Wars and ConflictsÌý permalink
The cowardly French
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Message 1.Ìý
Posted by stalti (U14278018) on Friday, 16th September 2011
we have actually done this before - about 4 years ago
i have reinstated it after a conversation at work when i said something (not sure about what) and the answer was "Those cowardly french ------"
now i actually dont like the french (who does - we have been brought up to dislike them lol) - but when have they ever been cowards
agincourt waterloo malplaquet blenheim etc etc
we all know about our victories - we dont know about their victories (they won the 100 years war)
but they have never been cowards - the oft quoted phrase "The french surrender monkeys" is a well worn phrase
they have never been cowards tho - they are a warrior race - as we think we are ourselves
wher do we get the cowards bit from
st -
Message 2
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Friday, 16th September 2011
Good question stalti.
What's even stranger is that the term 'cheese-eating surrender monkeys' seems to be even more prevalent in the US than in the UK. The reason why this is strange is that the only time in history I can think of in which the French surrendered when the UK did not was in 1940 at the beginning of the Second World War. Yet this was more than a year before the US even entered the war. It's all very odd indeed. -
Message 3
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Saturday, 17th September 2011
Just last week I read something talking of the great courage of the French in some conflict. Unfortunately I can't remember what it was, but I noticed it because there is this odd reputation the French have for cowardliness. [Personally I don't see what is so wrong with being cowardly in many circumstances anyway. Gung-ho bravery often ends in the deaths of lots more people than might have been the case.] Heroism is lovely to read about but if most people were cowards we might have fewer wars and conflicts.
Cheers, Caro. -
Message 4
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Saturday, 17th September 2011
There's no real difficulty in understanding why "cheese-eating surrender
monkeys" is so prevalent in the USA. Having originated in "The Simpsons", oddly from a Scottish character given we don't have the traditional antipathy to the French, it was popularised in the late 1990s by Jonah Goldberg in the National Review in an anti French rant. When France declined to join G W's little Iraqi adventure it became really popular. -
Message 5
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Saturday, 17th September 2011
I agree that the stereotype was reinforced during the George W Bush years, when the French refused to participate in the attack on Iraq. This resulted in rabid neo-conservative attacks on the French, culminating in the utterly ridiculous decision that in the restaurant of the US Congress, French Fries would hence forth be known as "Freedom Fries". The Simpsons' attack on the French was of course a parody of this, if any parody was still necessary at all.
However, the tension between US and French politicians well predates that. During WWII, the FDR administration was extremely wary of de Gaulle and his Free French movement, regarding this as a potential dictatorship in the making. (To some extent this probably reflected the good relations between "official" France and the USA, which were built during WWI.) The friction continued after WWII, with French resentment of what they regarded as an Anglo-American relationship that threatened to reduce France to a nation of secondary importance. That resulted in the French decision, in 1958, to pull out of NATO, and expel its headquarters and bases from France.
This was deeply resented by American politicians who felt that this was ungrateful -- especially when they were required to give up their military bases in France. Allegedly the US ambassador asked whether the French wanted US war graves removed as well... While the French remained an ally, and signed military planning agreements, they rejected the concept of an US leadership of the "free world." French pursuit of its own independent nuclear force didn't help the relationship much. (Although Britain, after the USA had outrageously flouted wartime agreements on nuclear cooperation, did exactly the same, special relationship or not.) Some of these hurt feelings seems to have re-emerged in 2001, with the recurring theme of US politicians claiming global leadership, as the "only remaining superpower", and the French strongly rejecting that claim.
Perhaps in US military circles there is also a remaining resentment in the wake of the Vietnam war, where the USA went in where the French had decided to leave -- and against French advice -- and paid a heavy price for it. The French decision to leave Indochina would then consist a second French "surrender", after that of 1940.
In some ways, the French may have profited from the stereotype. The portrayal of the French as wishy-washy pacifists by the English-speaking media has thrown a veil of obscurity over what is actually a traditionally interventionist foreign policy, which resorts to brute force often enough. They have, for example, been very active in the recent operations in Libya, and apart from the traditional national interests this may have been because Gadaffi was an old enemy -- French forces fought the Libyans in the 1980s in Chad. -
Message 6
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Saturday, 17th September 2011
This is a topic that has meant a great deal to me personally- born in 1944 and growing up with tales of "Finest Hours" by British people from around the world andof France falling apart. in 1940.
But French people over the years have pointed out kindly that the "English" live on an island- and have been able to make it some kind of fortress (in spite of our neighbours).. To which I usually responded that it seems that the Anglo-Saxons targetted the island where there was little here but the prospect of getting on with a lot of work in peace-- all the better if we learned to "stick together".. But the Franks were one of those barbarian groups that was attracted by the glittering prizes and ll the wealth of the Mediterranean Civilization.
Well. We all have got to live somewhere, however. Not everyone can fit into England and, in spite of being better placed in terms of "Natural Frontiers" than most places, France has never been able to achieve true fortress capacity..
Indeed, whereas the Kingdom of England had some real coherence by the end of the tenth century at least- with the remit, rights and duties of the King pretty well established by the time of King Edward's Coronation Oath- that all English monarchs have sworn since, France really did not achieve anything like that status until the end of the Hundred Years' War.
In part this is because France is just so much bigger in total and and in part because its countryside tends to dwarf the human dimension. So each region can feel like a separate country- still.
In his "Principles of Political and Social Theory" in 1951, Professor Ernest Barker contrasted Societies, which are things bound togeher by voluntary action, and States that operate by coercion and compulsion. He went on to speculate that a Society and some sense of "sticking together" must exist before a State can be created.. This is consistent with English history, but not with French..
The greatest epoch of the French Middle Ages was the reign of Saint Louis, and that set the benchmark for the French people of what a monarch should be like.. Very few Kings in history, however, have been genuine saints. So subsequent French monarchs were entitled to the loyalty and devotion of the French people in the same measure to which they could be compared to Saint Louis - and very few could.. So the French as individuals, families and groups learned to be "a law unto themselves"- in contrast to the English who got into the habit of feeling that as long as "every man this day shall do his duty" and we all stick together, we will stand a goodchance of winning through.
Charles de Gaulle apparently always insisted that the British would have acted just like the French had we been confronted with the same kind of Blitzkrieg here..
