Comments on: The Polish campaign should have tipped off the Allies

By: VXXC

VXXC — Sun, 18 Jun 2023 02:11:13 +0000

Szopen,

Yes, the Poles tried to warn the French Army.
Who didn’t so much ignore them as file it with the inertia that gripped the French in 1940, as they were pretty much ignoring everything…

Marc Bloc “Strange Defeat” explains it best as he was there, it was basically selfishness of most of the Frenchmen – what does this mean for me? – and ‘hardening of the arteries” meaning their leadership was all old and tired.

The French didn’t ignore the Poles, the French were bureaucratically hidebound and old, they really never got going.

There was also a great deal of political instability in France in the 1930s that bled over into the military – one government had one program, the next another. In 1940 the French Air Force fighters were perfectly capable in numbers and quality but never exceeded a 25% sortie rate.

Why?

Because they didn’t have enough fighter *pilots*.
They had put their bet on Bombers.

Sitting safe behind the Maginot line is an overrated myth – it was more they incompetently put their whole army and the BEF [With no reserves !!] into Belgium as soon as the Germans moved. After that too slow and too old.

When the Germans had the flank of their westward thrust exposed the French were about to attack into it [which the Germans feared] and then the French Switched commanders. The new Commander ordered a Staff Review of the plan and lost 2 critical days in May 1940. When the French General said after 1940 “it was all a matter of hours” he was right – they had their chance and choked.

That’s bureaucracy and lifelong creatures of bureaucracy for you. Our present government and military are even worse above the Brigade level.

By: Szopen

Szopen — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 09:10:03 +0000

Here’s the funny thing, not sure whether the book mentions it – I am pretty sure Polish officers wanted to share their experiences but French ignored it, thinking they are safe behind the Maginot and they have much better army.

From Polish armed forces, 1400 Poles died during 1940 campaign, and I’ve read accusations that Polish units were sometimes fighting while French ones were withdrawing, leaving our guys alone. Only 27.000 Polish soldiers out of 85.000 strong army were evacuated. Some of the other were interned in Switzerland.

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 22:59:44 +0000

And yet Germany would now be ninety years into its millennial dominion had not noted Austrian lover of animals, environmentalist, and anti-smoking advocate, one Herr Hitler, personally precipitated the single greatest catastrophe since the Younger Dryas Event: that of declaring war on the United States. His inconceivably rash declaration ruined far more than Germany; the several States would still be Anglo-Saxon otherwise. World history loving its ironies, the man against time’s sole enduring success of statecraft was in the founding of Israel in Palestine, not that being the preeminent founding father and first patriarch of the Jewish State is terribly bragworthy. Today, as everyone who has unfortunately attended any “American” government school can attest, everyone hears to no end all about the six million (not one more or less) but very little about the greatest story never told. Someone at Langley should dispatch Septuagenarian Spielberg to get on that right quick: we need to force-download another quasi-documentary black-and-white movie-memory into the collective unconscious. It’s a matter of national security.

By: Cassander

Cassander — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 20:02:28 +0000

There were 70 million or so Germans in 1940. There were 130 million Americans and 50 million Brits and another 20 million in the dominions. The. Brits were richer than the Germans and the Americans much richer. There was no realistic way for the Germans to win the war against such foes, even before you add Russia to the mix or reckon against the clock that was ticking down to August 1945, when the nukes start dropping.