In historical circles and military circles, there is a terrier called the daily milk (humiliation) method. This is because many people think that the combat effectiveness of the French army is weak, so they often joke about the combat effectiveness of the French army. In historical and military circles, the impression of the French army being weak is almost on par with Italy. In the Hundred Years' War between Britain and France, France almost suffered the disaster of national subjugation; in the Franco-Prussian War, Emperor Napoleon III led 100,000 French troops to surrender to the Prussians; in the Second World War, France resisted for only 39 days before surrendering to Nazi Germany; and the war to suppress the independence movements in Vietnam, Algeria and other places after World War II also ended in France's defeat.
If we only look at France's above performances, we may conclude that France is a weak chicken, but France, which seems to be a weak chicken, also has another side: France is now one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council politically; it is the seventh largest economic power in more than two hundred countries and regions in the world after the United States, China, Japan, Germany, India, and the United Kingdom; and in military terms, France, as one of the nine nuclear countries in the world, is second only to the three military powers of the United States, China, and Russia. The military prowess of Britain, another permanent member of the UN Security Council, is no match for military might.
It is difficult to find a second country that can combine strength and weakness in such a way as to france. France does seem weak in some ways, but in some ways it seems strong enough. It is well known that the United States deploys a large number of overseas military bases and troops stationed abroad around the world. Europe was at the forefront of the confrontation between the two superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and the base groups in Europe are still an important support for maintaining the military hegemony of the United States in the world. At present, the United States has a total of about 115,000 troops stationed in Europe, accounting for more than one-third of all overseas troops.
Today, Belgium, Germany, Britain, Poland, Spain, Portugal and other European countries have certain US troops, but France, as a European power, does not have a US military presence. In fact, before 1967, there were American troops in France: France was at the center of NATO's first and second lines of defense. Because of France's strategic position, NATO headquarters were located in Paris, the capital of France. At that time, there were not only American troops and US military bases in France, but also a large number of US troops stationed in France at that time.
France is a people with a strong sense of national pride. France has a proud history: France has long played the role of the continent's first power, and even the British Empire, which dominated the world, rose in a long battle with France. Taking human progress as the ladder, scientific reason as the weapon, social justice, freedom and tolerance as the space, the French nation opposes privilege, despotism, ignorance and superstition, and contributes to the world Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau and other pioneers of the Enlightenment, as well as world-class literary heroes such as Hugo, Flaubert and Balzac.
In the eyes of the French, Louis XIV's France is as high a peak in human history as Greece in the time of Pericles, Rome in the time of Augustus, and Italy in the Renaissance. The French were passionate about telling the story of the battle between the Gallic warriors and Rome, telling the story of joan of Arc's battle with the English, telling the glory of the era of Louis XIV and Napoleon. French became the lingua franca of the European court aristocracy in the 17th century. Louis XIV's France established itself as the hegemon of Europe from 1680 onwards by waging the Wars of Heritage, the Franco-Dutch Wars, and the Grand Allied Wars.
By the time of Napoleon, the French army swept through almost all of Europe, and even after Napoleon's defeat, France was still the number one power on the European continent. France's position as the hegemon of Europe did not end until after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. France's position as the hegemon of Europe did not end until after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The daily milk method is mainly due to the French expression in the Franco-Prussian War and world war II. France's performance in the Second World War is well known to be uncomplaining.
In May 1940, the German army began to sweep through the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and other countries in the form of blitzkrieg, bypassing the French heavily fortified Maginot Line and invading France, resulting in France surrendering to Germany just a month later. Although the "Free France" led by de Gaulle later led the French people in a series of underground struggles against Nazi Germany, France's contribution throughout World War II was relatively limited compared to that of the United States, the Soviet Union, China, and Britain. The Allied campaign of the Normandy landings was key to the liberation of France.
It was not until 25 August 1944 that de Gaulle returned to Paris against the background of the Allied counteroffensive. It is precisely because France's liberation depends on the strength of the Allies, so France was actually a little weak at the beginning of liberation. The post-war world pattern was dominated by the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom, while France basically did not have much say. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had no intention of making France a permanent member of the UN Security Council at first, but only later agreed to make France a permanent member of the UN Security Council under Churchill's persuasion.
It can be seen that France's permanent seat on the UN Security Council is actually a handout given to France by the United States and Britain. In the period immediately after the end of World War II, France's international voice was actually relatively small, but the French were quite dissatisfied with their situation at that time. The French viewed Americans as if they were an old aristocrat in decline: France was a great power with a glorious history, and even the American War of Independence was won with the support of France.
Although the old aristocracy of France has declined, the pride cultivated in the bones will not be easily consumed, so the United States, a new country that has been established for less than two hundred years, is just an upstart in the eyes of France. De Gaulle repeatedly instilled in his people the idea that if France is not great, then it will not be France." On April 4, 1949, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal, Denmark, Norway and Iceland signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington.