But discussing with French people, we could agree that this German invasion was the third in scarcely more than a lifetime. 1870-1, 1914-18 and 1940-44. And even De Gaulle himself after the First World War, on the basis of that experience and a post-war spell as a military adviser in Poland, had contrasted in the late 1920's the loss of the martial spirit in France compared to the way that Polish peasants had risen up to defeat the Red Army.
I am not convinced that the British people faced with a first German invasion would not have acted differently to the French facing a third.
But to cut to the end of a personal story that has lasted for 45 years- this summer I think I finally achieved an understanding of what France is all about.
In July this year I watched a programme on French TV about French Jews in the Thirties and what happened to them under the German Occupation.. Like many treatments of history, it was a great deal about what happened at a political level. In the news 'stuff'.
But after the documentary there was a discussion between some historians and 'savants' , who explained that there have been three phases of French history since 1945.. The first told the story of the heroes in order to restore French pride in the military struggle against the Nazis. Then when Germany was rehabilitated and a partner in Europe, German archives revealed the full shame of French collaboration with the Nazis.
Over the last few decades, however, really in depth research as to just what individuals, families, communes and communities did during those years when they reverted to being "laws unto themselves" has shown a very different picture.
Faced with the horror of the Final Solution French people at all levels and quite independently and autonomously decided that this was not something that they would allow to happen in a Civilized and Cultured country. Perhaps millions of people were thus involved in doing whatever they could to make sure that the Jews were sheltered. And they were largely responsible for the fact that something like two-thirds of all the French Jews survived the war.. Not many countries in Nazi Europe could say that.
Respect.
Cass -
Message 7
Posted by stalti (U14278018) on Saturday, 17th September 2011
when the phoney war was over the british and french armies were destroyed by the blitzkrieg - we escaped - the french were then destroyed piecemeal
if there had been a land bridge between france and gb - we would also have been destroyed and probably have been involved in collaberation - what choice would u have
this is one of the points put forward to prove the frnch were cowrds
dien bien phu was an awesome illustration of french couragege - when the us took over they did no better
in all the conflicts we have had with the french - they have fought valiantly and they have had as many wins as we have
but we still look down on them
just reading sharpes battle about the sige of almeida and the battle of ?????? - they didnt do too bad there - no cowardice
st -
Message 8
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Saturday, 17th September 2011
Apparently the name "Franks" comes from the Greek for "the ferocious ones": and I am not sure that I am familiar with any idea that the french are or have been cowards.. more that they often lack unity and fight amongst themselves..
One of the interesting things this summer driving through France was French drivers seem to have reacted to a much harsher policing of road speeds by flashing warning signals at oncoming traffic heading for a Police speed "trap".. If the government are going to resort to entrapment the French people (or some of them) will undermine the attempt... Even though I seem to remember one driver was actually prosecuted for impeding the police in the pursuit of their duties.
France has also had quite a suicide culture..explored by all those plays by Jean Anouilh.. Traditionally the suicide rate goes up in the lower Rhone valley when the Mistral just gets too hard to bear. Suicide takes a kind of courage. Obeying logic and reason.
But actually lots of the French army was not "destroyed piecemeal " in 1940. Many units surrendered without firing a shot and marched along the opposite side of the road to advancing Germans having thrown down their weapons. When I read Henri Amouroux in 2004 I wept for France. There were even prisoner of war camps with open back doors from which the soldiers sent mates to go to the local shops to get bottles of drink etc before coming back into prison. And of course the French Communists obeyed orders from Moscow and felt bound by the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. Once Hitler attacked the USSR they became very active in the Resistance.
I have some notes if you would like more details about that "shame" version from c1977.
Cass -
Message 9
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Saturday, 17th September 2011
If the government are going to resort to entrapment the French people (or some of them) will undermine the attempt... Even though I seem to remember one driver was actually prosecuted for impeding the police in the pursuit of their duties.Ìý
That is what NZers do and this week someone was arrested for that. People here think that speed cameras are revenue-gathering rather than for safety reasons, so the use of them is controversial, especially since they are generally hidden here. It is a little confusing for NZs in Britain at first to realise flashing lights there means 'I am letting you come through'.
But here, if a car flashes its lights at you in the daytime, then it means there is a traffic cop ahead. Or possibly it is just someone trying to slow traffic!
Cheers, Caro. -
Message 10
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Saturday, 17th September 2011
Mutatis Mutandis,
"However, the tension between US and French politicians well predates that. During WWII, the FDR administration was extremely wary of de Gaulle and his Free French movement, regarding this as a potential dictatorship in the making. (To some extent this probably reflected the good relations between "official" France and the USA, which were built during WWI.)"
In 2002 I saw a documentary from the BBc about the difficult relationship.
In fact I saw two times this documentary. Did a lot of research to find the DVD but butted always at the amazon book. Found now I suppose the DVD at the end:
During days long researchs for a French messageboard I discussed nearly every item of this documentary among others for instance the Darlan murder. And in all this I didn't found one single subject that was not in concordance with what was said in this documentary.
Kind regards and with esteem,
Paul. -
Message 11
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Saturday, 17th September 2011
Many years ago, if an AA Patrolman failed to salute a vehicle bearing an AA badge, that meant "speed trap ahead" - plus ca change ...
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Message 12
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Saturday, 17th September 2011
Headlight flashing to warn of a speed trap, the police usually hiding behind a bush with a radar gun, used to be very common here as well but seems to have disappeared since the installation of cameras. I wonder if it's a case of cameras having the road markings to warn drivers so it's become more of an individual responsibility to look out for them whereas the concealed trap was somehow seen as being underhand and unfair and so drivers felt a certain solidarity in trying to outwit them.
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Message 13
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Saturday, 17th September 2011
Perhaps in US military circles there is also a remaining resentment in the wake of the Vietnam war, where the USA went in where the French had decided to leave -- and against French advice -- and paid a heavy price for it. The French decision to leave Indochina would then consist a second French "surrender", after that of 1940.Ìý
Interesting point - and there's probably something in that. It could well be the case that the US officer corps in Vietnam were still under the illusion that the US had until then 'never lost a war' and consequently prided themselves that the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu therefore couldn't possibly happen to them. And as the old saying goes pride often comes before a fall. -
Message 14
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Saturday, 17th September 2011
Cass,
if I remember it well is Henri Amouroux severely criticised by French historians for his not honest and pro- Pétain stances. Of course is he the "hero" of the French Pétainists, who have still today a large faction of defenders. He seems for instance to have defended recently Papon. I remember some discussions were he was certainly not "historical" in his "outings". Quite another man as for instance a "real" historian" as a Marc Ferro.
