How did the French fuck up so badly in this war? What could they

>>2786545
Not be massively outnumbered?

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97KB, 1304x613px

Prussians had much superior artillery and had developed rifles which could be fired from prone easier.

>>2786572

Also not wearing a red and blue clown uniform helped them

>>2786554
France started the war with nearly 500,000 regulars, the Germans only 300,000. The French fucking up was their own fault not numbers. Also:
>past the Napoleonic Wars
>believing numbers win wars

>>2786584
Pierre didn't learn his lesson about the clown uniforms until 40 years later

The French had a host of problems, and generally, artillery excepted, they aren't ones which are fixed by the easy "better equipment" route, so beloved of armchair strategists. For an incomplete list since I'm forgetting plenty of things;
1) An actual general staff and better staff in general. The French didn't even have a real single top person in charge, beyond NIII himself, much less having an effective general staff. This also made peace-time reforms and changes much harder.
2) Planning for the war; there was no actual offensive campaign plan, and planning in the war itself was abysmal.
3)Maps of the fighting zones (??? how can you think that not having tactical maps of the region is a good idea).
4) A railroad mobilization schedule or at least some planning there so it doesn't dissolve into chaos. On the same note the French troops and their leadership got cycled around, while the Prussians had everything divided into territorial units, which made Prussian mobilization much more efficient and rational.
5) Better education for the troops and soldiers, as the French officers tended to be incredibly poorly educated militarily, not getting any additional education after whatever officer training they had, if they had that since a lot tended to come up from the ranks. Prussians had constant refresher and update courses and military societies. French soldiers tended to be alcoholics too.
6) Having generals who would march to the sound of the guns or who wouldn't be traitors (Bazaine)
7) Cavalry capable of scouting instead of just doing charges
8) Better artillery, which would keep up and support the infantry instead of firing at its longest range and then being outranged itself.
9) Learning how to use the mitrailleuses properly, which when it did get deployed effectively (Gravelotte) was a useful addition.

10) A different tactical doctrine (The French would entrench in fortified positions and then get destroyed by Prussian artillery, when they could have used their rifles to skirmish and adopt loose formations). The French went from being an army of offense and dash to one sitting in trenches, somehow managing to combine most of the negatives of both. French skirmishers were also essentially used as part of the main line instead of being forward screening and light forces, basically wasted.
11) Better intelligence, the Germans had carefully examined the French, the French didn't do the same about the Germans
12) Having a reasonable causus beli to go to war, since the French war effort essentially collapsed without any real motivation for the war.
13)Preparing allies for the war, such as Austria or Denmark
14)Having plans to use their fleet quickly and being capable of sustaining a blockade
15)A functional conscript system instead of a lottery and then the half assed Garde Mobile.
16)Better communication with telegraphs and the previously mentioned need for better railroad coordination and better railroads in general.
17)More low-level initiative for French officers, who tended to be rigidly controlled from above and didn't respond to changing battlefield situations.

>>2786572
The chassepot could be fired prone and was a better rifle in essentially every way against the needle guns. Better rate of fire, superior hitting power, better range, lighter, capacity to carry more ammunition, and with greater accuracy.

You might be thinking of the Austro-Prussian war, when the lack of a rifle which could be fired from prone was a severe disadvantage for Austrian troops.

>>2786584
German uniforms varied by units, and weren't designed for camouflage either. Yeah, they didn't have the "shoot me trousers", but they weren't greatly superior.

the eternal hun won the battle, but france won the rematch

>>2786545
Simple, France will always lose 1 on 1 versus a unified Germany. The only way for France to win is to drag as many allies into the fight as they can get. This then proved to be a successful strategy in WW1&2 where France was rescued.

>>2786572
>had developed rifles which could be fired from prone easier.
French rifles were a lot more accurate then the german rifles.

Didn't the French learn all the wrong lessons from this war when they went into ww1?

>>2786919
They only learned the lesson of mass mobilization it really took them until 1917 to realize they needed to change.

>>2786919
The only lesson that they might have picked up from the Franco-Prussian war that would serve them poorly was offense à outrance, and there is some debate which hypothesizes that as coming from certain political and morale problems in the French army, instead of simply from war time experience.

>>2788374
The French army was pretty much completely overhauled from the war, they got a general staff, even if it didn't really have the same huge power of the German chief of general staff, much better planning, much better railroad mobilization, better cavalry, the mentioned functional conscript system, there were a lot of flaws in the French army in 1914 but they certainly learned more than just one thing.

>>2788794
>but they certainly learned more than just one thing.
Yes, they learned to bring Great Britain and Russia to the fight. And this time it worked!

>>2786768
>>2786770
lmao, no fuckng wonder
thanks for the insightful post, anon