In the organizational framework of NATO, the United States has the final say, and the United Kingdom, which is closely related to the United States, also has a certain right to speak, but France basically belongs to the role of the sideline. Of course, de Gaulle did not approve of this – de Gaulle always insisted that NATO should be dominated by Britain, France and the United States. Because the United States and Britain have always been reluctant to give up power to France, France has been dissatisfied with the United States, Britain and NATO. In fact, the United States not only despised France, but even joined forces with the Soviet Union to trip France up.
On October 31, 1956, Britain and France mobilized more than 100 ships and more than 200 aircraft to bomb Egypt indiscriminately. Britain and France are praying mantis catching cicadas, but they do not know that there are already yellow finches behind them: the Soviet Union, as the big brother of the socialist camp, naturally wants to see the decline of Britain and France, the two old colonial countries, but the United States, which has allies with Britain and France, is actually also happy to see the decline of Britain and France at this time. Only by further weakening the two old hegemons of Britain and France can the United States truly build an international order dominated by itself.
In the 1960s, the United States encouraged the independence of the Asian, African and Latin American colonies under the banner of anti-colonialism: the United States lost no time in the process of independence of French colonies such as Vietnam and Algeria. France has long considered itself a world-class power, how can it tolerate what it sees as an upstart riding on its head? France and the United States gradually formed a complex relationship: on the one hand, France is a member of the US alliance system, on the other hand, France can be said to have the strongest sense of independence among all US allies.
On the whole, the interests between the United States and France far outweigh the differences, there is no structural and fundamental contradiction in the relations between the two countries, and the views of the two countries cannot be said to be completely consistent on most international issues, but at least they are close, but France is indeed not as highly following the United States as Britain, Japan, Canada and other countries. After World War II, France was looking for a way to maximize its voice outside the Poles of the United States and the Soviet Union at that time. The solution that France has come up with is to join forces with other European countries to strengthen its international voice.
The Compendium of the French State, written by Alexander Kojève, a consultant to Charles de Gaulle in 1945, pointed out that with the change of the technological environment, especially the size of the economy, the single nation-state has become "not large enough", and only those "empires" composed of a number of member nation-states can occupy a place on the international stage. Alexander Kojève envisioned a "Latin Empire" of France and Spain, Italy, and french colonies: a "Latin Empire" that would have a unified armament, an integrated economy, and a similar conception, thus becoming the third pole independent of the United States and the Soviet Union.
At the same time, Kojève also recognized the importance of Germany— he believed that France must rely on German power to achieve a game with the United States and the Soviet Union, and at the same time must avoid the conquest of germany again, so he proposed the idea of a "coal and steel joint venture": Germany exported coal to France in exchange for the finished steel needed for construction, and France regulated Germany's revival through control of Germany's strategic resources so that it would not threaten its own security. Alexander Kojève's idea of a "coal-steel consortium" was the prototype of the european coal-steel consortium (ECSC) in the future.
The collapse of the post-war colonial system forced France to transform the "Latin Empire" into the "European Union." After World War II, no European country has the strength to play a game with the United States and the Soviet Union, and the only way is to strengthen its voice in international affairs by hugging and warming. On 18 April 1951, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg signed the European Coal and Steel Joint Venture Treaty in Paris under the Schumann Plan: it was decided to establish a coal and steel common market. The Treaty entered into force on 25 July 1952.
On March 25, 1957, the six countries signed the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community and the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community (collectively known as the Treaty of Rome) in Rome. The entry into force of the Treaty on 1 January 1958 marked the birth of the European Community, the predecessor of the European Union. France has been an advocate of the European integration process for many years: France designed the original blueprint for the European Community as the predecessor of the European Union, and was one of the first six member states of the European Union, and France is still the dominant country in the EU system. After World War II, De Gaulle's european integration program even included that of the Soviet Union.
The Europe in de Gaulle's mind is the Geographical Concept of Europe, the whole region from the Atlantic Ocean to the Urals. In 1944 de Gaulle and Stalin also signed the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance and Alliance. France did this, of course, to offset the influence of the United States in Europe, thereby strengthening its voice in European and even international affairs. The establishment of diplomatic relations between France and New China in 1964 was also based on the motivation to offset the influence of the United States in international affairs. All this shows that France, a great country with a glorious history, is not willing to live under the people for a long time.
At that time, NATO was a U.S.-led defense coordination organization: the Americans served as the supreme commander of NATO's allies. The Allied commander can command all NATO forces stationed in Europe, so the United States has taken NATO's military power into its own hands. France, which was on the front lines of resistance against the Soviet Union, actively cooperated with NATO's deployment: not only providing NATO with a large number of military forces, but also providing multiple military bases and strategic ports. However, at this time, France was only temporarily dormant, and once the right time was right, it would once again pursue its great power status.
In 1962, in order to force Britain and France to abandon their independent nuclear programs, Kennedy threw out a "multilateral nuclear force" that was nominally subordinate to NATO but was actually controlled by the United States. If this plan can be implemented, then the Nuclear Button of Britain and France will be in the hands of the United States. De Gaulle realized that once France joined the program, it would be transformed from a country with an independent nuclear weapons system into a missile launch base for the United States, so France explicitly refused to join the program led by the United States.
