"in weeks in the late spring and early summer of 1940, it became clear that France was woefully unprepared for the German onslaught. France suffered a humiliating defeat and was quickly occupied by Germany. Its failure was a result of a hopelessly divided French political elite, a lack of quality military leadership, rudimentary French military tactics. On the battlefield, France faced a vastly more prepared German army that utilized both more advanced weapons and sophisticated tactics. It was a mismatch." Source: https://dailyhistory.org/Why_was_Fr...adership, rudimentary French military tactics.
Having served alongside the French military during my time in service, including hotspots, my answer comes from a viewpoint few on here will have experienced. During the Balkans conflict in the early to mid 90´s the forces deployed by the UN were drawn from member countries, British and French among them. We operated under the "banner" of UNPROFOR being one of them. Our initial mission was the escorting and protection of UN sanctioned aid agency convoys, this could range from actively returning fire or just being a presence. On one such occasion the French troops were escorting an aid convoy through a well known "Hotspot" when they came under fire. Rules of engagement allowed for them to return fire and neutralise the threat and given the technological and tactical advantage the French escort had at their disposal their response should have been easy to make. Instead, they battened down and left the field of conflict and deserted their task to protect the aid convoy. That a massacre never then ensued is a miracle. The French are by nature a cowardly nation. When UK was still in the EU the French farmers attacked and set fire to British trucks legally bringing British sheep into the country. If the French had shown half as much fight during the early stages of WW2 as they do whenever they don´t fancy a bit of British meat, the Germans would never have crossed the border.
A Roman historian once wrote that the men of Gaul (modern France) were more than men in peace and less than men in battle.
French tanks were actually superior to German ones, Char B1 and Somua tanks were tough nuts to crack. The problem was that the German's used their tanks en masse in large focused attacks whereas the French pretty much sprinkled their tanks across the line. And so the German tanks usually outnumbered the French ones during engagements.
The blitzkreig was a whole new dimension of warfare, fast mechanised infantry units and tanks along with air power combined working together. The allies should have really taken note of it in Germany’s campaign against Poland. Seems they never did . The allies had more powerful tanks. yes. But the Germans had installed radio communication in their tanks the allies had not. It proved decisive on the field of battle
I have no clue why this forum has peaked my interested however literally this. The French were so paranoid thanks to misinformation spread by German spies & coding that an attack would come along the maginot line that they focused solely on it. If the Germans had more naval strength around the coast of france Vs the UK could have been the alternative invasion route!
