Battle of France in numbers

Edward said:

Qte“Always regarded as a thinker, de Gaulle became a lecturer at the French Staff College in 1923 and it was here that he developed his ideas of a mobile war using tanks and planes. He had experienced the horrors of static war in World War One but also the success of a mobile campaign, as he witnessed in Poland, and his ideas in the 1920’s were obviously formulated around these experiences. Ironically, Heinz Guderian is usually credited with creating what was to be known as Blitzkrieg in World War Two. However, the ideas of men such as Charles de Gaulle and Britain’s Captain Liddell-Hart tend to be overlooked when looking at the background to Blitzkrieg. Whereas Guderian was given Hitler’s full support once he got to power in 1933, de Gaulle found that his ideas were not seized on by the French High Command – a similar experience to Liddell-Hart.”

Charles de Gaule,”Anxious for active service and sharing in the anti-Bolshevik ideology, he joined the 5th Chasseurs Polonais of Haller's army. He fought in the eastern Galicia, later he lectured on tactics at Rembertów near Warsaw.
He won Poland's highest military decoration, the Virtuti Militari, but refused a permanent commission in Poland. Upon his return to France he would lecture on military history at Saint-Cyr, often drawing upon his experiences of the Polish-Soviet War.”end of qte
De Gaulle experience in Polis-Soviet war of 1919-1921 confirmed his preference for mobile warfare as Polish- Soviet war was a highly mobile (albeit not mechanized) war.
At battle of Warsaw, the average speed of advance of infantry was in the range of 30 km per day.

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Sam-Nary said:

Be careful, it's already been vehemently argued that De Gaulle didn't support armored tactics, didn't do anything related to tanks and supported the Maginot Line as France's sole means of defense, and any indication that De Gaulle supported armored or armor/air coperation wasn't written until 1941 when he was soundly routed in every battle by it.

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sylla1 said:

No doubt some compelling argumentation.

So the fact that De Gaulle received a medal in Poland for being an instructor would make him the French Guderian?

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sylla1 said:

Charles de Gaulle and Joseph Stalin 1944 Color - YouTube

Just check out the "anti-Bolshevik ideology" of Monsieur De Gaulle visiting Uncle Joe in 1944.

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Edward said:

with this sort of opponent i'm not to wary.
He is a biggest enemy of himself and can not be taken seriously.

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Sam-Nary said:

What I've been saying is that is that De Gaulle was arguing for a style of warfare that was revolutionary for its time. Even if he was only repeating Estienne's earlier arguments for a large independent armored force, it was still an argument for such a force.

The difference between Guderian and the other proponents of armored warfare was that Guderian got the support and financing for it. The French and British largely ignored it and the Soviets initally supported a form of it in Deep Battle, but lost the ability to impliment it when Stalin purged the officers that created it and were smart enough to use it.

I've seen no source that says De Gaulle didn't learn about armored warfare until after the fall of France. In fact, every source I've found, albiet limited to wikipedia, has said he was making arguments for armored warfare as early as 1934. THAT is why I'd consider him the French Guderian.

Now, was De Gaulle and Estienne's idea identical to Guderians? As far as I can tell no. From the sources I've seen, the French argument was to use armored units like a modern version of the heavy cavalry from the Napoleonic wars. They would break the opposing armies lines to achieve penetration and then move on... which would generally depend on getting a set piece battle arranged, and in the Battle of France, would have required the French and British to figure out that the Ardennes was the main German axis of advance and that Holland, Eben-Emeal, and northern Belgium was only a diversion and then laying a trap designed to attack the main German armored thrust on its flanks once they were sufficiently exposed and stretched. However, De Gaulle was only a Colonel when the Battle of France began and had only one division under his command, the 4e Division cuirassée according to wikipedia. As such De Gaulle would not be responsible for creating such a plan. That job fell to Gamelin, who chose a very different strategy.

