As Tim Marshall explains in ‘Prisoners of Geography’, France’s coastline and mountains in the south have always made it generally very defensible, its weakest area being the flat plains in the north that the Germans were able to exploit during World War 1 and the Franco-Prussian War. The truth, then, is far more complex than any silly stereotype. This was followed by a decision from a German general on the ground (Heinz Guderian) to send his tanks on an unexpectedly rapid advance. The Germans also benefitted from a certain amount of luck during their 1940 invasion of France, including a last-minute change of plan that led to the surprise breakout from the Ardennes that so stunned the Allies. France lost around 1.3 million of its soldiers, out of a population of 40 million.
Britain lost almost a million lives in the First World War, out of a population base of around 45 million. This reaction, however, tends to overlook France's hundreds of years of victory and winning in war, not to mention its zeal for going to battle in revolution, as the annual Bastille Day, or Fête de la Fédération as it is known in France, highlights each year on July 14.Įven a cursory look over the long list of wars France has been involved in reveals a huge number of military victories.įurthermore, the truth about the fall of France in 1940 is far more complex than the appeasing and lacklustre military defence stereotype makes out. It is impossible to appreciate the desire to find “Peace in our time” (as our own Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain put it) in the years before World War 2 without letting the impact of World War 1 sink in. Many will be well aware of some of the disparaging terms about French ‘surrender’ – but is this simply because of the legacy of just one controversial moment in French history in the Second World War, when France fell to Nazi occupation under the Vichy regime that collaborated with Germany?įor some, the rapid fall of France to Hitler's forces in 1940 seems to suggest that the country is not a strong military power, and that it does not have much of a track record of military success. Mention 'war' and 'France' in the same breath and there is often a tendency for this to be met with ridicule.
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