Called the world's first army power, why did France surrender to Germany?

France as a traditional power on the European continent, every time you mention it, people will always think of romantic men and women, advanced technology and a weak army in combat. Whenever people talk about the French army, they tease, "No one occupied Paris before France surrendered." Of course, the French army has not always been weak, after all, in the Anglo-French Hundred Years' War won the British, in the era of Louis XIV continued to expand the territory, in the Napoleonic period is the foot of the British, punching Russia.

Since Napoleon, the French army's combat power has been declining, in the Franco-Prussian War, Paris was not captured, the French army surrendered, during World War II, Paris was also not captured, the French army surrendered. Both wars were surrenders, but the course of the war was different.

The Franco-Prussian War was a hard-fought battle between the German and French armies, and the German army was strong under Bismarck's leadership, so the French army's defeat was justifiable. But France during World War II had three million troops, known as the world's strongest army, and the Maginot Line as a barrier, the result of the German army in a few weeks under the offensive will surrender, why France will lose to Germany?

One, shrouded in France's World War I haze

After the Second Industrial Revolution, Germany's gross industrial product exceeded that of the old British and French capitalist powers, leaping to the top of Europe, and in this situation, Germany's ambitions began to expand. Kaiser Wilhelm II even proclaimed that "Germany's journey is to the stars and the sea", and the imbalance of the political economy of capitalism led to the outbreak of the First World War. Germany started the war in order to acquire colonies that were equal to its economic status.

France, a country bordering Germany and an old enemy for a hundred years, became the biggest battlefield of WWI. As a result of fighting at home, France suffered great damage to industrial production and a large number of buildings, more horrifying France's soldiers in World War I casualties exceeded 1.2 million, which means that a country with a population of only tens of millions of people reduced by more than one million strong labor force, and how many French families experienced the pain of their family members died for their country. Add to this the emergence of many new weapons in WWI that were so destructive that they were able to cause massive casualties in a split second. For example, poison gas, machine guns, howitzers, fighter jets and so on, many French people saw their comrades die horribly under the attack of these weapons, these tragic scenes left a shadow in the minds of that generation of French people, it was a generation of mental trauma, even if France was one of the victors of the First World War, received the largest proportion of war reparations, but also can not be compensated for this battlefield let France's economy backward by ten years.

On the eve of World War I, there was a great deal of war aversion in the French nation, and their fear of war was already deep in their bones. In this situation, the French society was dead, the army also because the French government's focus on economic construction and not pay attention to the weapons and equipment can not be updated, the soldiers' morale is low. When the French people fear war, they have already lost.

Compared to the German people, under Hitler's brainwashing, they were all in high spirits, always ready to avenge their country's death. Germany even turned a blind eye to the regulations of the Versailles Peace Treaty that the army should not be expanded, openly expanding the army, and France, afraid of angering Germany, even chose to put the matter to rest, thinking that they could wreak havoc, and Britain and the United States sold out the territorial sovereignty of Czechoslovakia. At this point in time, the French had already lost psychologically and in terms of morale, because peace is fought, not wimped out. It is no wonder that millions of French troops surrendered to the Germans at the very beginning of the war.

Second, the impact of the economic crisis

The economic crisis that erupted in 1929 swept through the entire capitalist world, although the crisis first broke out in the United States, France was not affected until 1932, but France is still one of the biggest victims of the economic crisis. Under the impact of this economic crisis, France's domestic and foreign markets shrank, a large number of banks failed, enterprises declared bankruptcy, and a large number of workers lost their jobs. The social unemployment rate was as high as 30%, and the crisis caused France's industrial production to regress to the level of 1911. World War I set France's economy back ten years, and the Great Economic Crisis set it back twenty years.

The economic depression brought about political instability, and although the government allocated large sums of money to solve the crisis, it was still a drop in the bucket, and the consequence of the government's inaction was that France reorganized eight cabinet governments in just six years. The economic crisis made the already lack of vitality of the society even more dead, and the whole country became disorganized because of the government's inability to solve the crisis. In contrast to Germany, the Great Economic Crisis provided the perfect opportunity for the rise of fascist forces.

At this time, the ambitious Hitler came to power, and the Nazi Party under his leadership became the number one party in Germany in just a few years. The full name of the Nazi Party was the Socialist German Workers' Party, and the slogans propagated by the Nazis were not only seductive to the German capitalists, but also to the workers at the bottom. So the whole of Germany was united under the propaganda of the Nazis, and morale was high. At this time, Germany was like a tiger licking its own wounds, and at any time it would be counter-attacked by Britain and France.

Hitler is to take advantage of this environment, vigorously develop heavy industry and military industry, and a job expansion into two, in a short period of time to solve the problem of Germany's unemployment rate is too high, the Nazi party also won the hearts and minds of the people in this situation. And that mass production of weapons and equipment, inevitably through the war to digest, the Nazis also need to launch foreign wars to transfer the domestic crisis. At this time Germany is ready for war, and France is still trapped in the quagmire of economic crisis can not be extricated, in the people's morale, France is defeated.

Third, the lack of preparation for war

The so-called "pacifist" ideology in France was seriously widespread, and even for a short period of peace, unconditional obedience to Germany, the implementation of the "appeasement policy", and did not do a good job in response to the German invasion. France tolerated the Nazis again and again, and when the German army crossed the Rhine River and occupied the unarmed areas of the Rhineland, France tolerated it. When Germany annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia, France tolerated it again. Germany thus understood that France's colorfulness, and fully prepared in the mobilization of war, defense production, and army training, etc..

In the face of fully prepared Germany, France did not stop the political struggle, but also did not do a good war warning, the people live in a false peace, but do not know that the head of the fog of war has been shrouded. The French Ministry of Defense is only in the French-German border to build a few hundred kilometers of Maginot line, when the French ruling group's combat concept is still stuck in the World War I period of positional combat, even if France also has a large number of tanks, but will not play the high mobility of tanks, tanks are scattered in the various army divisions, and even decent armored divisions have not been prepared. As a result, they suffered a big loss in front of the German army.

At that time, the German high command had cultivated a group of excellent military generals, for example, there were Manstein, Liszt and Guderian, all of whom were geniuses in armored corps combat, while France was still eating the old capitals of the First World War. The German army, supported by a large number of tanks, made use of the high mobility of the panzer divisions to cross the Maginot Line, of which the French were proud. In just a few weeks, the German panzer divisions crossed the whole of France, forcing the Anglo-French forces to the port of Dunkirk, and except for the 230,000 British troops who were lucky enough to escape, the rest of the French troops were all captured by the Germans, and France, because of the deployment of a large number of troops on the defensive positions, had very few mobile troops, and was difficult to organize effective resistance. France, which had deployed a large number of troops in defensive positions and had very few mobile troops, found it difficult to organize effective resistance, and coupled with the fact that the French Ministry of Defense had not even prepared a decent battle plan, it finally chose to surrender under the rampage of the German army.

In fact, the defeat of France was not a coincidence, but at that time, France was not able to compare with Germany either politically, or militarily, or even in terms of national temperament. Because the political forces were too balanced, the various interest groups tilted against each other, and if the government was not careful, it would be attacked by political opponents, and the political situation was chaotic.

Militarily, the German army has always retained the tradition of militarism, and still has the reputation of "German chariot". Of course, this also has to do with France's extreme individualism, the bloodshed of World War I has made them weigh the war in their hearts, they do not want to repeat the tragedy of World War I. After all, today's French people will not be ashamed of the year's surrender.