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Science of history != history.

Yes, well...headache coming on my side ...time for bed anyway! Good Night!

Julietta Putina wrote:

[KMA]Avenger wrote:As stated, it's a frame of reference, something easily related to due to the sheer amount of information available to everyone about the Nazi regime and their doings...common knowledge you might say.

And an equally vast wealth of misinformation. Just saying.

Very true, should have pointed that out as well...TY!

Anyway as a French person I cannot have a negative feeling about the Allies (well I can provide criticism about their actions but it is logically impossible for me to see them as the "evil") because they gave our country back the freedom lost about five years before (those five years are among the worst years of XXth century for my country as daily standard of living, freedom, etc...), said loss 'thanks' to the immensely coward general Petain, who turned from a hero to a zero comparing the first and the second world war (even though the first could be debated whether he was a hero, the second *cannot* be denied). Thanks to his unmatched cowardice, the English speaking nations now have a famous joke about France military. Which I might add, is pure ignorance joke, because the coward raising flag were not the troops who wanted to carry on the fight, but the leader.
For this, he will remain the person I hate the most in the whole WW2 event, at least on the french side, because he's the man who bowed down to the Third Reich and made the whole country bow as a consequence. Hitler and his SS crews are of course not on my "like" side either. I will however know to not confuse the German Wehrmacht, and the Wäffen SS and other scums like this squad.

Legendary Apophis wrote:Anyway as a French person I cannot have a negative feeling about the Allies (well I can provide criticism but it is logically impossible to see them as the "evil") because they gave our country back the freedom lost about five years before (those five years are among the worst years of XXth century for my country as daily standard of living, freedom, etc...), said loss 'thanks' to the immensely coward general Petain, who turned from a hero to a zero comparing the first and the second world war (even though the first could be debated whether he was a hero, the second *cannot* be denied). Thanks to his unmatched cowardice, the English speaking nations now have a famous joke about France military. Which I might add, is pure ignorance joke, because the coward raising flag were not the troops who wanted to carry on the fight, but the leader.
For this, he will remain the person I hate the most in the whole WW2 event, at least on the french side, because he's the man who bowed down to the Third Reich and made the whole country bow as a consequence. Hitler and his SS crews are of course not on my "like" side either. I will however know to not confuse the German Wehrmacht, and the Wäffen SS and other scums like this squad.

Petain's another tricky one, history remembers him as you said hero in WW1 and Collaborator in WW2, but do your really think he changed that much in such a short space of time, he was a proud soldier who loved his country, I highly doubt a man of his age did it for his own safaty ( Cowardice ), what he did was to save as many French lives as possible and it achieved that goal. French losses would have been horrendous if they had fought on in the position they were in, of course it would have been better for other nations if France had fought on, in the long run Petain's actions probably traded allied lives for French lives.

Same with Chamberlain, he is historically known as the great appeaser who let Nazism grow by not standing up to it, but truth is he feared a repeat of WW1, the huge loss of life he knew another war would bring and wanted to give peace every possible chance, he also knew Britain was not ready for another war financially or militarily, so was he really a bad person ? Could he have even changed things or stopped Germany if he had taken a hard stance earlier ?


In war you need goodies-v-baddies, but the truth is always more complex.

MEZZANINE wrote:Petain's another tricky one, history remembers him as you said hero in WW1 and Collaborator in WW2, but do your really think he changed that much in such a short space of time, he was a proud soldier who loved his country, I highly doubt a man of his age did it for his own safaty ( Cowardice ), what he did was to save as many French lives as possible and it achieved that goal. French losses would have been horrendous if they had fought on in the position they were in, of course it would have been better for other nations if France had fought on, in the long run Petain's actions probably traded allied lives for French lives.

Same with Chamberlain, he is historically known as the great appeaser who let Nazism grow by not standing up to it, but truth is he feared a repeat of WW1, the huge loss of life he knew another war would bring and wanted to give peace every possible chance, he also knew Britain was not ready for another war financially or militarily, so was he really a bad person ? Could he have even changed things or stopped Germany if he had taken a hard stance earlier ?


In war you need goodies-v-baddies, but the truth is always more complex.

I see him as a coward, because his decision achieved the debacle of the french side, the troops wanted to keep fighting, and many of them kept doing so after he asked them to stop, because they didn't want to give up, because they knew quite well what would happen otherwise. There would have been horrendous losses probably but at least they would have been remembered as the kind "never give up" and would have been portrayed as heroes in the history, not like the immensely negative incorrect image now displayed about them. French troops were the first to do a plane assault in Berlin in June 1940 (I can provide sources for the skeptical ones), history forgot that and other things thanks to the bigger image, the surrender. I'm sure all of you debaters (well maybe not you particularly Mezz I dunno) have this image of cowardly french side who gave up after six weeks and who were a bunch of incompetent cowards who raised altogether the white flag (I'm bit caricatural, but it's almost that isn't it?). That's what selective history will remember (small events like the raid on Berlin is forgotten as the bigger image will be on the front line, the rest will be considered as isolated events of glory), and for that I can "thank" Petain.