Will do tomorrow some more research to prove my above paragraph.
Kind regards and with esteem,
Paul. -
Message 15
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Saturday, 17th September 2011
Paul
Well the volume I have "Quarante Millions de Petainiste" reads to me like a dire expose of a France in which most people failed .. Perhaps this does not suit those who like to have scape-goats.
Cass -
Message 16
Posted by stanilic (U2347429) on Sunday, 18th September 2011
`warrior race'..................oh, please not!
Sometimes it makes sense to allow the enemy to roll over so you can then come up behind them.
Neither France nor Britain was ready for war in 1940, let alone 1939.
My late father spent some time in Occupied France on behalf of the British government and other parties on several occasions between 1941 and 1943. He found the French either fearful or angry: states of mind he admitted to as well.
In the end with help the French nation rose to the occasion from a terrible defeat. We should salute that courage and not dwell on the fellow travellers of the Nazis.
In Dad's mind the Second World War was fought against the Nazis not the Germans. Every country had its Nazis, including Britain. The British managed to put their's in prison, others weren't so lucky. -
Message 17
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Sunday, 18th September 2011
But actually lots of the French army was not "destroyed piecemeal " in 1940. Many units surrendered without firing a shot and marched along the opposite side of the road to advancing Germans having thrown down their weapons.Ìý
That needs to be very, very heavily qualified. Something like this did indeed happen, in the short period between 17 and 22 June 1940. On 17 June, Petain, who had just been made prime minister, made the stupid mistake to go on the radio and announce to the nation that "it is necessary to cease fighting". This was widely interpreted as an instruction to lay down arms; mistakenly so as an armistice had not yet been signed. Only the previous night, the new government had asked to Spanish ambassador to act as an intermediary with the German government to seek terms. But armed resistance immediately collapsed. German units also profited from the confusion to induce their opponents to surrender.
The French government then spread a slightly modified version of the speech, in which is tried to clarify that it had concluded that it was necessary to /try/ to cease the fighting, but this was entirely pointless. In any case, it was hard to motivate soldiers to fight and die, when a marshal of France and prime minister had just publicly announced that the war was lost. The new government did not bother much. Giving priority to reducing casualties, it declared on the next day that all cities larger than 20,000 inhabitants were open cities and would not be defended. Civilians became openly hostile to soldiers who wanted to fight on nevertheless.
But between the defeat in the northwest, which sealed the fate of the French army, and the 17th, the French soldiers had for the most part fought tenaciously. In part because of new, more sensible tactical instructions promulgated by the new C-in-C Weygand, German casualty rates were actually rising. German commanders were impressed by the fierceness of the resistance on the Somme and Aisne, although they were confident of victory: As French mobile reserves had already been destroyed, the French army was no longer able to plug the gaps were the Germans broke through. Weygand had no illusions.
There was a qualitative difference, as Hitler himself remarked: The core of 65 "active" divisions of the French conscript army fought hard, but the additional reserve divisions mobilized in time of war lacked training, and were often very weakly officered. It was the French misfortune that what turned out to be a crucial sector of their front, the center near Sedan, was thinly held by armies of mostly reserve divisions: It collapsed under the German assault.
There were two decisive factors in the French defeat in 1940. The major one was the foolishness of the operational plan embraced by the Allies, combined with the risky but intelligent decision of the Germans to shift the focus of their attack from their right flank to the center. This settled the military fate of the Allied armies, which were not inferior in numbers and firepower (and on occasion won tactical victories) but were trapped in a classic envelopment. The minor one was the distrust the French generals, for the most part of a right-wing conservative cut, felt towards their own population. Many seem to have feared that, as in 1871, the defeat would trigger a revolution or an attempted revolution; they became more concerned with maintaining "law and order" than with fighting the Germans. The friction between left and right which had plagued France since the Dreyfus affair of 1894-1906 produced an atmosphere in which the generals saw the defeat as an opportunity for a power grab of their own.
The irony of it has been remarked on: Like other governments, the French republic had always been worried about the danger of a successful general staging a coup. In the end it was brought down by generals who had just been humiliatingly defeated. -
Message 18
Posted by stalti (U14278018) on Sunday, 18th September 2011
before dunkirk - many british units surrended - they like the french were destroyed by the only real use of blitzkrieg - we were a highly proffessional regular army - the french were conscripts
the decision of the germans to go through the centre was an accident after the german plans for plan yellow were delivered into the allied hands by a plane crash - apparently guderian convinced hitler to attack through the ardennes
we fell for it as much as the french
the french battled hard after dunkirk and we would have fared no better
look at their casualties for ww2 - more than ours - not all cowards then
by the way - hello paul
st -
Message 19
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Sunday, 18th September 2011
Mutatis mutandis,
thank you very much for thus message. Couldn't agree more with it.
About the battle of France:
from the book: "from 4 June to 18 June, when one would have expected the French troops to have entirely demoralized, it rose to almost 5,000 (casualties) per day"
That coincides with all what I read from other "honest" sources....
About the right wing attitudes you mention I remember an episode confirmed from other sources. Pétain? I have to search for confirmation (in any case a right wing politician) said that (at Limoges? (have to confirm that too)) that the left wing was occupying Paris. A simple phone call from Reynaud to the head of police of Paris confirmed that nothing had happened at Paris. Just to say that Pétain was more considered with the inner social attitudes than with the war. Will try to confirm that all exactly tomorrow. I read it first some years ago in the collapse of the third republic from William Shirer but it was confirmed in other books I read later.
Kind regards and with esteem,
Paul. -
Message 20
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 18th September 2011
Actually I got the chance to read a collection of family archive material assembled by the parent of one of my pupils, and it included a copy of perhaps the draft of the official report of one of the family who had been in command of an Army Unit that was rushed up to the region to the North of Dunkirk..
This unit had been sent to France to be filmed for some recruiting or training purposes, and were "on location" when Germany launched its offensive.. They were rushed up to the Front with whatever equipment they had. Butt my strongest recollection of the day by day account was the amount of time the unit spent marching around from place to place to no clear purpose, and the great importance attached to finding a suitable places to set up canteens for the men to have a tea break when they got there.. One might imagine what French people might say about these "English" for whom everything has to stop for tea.
