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Subject: French pacifism: the paragon of bourgeois
Sambation    8/21/2007 8:50:19 AM
“Turn-the-other-cheek pacifism,” George Orwell observed in 1941, “only flourishes among the more prosperous classes, or among workers who have in some way escaped from their own class. The real working class . . . are never really pacifist, because their life teaches them something different. To abjure violence it is necessary to have no experience of it.” It's no coincidence that Orwell made this remark in 1941, months after the French capitulated to the Germans. There's a very simply-put but complex question about France: does it, today, have any values? My answer is equally simple and complex: no, it has only a lifestyle. Or, to be more fair, the country values only its lifestyle. It raises up its triune value system, the now-cliched "liberte, egalite, fraternite." Perhaps that once meant something, perhaps not. Today it's a banner -- or ceiling, is a better word, that the French use to ascertain the upper limit of action before it damages the status quo. The 35 hour work week, some of the largest vacation time allotments in the world, and excessive welfare provisions all have no better expression than the unwillingness of the French to fight for something. A fight is a shakeup of the status quo; it spills coffee and bumps the artist's hand while he's at the easel. Of course, the French go to work, some to the army. But very few French will deny the claim that the French quality of life is the best in the world. Leaders on the French left trump this claim as proof of the success of the French model, and proclaim that they will never give up the model, and the lifestyle that it produces, no matter what the cost. But it's that last phrase that curdles. What is the cost? There's no need to rehash France's huge domestic problems, including, but not limited to, what is amounting to a population invasion by a group that has little desire to give up religious values that drown out the comparatively feeble calls for liberte, egalite, etc. The French want to say there is no problem, or the problem is only a social one -- a sociological one, one that is solved by resource and integration. Well, there are two lessons to learn from the British. The first is that no matter how wealthy, how fluent in the language, and how gainfully employed your fifth columners might be, they, at times, are still eager to blow themselves up in buses, because they see each other, and not their countrymen who sing about "fraternite," as their true brothers. Perhaps not all of them, but enough. The second lesson is Orwell's. A pleasant society, a society that values its lifestyle and how its citizens interact with one another and not WHY they interact with one another (a moral purpose in a nation), has no need for violence. It abjures it. It looks around at and sees a supremely healthy, if flawed, society. One that integrates others because, it reasons, it has what everyone wants-- it's beautiful quality of life. Perhaps the French of the spring of 1940 saw things the same way: "the Nazis aren't so bad." What was the litmus test that led France into Vichy? Very simple: Will agreeing with the Nazis change our lifestyle more or less than disagreeing with them? France chose clearly in 1940. Today the question is the same, but more acute. The majority of French society has chosen: agree, integrate, appease, and relate. Make excuses and find hidden causes for outrageous acts of violence committed (around the world) by a certain religious group. "It cannot be the fault of the group, since we know better than to fault groups, therefore it must be the fault of the country; our fault, not their fault." Sarkozy's plans to bring France into the modern global economy are much more than just social plans. They are, to borrow a term, transcendental. If he is successful, he will change the nature of France by it. But in the end it is not Sarkozy but the people of France that must choose, that must ask themselves if there aren't real principles hiding behind the preferences of their nation.
 
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Godofgamblers       10/2/2007 11:18:38 PM

I think you're being way too harsh on the French, Herald. THe German army at the time swept aside most of the Europenan powers, the UK included, without even breaking out into a sweat. France had little chance.

You're quite right though in ascribing special fault to senior French command. Foremost among their blunders , which was certainly not shared by other Europeans, was holing themselves up in a fortress to 'coordinate the battle' with no phonelines. All orders were given to the troops via motorcycle dispatches. This was folly of the highest order.

 

 
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gf0012-aust       10/2/2007 11:46:07 PM

I think you're being way too harsh on the French, Herald. THe German army at the time swept aside most of the Europenan powers, the UK included, without even breaking out into a sweat. France had little chance.


rommel did have clear orders to stop at the first sign of resistance. no resistance meant that he stopped at the channel.
one could clearly argue that the french had a chance.  on the ground the french  were certainly better sorted out than the brits, they had platform superiority, they had the numbers etc....
 
bad leadership is bad leadership.

