We all know that there is a meme on the Internet called "Milk Law", so what is the big crime that France has committed so that it is "humiliated" every day? In fact, I don't blame others, it's really because France's performance in World War II was too stretched.
During World War II, in the face of Germany's aggression against its neighbors, France, a so-called military power, became a coward, paying attention to everything and not going to war if it could.
France is afraid that Germany will attack and enter, what should it do? So a Maginot Line, about 400 kilometers long, was built. As the saying goes, the operation is as fierce as a tiger, and the record is zero and five.
Manstein, the god of war, chose to bypass the Maginot Line and set off from the Ardennes Forest through mainland France. In order to deal with the German army, the French spent a lot of money to build the Maginot Line, but it turned out to be lonely.
Before World War II, France was considered to have the strongest army in the world, and was the largest military power on the European continent at the time. As a result, the French chose to surrender after resisting for 44 days, which was so humiliating that many military observers were shocked that they were "milked" to the present.
So there are many people who don't understand, why didn't France take the initiative to attack, but spent so much effort to build the Maginot Line?
II. II. II
There is a reason why France was passively defensive and built the Maginot Line.
During World War I, France worked very hard, and at that time France's camp was the Entente, which can be said to be the MVP thug among the Entente countries. Although France won the war, the price paid was too bad.
Before World War I, the first teams participating in the war were generally very optimistic about the war. They thought that the war was just an armed parade, and they would soon be able to go back to lead the army with a wave of troops, but when they arrived on the battlefield, they found that Master Makqin Ma taught them to be new people, either the enemy rushed towards Master Ma with his life, or he rushed towards Master Ma with his life.
As a result, the countries participating in the war suffered heavy losses during the First World War, such as the Battle of Verdun between Germany and France during the First World War, in which both sides invested 2 million troops, and the total number of people reached 1 million.
At that time, the total population of France was only about 40 million, and as a result, a war killed millions of working young people in an instant. Therefore, after the end of the First World War, the French people were very war-weary from top to bottom.
When Hitler came to power in 1933, he reorganized the German armed forces in a state of great vigour, intending to wage a war of annexation and then threaten the security of the European continent. At this time, some people may ask, did the French people not know at that time?
The French people certainly knew, but in that political environment of national war weariness. The French have always had a resistance to war, so even if politicians want to encourage war, the French people are reluctant to take the initiative to go to war.
Therefore, in this political environment, even though France has a very strong military force, France is not very positive about the war, and is still strategically obsessed with building a defensive line for passive defense.
So why did France build the Maginot Line?
In fact, this line of defense was already under construction in 28 years, and as early as that time France was defending against another German attack.
The construction of fortifications actually came from the war experience of the First World War, when the French military leaders believed that the reason why France won the First World War was because of the positional warfare, so they regarded the successful experience of the First World War as a treasure. In addition, the strength of the French team at that time was almost the same as that of Germany, so France was very confident that they could block the German army.
However, for Belgium in the north of France, France did not set up any defensive line. This was not a French daz, but an attempt to induce Germany to reproduce the Schlieffen Plan of the First World War.
The plan was very simple: Germany concentrated its superior forces, attacked Belgium first, and then entered France through Belgium. After sweeping the coast of the French Sea, he then waved his army east to outflank the main force of the French army from behind. The right flank played a big spin with the left flank as the axis, and finally joined forces with the German left flank and completely annihilated the French army.
However, the implementation of Schlieffen's plan suffered a setback, as positional warfare interrupted it.
France judged that if Germany attacked France again, it was very likely that the Schlieffen plan would be implemented again. At this time, France was fully prepared for this, and he had already colluded with Britain to plan the war, as long as Hitler dared to launch an attack in Belgium, Britain and France would set out to open Belgium and establish a defensive line in Belgium to annihilate the German army.
The plan seems to be perfect, but it seems to miss a place, and this place is in the Ardennes Forest on the border between France, Belgium and Rwan, so why didn't France fortify here?
The Ardennes Forest is actually not very low, only a few hundred meters, but the mountain road is rugged, and the trees are high and dense, and there are many swamps. With the heavy tanks and fuel supplies of that era, it was difficult to cross this woodland. Therefore, in the eyes of France, Germany will not be able to fly even if it has wings, and France has no need to defend in this place at all.
So for France, the main task of France was to build the Maginot Line. After the industrious construction of the infrastructure master France, the Maginot Line became the strongest fortification of its time. There are not only various fortifications and ** ammunition depots in it, but also water, electricity and hospitals in it, so the French Army at that time was very proud to speak to the French people
Look, our Maginot Line is impregnable. ”
Three. In history, Germany and France are old enemies, and the two nations have formed a blood feud for hundreds of years.
As early as the Napoleonic Wars, Germany was ravaged by France. After World War I, Germany was again defeated by France, and the Treaty of Versailles was signed in the collusion of the French with Britain and the United States.
France relied on this peace treaty to tie Germany around the neck like a dog's chain, which was regarded as a great shame by Germany, and there was always a desire and impulse for revenge in its heart, wanting to really knock those French people down, and then stomp on them in the face.
Secondly, Britain and France had already declared war on Germany at this time. Strategically speaking, Germany also had to fight France, so after the Polish War, Germany's war against France was in full swing.
In order to completely conquer France, the German command proposed the so-called "yellow plan", which was actually nothing new, and was basically a copy of the German Schlieffen plan during the First World War.
However, there was a different opinion, and this person was Manstein, who believed that the most important factor in combat was to be unprepared and unexpected. If the Maginot Line was to be stormed, it would inevitably require a large amount of material and military support.
Even an attack on Belgium would be a repetition of the World War I offensive plan. The other side must have been prepared in advance, and in the end, it can only fight a stalemate at most, repeating the tragedy of Schlieffen's plan during World War I.