But my 96 year old allotment friend who served in Tobruk always says "Yes. As long as you had a 'wad' and a cup of char you were all right."
Cass -
Message 21
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Sunday, 18th September 2011
Cass,
"Perhaps this does not suit those who like to have scape-goats."
did some two hours research about "Henri Amouroux" and "Quarante Millions de Pétainistes". Also about the critics of Amouroux. Have to say didn't found that much. After all he is still a rewarded publicist seen by many as "objective", except by some historians.
Will tomorrow try to make my point and try to give an "objective" opinion.
Found a lot but it is all in French. Will start a thread about him on the French forum Passion Histoire, as he is also overthere a controversial figure. And yes the Pétain story of some Pétainists and contre-Pétainists is still in nowadays France stuff for heated debate.
Kind regards and with esteem,
Paul. -
Message 22
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 18th September 2011
Paul
I have just looked at my notes on Amouroux.. but have not posted a link..
As I say he seems to have been very much part of that second phase of French history writing..
But I was rights in remembering that Petain had had nothing to do with recent French military affairs. He was 84 years old and had bought a piece of land when approaching retirement age in 1914.. After the war he had retired to his vinyard and had lived in accordance with the French army tradition that professional soldiers were above politicians and politics.
In 1940 he could offer himself as a hangover from an older France in these ideological times. The France of the peasant who knew and understood life through the land and what he could nurture from it... I do not see Amouroux as pro-Petain, but perhaps sympathetic to the line taken by so many French writers that these were sick times..
Personally Albert Camus has always been a favourite writer, and I was interested to read in a collection of essays that some of his friends in the resistance objected to his great novel "The Plague".. because it reflected Camus' belief that the rats (the Germans) were victims of the disease that they spread- in fact more likely to die from the disease than the "humans"..
Camus wanted everyone to reconnect with the all-embracing values of Ancient Greek Hellenism.
Cass -
Message 23
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Monday, 19th September 2011
But I was rights in remembering that Petain had had nothing to do with recent French military affairs. He was 84 years old and had bought a piece of land when approaching retirement age in 1914.. After the war he had retired to his vinyard and had lived in accordance with the French army tradition that professional soldiers were above politicians and politics.Ìý
Are you sure that you did not confuse him with someone else? Petain did not retire in 1918 -- the tradition is that marshals never retire, anyway. But Petain remained in active duty for 13 years after the war, finally giving up command duties (as inspector-general of the army) when was 75. Even then he retained his influential seat on the "supreme war council".
Petain continued to strongly influence military policy and opinion. After WWI, he assembled a team of ghostwriters (one of them was Charles de Gaulle!) and began to "produce" a literary output intended to glorify himself and his policies. He strongly backed a defensive military strategy and decried mobile warfare, an attitude which sowed the seeds of the French defeat in 1940. Ironically, Petain also enabled de Gaulle to lecture at the 'Ecole de Guerre", where the young captain proceeded to defend decidedly unconventional opinions. But Petain strongly and repeatedly sided with the military traditionalists. In 1938, he wrote (or had written for him) the foreword to a book by general Chauvineau, in which the latter asserted that tanks were a complete failure.
And the marshal was not entirely inactive as a politician. He made an unsuccessful foray into politics shortly after the war, then remained aloof for a while. In 1925 he agreed to go to Morocco to "help" marshal Lyautey, actually a piece of political backstabbing that later resulted in de Gaulle's sharp comment "Marshal Petain was a great man; he died in 1925." In 1934 he served, at an age of 78, as minister of war in a conservative government. Later he became ambassador in Spain, and during the war he became vice-premier in Reynaud's government. -
Message 24
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 19th September 2011
Mutatis
I was trying to be brief for once.. For me "recent" meant really the post-appeasement period when clearly France like Britain needed to adjust to the realities of an "armed and arming world".. And as I understand it in that situation he was used by the political establishment in order to get access to military expertise within that field- not in order to have any command functions within the military itself.
As you say he was associated with trying to perpetuate a glorious French tradition- as was De Gaulle in the book that he wrote in the late twenties bemoaning its demise in France at the time..
And being "above politics and politicians" - does not preclude a sense of public duty towards France.. This was very much De Gaulle's position during his political career.
One might compare the thinking of the time with the position of Hindenberg in the Weimar Republic - and his assumption of emergency powers in the late 1920's when the drift to World Chaos began. As I have said I believe that French people generally tend to regard themselves as not really bound into the political situation so much so that they have to be loyal and "Follow orders"- though of course this does not or did not apply to those like the Communists who observe a "higher" duty.
I often think of one of my wife's lecturers that we got to know socially who explained that he had his salary paid directly to the French Communist Party, that then allocated him money in accordance with his needs.
As for the inter-war period Neo-Darwinian theory provided a model in which politicians and politics had evolved to deal with change by gradual evolution when there was time for rational debate and measured action.. But in tmoments of crisis and revolution, when the times threaten very survival itself, a country needs men of action capable and trained to deal with the struggle for the survival of the fittest in its crisis hours. The British people turned to such a man in Winston Churchill.
Cass -
Message 25
Posted by shivfan (U2435266) on Monday, 19th September 2011
Technically, France won more wars than any other nation.
(History doesn't begin with WW2.)
However Great Britain has the highest percentage of victories in the world. -
Message 26
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Monday, 19th September 2011
I was trying to be brief for once.. For me "recent" meant really the post-appeasement period when clearly France like Britain needed to adjust to the realities of an "armed and arming world"...Ìý
Well, Petain was minister of war in 1934. (That government lasted only nine months.) This was before the period of "appeasement", but it was not before the time when France adjusted to an "armed and arming world". The French were very realistic about the prospects with Hitler in office in Germany, and parliament immediately started to approve re-armament plans. At least some were already voted during Petain's time in office.
As you say he was associated with trying to perpetuate a glorious French tradition- as was De Gaulle in the book that he wrote in the late twenties bemoaning its demise in France at the time...Ìý
That is not what I what saying... French officers were all attached to the "gloire" of French arms, and it is hard to fault them for it. Petain's problem was that he consistently defended a very traditionalist view on armament and tactics. The radical views of de Gaulle and his followers had their weaknesses, as they had a tendency to ignore the need for combined arms warfare. But Petain sided with conservative tacticians who defended ideas that had become obsolete already during WWI, when the Germans launched their final offensives in the west. You could say that the old men was only consistent: He had defended a defensive posture already in 1914, when such ideas were not fashionable at all.