 
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Godofgamblers       10/3/2007 2:52:35 AM
Ok, bad leadership, but worse than the Dutch? They surrendered with a completely intact army. The Belgians? They simply gave up. The British? They didn't do any better.
 
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gf0012-aust       10/3/2007 3:16:23 AM

Ok, bad leadership, but worse than the Dutch? They surrendered with a completely intact army. The Belgians? They simply gave up. The British? They didn't do any better.


at a military level the dutch and the belgians have nothing to get excited about either...  but the topic was in the french section. (you could always start a similar thread in a Benelux board!)
 
for a contrarian view look at the performance of the finns.

 
 
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Godofgamblers       10/3/2007 4:05:39 AM
The Finns show that morale is the key factor, as Blitz once pointed out. If a nation won't give in, no matter what the odds are, it raises the battle to new heights. Most Europeans though had no stomach to fight the Nazis. The Poles put up a terrific struggle.
 
I really don't think 1939 France and UK were very different morale-wise. Both were aging empires ripe for the taking. Everyone in the UK was ready to negotiate and placate the Germans, except one man: Churchill. Few times has history depended on the will of one man. For years people listened to his tirades against the Nazis with raised eyebrows wondering what the big deal was. To go against the stream of public opinion like that was frankly a bit mad. But history bore him out...
 
I contend thus that had there been no Winnie, his replacement would surely have negotiated and wouldn't have sounded much different from the French. So I don't think I draw as big a distinction as you do, gf0012, between the French and the Brits in 1940. Both were responsible for the fall of France since both were responsible for planning and they coordinated together. (though the biggest shock in Churchill's life apparently came when he flew to Paris and asked Gammelin , "Ou est la masse de manoeuvre / Where are the reserves?", "Aucune / there are none".)
 
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Herald1234       10/3/2007 9:52:01 AM

The Finns show that morale is the key factor, as Blitz once pointed out. If a nation won't give in, no matter what the odds are, it raises the battle to new heights. Most Europeans though had no stomach to fight the Nazis. The Poles put up a terrific struggle.

Once again it wasn't the French populace, it was the écume de la Terre [the 1%] who were among them, the so called "aristocrats" who mislead and misdirected the French nation.  

I really don't think 1939 France and UK were very different morale-wise. Both were aging empires ripe for the taking. Everyone in the UK was ready to negotiate and placate the Germans, except one man: Churchill. Few times has history depended on the will of one man. For years people listened to his tirades against the Nazis with raised eyebrows wondering what the big deal was. To go against the stream of public opinion like that was frankly a bit mad. But history bore him out...

 I would not say that. The BoB is the evidence I cite. And though one man makes a difference, he only makes a difference of the people have an IRON will.

I contend thus that had there been no Winnie, his replacement would surely have negotiated and wouldn't have sounded much different from the French. So I don't think I draw as big a distinction as you do, gf0012, between the French and the Brits in 1940. Both were responsible for the fall of France since both were responsible for planning and they coordinated together. (though the biggest shock in Churchill's life apparently came when he flew to Paris and asked Gammelin , "Ou est la masse de manoeuvre / Where are the reserves?", "Aucune / there are none".)
 
There was Chamberlain who led the war effort. He failed and the British fired him. The British had the French choice after Dunkirk, Hitler offered it. The British, ruling class and the lower classes, both told Hitler to go to hell. And then they made sure he did.  


That is why your thesis presented above fails, GoG. The EVIDENCE of British behavior just doesn't support it.
 
Bad leadership that destroys morale is always the determining factor.
Herald 
 
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Godofgamblers       10/3/2007 8:52:49 PM
You see BoB as proof of the "British mettle"? It could well be. I see it as the decisive moment when the British people came together in a time of crisis. Historians have pointed out that far from 'breaking the will' of populaces , as the Nazis intended, air raids actually drew people closer together in solidarity.
 