And again, using wikipedia, it does make some mention that De Gaulle had some success against the Germans, though none of it lasting. De Gaulle's attack gained some ground, but ultimately was defeated by a gun line of 88s and the arrival of the Luftwaffe, which forced De Gaulle's forces back to its original positions. The unit went into action again at Abbeville as part of Weygand's counter attacks at the flanks of the German corridor, which initially did some damage to the German lines, but rapidly stalled from lack of air support, coordination between the two French divisions and the one British division, and the German recovery from any initial surprise the Allies might have had in counter-attacking...

Wikipedia does mention some criticism of De Gaulle's attacks as being reminecent of the tactics used at Crecy, but even with that, it shows that De Gaulle had more elan and courage then Gamelin or Weygand did.

The German version of blitzkrieg, as argued by Guderian pointed for the avoidence of major strongpoints and striking at command, communication, and control centers. However, this idea wasn't even Guderian's. According to the sources I have, it was Hans von Seeckt who actually advocated the bypassing of strong points, and Guderian merely argued for the use of tanks as the principle force to do so.



Need I remind you that just about all the Western Allies were friendly with Joe Stalin between 1941 and 1945. Afterall after Barbarossa, the ones taking on the bulk of the Wehrmacht were the Soviets. The Western Allies needed to keep things cordial in order to keep Stalin from cutting a deal with Hitler.

And as for De Gaulle, this may be more of De Gaulle's personal political stances in WW2 as the leader of the Free French, but I'd wager that he was trying to play Stalin off against Churchill and FDR, both of him were against De Gaulle... FDR because De Gaulle was not a "legitamate" representative of the French government, and Churchill, because after the failure to take Dakar, Churchill decided De Gaulle was no longer useful to the British cause. And given De Gaulle's track record for making political enemies, I'd doubt Stalin liked him either.

And, if De Gaulle was such a fan of Stalin and Communism, why didn't France immediately become a Communist dictatorship after WW2? The French Communist Party was the largest in Western Europe prior to the war, and in the liberation of Paris, Communist Resistence groups raced other resistence groups to seize specific government officers before LeClerc's forces arrived (according to "Is Paris Burning?"). And when the war ended, the French Communists were in a good position to seize power... yet they didn't. Sources I've seen would indicate that the actual reason was that Stalin for some reason didn't want them to launch an uprising and urged them to cooperate with those on the Center Left and Center Right of French politics...

Or, if De Gaulle was such a fan of Soviet Communism, why didn't France join the Warsaw Pact when De Gaulle became the first President of the Fifth Republic? To my knowledge, he didn't completely break from NATO. France would have fought with NATO under De Gaulle's leadership, but as an "independent" ally rather then under NATO command.

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Edward said:

Sam facts from de Gaulle military carrier
Qte“Always regarded as a thinker, de Gaulle became a lecturer at the French Staff College in 1923 and it was here that he developed his ideas of a mobile war using tanks and planes. He had experienced the horrors of static war in World War One but also the success of a mobile campaign, as he witnessed in Poland, and his ideas in the 1920’s were obviously formulated around these experiences. Ironically, Heinz Guderian is usually credited with creating what was to be known as Blitzkrieg in World War Two. However, the ideas of men such as Charles de Gaulle and Britain’s Captain Liddell-Hart tend to be overlooked when looking at the background to Blitzkrieg. Whereas Guderian was given Hitler’s full support once he got to power in 1933, de Gaulle found that his ideas were not seized on by the French High Command – a similar experience to Liddell-Hart.”

Charles de Gaule,”Anxious for active service and sharing in the anti-Bolshevik ideology, he joined the 5th Chasseurs Polonais of Haller's army. He fought in the eastern Galicia, later he lectured on tactics at Rembertów near Warsaw.
He won Poland's highest military decoration, the Virtuti Militari, but refused a permanent commission in Poland. Upon his return to France he would lecture on military history at Saint-Cyr, often drawing upon his experiences of the Polish-Soviet War.”end of qte
De Gaulle experience in Polis-Soviet war of 1919-1921 confirmed his preference for mobile warfare as Polish- Soviet war was a highly mobile (albeit not mechanized) war.
At battle of Warsaw, the average speed of advance of infantry was in the range of 30 km per day.

