French-British relation before the war

Not commenting the personal opinions on both sides, but... in principal both were not so wrong.

And I don't say this with any sarcasm.

The French were decadent, and weak for this reason, and the English were half-hearted, defeatistic, even in the Battle of France.

 

The sad thing is that these nations should have been working 100% together against Germany and if the French already before the war ( since WW1?) thought that the British would be looking for the nearest port to get away when the shooting starts and the British had their equivalent thoughts on the French then it does seem quite gloomy....

 

G'day

Just read a book where a veteran said that he trusted the Germans more than the French in battle. In 1939 the British were isolated on their island and thought they were the best in the world, whilst the French thought they were the best.(But the Germans and Japanese also thought so.) This attitude made them mistrust every other nation in politics. Nothing much changed since 1939 then.

Popski

 

From what I have read, during the immediate prewar and phony war period, relations were strained between Britain and France at all levels, from the highest policital level, to senior officer level, to troop level. During the actual fighting though there appears to have been warm relations between troops. What is surprising is the perceived lack of effort by either France or Britain to try to improve relations and working practices with each other, at the political or military level. Did the troops undertake any military exercises together? Did the politicians try to assist each other?

The debacle of the 1939 peace treaty discussions with Russia, and the absurd manner in which Poland and Belgium were permitted to compromise the developmetn/implementation of a meaningful miltary strategy by Britain and France to prevent German aggresion is quite extraordinary. Is it any wonder France did collapse and that Britain may have done so without the protective English Channel, the navy and RAF.

General Georges and Churchill seemed to respect each other. Can anyone write more on this relationship?

 

It was a real pity that both nations couldn't act as close as they did during the Great War. Maybe because they thought that the other had made WWI to be the way it was.

But the British started sympathising with Germans and Americans in 1918, leaving France's security claims and ambitions aside. This made the French disthrust the British. Lloyd-George and Clemenceau were gulity of their big naïvité for thrusting Wilson.

 

A lot of the British sympathized with the Germans before 1914, too - not a little due to the Royal Family connections. British Army senior officers more than once were heard to privately say that they felt that the French were the 'natural enemy'. Haig revealed in his private papers, published long after the war, an almost pathological dislike of the French.

As Admiral David Beatty wrote to his wife whem he heard news of the Titanic 's sinking in 1912 :

'The splendid example of officers and men remaining at their posts - can you imagine what would happened if it had been a French ship ?'

Which says quite a lot about commonly-held attitudes then ( & now ! )

 

The relations between the French and British have a very long history going back to ancient times. This of course colours the view they have of each other. The forced allience made in WWI and WWII is one of political correctnes to each other whilst the old animosity will still be there, and every set back will give rise to tell your own people " See, can't trust those #@!!$%#"
This animosity will not go away by politicians shaking hands with big smile's, it's too rooted in people's minds. The German connection to the Royal family won't go away by changing their name's f.i. Battenburg to Mountbatten.

Pop

[ 08. December 2003, 01:49 PM: Message edited by: Popski ]

 

Well that thing about the Royal family is quite important, since its three main surnames are Hannover, Von Saxe Coburg-Gotha and Von Battenberg. VERY British!

But about the Brits and Franks... how could you expect complete cooperation after they spent 800 years fighting each other? We must be amazed that they cooperated at all!

 

I'm interested that you use the past tense, Friedrich...