with Germany, and actually meet them with an equivalent force in the Low Countries.

The problem is this

>>1670836
They didn't sweep across the Belgian plain like WWI, they swung south through a dense forest that was a logistical nightmare for a motorized force.

See
>>1669421

Hitler gambled big, and he won big.

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What's truly puzzling is the immediate French response after it was apparent that the bulk of German forces were attempting to cut through the Ardennes. For a few days after the offensive began, German armored columns were stuck in a traffic jam because the only four roads through couldn't handle that many vehicles. At no point was there an "oh shit" moment where the French realized what exactly was going to happen. Instead, the French threw their B and C list reserves, which subsequently got rolled over days later.

It just seems like if Gamelin was mildly competent something could of been done (even it wouldn't have made a difference long term).

>>1669706
yeah but wall was built before the war, they can't guess britain wouldhave join before

A lot of the reason france lost was because of treasonous right-wing elements in their own military and government like Petain, who took advantage of early french setbacks to hand over the country and be Hitlers lapdogs in exchange for getting to be the petty authoritarian strongmen they always wanted to be. If they had cared more about their country over ruling it they could have maybe used the armies they still had in the field to keep the germans from taking the whole country, and if that happened the germans did not yet have the strength to handle the long bloody slog that would have entailed.

>>1670328


>Bismarck literally fought a war to prove otherwise

Because at the time Austria was already its own empire, whereas Bismarck had designs on creating a separate, albeit still German-led, empire. It was convenient for Bismarck to imply that Austria would have no place in the next evolution and integration of the German states.

>>1670877

>Hitler made the ballsy move to listen to Manstein and go through the Ardennes (which is why the stupid meme that Germany lost the war because of Hitler's interference needs to die: Hitler usually followed his generals, but when he didn't he was right as often as we was wrong).

That doesn't seem to bust that "stupid meme".

French had a strong military but they were fuck ups who despite being at war for a year were completely unready. If you read accounts of battles like Sedan, you see them doing fantastically well when actually fighting. Their problems lay in general confusion at and between commands, and an eagerness to run. They would send out tank battalions which would wreck havoc and were generally invincible then those tanks would just turn 360 degrees and go back because there were no orders. Their pillboxes would fight and hold up the advancing Germans for hours, but there were no supports or counterattacks to take advantage of them. HQs smashed their comm equipments based on mere rumor of a German advance in anticipation of running away and couldn't give order. Officers leading men were captured by other French units as deserters and whole units would be thus disabled.
The French also had a penchant for ordering a general retreat whenever one part of their line got broken through.

>>1672341
Understand that most of the generals involved disagreed with Manstein's plans. They wanted a replay of WWI. Hitler overruled their objections.

>>1672793

It's interesting but I would need to see more. Mostly the reason why I think Hitler's interventionism had a bad effect was because of the mid to late stage of the war rather than the early part. At the same time Hitler was getting old and prescribed a cocktail of medications from a quack doctor.

>>1672801
Germany would've lost with or without Hitler's interventions. If anything, a lot of his orders were right on point, such as the decision to hold fast in 1943 rather than retreat west or to hold fast and fight in Italy rather than retreat north.
Generals loved to suggest retreats whenever possible, probably because they knew they would get overruled anyway.
If Hitler listened to his generals, Germany would've lost earlier and I guess that would've been better for them.

Why didn't they fortify the border with Belgium or build fortifications in Belgium?

>>1670315
>Bohemia was never not a part of Austria.
confused_african_american_face.avi

What the fuck is this?
>On 7 September, in accordance with their alliance with Poland, France began the Saar Offensive with an advance from the Maginot Line 5 km (3.1 mi) into the German-occupied Saar. France had mobilised 98 divisions (all but 28 of them reserve or fortress formations) and 2,500 tanks against a German force consisting of 43 divisions (32 of them reserves) and no tanks. The French advanced until they met the then thin and undermanned Siegfried Line. On 17 September, the French supreme commander, Maurice Gamelin gave the order to withdraw French troops to their starting positions; the last of them left Germany on 17 October

>>1672935
That basically tells Belgium the western powers have given up on them. In that scenario, Belgium would turn Axis and provide Germany with free passage and bases.

>>1672944
The entire western allied doctrine in the beginning of the war was to meet the enemy attack preferably outside French borders, not mount an offensive themselves. Hence the Maginot to stem them towards Belgium where the best divisions would meet them.

>>1672944
What do you mean it's not WW1 anymore ? Fuck movement.
t. gamecuck

>>1672981
Everyone built fortifications in WW2 you retard. You think bunkers and pillboxes suddenly became ineffective?