So to some extent, the Maginot Line was still very successful, and it was because it was so successful that Manstein chose to bypass him, so that France surrendered and the Maginot Line was not breached.
As a genius German general, Manstein chose a breakthrough point that almost no one had thought of, and this location was the Ardennes Forest, and compared to the small heads of those French army generals, Manstein thought that it would not be difficult to pass through the Ardennes Forest.
First of all, there are trails in the Ardennes that can be crossed directly, as both Manstein and Guderian have done on the spot. Secondly, the German tanks were light tanks, had little fuel supply requirements and were not easy to fall into swamps, which provided the possibility for the crossing of armored forces.
Of course, more importantly, the passage of troops through the Ardennes Forest was not without precedent.
Back in 1929, the French Army once crossed the Ardennes Forest during a military exercise, all for no more than three days. Therefore, there have long been proposals in France to strengthen the defense of the Ardennes Forest, but unfortunately this proposal has not been taken seriously by the French leadership.
When Manstein's plan was submitted, it was immediately opposed within the German army.
Because although his plan was very profitable after success, the risk of failure was also high, once the German operation was discovered by the British and French forces. After France set up an ambush, it can easily annihilate the German tank cluster, then Germany will be completely finished. So this plan is like a gamble by a poor ghost stud with all his net worth, either making a lot of money or losing a lot.
But just then, an accident happened. A major of the German Air Force accidentally crashed in Belgium on a plane, and this major had the file of the Yellow Plan on his body, which was immediately obtained by the Belgian authorities, and Belgium was an ally of Britain and France at the time, so the Yellow Plan was no longer a secret to Britain and France.
Although the plan was leaked in advance, Hitler was very calm, he chose to plan the plan, and approved the war plan proposed by Manstein.
Four
On May 10, 1940, a war was raging.
To this end, Germany set up three army groups of the ABC, of which 28 divisions of the first army group made a feint along the direction of Belgium to attract the Allies to Belgium. By that time, the deeper the Allies went into Belgium, the more they fell into the trap of the Germans. The 17 divisions of the other army group launched an attack on the Maginot Line, and was responsible for pinning down the 40 divisions of the French army on the Maginot Line.
When Germany launched an attack, France's heart blossomed, because all the war trends of the German army were exactly the same as the information shown in the intelligence, and Germany repeated the "Schlieffen" plan of the First World War. Thinking that they were well prepared and waiting for the Germans to come, France sent a large army to Belgium to meet the Germans.
What they never expected, however, was that they had fallen for the German strategy of diverting the tiger from the mountains, and the main purpose of the German offensive was to cover the real main forces, and the direction of these main forces was in the Ardennes Forest.
On 10 May, Guderian led 44 divisions, including 7 armored divisions and 3 motorized divisions, through the Ardennes Forest.
After passing through the Ardennes Forest, the Germans had penetrated deep into the heart of France.
As the saying goes, the soldiers are fast, otherwise there will be chaos later, and if the French react, they will fall short.
The German Panzer Division did not stop for a moment, it gave full play to the advantages of its mobility, no matter what baggage and infantry were missing, and drove straight into the English Channel.
On May 12, Guderian captured Sedan, and the next day the Germans forced their way across the Maas River, and then drove all the way to the armored race, like a sickle, directly splitting the main French army in two.
The German army's ability to move quickly was too strong, and it directly penetrated the French defense line and blinded France. The German attack was so fierce that the French army was completely disrupted before they could deploy the defensive line.
The plan proved to be flawless and executed quite well. By the time the Anglo-French forces reacted, it was completely over, and the Germans had compressed and besieged the Anglo-French forces in Dunkirk, triggering the later famous Dunkirk retreat. The Germans achieved dazzling results in this war, and after the elimination of the Anglo-French forces, the Germans were no longer invincible in France.
At this time, the Germans decided to move south to Paris, and the French chose to surrender after realizing that the situation was gone.
Five
Although this war is over, there is still much to think about.
For example, why was France defeated?
From the French point of view, the most important reason is undoubtedly the impact of the First World War. During the First World War, France's ** was too big, which led to the general weariness of the people, so it has always adopted a policy of appeasement towards Nazi Germany. However, history has proven that fear of war does not bring peace in the true sense of the word, and the end result is often a crushing defeat.
The same French strategy is also problematic, France did not take the initiative to participate in the war in World War II, but chose to be passive defensive, which is tantamount to giving the initiative to others in the war.
After suffering from the German blitzkrieg, the French army suffered a major rout, which caused a huge psychological situation for the French army, and the morale of the French army plummeted, and finally chose to surrender. It took 44 days from the beginning of the war to the end of the war, which may have been the reason for the humiliation of France later.
All in all, the policy of appeasement went bankrupt, and Britain and the United States and other countries decided to fight the mustache endlessly.
But for Hitler, the war undoubtedly brought him a great surprise.
So after the victory over France, the elated Hitler flew to France and excitedly took pictures under the Eiffel Tower. He also went to Napoleon's grave in high spirits and said, "This is the best moment of my life." ”
But after the victory over France, Hitler was not far from being finished.
But for Hitler, he was not aware of this. After defeating France, the military power in Europe, this further improved Hitler's judgment of his own military strength. In Hitler's eyes, our German army was invincible in the world, and it was the world's most powerful army that was invincible and invincible. So under this judgment, Hitler took an even greater military adventure, he decided to invade the USSR, but unfortunately the horizon of victory did not always stand with him.
Like a gambler, he may win once or twice, but he can't win forever, and sooner or later he will lose all his fortune and then go bankrupt.
Finally, in Stalingrad, Hitler hit hard stubble.