- Arsenic Lupin
- Apr 12, 2012
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This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.
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(If there's an existing military history thread, point me at it; I couldn't find one.)
I'm reading James Holland's <i>The Battle of Britain</i> (if it's known to be unreliable, biased, or oversimplified, let me know.) I am struck by the emotional collapse of the French higher command during the Fall of France. Over and over senior French political and military figures are being reported as being despairing, dissolved into tears, or actually catatonic.
Some examples:
- On 14 May, learning of the fall of Sedan at a staff meeting, General Georges fell into his chair and began to weep.
- On 15 May, Prime Minister Reynaud called Churchill and said "We have been defeated. We are beaten; we have lost the battle."
- On 19 May, Major-General Henry Pownall met Army Group Commander General Gaston Billotte. Billotte repeatedly told his escort, "I am exhausted and against these German panzers I can do nothing." He told Gort that he had "no reserves, no plan, and little hope."
- On the 21st, 'Tiny' Ironside (the Chief of the Imperial General Staff) met Billotte and was "shocked by his increasing hysteria." Eventually Ironside "grabbed him by the tunic and gave him a good shake."
- When Billotte died on the 21st, the French did not appoint a replacement until May 25th, when Weygand and Petain were already lobbying for peace in Paris.
PLEASE no "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" here, or general French character assassination. That's beside the point. What happened to turn a respected and feared army organization into people entirely unable to cope?
Closed because I am a dummy and there is a military history thread.
Arsenic Lupin fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Oct 11, 2014
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Oct 11, 2014 18:35
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