>>1670201
>upset the balance of power
I wish burgers would just take their forced memes an leave.

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>>1672944
Faggot French commanders had decided they wanted to fight a defensive war so they cancelled the offensive soon after it had begun

>>1672999
there is a difference between building fortifications and fighting ww1 style

>>1669803
This is exactly what the UK government thought, basically all the way up to Munich. UK and USA did not see the Versailles settlement as just and left it up to the LoN to "enforce" it. With the only powers that could reliably enforce Versailles declining to do so, it became inevitable that Germany would re-arm and re-assert itself on the continent. And this time, Germany would face not a relatively strong Russia and Austria on its eastern frontier but a collection of weak, small nations that could not compete. On the western frontier France was in fact weaker than it had been before the war, with a smaller population than Germany and demographic trends indicating a greater imbalance in the future. The only hope France saw was to force Germany to obey the disarmament terms of Versailles because if there was anything close to parity in standing armies Germany would in fact dominate France because of its mobilization potential. But in French military buildup and the occupation of the Saar the UK saw its traditional enemy, France, again attempting to become the preeminent land power in Europe over a chastened Germany, and all this when the current of the day was international disarmament in an attempt to abolish war. France allied with the small countries of central Europe but was not willing to risk war with Germany without the UK and so betrayed Austria and Czechoslovakia. After Munich the UK finally agreed to guarantee Poland's independence. Hitler called the Allies' bluff, and so there was war.

>>1669245
That's some Crimson Skies-tier idea

>>1672927
How would bogging down instead of wasting personnel and equipment in disastrous offnsives like Citadelle, Wacht am Rhein and Lake Balaton make the war shorter for Germany?

>>1673042
The USA were supposed to enforce it, but Wilson is a retard and promised things the congress refused to do.

>>1669382
>It wasn't equipment or manpower they failed at, it was doctrine, tactics and willingness.


This.

They wasted so much time, and resources, on bullshit fixed fortifications that could have gone into developing and training a mobile armored force that could have been used to stem the tide of Germans and cut straight into Germany itself.

Fixed fortifications are a waste, and defense is only done to allow you to prepare for offense.

>>1673098
you don't seem to be aware that these "bullshit fixed fortifications" saved the french military budget a shitton of money and perhaps even more importantly loads of manpower

>>1673106
You don't seem to be aware that they FAILED and resulted in the occupation of their nation and destruction of their Army.

>>1673115
how exactly did the maginot line fail, considering its purpose was to save manpower, save money, and stave off a german attack through that part of the border where it was finished and stem it northwards?

>>1673098
>They wasted so much time, and resources, on bullshit fixed fortifications that could have gone into developing and training a mobile armored force
Except they had a mobile armored force. Germany had the most pitiful armored force among the three major countries, and it would've been even worse off if they didn't plunder 300 Czech medium tanks.

>>1672955
Would that actually have made a bigger difference than allowing Germans to attack weakly fortified front did?

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>>1673213
The part the Germans actually planned to attack was not weakly fortified but contained the majority of French/Belgian/BEF forces.
Ardennes strike succeeded only because the French seriously massively fucked up. They had a window lasting days in which all of Germany's armored forces, which was moving basically in a single file stretching for miles, could've been blown to bits. They did not make use of it despite having plenty of intel telling them German forces were moving through the Ardennes.

>>1669374

.t retard.

Fucking softies. "Oh, the best way to deal with a conqueror is to negotiate with him". Faggots like you is what let the situation spin out of control in the first fucking place you cock-weasel.

A quality thread on /his/, i wasn't aware of it existence.
Question: How France react to the spanish civil war?

>>1673833
Same as Britain: they declared "Neutrality" and tried to police the seas to not let any foreign arms in to either side, but since Germany and Italy were overtly supporting Franco all they did was cut Republican Spain off at the knees.

>>1669509

Read up on the Free French sometime.

>>1669581
C'mon, we're not all that bad. I've loved WWII history my whole life. Can't help the stormfag retards.

>>1673850
>Read up on the Free French sometime.
Up until 1942 they were a minority of the French military and widely declared to be traitors. Only a handful of the general staff went over to the Free French; I think one admiral out of 50 did.

>>1673855
>Up until 1942 they were a minority of the French military and widely declared to be traitors.

Sure thing. They also ended up fairly sizeable, and had no problem killing Germans. The idea that Frenchmen as a whole were somehow morally opposed to fighting Germans due to racial concerns is rank nonsense.