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sylla1 said:

N=Nowhwere did I state that De Gaulle was a communist; you really ought to stop making straw men so compulsively.

BTW, why the "quotation marks"?

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sylla1 said:

Just check out the "anti-Bolshevik ideology" of Monsieur De Gaulle visiting Uncle Joe in 1944.

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sylla1 said:

De Gaulle abandoned NATO in 1959; period.

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Sam-Nary said:

You posted, and I quote:



Now, through your own use of quotes, wouldn't you be implying that De Gaulle WASN'T anti-Communist?

As for my use of quotation marks, to me it depends as to the points of view. With regard to De Gaulle's legitamacy as France's leader, De Gaulle saw himself as legitamate, the Free French soldiers that followed him post defeat of France saw him as legitamate, but Petain and the Vichy government did not, and FDR did not. I don't think Churchil really felt De Gaulle was legitamate either, but more useful to try and prosecute Churchill's war Churchill's way... (which got Churchill into arguments with General Marshall later in the war with regard overall Allied strategy, but that is a different issue).

And as a supporter of the Allied powers in WW2, I tend to look at it, you fight with the men who will fight with you. De Gaulle and the Free French were the French that would fight. Thus, I feel they deserved the recognition as the legitamate government of France, not Vichy...



This is from Wikipedia's page on Gaullism... (I'm quoting this because I didn't write it, its merely the source I have available)

"Doctrine
Foreign policy

The main theme of de Gaulle's foreign policy was national independence, and maintaining as much control as possible of as many of France's colonies as possible (cf. de Gaulle's policy on Indochina) with, as some practical consequences, some degree of opposition to international organizations such as NATO or the European Economic Community. The basic tenets were that France should not have to rely on any foreign country for its survival (thus the creation of the French nuclear deterrent) and that France should refuse subservience to any foreign power, be it the United States or the Soviet Union. One can also cite what foreign observers dubbed the policies of grandeur, that is, the insistence that France be a major power in the world scene and that military and economic forces be established to back this claim. In that respect, Gaullism significantly influenced the foreign policy of France in the subsequent decades, even after Gaullists were nominally no longer in power.

Foreign critics, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States, criticized de Gaulle's policy "of grandeur". A major point of friction was de Gaulle's decision to withdraw France from the integrated military command of NATO (but not from NATO itself) and to expel NATO from its headquarters at Fontainebleau. De Gaulle refused to allow foreign troops on French soil if these troops were not under French command, a move that greatly angered the United States, which had troops in France at the time and expected French military and foreign policies to be aligned with its own."

The article would then imply that France didn't completely leave NATO, but ceased to function under NATO's official command. To me it was a pride issue on De Gaulle's part. To my knowledge during the Cold War, most of NATO's commanders were all US officers... I think some British and even a German officer (and Wehrmacht veteran) got in, but no French generals where in any positions of major authority in NATO (though I do not know for sure)... And De Gaulle wanted to satisfy his own pride at being French.

I also came across a Time Magazine article that might have talked on these issues, but it only gave about a paragraph and the last sentence ended in ... unfortunately I couldn't see any exact indicator that says I needed to subscribe to the magazine or do anything else to get the rest of the article...

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sylla1 said:

De Gaulle was a brilliant Machiavellian politician, and he often flirted with the communists during and after the war when so it was convenient for his politics; he could hardly be described as any "anti-Boolshevik".

He ostensibly considered that the prestige of France as an international power was being limited by her most powerful allies.

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sylla1 said:

He ostensibly considered that the prestige of France as an international power was being limited by her most powerful allies.

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Sam-Nary said:

If De Gaulle is to be considered Machiavellian, one couldn't say he was really pro-Communist either. He'd be using both sides to fit his own ends, whcih on some level every politician does.