As I have said I believe that French people generally tend to regard themselves as not really bound into the political situation so much so that they have to be loyal and "Follow orders"- though of course this does not or did not apply to those like the Communists who observe a "higher" duty.Ìý
Too simplistic, certainly so for Petain's generation. He was a subaltern officer during the Dreyfus affair, which deeply divided French society, and made the army the center of a bitterly fought controversy. (He did not take a public position on it.) At the risk of simplifying too much, the tension in this was exactly in the area you mention. Those championing Dreyfus' case were, broadly speaking, committed to intellectual independence, to the free-thinking secular liberalism of the Republic, to human rights and scientific thought. The anti-Dreyfusards instead stressed the duty of the individual to the state, respect for the army as the embodiment of France, the defense of Catholicism as the religious and cultural foundation of the nation. (They also included a strong anti-semitic tendency.) Notoriously, the hard core of anti-Dreyfusards contained officers who were willing to forge evidence in a criminal case, rather than admit that the army might have made a judicial error.
As for the inter-war period Neo-Darwinian theory provided a model in which politicians and politics had evolved to deal with change by gradual evolution when there was time for rational debate and measured action..Ìý
This is characteristic not only for politicians, but also for military leaders; and in my experience, even for corporate leaders. In quiet times, the kind of person who doesn't rock the boat tends to get promotion. Times of crisis call for a different style of leadership. (There is a risk in a search for "men of action", however, as this often means that people start to implement stupid ideas, which they would never had adopted if they had time to consider them more carefully.)
But the inter-war period in France was anything but quiet. William Shirer's "The Collapse of the Third Republic" may be a bit dated but it still is a strong account of a period characterized by political instability, bitter political rows, and the occasional fears of a military coup. France in the 1930s was a bit like the USA today, so fiercely engaged in conflict with itself that it loses the opportunity to deal with urgent problems. -
Message 27
Posted by dmatt47 (U13073434) on Monday, 19th September 2011
Actually the Britsh people "did not turn to a man like Winston Churchill" as it became obvious that Neville Chamberlain did not have the Parliamentary support in the House of Commons and the country could not go on in the same manner, after the failed Narvik operation for which Churchill was the minister responsible and the conduct of the war. Two possible successors were selected, Lord Halifax and Churchill and even then in the Cabinet Room Churchill smelt a trap fo himself in accepting the job when asked whether would he accept. So it was really the politicians who chose Churchill and not the people who for a while booed him especially after the bombing of Coventry.
On the subject of France, they are singled out almost every time (Scotland because of their historical alliances with France take a different view) whereas other countries like The Netherlands and Italy are in the same boat during the Second World War when some, if not most of the people, were quick to change their allegencies when they saw how the war was turning out. de Gaulle was very much a Frenchman who was prepared to stand up for his country and makes himself unpopular with his Allies. It was always held against de Gaulle that he said 'Non' to Britain joining the Common Market (now the European Union) and in my view he was right because Britain had plenty of opportunities to have joined at the beginning but preferred to sit on the edge and worry about its Empire and we should not forget that France had overseas territories as well. Britain could be described in the same vein when Harold Wilson refused to use British troops in Vietnam during a time of American pressure in the mid-1960s. -
Message 28
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Monday, 19th September 2011
In reply to dmatt47:
Actually the Britsh people "did not turn to a man like Winston Churchill" as it became obvious that Neville Chamberlain did not have the Parliamentary support in the House of Commons and the country could not go on in the same manner, after the failed Narvik operation for which Churchill was the minister responsible and the conduct of the war. Two possible successors were selected, Lord Halifax and Churchill and even then in the Cabinet Room Churchill smelt a trap fo himself in accepting the job when asked whether would he accept. So it was really the politicians who chose Churchill
Ìý
True, and often overlooked. I suspect Halifax might well have done a Petain if the mantle had fallen on his shoulders. -
Message 29
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 19th September 2011
Mutatis
Thank you for all those points.. The point that you make about the thirties is very much in line with what Julian Huxley and H.G. Wells wrote in "The Science of Life" in 1929 - which Huxley quoted in the Preface to "On Living in a Revolution" in 1944..
"Such times , as may be imagined, are critical times for the world's living inhabitants. They are times both of destruction and of progress. The specialized and the bulky and those that are pleasantly adapted only to long periods of smooth conditions are overtaken by disaster and extinguished or brought low. But their destruction gives opportunity to smaller and less specialized creatures, which have been hardy or quick-witted enough to make a place for themselves in the shade of the vested interests of earlier life; and new adaptations are forced by necessity on to many survivors. So it is, that these rhythms are always followed not only by widespread extinction, but also by the rapid advance of some new and abler type of animal or plant or machine."
One of my 'obsessions' is that there has been a very great tendency in BB to continue to regard the inter-war period as shaped by "The Lost Generation" and to discard the forward thinking of those who believed that a new Civilization was necessary.. As is apparent from reading Huxley- people were only too happy to cherry pick some of the useful ideas- and ignore the intellectual rationale so that we have ended up with the worst of two worlds.
A recent reading of a biography of Simon Weil gave me a better insight into France in that period
Cass -
Message 30
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 19th September 2011
I believe that the people were turning towards him and the politicians realised it and acted accordingly... The Lib Dems did as much in chosing Nick Clegg as leader-- people over 6 feet always come over better on TV-- as I wrote to Mr Huhne on the day that the results were due out.
Cass -
Message 31
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Tuesday, 20th September 2011
Cass,
still struggling with your "Quarante millions de Pétainistes" from Henri Amouroux.
They have the book at the library of Ghent. Will ask to send it to the library of Bruges. But from experience that will take a lot of time. But as I will need it for my thread on the French forum about Henri Amouroux and that book, I want to read it myself to form my opinion.
To prove the existence of the Maréchal Pétain lobby in France and at the same time a replique to your third and fourth paragraph. And they can hardly be labelled as anti-Pétain...
Of course I have nearly on each paragraph something to correct
....
All from the top of my head, recollected from several books concerning WWII and Pétain: Pétain was in Spain 1939-40 continuously briefed about the situation by Darlan? or was it Laval? and waiting to be called from Paris.
If you want a more objective study read once the "Pétain" from Marc Ferro.
