Hello Godo,

Thanks for the warm welcome.

My central thesis was the observation that countries who attain a similar level of development are unequally powerful.
Population, I meant numbers, made the difference. Of course there are other factors to be taken into consideration like alliances with other states or being an insular country.

There is this interesting thesis from Charles Tilly (a historian) that the English could concentrate on economic development because they were not permanently pressured by powerful enemies since the Channel separated them from the continent. But England did not become a superpower before long. In fact, they acquired their superpower status after Napoleon?s defeat, in 1815.

I must disagree with the argument that France?s might during the Napoleonic Era was due to one man: Napoleon himself. The Emperor?s skills and genius were the result of French education during the last years of the monarchy. He went to a military academy in Toulon where he was taught most of the theory he put in practice.

Distinguished strategists of the time were mostly Frenchmen. Long before Clausewitz, Guibert and Jomini invented the military divisional model Napoleon?s Great Army adopted. France?s manufactures could provide the military with huge quantities of artillery while 30 million French people, the second European population after Russia?s, provided an almost inextinguishable torrent of draftees.

At the time, there also were many able generals like Soult, Davout, Berthier, Lanne and Murat. Philosophers like Rousseau, Diderot and Montesquieu (who inspired the American Founding Fathers in drafting a constitution rooted upon the balance of power among the executive, legislative and judiciary).  Talleyrand, the foreign minister, was a very crafty diplomat. The frères Mongolfier invented the hot air balloon the military would put on battlefield reconnaissance and the French cartographers utilize to refine their art.

I insist on the importance of demography because during WWI, France?s weak numbers forced the gov?t to enlist teenagers to hold a front that stretched from Switzerland to the North Sea. Numbers had an impact in 1940 on the quality of the conscripts who were, on average, older than their German counterparts. Morale was more affected in France, after WWI than in any other country because more than 10% of the working population was slaughtered while another 15 to 10% suffered from incurable war injuries.
The Germans had more dead and injured men during WWI but still could cope with it thanks to their skyrocketing demographic growth during the interwar period.

Penultimate point: Germany?s industrial power was certainly superior. I emphasized this fact in my former post but let me add something: when you take a look at their coal and iron production, both raw materials whose disposition was a vital necessity for a mechanised military, you cannot help but notice they were out produced by the Soviet Union in tanks, planes, artillery, etc. while they out surpassed the Soviets in raw material production!
I agree there?s more than numbers when one comes to terms with demographic figures and so is the case when one considers the industrial output of a country. During WWI, France outspent and out produced Germany in tanks and planes too. The victory, in 1918, was largely due to fresh manpower from the USA equipped with state of the art French military technology (+ an outstanding effort from the armies of France and UK).

Last point: The Arab population in France is not evolving in a similar environment as that of Britain and Germany. The French conception of nationhood, although a universalist one, is a powerful integrating machine. Like the Jews, the Poles, the Italians, the Slavs, the Spanish, some Germans, Scots, etc. have been assimilated, so the Arabs are in the process becoming genuine Frenchmen.
But I?m not sure I understand what you mean when you say the Arabs are the producing element of the society! French workers come from various horizons and there are no genetically lazy, decadent, wasteful ethnicities. Making moral judgements on groups of population rather than individuals is a risky and unscientific venture.

Regards

Thanks for taking the time for reading me and replying in a clever manner.

I agree with you on most of your statements, including on the point of Napoleon.

I also think ideas drive the world but they rather be matched with appropriate material capacities. Napoleon would not have been able to conquer Europe and defeat several coalitions with the Holy Roman Empire, England, Spain or Prussia.

Indeed, the reason lies in an idea, nationhood, which had become very persuasive within French society and allowed the levee en masse of millions of soldiers. Many of them were literate (50% since the end of the 17^th c.) and convinced they were fellows. But the reason also lies within material power, including demographics. Napoleon?s wars were an extraordinary expenditure of resources (some would call him a butcher) although they provided France with grandeur, influence and a reputation of being a militaristic nation (it is amazing to read the poems of many Germans at the time blaming the French language for being ?geometric, devitalised and a language fit for commanding men?! Those characteristics many, including French artists, found out were the German language?s a century later!).

