Chapter 435: North African Campaign (3)

France's performance in World War II is a joke in the eyes of many military fans, comparable to Italy.

However, before World War I, France was the second largest colonial power after the British Empire. Its colonies are spread across all continents, covering an area of ​​more than 12 million square kilometers. It is no exaggeration to say that in addition to the British Empire, France can also be called the empire on which the sun never sets.

With such a vast colony and guarding such huge interests, the combat effectiveness of the French army is naturally beyond doubt. Since the Napoleonic era, the combat effectiveness of the French army has been very strong. It has been fighting openly and secretly with Britain for hundreds of years, and there have been no stops in major wars and small wars.

In the mid-to-late 19th century, Prussia rose, and France had another enemy, and began to compete with the Germans for the position of European hegemony.

In order to unify Germany, Prussia defeated Denmark and Austria in 1864 and 1866 respectively, but France still manipulated the southern German states behind the scenes in an attempt to hinder the unification of Germany.

On July 14, 1870, Prussian Prime Minister Bismarck issued a provocative "Ems Telegram" on the issue of succession to the Spanish throne, which angered the French government. On July 19, France declared war on Prussia, but after the war began, the French army was defeated one after another. On September 2, French Emperor Napoleon III personally led nearly 100,000 French troops to surrender in Sedan. On September 4, a revolution broke out in Paris, the French bourgeoisie established the French Third Republic, and the Second French Empire perished.

But the Prussian army still marched straight in. On January 18, 1871, Prussian King William I was crowned emperor in the Palace of Versailles in France and established the German Empire. The French bourgeois government requested an armistice. On February 26, the two sides signed a preliminary peace treaty in Versailles, France. On May 10, a formal peace treaty was signed in Frankfurt.

France lost miserably in the Franco-Prussian War, but the French were still unconvinced and continued to fight with the Germans. They learned the lesson of the Franco-Prussian War, reconciled with the British, and dragged the British to fight against Germany, holding back their efforts to kill Germany.

Soon after the outbreak of World War I, the French took the lead and fought extremely bravely, and finally joined forces with the British to defeat the Germans. The performance of the French army in this battle was so brave that it was almost comparable to the French army during the Napoleonic era.

As a result, after experiencing a tragic war, the French, as a victorious country, became timid. They were no longer as warlike as before the war, nor were they as unyielding as before the war. They actually became turtles.

In fact, this is understandable. Before World War I, France was a world-famous usury country with a full treasury (after the Franco-Prussian War, France paid Germany a war reparation of 5 billion gold francs; equivalent to France's 14 years of military expenditure and 1 year's total exports. The French government issued national bonds three times to the whole country, and raised 45 billion gold francs, equivalent to 9 times the reparations!!), and the national strength was strong.

As a result, the tragic war not only emptied the French treasury, but also made the French owe a lot of debts (they owed the United States $9.1 billion and the United Kingdom $300 million. Due to the fall of the Tsarist Russian government, the hundreds of billions of francs of debt owed by the Tsarist Russia to France became a bubble, because the Soviet Union did not recognize this debt at all, which made the French economy worse, and the fiscal deficit in 1918 was as high as 18 billion francs).

In order to raise money, France even went so far as to offend Britain and the United States to send troops to the Ruhr to collect debts from the Germans. However, such a reckless move caused France to be isolated not only politically, but also economically. The net profit from its plunder from the Ruhr was only 500 million francs, excluding the cost of the occupation army. The occupation of the Ruhr caused Germany to stop paying compensation, and France's share of the total compensation was more than half, which in turn seriously damaged its financial credit; it was simply not worth the loss.

The second is that France lost a whole generation in the war. 50,000 French soldiers died and more than 2.8 million were disabled in the war, turning France from one of the most populous countries in Europe into a "widow country".

Wartime production and frontline service led to a loss of 50,000 working people and a total of more than 5 million casualties. Due to the shortage of labor, France's industrial production and economic development were seriously affected, and even conscription became a problem.

Finally, due to the economic depression and the decline of people's livelihood, France's domestic contradictions were rampant, which triggered continuous domestic turmoil, slowed down France's development, and caused France to slide from the world's first-class echelon to the quasi-first-class, and fell to the same level as Italy.

In this way, the losses of World War I made the French full of fear of war. It's not that the French don't want to be timid, the French also want to be high-profile, but their strength does not allow it.

Although France is still known as the world's number one land power, in fact, most of the huge army is patchwork, either farmers or retired, and some have not received decent training. Although the French have strong industrial production capacity, the start-up rate is seriously insufficient, and the industrial output value is less than one-third of Germany. Although the French look strong, they are actually strong outside and weak inside, and have been living on their old capital.

When World War II broke out, the French quickly showed their true colors and were defeated by the Germans in one round, and they remained idle until the end of World War II. Fortunately, Charles de Gaulle and others fled overseas to join the British and American forces, allowing the French to win without much effort and become the victorious country directly. France may be the first player to win by idling in a five-person game.

However, Germany only occupied France's homeland in Europe. Outside of Europe, France also has colonies of more than 12 million square kilometers. These colonies are distributed all over the world, such as the French African colonies in West Africa and North Africa, the Indochina colony in Indochina, and French Guiana in America.

After France surrendered, France was divided into two by Germany, and 60% of the country, including the capital Paris, was directly occupied by Germany. The southern 40% of the territory was ruled by Vichy France headed by French Marshal Pétain. Of course, this so-called Vichy government was actually a puppet regime of Germany.

Although in theory, France's large overseas colonies should be under the jurisdiction of Vichy France. But in fact, with only 100,000 troops and directly subject to the Vichy government of Germany, it did not have the ability and strength to continue to control France's large overseas colonies.

Naturally, countries began to covet France's rich colonies, so many countries, including the Allies, began to attack French colonies. For example, Britain successively occupied Syria, Lebanon and other regions in the Middle East with the cooperation of Charles de Gaulle's Free France, and Madagascar, the largest island in Africa, was also occupied by Britain.

Between August and November 1940, France's large colonies in Africa, such as Chad, Congo, Cameroon, Ubangi, Gabon and other places, successively joined Free France. Prior to this, the French colonies occupied by Britain, such as Syria, Lebanon, North Africa, etc., were also placed under the leadership of Charles de Gaulle.

Therefore, after the surrender of France during World War II, the French colonies were divided into two parts. One part was in the hands of the Allies including Free France, which was also the largest part in terms of area, and the other part was still under the rule of Vichy France.