by Tom Kando
This is a timely post, as President Biden is in Europe, repairing our ties with our major allies.
The first of these books involves France’s role in America’s war of independence. The second book is about Germany in World War Two and thereafter. The third one is about France and Germany during World Wars One and Two.
I grew up in France, and I remain an inveterate Francophile. France has played a huge role in the history of the Western world during the past two and a half centuries. However, Anglo-Saxon culture - beginning with its language - still dominates the world, and Germany is viewed as the primary European country, certainly in economic terms. For France, there also remains the stain of its prompt defeat by Germany at the outset of World War Two. There are those who enjoy reminding us of this, poking fun at the supposedly cowardly French. An example is Bill Bryson, who wrote in his otherwise delightful travel book, “Let’s face it, the French Army couldn’t beat a girls hockey team.” And of course, we are often reminded how indebted France is to the US for liberating it from the Nazis in 1944-45.
While the latter is certainly very true, Sarah Vowell’s book about Lafayette is a useful reminder that America’s generous and heroic help in both World Wars can be counted as a payback for France’s assistance during the revolutionary war.
The Marquis de Lafayette served in the Continental Army under George Washington, and French forces assisted the American revolutionary effort on several other occasions. The decisive fight of that war was the Battle of the Chesapeake in 1781. This was a naval battle between Britain and France on September 5. The latter country, assisting the US, won, and thereby set the stage for the siege of Yorktown and the final British surrender under general Cornwallis on October 17. These battles involved 9,000 American land forces, 9,000 French land forces, and 28,000 French naval forces. Would America have achieved independence without French help?
Sadly for the French monarchy, the help provided to America contributed to France going bankrupt, which in turn led to the French revolution and to the guillotine for thousands of Frenchmen, including Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette.
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And then there is the perennial myth that the French are cowards, etc. (See Bill Bryson quote, above). It is true that the French were very demoralized in 1939 and did not put up much of a resistance to Hitler’s invasion. No country is immune to demoralization. It happened to the US during and after Vietnam. However, remember that no country fought as hard as France did in order to achieve victory in World War One. While Britain and the US provided invaluable support, the bulk of the heavy lifting on the Western front was done by the French. 1.4 million french soldiers died and the total number of French military casualties was 6.2 million, or 73% of all its mobilized forces. Only Russia, in the East, had a higher toll. The French nearly single-handedly stopped the Germans at the Battle of the Marne in 1914. This early battle turned the war around, for after it, the two sides remained deadlocked for the following four years.
Of course, America’s entry into World War One in 1917 tipped the balance, and its invasion during World War Two saved France and the rest of Europe. I am just reminding you that although these events occurred a century and a half after the American Revolution, the accounts between the US and France are pretty much even, and that the French can fight as bravely and as effectively as anyone.
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And what about France’s relationship with Germany?
The Steve Berry book mentioned above is a highly entertaining fantasy about Hitler’s henchmen such as Martin Bormann surviving the war in Latin America (as Adolf Eichmann did for real). The previously mentioned book by Kate Quinn is a fascinating fiction about French and English female spies in occupied France during both World Wars One and Two.
We are reminded of events such as the slaughter at Oradour: On June 10, 1944, the SS massacred nearly the entire population of that small French town, in reprisal for suspected resistance activity. Nearly 650 people perished, most of them women and children, burnt to death inside a church.
Between 1870 and 1940, Germany invaded France not once, not twice but three times. Germany’s unrelenting and rabid aggression against France is difficult to forget and to forgive.
However, over the past seventy years, the two countries have become close friends. Together, they represent the core of a peaceful and prosperous European Union. In less than two generations, the Germans have morphed into one of the most peaceful and tolerant people in the world. France, Germany and the US must remain closely allied, as they are three of the world’s essential democracies.
7 comments:
Thanks, Tom, for putting events into their historical perspective. Maybe I can add some random episodes that remain prominent in my mind.
The defeat of France at the onset of WWII was all the more bitter as it stood in contrast to the prolonged and costly battles of WWI: What? So much fighting, so much death and suffering, to see it all wiped away 20 years later!
The reconciliation between France and Germany after WWII was a deliberate action, wanted by those in France who, in spite of it all (The defeat, the occupation, the horrors of concentration camps), realized that the cycle of three wars in 70 years had to be broken. It took statesmanship and vision. The US contributed, with the Marshal plan. I welcomed the paradigm shift though it took me longer to see those bloody wars a tragic failure of our common civilization.
In spite of many occasions where France broke with the US since Victory in Europe, the people of France remain aware and grateful for the crucial US help in bringing WWI to an end and liberating France in 1944-45.
Our differences, chief among which are de Gaulle taking active participation by France out of Nato, and France forcefully opposing the US decision to topple Saddam Hussein (a point made by French Ambassador Dominique de Villepin’s speech at the UN,) have never obliterated that gratitude. (May I remind readers of the statesmanlike reprisal by the US Congress? In response to France not siding with the US against Hussein, Congress renamed French Fries in its cafeteria as Freedom Fries! That is an affront that, Lafayette or no Lafayette, the French (who consider French Fries a Belgium dish and do not call them “French”) will find it difficult to forgive!
Refreshing! The men and women of the French Resistance are often overlooked.
Thanks Tom. I'm going to get those books.
Great column!
Thanks for your comments, guys.
Edric’s comments are instructive - and funny.
Right. Part of France’s ambivalent attitude towards the Anglo-Saxon countries has to do with the fact that it was taken down a peg from a previous era when it could think of itself, in some ways, as “number one,” or at least vie for something like that. For example, there was a time when French was the universal language, the Lingua Franca, the language in which international diplomacy was conducted, etc.
But in reality, France has always had to play second fiddle (or third, or fourth, or whatever), first to British supremacy, thanks to that country’s maritime superiority (Napoleon’s epithet for Britain was “perfidious Albion”), later of course to America. De Gaulle expressed this frustrated national desire for “grandeur,” “glory,” and prominence.
Thankfully, most reasonable people, certainly most Europeans, including most Frenchmen, now realize that those things are a lot of bs, as are chauvinism and the search for national “grandeur.”
As to Iraq, while getting rid of Saddam Hussein made some sense (even though it’s not clear that Iraq is better off now), the weapons of mass destruction charade was quite transparent even then, and opposing the invasion of Iraq made sense to me.
Also, France saw the light and rejoined NATO in 2009.
I’m glad I received this history lesson! The price for freedom has engulfed entire communities to settle feuds. To think that church’s were and to this day are not sacred. What role if any did religion convictions ( Love thy Neighbor as thy self)attempt to dissuade leaders from carrying out war, genocides , egregious atrocities is something to note. Fighting for the right reasons is important. I am glad that authoritarian leaders are taken down ( dismantled) and our social democracy is still intact, although fragile, to keep the spirit of human equality alive!
Great piece Dr. Kando
Gail
Thank you for your thoughts, Gail.
It's interesting that you bring up religion, in connection with wars. It seems to me that religion played a much bigger role (largely negative) in centuries past, for example during the crusades, the Islamic invasions of Europe, the religious wars triggered by the Reformation, etc. By the late eighteenth century and the 19th and 20th centuries (the American Revolution, the Napoleonic wars, the American Civil War, and the two global wars of the 20th century), wars were about nationalism and economic interests...
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