About the 40 millions French collaborators: I will broach it tomorrow. There seems to have been a shift in history-writing from the view of "collaborative" to the " resignating" going to "passive resistance" in new history books...
New historical research has given some mixed picture from the opinion of the French and their state of mind in 1940-44.
There is some additional information from the reports of the "préfets", from the censured post, the listening of the phone calls, the reports sent by the local agents of the regime and the thousands of letters sent to the Maréchal.
An interesting study that I found on the net is from the university of Copenhagen 3 October 1998. It is in French but I can lead you to the URL if you are interested.
As mostly the truth is in the middle...and not biased...as I suppose from Henri Amouroux.
Till tomorrow. Have to go to sleep with the wife....
From the European peninsula kind regards and with esteem,
Paul. -
Message 32
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 20th September 2011
Paul
If it is any help here is a link to my notes based on Amouroux
I was actually skimming some of it this evening trying to locate where I had read about the French soldiers going home after the Armistice- presumably to become prisoners of war, though HA gave details of the 100,000 strong army that France was allowed to keep in order to run the Vichy Zone.
HA ended that chapter on the French in "captivity"- which was often no captivity since French prisoners of war were allowed around the centre of one French town with no German guards, one person had someone coming regularly to work for him from a POW camp and tried to persuade him to escape providing papers plans etc. The prisoner kept saying "maybe" and never did try to escape..Mind you HA does compare the food rations that were allowed to POW's compared to normal troop rations and asserts that they were so malnourished that physical weakness was enough to basically make "running away" impossible.
I was interested, however, re Petain that he quoted him as saying that the French soldiers were always his first priority and until 1942 he received millions and millions of thankyou letters. An aide to Petain asserts that they kept pressing for the release of categories- fathers with 4 children, people in medical services, veterans of 14-18, Post Office workers, young workers, orphans. Between 1941 and 1944 427,000 POW's were released of whom 220,000 were released in 1941.
He also says that the Red Cross survey of all prisoners of war kept by the Germans assessed that the French were the second best treated- after the "English" and the Americans (who had German prisoners). After the French, came in order the Norwegians, Belgians, Dutch, Polish, Yugoslavs, Greeks, and finally Soviets.
And to go along with that assessment he states that in the typhus epidemics of 1942 100 French POW's died but 450,000 "Russians".
As you say- and as I mentioned before- recent research has gone beyond HA' rather "sack-cloth and ashes" view of what went on.. And over the last five years it has been noticeable that there have been many more plays and series on French TV covering daily life.. There was a major series called "The Village".. and just a few years ago the "lost masterpiece" novel "Suite Francaises" by Irene Nemirovsky was published showing the impact of the German invasion . Nemirosky wrote it during a brief exile in the foothills of the Massif Central before dying in Auschwitz in 1942.
By the way it sound like good news if your wife is back home..
Regards
Cass -
Message 33
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Thursday, 22nd September 2011
Cass,
I read your dna/h2 link. I don't know what is the summary of the book and what is your own contribution...If that is mostly the summary of the book of Amouroux then I think his work is pro-Pétain and "Pétainist" in the pejorative sense of the word. If you want to read some serious work about Pétain, read once as I suggested the Pétain from Marc Ferro.
Somewhere I read in your H2 about Jacques Bénoist-Méchin, but his opinion can hardly be of value, while as Pétain they were (Dutch) "betrokken partij" (party concerned?) ("parti pris" as they are from the party involved they can nearly but biased...French "parti pris")...the same of Bernard Ménétrel, the personal secretary and personal physician of Pétain...in the endless discussions on French messageboards it came always to some misunderstandements while some contributors took the "histories" of for instance these two men as "history". I don't say others aren't biased too...but by cross checking of several sources....
As for the "tumultuous" time before and after the "armistice" (note: "armistice" is not the same as "capitulation" (cessez-le-feu)) there is a lot to say avout this difference. There is also the story of who has halted the complete French cabinet to move to Algiers with the Massilia... There are parallels with the same situation in Belgium after the "capitulation" by Léopold III. I remember the stories of my father about the 18 days campaign. At the end it was an army in complete disarray after the "capitulation". Some soldiers going to their nearest family and then going to the municipality where that family sejourned. Or going by foot to the village where they lived before the war. If that are arguments of Amouroux? And not that there was a difference between occupied France and the Vichy France. in fact there seems to be five different parts of France with for instance the "Sperrgebiete" of the French Atlantic coast
And the same for the Belgian soldiers about the preparation of the army. As their French counterparts there were also a kind of B regiments and A ones. A ones, who fought excellent as the Chasseurs Ardennais. The conscripts of the B type, badly trained and with conscript lieutenants, who weren't prepared either for their job and many times fled their duty...
About the collaboration: There are some parallels in Belgium too as for a Pétain. We had in the beginning the same thankful attitudes from the population for Léopold III, who halted the dreadfull and in many eyes meaningless fighting. A Léopold III, who could in some circonstances also have deviated in collaboration as he supported the same right wing thinking as Pétain. But in real history Léopold was never given the opportunity....
And yes as in France collaboration and resistance was so intertwined that it is difficult to unravel. One example: while the Antwerp police under the bourgmestre helped to pick up the Antwerp Jews, there were at the same time policemen from that force who knew the adresses and lists, who warned the Jews involved to part.
The same for the first resistance grown form the strong right wing army circle around Léopold III and mistrusted by the Belgian government in exile in London...Some lady telling me about here family, where members were in the collaboration and some in the resistance and some in both at the same time...
And about the resistance: the most effective way to help the allies was gathering information and the flight lines for Jews and allied pilots and steeling rationing papers. The armed resistance with sabotage and all that had only as result that the Germans made a lot of "represailles" and those "represailles" were mostly harder than the real benefit of the action. I know that the former Polish contributor, Jozef, will not agree with what I said now. But Poland and the Polish were perhaps another country than the French and the Belgians....
Cass, I know I am perhaps a bit meandering as you, but after all it is meandering around the same theme...and I guess you understand now the drift of what I want to say...
Kind regards and with esteem,
Paul. -
Message 34
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 22nd September 2011
Paul
I can't remember whether I got around to mentioning the TV programme "Allo Allo".