For example, Nixon essentially allied with Communist China to try and help widen the growing rift between China and the Soviet Union. Does that mean that Nixon was not anti-Communist?



And on some level, he was probably right in many ways. Eisenhower as President actually took steps to curtail the Anglo-French-Israeli attack on Egypt to get the Suez Canal back, which I've seen in a Military History Magazine give the argument that that action would shape France's later withdrawl from NATO's chain of command. Though, that'd be a different thread topic.

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sylla1 said:

Again, if you can't imagine the world of the time in anything beyond just two colors, that's your choice.

I never said that De Gaulle may have been any clumsy politician; in fact, I have explicitly stated exactly the opposite more than once here and elsewhere.

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Edward said:

General Weygand contribution.?

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bartieboy said:

Surely he means the contribution of General Weygand to the dowfall of the French army and thereby the Third Republic.

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Edward said:

Do you know the meaning of the word "Troll"?
You obviously intend to derail this thread.
What the Polish-Bolshevik war of 1919-1921 has to do with this thread? But if you insist I will answer you just to educate you a little bit.

Maxime Weygand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Weygand in Poland
Weygand was briefly sent to Poland as member of Interallied Mission to Poland during July and August 1920. He was not the head of the French military mission which had arrived earlier (1919) and was headed by General Henrys. The Interallied Mission to Poland also included French diplomat Jean Jules Jusserand and the British diplomat Lord Edgar Vincent D'Abernon. It achieved little; indeed, the crucial Battle of Warsaw was fought and won by the Poles before the mission could return and make its report. Subsequently, for many years, the myth that the timely arrival of Allied forces saved Poland was begun, a myth in which Weygand occupies the central role.
Weygand travelled to Warsaw in the expectation of assuming command of the Polish army, yet he met with a very disappointing reception. His first meeting with Piłsudski on 24 July started on the wrong foot, as he had no answer to Piłsudski's opening question, "How many divisions do you bring?" Weygand had no divisions to offer. On 27 July, he was installed as adviser to the Polish Chief of Staff, Tadeusz Jordan-Rozwadowski, but their cooperation was poor. He was surrounded by officers who regarded him as an interloper and who deliberately spoke in Polish, depriving him not only of a part in their discussions but even of the news from the front. His suggestions for the organization of Poland's defence were systematically rejected. At the end of July he proposed that the Poles hold the length of the Bug River; a week later he proposed a purely defensive posture along the Vistula River. Neither plan was accepted. One of his few contributions was to insist that a system of written staff orders should replace the existing haphazard system of orders passed by word of mouth. He was of special assistance to General Władysław Sikorski, to whom he expounded the advantages of the River Wkra. But on the whole he was quite out of his element, a man trained to give orders yet placed among people without the inclination to obey, a proponent of defence in the company of enthusiasts for the attack. On 18 August, when he met Piłsudski again he was told nothing of the great victory, but was "regaled instead with a Jewish tale". It offended his dignity as a "représentant de la France" and he threatened to leave. Indeed there was nothing to do but leave. The battle was won; armistice negotiations were beginning; the crisis had passed. He urged D'Abernon and Jusserand to pack their bags and make as decent an exit as possible. He was depressed by his failure and dismayed by Poland's disregard for the Entente. At the station at Warsaw on 25 August he was consoled by the award of the Virtuti Militari, 2nd class, Poland's highest military decoration for courage in the face of the enemy;
at Kraków on the 26th he was dined by the mayor and corporation; at Paris on the 28th he was cheered by crowds lining the platform of the Gare de l'Est, kissed on both cheeks by the Premier Alexandre Millerand and presented with the grand-croix de la légion d'honneur. He could not understand what had happened and has admitted in his memoirs what he said to a French journalist already on August 21, 1920: that "the victory was Polish, the plan was Polish, the army was Polish".He was the first uncomprehending victim, as well as the chief beneficiary, of a legend already in circulation that he, Weygand, was the victor of Warsaw. This legend persisted for more than forty years even in academic circles.

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