Complete Military History of France

[Thrawn]

Originally posted by Masherbrum
Truth hurts eh?  Now how about the Polish not being invited to the "Victory Parade in London in 1946"?  

Karaya

Bah, they where busy on a "date" after Chuchill pimped them them to the commies.


...again with the Churchill being evil!

[Masherbrum]

Originally posted by Thrawn
Bah, they where busy on a "date" after Chuchill pimped them them to the commies.


...again with the Churchill being evil!

Wrong.  Most of the 303 Squadron attended the parade anyway.  I mean, they were at first scorned by the British, but after they accumulated the most kills in the RAF, they were embraced.   You can take the hook out now Thrawn.  

Karaya

[Hangtime]

And after the War, members of Free Polish military units were denied emigration or citizenship rights in England and were deported to Poland. Where a fair number of them were imprisoned by the communist regime.

Churchill again?

[z0rch]

Seen on a t-shirt in 1917;

We Saved Europe's bellybutton and All We Got Was the Spanish Flu.

[ramzey]

Originally posted by Thrawn
Bah, they where busy on a "date" after Chuchill pimped them them to the commies.


...again with the Churchill being evil!

not Churchil, Roosevelt in Teheran

And after the War, members of Free Polish military units were denied emigration or citizenship rights in England and were deported to Poland. Where a fair number of them were imprisoned by the communist regime.

Churchill again?

US denied to welcome foregin east europe allied troops to settle in US.
Som get choice to work on the fields of Canada, som stay in GB , som choose south america and africa.

[straffo]

Originally posted by Hangtime

B-, just average.



PS : the Chauchat is not a rifle.

[Hangtime]

While we may have learned a little something in Europe in WWI, it would be folly to assume that the Nation that had just 30 years prior to WWI  gone through the bloodiest war yet in history, had 10 years prior kicked the Spanish Empire into the history books and was busily dashing about the pacific and south america building a credible lil empire of it's own was incompetent on the battlefield.

PS : the Chauchat is not a rifle

It wasn't even a good boat anchor. The BAR on the other hand was (and still is) a superb rifle, the first Squad Automatic Weapon, designed by an American named Browning. When it arrived on the Battlefield the world took notice... and then we showed you yuropeeeans how to advance on contested ground via 'fire and manuver'...

...and settled once and for all the debate about there being no place to hide from Americans carrying .30 caliber auto loading battle rifles. The BAR lead to the Garand and it's adoption my the US Army in 1936.. and while America may have found itself in the next war without a decent tank or a competitive air force, our infantry stepped into battle with the most fearsome and effective rifles, machine guns and artillery on the planet.

WWI also taught us something else... we'd never willingly place our troops under foreign command or put them in the field with foreign equipment again.

[Furball]

Originally posted by Hangtime

Originally posted by Hangtime
WWI also taught us something else... we'd never willingly place our troops under foreign command or put them in the field with foreign equipment again.

Apart from the invasion of Iraq in 2003 where your marines invading the southern coast of Iraq were under the command of the Royal Marines.

[Saintaw]

^^ is that Nielsen's daddy?

[straffo]

Originally posted by Hangtime
WWI also taught us something else... we'd never willingly place our troops under foreign command or put them in the field with foreign equipment again.

Well you speak of the Chauchat but forgot the 75mm gun , the Nieuport the SPAD etc

[-tronski-]

Originally posted by Hangtime
I like how folks just see what they wanna see, Right Tronsky??

 

Pfffft.. one kid chimes in with a 'me too' and yer on THAT like stink on ****.

Typical.

Your boys spent themselves uselessly at Gallipoli, didn't they? In what was basicaly a 'rifle war', the Turks proved your equals; did they not? What did THEY 'teach' you? Enh? How about 'Well, a buncha towlies taught us how to NOT win a war..."

Henh.

Ahh but see I'd already posted earlier kemosabe about our glorious diggers fighting for King and Country with you yanks...as for Gallipoli we held against Johnny Turk in trench warfare - a tough fighter on his own turf while they held the high ground...and they never pushed off those bloody cliffs until we were told to withdraw.
And then our blokes gave the Hun something to think about when sent to France, while the Light Horse gave the Turks a hiding in Egypt...you yanks were assigned to our diggers because we were the best - no use your lot being hammered just before the war ended eh?