In the More than 30 billion francs of the Military Equipment Program Act, introduced by the French government in June 1962, more than 6 billion francs were used to establish a nuclear deterrent. France soon built missiles made of land-based missiles. A trinity of independent nuclear forces composed of submarine missiles and nuclear missiles carried by aircraft. On August 24, 1968, France suspended a 3-ton device from a balloon and detonated it at an altitude of 600 meters, producing an explosion with a power of 2.6 million tons of TNT equivalent. On September 8, shortly after the test, France exploded a 1.2 million-ton hydrogen bomb on the island of Mururowa in the South Pacific.
The United States stationed troops in Europe not only to contain the Soviet Union and later Russia, but also to control the European countries in their own dominant system, so the european and American troops are a double-edged sword for European countries: on the one hand, it protects European countries; on the other hand, it restricts the independent development of European countries. France, which has long been aware of this, has been committed to achieving group warmth through European integration for many years, while the presence of U.S. and NATO troops in their own territories is not conducive to their own independent development.
Beginning in 1959, France decided to gradually withdraw its troops from NATO member states, while demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops, as well as NATO institutions and troops, from France. In March 1966, France announced its withdrawal from the NATO Military Integration Organization. The so-called "NATO Military Integration Organization" is a military integration organization that conducts unified command, military training, and military exercises, jointly formulates strategic plans, implements unified weapons, equipment, and standards, and establishes corresponding military bases and logistics facilities for the armed forces of NATO member states. This institution is equivalent to the general headquarters of the armies of European countries.
The existence of this institution ensured that the United States could remotely control the military forces of European countries. After France withdrew from the "NATO Military Integration Organization", the organization was no longer the "headquarters" of the French army, so the French army no longer had to be under the command of NATO, and the French army naturally got rid of the influence of the United States. Now some articles on the Internet say that France withdrew from NATO at that time. In fact, this is a wrong statement: NATO is a political and military organization, France has only withdrawn from the NATO military integration organization, but France still participates in NATO activities as a NATO member.
However, the French army is no longer under the command of NATO's "General Command", but participates in NATO activities in a completely independent and autonomous capacity. France's withdrawal from NATO's military integration organization has withdrawn its troops from other NATO countries. Now that France has withdrawn from NATO's military integration organization, there is no need to continue to fulfill its defense obligations for NATO. On 21 January 1966, after France withdrew all its troops from NATO member states, de Gaulle held a press conference at the Elysée Palace and announced that France would henceforth be responsible for its own national defense.
In 1967, all U.S. and NATO troops were expelled from France. At the same time, NATO institutions and NATO headquarters were moved from Paris to Brussels, Belgium. After the withdrawal of US troops and NATO from France, de Gaulle built an independent security defense system and military industry according to France's own actual situation, and established an independent army and military command system. The french presidents who succeeded him after de Gaulle's ouster have followed this line of thinking. Since then, France has only sent liaison officers to NATO meetings, and whether the French army participates in NATO operations is entirely up to itself.
After World War II, European countries, including France, generally declined, and the United States and the Soviet Union became two superpowers dominating the world. The United States and the Soviet Union began a full-scale competition in the field of geopolitics for Europe. The geopolitical expansion of the Soviet Union in Europe put great pressure on the capitalist world: Britain, France and other countries, which had suffered heavy losses in World War II, were economically depressed and militarily empty, so they could no longer compete with the Soviet Union by the power of a single country. In order to promote the post-war revival of Britain, France and other Western European countries, the United States proposed the "European Revival Plan".
In the process, Britain, France, West Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and other countries have received a lot of aid from the United States. Of these, France received a total of about $2.296 billion in U.S. aid, second only to Britain among all countries that received U.S. aid. After receiving U.S. aid, France withdrew from the U.S.-led NATO military integration organization. The United States, which was reluctant to do so, also took a series of retaliatory measures, but these retaliatory measures were not enough to make France hurt.
France is, after all, a traditional continental power. Although France's performance in World War II was quite bad, it was precisely because of France's surrender that it prevented the war from burning in France. France's pre-war industrial base was thus relatively intact, so France's strength recovered most rapidly after the war. In the early post-war period, France still maintained a large colony in the world after Britain. France's industrial prowess, supported by an overseas colonial system, gave it a pivotal role in the Cold War landscape of the time.
In fact, both the United States and the Soviet Union were trying to win over France. Although France belonged to the Western capitalist camp during the Cold War, it also developed relations with socialist countries such as China and the Soviet Union for reasons of checks and balances on the United States. France could not really fall to the Soviet side, of course, but it has always cooperated with the Soviet Union on some specific matters. Of course, the United States was unwilling to push such a weighty power as France to the side of the Soviet Union, so the United States, seeing that its opposition was invalid, had no choice but to withdraw its US troops in France as France wished.
It was not until 2009 that the French parliament passed the decision to return to the NATO military integration agency, but France has long been accustomed to acting without looking at the face of the United States, so France that returns to the NATO military integration organization still has considerable military autonomy. Today, France is not only one of the few European powers that does not have A.S. troops, but it also proposes that European countries establish a European army independent of NATO. France's grand complex makes it one of the most maverick of all U.S. allies.