Why did the British have 4 divisions in France in 1940?

Question

If they were allies with France shouldn't they have had an equal number of troops? France had 100 divisions. Weren't they asking France to shoulder too much of the burden as in 1914? The French lost almost double the amount of British in WWI. Why didn't America send any divisions? The Americans lost less than 10% of the French in casualties in WWI.

Are the British wankers for this cowardice and/or duplicity?

Should the French have allowed the Americans to enter WWI or accepted British "help" post 1918? Should the French have surrendered by signing a Polish style non-agression pact with Hitler in 1934? Should the French have disarmed completely so that Hitler would have not needed to invade in order have the French surrender?

I'm sorry there were a total of 20 British divisions for the German invasion of Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, and France. The British First Armored Division didn't arrive in France until the end of May. Why didn't the Belgians and Dutch cooperate fully with the British and French prior to May 1940? Why was the world so dumb in the 20th century?

If Britain was afraid of a naval invasion by Germany why did they sign a naval pact with Germany behind France's back in violation of Versailles in 1935? Why did Britain refuse to tell France the details of the allowed German tonnage in heavy cruisers, battleships, and submarines? Was this Satanic realpolitik on Britain's behalf?

Answer 1

After the German breakthrough in the Ardenne in 1940 and encirclement of the brits at dunkirk, all the recriminations between the allies started to come about. Why didn't the BEF and some of the French armoured units retreat toward Paris and help defend the capital? Why didn't the neutral countries let the allies move forward prior to the German attack? Why didn't the Maginot line reach the Coast? Why didn't the French use their tanks in massed formations like the Wermacht instead of little 'penny packets' even tho their tanks were equal to or supperior to the German Mark IIIs? Why was the French high command fighting the war of WWI while the Germans where using the tactics of the new war...blitzkrieg? Fingers were pointing in all directions.

It's nice to be monday morning quarterbacks some 60 years later.

Answer 2

First off, Hitler was very fortunate in that the major restrictions of Versailles were scheduled to end in 1934, right about when he came to power in 1933 as Chancellor, and France was beginning to tire of having to be the only nation to take security against Germany seriously. Also, France was economically exhausted from the construction of the Maginot Line when the Great Depression came around, and she never recovered. Techically, the Allied powers no longer had the legal authority to force Germany to have a restricted navy with no submarines, and the territorial concessions were then overseen by the Treaty of Locarno, not Versailles. Locarno was guaranteed by Italy, but the economic sanctions from the Ethiopian conquest forced Mussolini into cooperation with Germany. And, you are correct that the eastern European new democracies which France had placed their hopes on to replace Russia as the anvil on Germany's eastern flank did all abandon ship in 1935 (very good point, most people aren't aware of it!).

Yes, Britain's commitment to Allied defense in 1940 was considereably smaller than France's, and that probably was not very fair. But you must bear in mand that England did not have the same congenital hatred of Germany as France did, and so England did not begin to seriously prepare for dealing with Germany until 1938 when the Munich Agreement was torn to shreds by Hitler. Also, the Low Countries were playing a very dangerous game, hoping that if they kept quiet the Germans might not notice them. They did not allow the English and French to take up positions inside their countries, so when the Germans attacked the Allied armies left their defensive positions and rushed into Belgium without much of a plan. Then, to make matters worse, Belgium surrendered within a few days and left the Allies in the lurch. Then, to make matters even worse, the BEF basically abandoned their French allies and raced to Dunkirk without any real combat other than being outmaneuvered.

The United States had absolutely nothing to do with this, other than Roosevelt illegally supplying arms to both England and France and circumventing the Neutrality Laws. For, you must remember, England and France declared war on Germany, not the other way around, and Germany would not declare war on America until Decembrer 10, 1941.

Answer 3

I have answered one of your earlier questions at great length. Your questions suggest considerable hostility towrd Britain, France, and the US, and in general a lack of the overall historical context of your questions. I don't understand the point you are trying to make.

First of all, remember that you cannot CHANGE the past. Nor can you re-write history as if you HAD changed the past.

In World War I, when the United States entered the conflict on the side of the allies, she was most welcome. As S.W.C. Pack observes in "Sea Power in the Mediterranean" (Arthur Barker Ltd., London, 1971), had the U.S. not come into the war, Britain would have been brought to her knees by the German submarine campaign. The French, quite arrogant (and so were the British) in their sense of "superior" military capability, almost did NOT "allow" American troops into the war. They wanted to have command of American soldiers and use them as cannon fodder replacements for the exhaused, decimated, and sometimes-mutinous French forces. The French and British both had some good commanders and excellent units in the war, but overall the strategic leadership was virtually incompetent.

The United States sent far more than one divison to fight in France. A "divison," according to a varying group of definitions, ranges from about 14,000 to 20,000 peronnel (including headquarters, support and rear echelon). The U.S. fielded three "Armies," comprised of 10 "Corps," comprising two or more divisons each. Entry of American forces into the war sealed the doom of Germany, which might well have otherwise won on the field as well as at sea.

The United States sent not only fresh, healthy, strong and big young troops in great numbers, but also contributed vast supplies of munitions for all forces. The infusion of men and materiel enabled the Allies to finally break out of the stalemate war in the trenches and pursue field tactics of maneuver.

France is a huge country - with a very substantial population. Her armed forces reflected both her size and her self-imae, in both World Wars. Many of the French troops of both wars were conscripts. Britain for the most part depended upon a "regular" army of volunteers, at least at the outset.

The British Army in France in 1940 was a strong, skilled, professional fighting force that could have whipped the French even though so outnumbered, because the French forces were made up of a grat number of "defensive garrison" troops taught to sit in their concrete and armor plated bunkers and shoot through the slits.

If you wish to engage in a serious analysis of these forces and dispositions, it is time for you to start reading instead of constantly posting these provocative and ill-informed opinions as if they were questions.

Besides the book mentioned above, check out two books by Barabara Tuchman, "The Proud Tower," and "The Guns of August." These will aid you greatly in understanding how the world came to The Great War in 1914, and then what happened on the field. For WWII, this is an excellent volume: "The American Heritage New History of WWII" by C. L. Sulzberger and Stephen E. Ambrose. You should also look into the official history of the naval war by Admiral Samuel Eliot Morrison.

Your constant use of a few statistics without context or understanding misleads you and everyone who sees them without realizing they are distortions. As I asked before, if you have a point, why not get to it and let us all in on the secret? I no longer think you are serious in these questions, but being provocative and prejudiced and will not waste any more time giving serious answers to the distortions posed as questions.

Answer 4

Because it was FRANCE dumbass, obviosusly the French would have had more divisions there. Britian was simultaneously preparing for invasion itself. It was because of stupid French tactics, i.e. not fortifieing the border between itself and Belgium (for political reasons), that they were overrun by the Nazi's so easily. The British managed to get out most of their troops out of Dunkirk in 1940, more divisions would have been impossible.

As for America in WW1, they joined late and were only in one major battle.

Answer 5

Frances 100 divisions had surrendered as usual, there was major panic in France last year because the factory that makes white flags went on fire. Go to google(search) and type in French victories

Answer 6

No-one cares about the French.