France was once a great country, and the French Revolution spread liberal democratic ideas to the European continent and continued to have an impact on human intellectual civilization. The Declaration of the Rights of Man, promulgated during the French Revolution, and the Civil Code promulgated by Napoleon later, also had a profound impact on the world.
But in 1940 the Germans destroyed the french honor, and France quickly surrendered to the Germans, thus providing a rich joke for the people of the world. Not surprisingly, for a long time, French jokes will still bring joy to the world.
Before World War II, France was known as the "first army in Europe", and napoleon's brilliance still shone on France. So how long will it take for the "First European Army" to go bankrupt? The answer is that it only takes 42 days!
On May 10, 1940, the German army attacked France, and by June 22, France surrendered, and in the whole process of 42 days, France, with a strong army of 3 million troops, actually surrendered... Is that polite?! The audience had just moved to the small bench and took out the melon seeds to watch the play, and he cast! fall! finish! ...... In the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviets held on to a building for two months. Compared with the two, France is immediately dwarfed, how to make people not laugh at it, how to make people not milk?
After the joke, after the milk law, how many people know the reason for the surrender of France?
The direct cause of France's surrender was that the battle could not be fought. The German Blitzkrieg quickly occupied the Paris Basin in northern France, the most important industrial area in France, and once the industrial area fell to France, it was difficult to sustain the war on its own. France is already small in size, and there is no room for maneuver after the fall of important industrial areas. This is very different from the situation in those large countries, the Soviet Union and the anti-Japanese China have a great strategic depth, have a certain degree of room for error, as the enemy occupies more, it also means that the longer the front line, if you can seize the opportunity at this time, you can achieve a reversal.
So at this time, france has only one way to surrender? Of course not, Britain tried to persuade France not to surrender, and the Anglo-French coalition forces could still fight, but they could still retreat to the British island. The French Vichy government is in charge, and they don't want to make such a fish net broken. Moreover, the German side also offered good conditions: the signing of an armistice, not a surrender agreement. France continued to be ruled by the Vichy government, and France could retain its navy and overseas colonies. Germany also promised to return most of its territory to France after the war.
France's surrender to Germany may, to some extent, retaliate against Britain and the United States, which the French have long since distrusted. France was the victorious power in World War I, and one of its greatest aims was to dismember Germany so that it would no longer have a threatening power around it. As a result, britain and the United States joined forces at the Paris Peace Conference to ensure that Germany was not dismembered, and Britain and the United States wanted the European continent to maintain "balance". The French are so angry that they vomit blood, but you are balanced, but my heart is unbalanced! The First World War turned France from a rich and oily country into a poor country, and after the First World War, the French treasury was cleaner than its face, and the industry and agriculture were also severely damaged, and it would be difficult to recover for a while and a half. And Germany's little reparations are far from enough to restore France. Of course the French have a little temper, and I have paid so much for this war, can't you even satisfy me with this "little request"?
After World War I, the United States, in accordance with its previous pledges, would aid Europe and help countries recover. But the main aid of the United States was Germany, so angry that the French spewed out another mouthful of old blood!
Why is it mainly to aid Germany? First, in order to recover the war reparations, then you have to let Germany live, and people have money to pay you reparations, so they have lent a lot of money to Germany and assisted a lot of technology. Second, for the consortiums on Wall Street in the United States, the Germans are not outsiders, but the motherland of the fathers and grandfathers. Third, similar to the British, the United States does not want Europe to be the only french country, so it must also vigorously support Germany.
France felt betrayed by its former allies, and as soon as the war was over, Britain and the United States turned their faces and kissed me to the enemy. When Churchill persuaded the Vichy government not to surrender and carry it with us, a voice immediately sounded in the minds of the French: Are you going to be betrayed by them again? Instead of being sold by them, it is better to sell it myself, selling more and selling less, so that I can carry it in my pocket.
In addition, there is actually an important reason for the surrender of France, which is related to the ** Party. In the 1936 French general election, the ** party became the largest opposition party. The French economy was in decline, and the proletariat and intellectuals alike were looking forward to reviving France with the theory of the Party. The Fear of the Party by the French Vichy government was far greater than that of Nazi Germany, and if it had chosen between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, the French ruling class would not hesitate to choose the latter.
Before the German attack on France, there were rumors in society that the French Party would launch a revolution in Paris and carry out a French version of the "October Revolution", which made the French ruling class very afraid. After the German attack, the signs of revolution seemed to be becoming more and more obvious, and the Vichy government was afraid that there was a war on this side, and there would be a revolution there, and as a result, neither side would be able to gain benefits. So it was better to surrender to Nazi Germany than to let the Party succeed.
France may never have imagined that the surrender would not be as good as imagined, and Germany demanded that France pay the occupation fee, which paid a total of 34 billion marks in the years of occupation, which is equivalent to more than four times the reparations that Germany paid to France after World War I. France also became the granary of Germany, and the grain of France was constantly sent to the front, and as a result, the French themselves did not eat. France also became a large factory workshop in Germany, working overtime to produce weapons and equipment for the German army. Hundreds of thousands of young French people were sent to Germany for hard labour and heavy manual labour. Many women in France became the playthings of the German occupation forces...
This is the fate of being a slave to the country, and you cannot live by your own sins. The Vichy government's little abacus crackled, but it underestimated the evil of the Nazis.