French History of Omaha

Did I say French are coward? Maybe not in World War I, but please there were plenty of men from other countires who died as well. Not to mension that it was France who came up with the mastard gas first not Germany. Some see it other way around.

 

No, Vyacheslav. It was the Germans the first to use poisonous gas in WWI. They first used it in the Eastern Front against the Russians without success because of the low temperatures and they used it first in Argonne, I think against the Canadians.

 

And you are calling the French cowards by posting cartoons in which they are always surrendering! And you practically said that the French soldiers do nothing but surrendering!

 

The French preformed better than any other army during ww1. They fought with great skill, determination and valour. And the French did not always surrender. During the mutiny they did stay and fight, but refused to take part in any offensive operations. The French could have easily given up and walked into the german lines. The French should learn more about what the Allies did for them, but the French did not give up in ww2 as some countries did. The Free French and the Resistance were described by Eisenhower as worth eight divisions (i think). The French were very brave. And I hope that this is an end to this argument. Pppppppppplllllleeeeaaaassssseeeeeee .

Jet

 

One last statement .
No Europe has not been able to live for 100 years without a war. But neither has any other countinent like Asia, Africa and the Middle East (i think that is a continent. My geography is pretty poor).

Jet

 

Mein General - the figure of 1.4 million dead for France in WW1 is correct; your figure of 4.5 is total CASUALTIES; which is killed, wounded, missing, combined. Many of course died after the end of the war...

Gas was first used against the Canadians at Ypres, and not in the Argonne which was a French and latterly American sector in 1918.

Total casualties for the French and German armies combined at Verdun in 1916 was approx 770,000: casualties again being killed, wounded and missing.

 

With respect, Gas weapons already existed in Russia by 1917; it was used by both sides on the Eastern Front.

I really do not understand the second paragraph at all?

What does Russia have to do with this - please be logical with your arguments, if indeed you have any.

 

Indeed, Sommecourt. It was at Ypres when it was used for the first time at the Western Front.

And about casualties, I know what casualties are, but I have came to several conclusions of years of studying individual WWI battles... the total ammount of people killed in some books are some 21 million, however, in the same books the total amount of deads, adding every individual battle's numbers are like 32 million... And of course France lost many more men than 1,5 million... That is the cypher for Canada alone...

 

Mein General we could argue about this all day, but I would suggest you check your sources.

According to http://www.grande-guerre.org/ (among others)

French soldiers mobilised - 8.410.000
French soldiers killed - 1.457.000
French soldiers wounded - 4.266.000
French soldiers taken POW - 537.000
Thus total losses - 6.160.000

In terms of the Canadians, in WW1 the Canadian Corps had a maximum of 4 divisions and there were no more than 100,000 men in the Corps at any one time. To lose 1.5 dead from Canadian would be mean that the Corps would have had to be wiped out COMPLETELY at least 15+ times! This of course never happened.

The losses in WW1 were terrible, but we don't need to exaggerate them - whatever the figures they were heavy enough to influence commanders in a war a generation later.

 

Alistair Horne is mentioning 1,315,000 killed French soldiers from the French mainland (so not counting the colonies). Those represented 27 % of male the French population aged 18 to 27.

Cheers,

 

Mmmrrr... Alright...

Andy: Alistair Horne is an excellent writer! His book "The battle of France" is the best war book I have ever read!