Many years ago when my parents-in-law were here for Christmas I saw that there was a 30 minute one-off trial comedy sit-com based on a French cafe during the war.. I wondered how my father-in-law (who was a french teacher and had been an interpreter for the Americans in 1945) would react to us making a comedy based around occupied France.. So I left him to watch it alone wondering whether he would get angry.. He was quite a stormy man in his younger days. Very soon I heard such roars of laughter such as I had rarely heard in my life.. It was clearly very cathartic to look back at such times of tension and fear, and yet to be able at a distance of time just what ridiculous and complex situations did arise.
Allo Allo became a very successful and long running TV series- and there was a staged musical version.. I believe that all of the different series were dubbed into French and were very popular on French TV.. and it was perhaps last year that I saw that it was being dubbed into German ( apparently a difficult task because of the nature of the German language and perhaps German humour) ,, People thought that perhaps it was now possible for Germans too to look at such scenes with some detachment.
Cass -
Message 35
Posted by stanilic (U2347429) on Sunday, 25th September 2011
Cass
The most enduring memory of `Allo Allo' that I possess is that of my late father, then in the early stages of the illness that eventually killed him, falling out of his chair for laughing at the first line of the English gendarme played by Richard Bostron `god moaning, I was just p*ssing by your door.'
As I mention in Message 16 above my father served underground during the Occupation. He was a marked target of the Gestapo and was lucky to escape with his life.
`Allo Allo' helped him lay many ghosts before he passed away. It got boring in the end as all good series do once the best material has been mined from the seam.
None of us now have the foggiest idea as to how we would react if faced with the same conditions as our parents and grandparents faced in those days. As time passes I find it increasingly difficult to condemn. Only those who actively pursued the policies of the Nazis are subject to my condemnation. Most folk were trying to just get by. -
Message 36
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 25th September 2011
stanilic
I agree with most of that..
Your mention of the "gendarme" reminds me that one of the very English airmen was a colleague of mine doing supply teaching in South London who earlier that year had asked me for advice on his choice of photo for the artists magazine (Searchlight?) .. Most of them were poses for debonair romatic leads- but he found that he could make a living playing stereotypical "Hooray Henris"..
Over the years I have learned some of the details of how my French family survived... A few years ago we bought a small house in my wife's burgundy, and her uncle wrote to say that as a child during school holidays he was farmed out to look after turkies in our small valley.. My father in law used to tend cows.. But these kind of connections probably helped when during the occupation a farmer let him (then about 17) have an field that he could not work himself- to grow potatoes for his family.. He even ploughed it for him and lent him a horse and cart to cart the produce home.
But the uncle also noted that the Germans more or less ignored our little valley entirely-- though we have visited the grotto of the resistance in the woods a few kilometres away.
Another colleague- one who lived through the occupation- had a French mother and an English father.. At times they seem to have been the targets for some anti-English feeling and villagers were often telling the Germans that there was an Englishman in their community. But they probably knew that the Germans knew.
On the other hand the last story in a 1960 book of Burgundian folk tales does have someone from the "outside" who had come to work in a high valley near Chatillon sur Seine realising that there was a local farm house where people hiding out in the forests and woods were coming to in order to get supplies, wash etc.. And reported this to the Gestap.. Informers were real enough.
Actually on the general theme of courage- My wife's great grandmother- who I knew just briefly- was quite an amazing woman. During the First World War she learned that her husband had been wounded on the Western Front and made her way to the front to find him and demand the right to take him home and nurse him herself.. Which she did.. It seems to me that such as action could only be accomplished through variuous forms of courage including the courage of conviction.
Cass -
Message 37
Posted by ArweRheged (U14720560) on Wednesday, 28th September 2011
"now i actually dont like the french"
What - all of them?
I think you have answered your own question. Although we live in an age where racism is rightly frowned upon, it's still considered OK - or even good form - to be rude about certain nations. We like being rude about the French, so we tend to imbue them with negative characteristics:-
1. The French are cowards. This is evidenced by the fact that they have an enormous and open land border with Germany through which inavding armies can roll with ease. The British, being brave, have 22 miles of sea which whilst only being a moat (as someone else mentioned) does precisely the job that a moat was designed to do.
2. The French are arrogant. This can be evidenced by the fact that they are very proud of their language, their culture and their country. A charge that one could not level against the British, or the Americans (or indeed pretty much anyone else), of course.
3. The French are rude. This can be evidenced by the fact that they pretend not to understand English people who go to France on holiday and, being unable to speak French, shout at them in English.
4. The French are lazy. They take long lunch breaks and like burning lambs at the Channel ports. Ignore the fact that their economy is pretty much on a par with ours in terms of size and that most of the reason we have been at loggerheads with them is because of our competing territorial ambitions.
Of course, all of the above is absolute nonsense. "The French" are none of these things, any more than "the Americans" are all brainless tubsters or "the British" are all repressed social conservatives with bad teeth.
To my mind, the sooner we get away from nationalism the better. I am only British by an accident of birth. I didn't choose it and being born British doesn't make me inherently braver, more creative or generally more super than if I had been born in Calais. Or Moscow. Or the Yap Islands. I accept that upbringing and tradition may have a part to play, but what we have in common with our fellow humans is far greater than what divides us.
Regards,
A R -
Message 38
Posted by stalti (U14278018) on Wednesday, 28th September 2011
hi ar
i dont like the french - what all of them??
of course all of them lol
i was brought up with a family that hated the french - they were cowards and we were far superior - oh dear - not one of us had ever actually met a french person
when i was married we had french students - first time i met one - they were lovely and just like us - had ro re evaluate my thoughts
re checked history and found they werent in fact cowards - and were actually a bit superior to us in sticking up for themselves
st -
Message 39
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 28th September 2011
So French?
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy gave an interview the other day in which she explained that she found herself touring the gardens of the Elysee Palace with the President- newly divorced, and was just so impressed that he knew the Latin names for all the flowers and could tell her all about them.. She said to herself "I must marry this man. He is so busy with all those important affairs of state and yet he still thinks about all the flowers"..
Didn't Jesus say something like that about God?
Cass -
Message 40
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Thursday, 29th September 2011
Cass,
hmm, if we start with Sarkozy...but, scratching the head...if you compare with Angela Kasner (Frau Merkel) or your Herr Cameron...
Cass, couldn't resist....
Kind regards and with esteem,
Paul.
PS: Sarkozy is from Hungarian stock and had a French mother with French Catholic and Greek Jewish origins...Had he, as "that other" half-breed, also to prove that he was a real Frenchman....? -
Message 41
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 29th September 2011
Paul
I seem to remember from his Presidential Election Campaign that he made a real point of emphaziing his Hungarian roots- and the way that he was so grateful to France as a great and civilized country that his family and he himself had been able to "make it".. having had to start from scratch..
