Random Interesting Tidbits from WWII France

I just finished reading The Collapse of the Third Republic, by William Shirer, about how the government and military of France came to be so weak and divided that Nazi Germany could sweep in and conquer the nation in just one month. This is a book that is hard to put down but it is also hard to keep reading at times because it is downright painful to witness the short-sightedness and timidity that led to bloody catastrophe.

I'm not going to get into that; you can read the book yourself. It's worth reading.

What I want to make note of are just a few of the surprising bits of information I ran across in the book.

For example, when France was on the verge of collapse they continued to have one of the strongest navy fleets in the world. Great Britain was extremely worried about those ships falling into German hands. The French were guaranteeing the British that they would never allow that to happen, but considering all the other failed guarantees France had given in so many other situations, it is not surprising that the British were a bit doubtful.

Winston Churchill was not timid. He gave the order for the seizure of all French vessels possible and sinking of the rest if that were the only recourse. Most were seized with little bloodshed but at Mers-el-Kebir, in French Algeria, the two navies fought a lop-sided battle that resulted in the sinking or destruction of all but one of the French ships in the port. The French soon capitulated to Germany and the Petain dictatorship made common cause with Hitler.

That led to another of the points I want to note. With the French government at Vichy now on the side of the Axis powers, the Nazis were able to walk into the French African possessions. This of course was the setting for the Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall flick "Casablanca." When the time came for the British and American troops to invade North Africa, the French fought them. Approximately 1,500 French and a like number of Americans killed each other in that initial battle. Sort of like if the Kuwaiti military had fought the U.S. military when the Americans came in to free Kuwait from Saddam Hussein.

Lastly, I remembered from childhood that Charles De Gaulle was the leader of France at that time. During the period the book covers he was a colonel and then a general, and he did not capitulate, but rather went on to lead the French resistance (I'm not clear on details here, haven't read about that yet). I guess I just assumed that he became president after the war and that he headed the Fourth French Republic.

Well, not exactly. First off, De Gaulle did not immediately become the French head of state. He eventually did become the last Premier of the Fourth Republic and then he became the first President of the Fifth Republic. Apparently they rewrote their constitution again at that point. I'm only assuming that the government of France today is still the Fifth Republic.

So those are the particular things that struck me. Of course the whole book really struck me. Everything is so clear in hindsight but there are always at least a few people who see it clearly in foresight. If only it weren't so difficult to figure out who those people are and who they are not.

Surrender Monkeys or Simply Realistic?

I've just started reading The Collapse of the Third Republic, An Inquiry into the Fall of France 1940, by William Shirer and very quickly came upon an interesting question. In the Prologue, Shirer recaps the stunningly fast manner in which French resistance failed and the German conquerors swept in. He makes this note:

Most demoralizing of all to army units still trying to fight were the efforts of civilians to prevent them from offering further resistance that might damage their homes and shops. At one village on the River Indre the local inhabitants extinguished the fuses of explosives already lit by army engineers to blow the bridge there and slow down the German advance.

OK, surrender monkeys for sure, right?

I don't know. When you think about it, they might have been doing something truly rational. The country is crashing down around you and, to quote the Borg, "Resistance is futile." If resistance is futile, why should you suffer worse consequences than you're already facing? Why risk having your home, your business, your family become targets of enemy artillery when the battle is already lost? Salvage what you can and hunker down to wait for better days.

Still, to a lot of people I'm pretty sure that just doesn't sit well. If the enemy doesn't have to pay a price for their aggression, what is there to stop them from continued aggression? Resistance may be a matter of losing the battle but winning the war. Isn't that what happened to the U.S. in Vietnam? We won a lot of battles, but at high cost and eventually public outcry over the deaths of so many of our young men led to disengagement and withdrawal.

So do civilians have a duty to suffer along with those in the military when it is a matter of defending your own country?

What all of this brings to mind for me is the decision my wife took some years ago when her son was on a dangerous and potentially deadly path. She stepped in and took action intended to ensure that he survived, action he hated her for at the time. Her thinking was very clear. He might never forgive her and they might never have a relationship again, but at least he would be alive. For the French civilians, this could be stated as "Retreat and live to fight another day." You can't fight another day if you're dead.

Today, the son is still alive, grown up, and grateful to his mother for her courage. Perhaps some of the very same Frenchmen who snuffed the fuses later joined the underground and exacted their vengence on the Germans. There really is very little black and white in this world. Don't let anyone tell you differently.

Stalin Saved the World for Democracy(???)

I'll bet that got your attention. What should get your attention even more is that apparently it's true.

I'm referring to a review of a number of books, titled "Stalin's Gift," that was published in the May 2007 issue of Atlantic Monthly. The reviewer, Benjamin Schwarz, looks broadly at a number of recently published books that fill in gaping holes in our knowledge about World War II's eastern front, between Germany and the Soviet Union. These books are based on information that was not available for decades, but is now that the Cold War has ended.

Among the startling bits of information are these:

• More than 400 German and Red Army divisions fought along a 1,000-mile front for four years; in the West the battle never amounted to more than 15 Allied and 15 German divisions.
• Approximately 88 percent of the German military dead were killed on the eastern front.

In fact, Schwarz quotes Norman Davies, author of Europe at War, 1935-1945, who said:

The Soviet war effort was so overwhelming that impartial historians of the future are unlikely to rate the British and American contribution to the European theatre as much more than a sound supporting role.

Not only that, according to Schwarz, Stalin himself was instrumental in the success of the Soviet effort. First, he surrounded himself with the best advisers available and trusted them, and second, he mastered the considerations of war and was actually calling the shots. Schwarz does not in any way overlook the brutality of Stalin's policies, or the mistakes he made in the learning process, but he closes the article quoting Geoffrey Roberts, author of Stalin's Wars, saying:

To make so many mistakes and to rise from the depths of such defeat to go on to win the greatest military victory in history was a triumph beyond compare . . . Stalin . . . saved the world for democracy.

Now that(!!) is pretty dang interesting!

Here are a few of the other books mentioned in the article:

Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941-1945 - by Evan Mawdsley

800 Days on the Eastern Front - by Nikolai Litvin

A Writer at War: A Soviet Journalist with the Red Army, 1941-1945 - by Vasily Grossman, translated by Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova

Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945 - by Catherine Merridale

Moscow 1941: A City and Its People at War - by Rodric Braithwaite