“Defeated by the Nazis, but not disgraced – The German victory remains a victory, and the French loss, a loss. But what has happened over the past 70 years, particularly over the past 30, has amounted to a slow and meticulous reappraisal of what actually happened in May-June 1940. Today, current scholarship is in the process of dismantling the allegations that have so long supplied the comic with his bag of satirical jibes at France and the French. Slowly, the image of 100,000 Frenchmen with hands in the air is being replaced by the image of 123,000 gravestones” – Robert Young, professor emeritus of history, University of Winnipeg. Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 22, 2010
Excellent article! Kudos to Mr. Robert Young for finally stating what we’ve always known in France, to this side of the Atlantic. This article proves yet again my theory, that French bashing REQUIRES historical revisionism, which itself stems from historical ignorance and illiteracy.
poilu, I fully concour with your analysis. Thanks to Miquelon for finding this!
Thank you for this article. It’s very educational.
THAT is the kind of article that should be passed on everywhere on the internet ! Thanks for the article.
On a side note have you heard of this new book “Et si la France avait continué la guerre ?” (“What if France had fought on the war ?”) ?
It’s an alternative history that states perfectly that France COULD and SHOULD have continued to fight ! They start in june 6th 1940 where Hélène de Portes, the mistress of Paul Reynaud (aka Prime Minister of France before the armistice) and one of the worst defeatists that ever lived is killed in a car accident 22 days before she did in reality.
From that point, hardliners such as de Gaulle or Mandel oust defeatists from the government. Of course it is too late to repulse the Germans, but it is decided to evacuate to North Africa as many troops, engineers, workers, raw materials, equipments as possible. Irrealistic ? Hell, no ! It was being planned just before Pétain took over ! And the result ? Well, it started in a website that is not completed yet, but the people behind this project have already discovered that the war would have been at least 6 months shorter ! And that France would’nt be still somewhat stuck in those painfuls debates like (“we were all resistants, no we were all collaborators”, etc…) And last but certainly not the least, “French surrender” crap would have never existed !
Somehow, I wish I was living in this alternate history…
here’s the links :
http://www.amazon.fr/France-avait-continu%C3%A9-guerre/dp/2847347070/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275850508&sr=1-1
http://www.1940lafrancecontinue.org/
Oh, and sorry for the lenghty post !
Never – ever – apologize for your posts, we appreciate any relevant posts, especially anything historically relevant.