You are correct in mentioning the fear of casualties for both leaders, it's one of the reasons why a great amount of politicians, journalists and other people collaborated in France, they were theoretically very opposed to Nazism ideologically, but due to their great distaste of war, they were on the front line of collaboration, they didn't care who was leading the country, they just didn't want a war. Sure there were also the massive amount of opportunists and some admirers of Nazism, but the "no more war" thing led many to support the armistice and the collaboration.

To answer you last question Mezz, I would say yes. Back in 1936/1937, afterwards it wouldn't have changed really much.

Petain prevented a massacre. If France had continued to fight, all their soldiers would have been killed, and not enough would be left to bring about the Resistance. Without Resistance, Hitler would have finished the Atlantikwall without delay and would have been able to use supplies -that were now used to suppress domestic terrorists (resistance)- in Operation Barbarossa. Germany would have kicked the rotten Soviet door in just a bit further, and the Union would have fallen. Japan would not have had to deal with as many Soviet divisions as they did, and would have been able to assert their position in Asia much more solidly.


Without Petain's surrender, the war would have been won.

Julietta Putina wrote:Petain prevented a massacre. If France had continued to fight, all their soldiers would have been killed, and not enough would be left to bring about the Resistance. Without Resistance, Hitler would have finished the Atlantikwall without delay and would have been able to use supplies -that were now used to suppress domestic terrorists (resistance)- in Operation Barbarossa. Germany would have kicked the rotten Soviet door in just a bit further, and the Union would have fallen. Japan would not have had to deal with as many Soviet divisions as they did, and would have been able to assert their position in Asia much more solidly.


Without Petain's surrender, the war would have been won.

Maybe, we can all speculate about what could have happened if this or that happened differently based on the forces and parameters in presence, but history will remember that Petain surrendered to the Reich and left the UK alone in the war (not saying the Resistance did nothing, far from that, but Petain did that).
There's one thing wrong about Petain, it's an argument that was brought already many times, that Petain did a "tactical" retreat, to help the resistance prepare and to prepare a fight back. However, there are no real evidences in the history that Petain planned to fight "another day". He didn't play a two sided game. In fact, he and his government even preceded Hitler regarding deportation and other things, Hitler didn't even have to ask things to be done, they were done to please him without him even having to ask, those were not the acts of a two sided player like Mr Schindler. Just to clear things up.

Of course not. Petains account was screamed out of history by people who wanted to create yet another Ultimate. The Coward, in this case.

There are no absolutes when it comes to humans. ALL of them are constructs, created by idiots who are trying to control history. Control the past, and you control the future. Simple as that.

My point was that some people and historians tried to pretend Petain was in fact a resistant who did a "tactical retreat" to fight another day. However, this has been proven wrong due to lack of evidence of such a thing. Quite the contrary happened afterwards, as I said. If Petain was not The Coward, he wasn't either this two sided player who in the front ground collaborated and the background resisted, he did no such thing, he's not better that the opportunist François Mitterrand who later became president of France, and tried to hide conveniently his past of collaboration and friendship/support to collaborationists, but history always comes back on such things. That's one of the reasons I greatly dislike Petain, he was no two sided player.

lolwut. That has nothing to do with what we are talking about.


Anyway, regarding your blind hatred for various people/groups/things:

Julietta Putina wrote:There are no absolutes when it comes to humans. ALL of them are constructs, created by idiots who are trying to control history. Control the past, and you control the future. Simple as that.

@ LA,

Your right that Petain's actions did ruin the French reputation, and jokes about French surrendered and being cowardly persist to this day because of what he did and the way it portrayed in history.

BUT

This is man who sacrificed his own place in history for the greater good of his people and country, he was an old man with only a few years left on the clock, could have retired a hero, could have fought on and died an even bigger hero and martor. At the time he needed to be portrayed as the cowardly villain but in hindsight we should recognise that he saving possibly 100s of thousands of French lives and preserved the infrastructure.

Remember the British Forces were also defeated and only escaped on D-Day due to combination of French sacrifice, German indecision and brave/desperate Naval rescue, only our Island and the North Sea really saved us. If half our population was under occupation and at risk we may have surrendered too, then the US would never havent gotten involved and the the war would have gone a very different way. Was a damn close thing in the first year of conflict.

By all account accounts De Gaul was a reckless pompous ass but we needed a figure head to inspire and rally resistance so he was made into a hero, something IMO he never deserved lol


Cant believe Im arguing the pro-French side against a Frenchman lol