Originally posted by Thrawn
Naw, Churchill spent them uselessly.  Curchill = Hitler!!....uh wait a second.

Churchill that fat bastard had a habit of using up our blokes like that...in both wars!

 Tronsky

[Masherbrum]

Originally posted by ramzey
not Churchil, Roosevelt in Teheran




US denied to welcome foregin east europe allied troops to settle in US.
Som get choice to work on the fields of Canada, som stay in GB , som choose south america and africa.

Again, both Roosevelt and Churchill never told the Exiled Polish Government of their plans for Stalin.  "They wanted them to still fight with resolve."  

Karaya

[ghostdancer]

Gentlemen, you need to do some serious reading and research on WWI before making statements that Americans had no affect on the War or outcome.

The fact of the matter is that both sides had fought a bloody war of attrition from 1914 to 1917. The French Army did mutiny and only with Petain stepping in and instituting reforms, switching strategic doctrines from the offensive to the defensive and quite a few other things was the French Army reconstituted and made capable of fighting again.

The French provided the larger amount of troops on the western front. The British and other nationalities played a key part but if the French Army had disintegrated (which was arguably a near thing during the mutinees) they would not have been able to hold the western front on their own.

The Germans were also exhausted but were in better shape than the French Army. Also remember they were fighting a two front war. When the Russians bowed out they were able to take all those troops and shift them to the west. They actually launched an offensive that did seriously breach the allied front but while tactically successful had no plan to exploit it strategically.

What the Americans added were fresh troops on the allied side who while had no combat experience in this type of warfare (neither did the French or British or Germans in the beginning) add significantly to the allied side. Every day more and more Americans came over.

The Germans recognized it was a numbers game at this point. They and their allies and the French, British and their allies were exhausted. American presented a very clear threat of a new non-exhausted large man power pool to the allied side. This is why when the Russians pulled out the Germans knew they had to launch an offensive to try to force France out of the war before the Americans showed up in strength.

It was a war of attrition and allies (British and French had no more serious man power reserves ) got the fresh resources of America. German had no more reserves to pull on (no new country coming to their side).

So America did not save France but America tipped the balance. Without the U.S. coming in you can debate the outcome of the war. The French morale already cracked (the mutinees and collapse of ruling parties, etc.), the German moral was still intact. So it would have been a case of what country finally collapsed or cracked first. France might have held it together but Petain wanted to stay on the defensive and let the Germans exhaust themselves in attacks. He was eventually overruled and the French again launched extremely costly and offensive operations with as much success as before.

[indy007]

I hate to break this to some of y'all... but countries with a history of war always have quite a few defeats to go along with their victories, and most had the best something or other at some point in time.

Custer tried to defend the bottom of a hole.
The Brits sent an army, with some more units picked up from their new American colonies, against the French & Indians.. and were decimated.
After gaining independence, America attempted the same movement, and aside from building some forts, met the exact same fate as the British.
A Brit infantry square was broken by sword wielding dervishes in Egypt.
The Charge of the Light Brigade didn't make it very far.
The Maginot Line... which, technically, worked as intended, cost the French their country and thousands of british lives.
The Spanish lost their Armada.
The French were driven out of Haiti by an army of their ex-slaves.
The Brits lost an entire army, the baggage train, and all their hanger-on's retreating from Asia back to the Middle East. The survivors you could count on 1 hand.
The Mexicans lost Texas because their general decided to take a nap and didn't properly deploy sentries. 3 minutes later his command was destroyed, most of his officers were dead, and he was running to go hide naked in a well.
The British had to use concentration camps to defeat the Boers.
America politicans tried to run the Vietnam conflict.. and well.. we see what happened there.
The Clinton era deployments were riddled with problems, and ended up giving us the movie Blackhawk Down and grainy pics of a shotdown F-117.

With the right leadership and the right tactics, anybody can beat anybody at any given time. Unfortunately, the best, brightest, bravest, and most honest rarely make it into positions were they can make a difference.

[straffo]

Originally posted by ghostdancer
Gentlemen, you need to do some serious reading and research on WWI before making statements that Americans had no affect on the War or outcome.

I never intended to say that , but more like you said tipped the balance.

As usual truth is between black and white.