I also agree with your analysis about what happened to the weak liberal democracies of the interwar period.  It was a period that illustrated the importance of willpower more than any before, in particular because the enemy was totalitarianism (Nazism and Communism). But one also needs not to forget the classic interplay of power politics. When Hitler remilitarised the Rhineland in 1936, France was willing to go to war unless Britain would refrain her. And this was the case. The main reason why France did not go to war was that the British held a quasi monopoly on oil procurement (90%) and threatened to cut the supplies of the French Army (back to the twenties, those we call the ?anglo-saxons?, the UK and the USA, invested billions in Germany and played the Germans against French supremacy in Europe resuming their all time divide and conquer strategy).

I disagree on one point though. It?s about not having able militaries. In effect, France had a strong core of elite units in 1940, equipped with tanks that no German armour could match on the battlefield. Except for the 88mm AA gun, no German weapon could pierce the armour of the B1 heavy tank and hardly that of the S35, medium & fast tank. The problem lied in ideas and, to be more precise, in doctrine.

The Franco-British were intellectually defeated years before WWII. Think again: Basil Liddell Hart of Britain, Général Estienne and De Gaulle of France (the latter was supported by Pétain!) advocated for an expansively mechanised military relying on superior fire power as a strategy (e.g. most artillery duels and artillery vs tank concentration fire were won by the French, in particular in the Sarre, Germany) and bent on quick manoeuvre as a distinguishing tactic (de Gaulle exemplified that in Moncornet and Stonne, places of successful French armoured counteroffensives only if the high command had

Let's keep this thread going. Its good to speak to someone so well versed in

history. Shall we go into more detail then... 



I'm particularly interested by what you said regarding the fall of France in 1940

in that France and Germany were equally matched on the battlefield but that France's

spirit was gone before the war ever started (I quite agree; French armor was

top-notch not sure about small arms though). This confirms the belief I have that

culture and ideas are more important than bullets and bombs. But what was the cause

of this defeatism? Many Frenchmen believed there was a 5th column working against

them. Many believed Weygand and Gamelin were seeking a defeat to' teach the the

French a lesson'. Of course, I don't believe either of these explanations. 



It seems to me to be the election of Leon Blum made the elites generally despondent

about the future of France. Perhaps lingering anti-semitism from the Dreyfuss affair

and surely disgust over the victory of a socialist drove the French elite to

basically give up on France and pray for a change in any form, even if it meant

German stormtroopers. 



You are right to point out that few embraced Degaulle's advice. Interesting though

that Reynaud did; too bad he didn't have the time to implement them. He lacked the

time and the Poles lacked the wherewithal.  



In the realm of culture, Dadaism and surrealism were the reaction to this state of

affairs. (We can see the same tendency toward decadence in the aftermath of the

Franco Prussian War --- the Decadents, Dandies, Symbolists etc)



It seems in general, that the IIIe Republic marked the decline of France. Not sure

if you agree. The two dominant themes were the continual loss of ground to the communists and the

feeling that the French race had been compromised by Jews and foreign elements (did

not Maurras cry out after his judgment for collaboration 'c'est la revanche de

Dreyfuss!'). 



Again, the strange concept of Social Darwinism in play. The concept of 'blood'

seemed to grip all of Europe..... Not only the Nazis. 



As for Napoleon, we see eye to eye on these matters. I'm afraid to seem as if I

subscribe to the 'Great Men' theory of history ('history is but the biographies of

great men') or to the school of 'counterfactual history'. In fact, I do not believe

in either of these schools of thought, though in the case of Napoleon, I do.....! He

is the exception that makes the rule. 



As for the future prospects of France, I cautiously agree with you. France has shown

it wishes to take a leading role in the EU. It has been setting the stage to become

a superpower for a long time, rehearsing its lines and applying the greasepaint but

whether or when it shall make its scene on the stage remains to be seen. Whether

Sarkozy is changing France's stance to take a bigger role in the world or is merely

placating the Americans is unclear to me (and to many!). 



What you said about the fertility rates of Arabs and native French comes as as a

surprise to me. It is perhaps a good thing as it shows an optimism for the future.

But is a nationality based on ethnicity viable any more in the age of Globalization?

I have my doubts. Better to base it on an IDEA, one that all can accept, the Arabs

as well as the native French. 



Your postings are very informative..... Back to you!