No, it doesn't picture well the role of indinegeous troops as it is a politcally correctenes movie which pleased the left and horrified the right and which let think that north african troops paid the biggest toll.

Here a link which give reallity and writen by a french arab

h*tp://perso.orange.fr/felina/doc/hist/recham.htm

 

So French natives paid the biggest toll

 

This army was exactly made of 550.000 men : 134.000 Algerians natives,  73.000 Morroccans natives, 26.000 Tunisian natives, and 92.000 people from black africa (likely almost blacks even it include french white living in black africa)

 

 

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Why not? I do. I even say so in Northwest Europe in 1944-1945 where many of the British in 21st Army Group were actually CANADIANS.

Herald

Eighth Army held many Free French formations that consisted of French.

The study I provided above done by a french arabs, show that 61% of infantry was arabs in Morrocan, algerian divsions .

In the Goumier units (morrocan berbers) , they were of course in strong majority berbers (except officers and NCO).

Of course it was entirely french natives in the free french division and a big majority in armored units.

FS, sorry, looked up your reference but I am only fluent in Italian and English though I can struggle through scientific/technical medical articles in French. My acquaintances and friends: Australian, Canadian, and Indian never thought of themselves as British although they or their relatives fought as members of the commonwealth/empire back in WWII,

   FS, I am reading your link now and on the first page it stresses that French leaders were facing a "German-Italian" threat. The multiple danger zones, the Med, NE France, the Alps, Africa, etc led to a type of paralysis among the senior leadership.

 

Paul, this supports my argument that even though France and Italy were not technically at war, the Italian menace was looming at that time and military options against Italy were being considered.

considered maybe, but it remains that there was little chance of an attack on Italy working (perhaps a big reason it never happened).... North Africa was easy meat but mainland Italy would have been too hard.

 

the correct allied response would not be to open a 2nd front but they should have invaded Germany in full force while their first line units were in Poland. knock out the Rhur and the war would have almost been won...    (as to whether it would have worked is another thread)

 

Paul

Well, you're quite right, there were many options open to the Allies in 39; the problem was that there was no political will but wait for the inevitable, much like prey that is hypnotized by its predator. Attacking Germany in 39 in a pre emptive strike or during the attack on Poland could have ended the war. Attacking Italy could have turned the Nazis' attention eastward, and so on. But as you rightly point out, no leader in western europe had the means or the guts to do anything on that scale.

Seems like this thread is about exhausted. Nice debating with you as always, paul.