"Emmanuel Gustin" wrote in message
...
"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

Well by 1939 relatively few of those who had been fit for service
in 1918 were still young enough to still be of military age and
German losses in WW1 were pretty heavy too so that excuse
wont wash.

The frontline soldiers of 1940, to be of age between 18 and
25, would have to be born between 1914 and 1921.
The war had caused a major demographic dip. In March 1940
the French army had 415,000 men less than in May 1917,
despite a quite high level of mobilisation.

Yes, the German population of course also had suffered, but
Germany had twice the population of France, and therefore
it did not have to mobilise to the same extent.

As for steel production France had more tanks available for
front line service than Germany and although they had some
deficiencies so did the Panzer units which had a far higher
proportion of PkW 1 and 2's than was desirable.

Yes, but that is exactly my point. That the French had more
and better tanks than the Germans, _despite_ having only
a third of the industrial base, indicates that they had not
neglected to prepare for war as much as it is often averred.


I dont believe that follows at all. There is MUCH more
to preparation than simply building more tanks. The
parlous state of the French Air Forces and the poor
state of training of the army speak volumes about
lack of preparedness,

Numerically they may well have been superior, the problem was
that were too static and wedded to the doctrines of defensive
warfare.

Absolutely -- the French generalship was poor. But you can
hardly blame French pacificists for the poor intellectual
quality of French generals, most of whom were veterans
of WWI.


I dont recall blaming French pacifists, rather I pointed to the
lack of vision and leadership of the French Generals and
their almost mystical belief in the value of fixed fortifications.

Sure but its army was fully mobilised, well trained and led
for the most part by able Generals with sound modern doctrines
for waging war.

The German army had combat experience from Poland.
German performance in the Polish campaign was not
always great, and that in the bloodless occupations of
Austria and the Rhineland was sometimes disastrous.


Sure but while the Wehrmacht was busy in Poland
the French had the opportunity to improve their
experience and training and didnt make very good
use of that time.

And yet when war came to the US on Dec 7 1941 that nation
was fundamentally unprepared and the IJN ran rampant for 6 months
in the Pacific while German U-boats devastated US shipping within
sight of the US coastline.

But the US forces available in Dec 1941 were enough, over
a longer period, to fight the Japanese to a standstill and shatter
the backbone of their fleet. The flood of reinforcements only
began to flow _after_ the tide had turned.

As for the 'happy time' the U-boats were allowed to have,
this was related more by fundamentally flawed thinking and
carelessness of the authorities than by flaws in material
preparation.


No sir, the lack of even the sort of extemporised escorts used
by the RN in 1939, trawlers with DC racks and an Oerlikon,
were classic signs of flaws in material preparation as was the
reverse lend lease in which Britain and Canada supplied
US with a number of corvettes.

Keith