Look at the story of how De Gaulle became prominent in the first place. France, with a huge army, fell to the German army in weeks, while politicians argued, resigned, sacked Generals etc.
Or look at how they ignored the occupation of the Rhineland, when even the German army felt they would be crushed if France attacked.
> France, with a huge army, fell to the German army in weeks, while politicians argued, resigned, sacked Generals etc.
Do you mean to blame politicians for the military's failure? The military organized, equipped, trained, planned, and commanded their short-lived WWII efforts.
In Germany after WWI, if I recall correctly, they made scapegoats out of those they wanted to demonize rather than take responsibility.
Yes I do. As well as the other gexcellent replies to you, French defence was centred around the theory of the Maginot line. This was a great line of defensive fortifications that stretched from Switzerland to Belgium, where it left a gap which the German assault swept through. This theory of defence totally ignored the developing theories of mobile warfare, such as the Blitzkrieg. It is named after Andre Maginot, the French Minister for War, a civilian politician who convinced the government to ignore people like de Gaulle (who wanted to invest in armour and aircraft) and build a WW1 era defence.
The politicians also allowed the gap in Belgium, for political reasons. Germany invaded through that gap (like on the previous two invasions, just so you don't think this is hindsight). These were all political decisions, just like the appointing of terrible commanders because of their political away, as others have noted.
That's the what the fascists always say - we lost because of civilians who undermined us. The military is faultless and the only institution you can trust; democracy is weakness.
If you get run over in weeks, you are really stretching to point fingers if you are not looking at the military. If you don't, you end up with a corrupt, incompetent military.
The French were better equipped than the Germans at the outset of the war, in terms of armor, etc., but didn't know how to utilize what they had tactically.
The French Third Republic was a democracy in which the military was subordinate to the civilian government. Responsibility flows uphill to the people in charge. When the consequences involve the defeat and occupation of the country, it makes no sense to blame one organization and absolve the people who were in charge of it.
> The French Third Republic was a democracy in which the military was subordinate to the civilian government. Responsibility flows uphill to the people in charge. When the consequences involve the defeat and occupation of the country, it makes no sense to blame one organization and absolve the people who were in charge of it.
Nobody said that, but it absolutely makes no sense not to blame the military primarily.
How can you blame an organization more than the people responsible for funding and commanding it? If the military’s tech was obsolete, the politicians should have made them upgrade. If the military’s doctrine was bad, the politicians should have made them fix it. If the military’s leaders were bad, the politicians should have fired them and replaced them with better leaders.
Maybe for individual battles. But losing an entire war for the survival of the country is the sort of thing where responsibility goes all the way to the top.
That's not my read of his comment. De Gaulle was a noisy upstart colonel when the Germans started their invasion of France, and was only promoted to 1-star general when France was half-way to being conquered. And you certainly could blame the politicians for having General Incompetent ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Gamelin#Role_in_the_Se... ) in charge of the army until part-way through the German Conquest. And then replacing him with General Worthless ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxime_Weygand#Recall_to_servi... ).
> Do you mean to blame politicians for the military's failure? The military organized, equipped, trained, planned, and commanded their short-lived WWII efforts.
Yes, because the military was:
* not given enough to organise for what was coming, and as a result their whole strategy was centred on "keep the Germans at the border for a few years, and then when we have enough arms and people we'll attack in 2-3 years"
* put under the command of an incredibly inept man, Gamelin. He was politically well connected and useful (republican values and loyal to democracy, unlikely to launch a coup), but was unprepared for anything more recent than WWI. Worst of all, he was incapable of taking any sort of feedback from his subordinates, and in fact sent off men who were questioning him to shitty posts away from him. Even worse, he was consulted on foreign policy, and had way too much sway in deciding French foreign agenda around appeasement of Hitler (e.g. Gamelin refused to support Czechoslovakia unless Poland also joined; Poland was way too short-sighted and opted to get some rail junction from Czechoslovakia instead of realising they're next and siding against Hitler. But this was irrelevant, French + Czechoslovak armies outnumbered the Germans by a good margin, had better industry and more arms manufacturing, would have had them on two fronts, and both had extensive defensive systems; and unknown to them, the German army probably would have couped Hitler if it had came to war in 1938).
The army was bigger, and had some better equipment. But there wasn't enough of it, neither for France, nor to support various French aligned troops (e.g. Spanish republicans).
And yes, it was very badly used. In part because of bad tactics and the wrong lessons learned from WWI and the Spanish Civil War, in part because there wasn't enough of it so they decided to spread it out across the front.
Or look at how they ignored the occupation of the Rhineland, when even the German army felt they would be crushed if France attacked.
Etc etc