As for politicians, you yourself sent me links showing the will of British politicians to embark upon a complete disarmament program. Chamberlain was not so much the exception people make him out to be. Lord Halifax would have been the one to replace Churchill and we both know how he would have dealt with the situation.... I think it is difficult to argue that British politicians and elites were somehow superior to French ones. They were both cut from the same cloth. No one thought the Nazis could be defeated in 1940. Churchill was alone in his convictions.
 
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gf0012-aust       10/3/2007 10:13:16 PM

You see BoB as proof of the "British mettle"? It could well be. I see it as the decisive moment when the British people came together in a time of crisis. Historians have pointed out that far from 'breaking the will' of populaces , as the Nazis intended, air raids actually drew people closer together in solidarity.

Isn't that a defining issue though - that in the face of overwhelming compression, and a clear view that the germans were almost an unstoppable juggernaut, that the british society rallied and steeled itself?  the general populace are led by leadership.  if leadership fails, then society becomes an associated victim.
 


As for politicians, you yourself sent me links showing the will of British politicians to embark upon a complete disarmament program. Chamberlain was not so much the exception people make him out to be. Lord Halifax would have been the one to replace Churchill and we both know how he would have dealt with the situation.... I think it is difficult to argue that British politicians and elites were somehow superior to French ones. They were both cut from the same cloth. No one thought the Nazis could be defeated in 1940. Churchill was alone in his convictions.

thats the crux of the matter. that one individual may be the fulcrum of change, but that the society was also bale to be motivated to fight back - and in the face of overwhelming capability.
 
the fact is that it was churchill, the fact is the royal family rallied and provided a common point of difference, and that the british were determined to go on.  I seriously doubt that even if Halifax had got in, that the british public would have rolled over.  hell, they were prepared to relocate the seat of govt to canada, and to disperse their forces amongst the commonwealth - the contigencies were that necessary that they were planning to fight offshore.  that denotes a mindset of difference.
 


 
 
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french stratege       10/4/2007 8:17:46 AM
the fact is that it was churchill, the fact is the royal family rallied and provided a common point of difference, and that the british were determined to go on. 
Much more easy when you have not yet been invaded with a large part of your industrial base in dominions and the Channel to protect while you have a strong superiority in navy..
The royal family was pro german for a part BTW before war.
 
I seriously doubt that even if Halifax had got in, that the british public would have rolled over.  hell, they were prepared to relocate the seat of govt to canada, and to disperse their forces amongst the commonwealth
The overseas based governement to continue fight if UK were invaded was only words.
 
Whatever military british leadership was crap on ground until El Alamein with massive disasters like Tobruk, Greece , Creta.. while being in strong numerical superiority over germans!
 
 
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Herald1234       10/4/2007 8:42:49 AM

the fact is that it was churchill, the fact is the royal family rallied and provided a common point of difference, and that the british were determined to go on. 

Much more easy when you have not yet been invaded with a large part of your industrial base in dominions and the Channel to protect while you have a strong superiority in navy..

The royal family was pro german for a part BTW before war.

 

I seriously doubt that even if Halifax had got in, that the british public would have rolled over.  hell, they were prepared to relocate the seat of govt to canada, and to disperse their forces amongst the commonwealth

The overseas based governement to continue fight if UK were invaded was only words.

 

Whatever military british leadership was crap on ground until El Alamein with massive disasters like Tobruk, Greece , Creta.. while being in strong numerical superiority over germans!

 


Which siege of Tobruk, poseur, the one where the Germans brought 2X to bear?
Greece the Germans brought 3X the troops to bear against the Allies.
 
Crete fell through loss of air superiority and the airhead at Malame" where thew Allies lost the airfield and the Germans flew in the necessary local 3X superiority and then overran the immobile defenders in detail.
 
As usual,  poseur1's history is sadly lacking, almost as incompetent, as his technical acumen.
 
Contempt poseur1.
 
Herald  
 
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