At that time it suited his Anglo-Saxon Thatcherite-Blairite phase.
Of course the Hungarians have some kind of reputation as a warrior people, and surely Sarkozy rose under Chiraq as a kind of "mister fix-it" to send in to deal with difficult situations- the political equivalent of the riot troops.
But I saw him give a very moving oration earlier this year when a black poet, playwrite, political activist and philosopher was being admitted into the Pantheon of French Greats... I had a chat to my neighbour recently about the World Athletics championships.. Her parents came here from Jamaica and she said how well the UK had done- we came 4th I think. But- having watched some coverage in France- I was surprised to see France way down in 11 or 12. Surprised because "France" includes all those parts of France "outre mers"- so they have all the West Indian French and others all representing France.. I pointed out to my neighbour that if we had done the same thing with Jamaica, we probably would have come second- because Jamaica were third in the medal table in their own right.
Anyway the point is that the French are quite happy to have someone like Sarkozy really trying his best to be a French man.appropriate to the New Millennium... Divorcing his wife, marrying a glamorous model and pop-singer and bringing new born babies into the Presidential Palaces.
And against that ? who knows? But I Iearned recently that Martine Aubry- front runner for the Socialist Party- is the daughter of a major Socialist Party politician- (Jacques Delors ?).. Politics is "the family business"..
It is a bit like the Milibands whose father was an LSE intellectual and Labour activist.. I am not sure that the eletorate these days are prepared to "buy in" to people hoping for the top job on that kind of basis.. George Bush Junior was rescued from world ridicule for himself and the USA by 9/11
Cass -
Message 42
Posted by Thomas (U14985443) on Friday, 30th September 2011
PS: Sarkozy is from Hungarian stock and had a French mother with French Catholic and Greek Jewish origins...Had he, as "that other" half-breed, also to prove that he was a real Frenchman....?Ìý
Interesting to note, Paul, for I´ve often thought that he might be some of a "far-fetched" relative to J. P. Belmondo.
But Belmondo is a quite very good actor! No offence intended, towards Belmondo of course.
Greetings,
Thomas -
Message 43
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Friday, 30th September 2011
Thomas,
yes, Belmondo, now that you say it...there was some turmoil when some Belgian presented a short film about Sarkozy on you tube, pretending he was drunk during his "reasoning" due to his "facial expression" (they translate the Dutch "mimiek" (German "Mimik") into that... What a word in English! For once that we have a "shorter" way to define a concept...).
And for "facial expression" both Belmondo and "he" seem to be good, but I rather prefer Fernandel....
Wanted to include in some way a lighter note, as your "No, offence intended, towards Belmondo of course" but somewhere somehow I missed my chance. Too serious on occasion I suppose ...
Cheers, Paul -
Message 44
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Friday, 30th September 2011
when i was married we had french students - first time i met one - they were lovely and just like us - had ro re evaluate my thoughts
re checked history and found they werent in fact cowards - and were actually a bit superior to us in sticking up for themselves Ìý Another miraculous conversion, eh? How did you recheck history, if you don't mind me asking? -
Message 45
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Saturday, 1st October 2011
I meant to say earlier how much I enjoyed stalti's post (no 38).
Not very hard to recheck whether the history you have been taught stands up to further scrutiny. -
Message 46
Posted by OUNUPA (U2078829) on Saturday, 1st October 2011
`warrior race'..................oh, please not!
Sometimes it makes sense to allow the enemy to roll over so you can then come up behind them.
Neither France nor Britain was ready for war in 1940, let alone 1939.
My late father spent some time in Occupied France on behalf of the British government and other parties on several occasions between 1941 and 1943. He found the French either fearful or angry: states of mind he admitted to as well.
In the end with help the French nation rose to the occasion from a terrible defeat. We should salute that courage and not dwell on the fellow travellers of the Nazis.
In Dad's mind the Second World War was fought against the Nazis not the Germans. Every country had its Nazis, including Britain. The British managed to put their's in prison, others weren't so lucky.Ìý 'Every country has its own Nazis'...I guess that the South Korea has its own commies..and the Nothern Korea has its own commies also...only in the SK , I bet ,there is even no any need to arrest the 'very narrow circle' of those commies. -
Message 47
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Saturday, 1st October 2011
Correction message 33.
As it can be misunderstood... Correction of a sentence of the third paragraph:
"And not that there was a difference between occupied France and the Vichy France. in fact there seems to be five different parts of France with for instance..."
Has to be read as:
And note that there was a difference between occupied France and the Vichy France. In fact there seems to be five different parts of France with for instance..."
Kind regards,
Paul. -
Message 48
Posted by stalti (U14278018) on Saturday, 1st October 2011
hi suvo
there u are again lol
that little cancerous cell that eats away at anything and everything
a slice of negativity in every post - who slags down everyones thoughts and comments and says that he is disappointed in everyone elses grip of history but his own
what would be good is the sight of you disappearing into the sunset into a site where people are of your intellectual equal - cambridge university ??
this has been a good site where people banter and put posts based on what they know - doesnt matter whether it is detailed or not
right i will type this slowly so u can read it - my early days were based on the fact that my father was evacuated from dunkirk and blamed the french for the collapse
all my life i believed it - who wouldnt - when i finally met french people they were the same as us
i then investigated history and realised the french were never cowards - they were the same as us and had their victories and defeats - but had never been a cowardly nation
is this bad - is there something that annoys you - dh
st -
Message 49
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Saturday, 1st October 2011
is this bad - is there something that annoys you - dhÌý not nearly as much as I annoy you, quite apparently
-
Message 50
Posted by OUNUPA (U2078829) on Sunday, 2nd October 2011
St, listen. You know I long to stare Goldfinger in the eye and say 'Banco!' or 'Pass me the shoe'-despite having no idea what these phrases mean.Well, the important thing is that I understand no James Bond movie would be complete without 'em. As for those people ...in 1972, Spitz won 5 gold medals IMITATING A DOLPHIN. In 1976, Jenner won the decathlon. Then Jenner made millions endorsing everythin' from Canon to Wheaties. And where was Spitz ? He was a dentist in sovh California, drilling teeth ...so it is easy to foresee that the future does not belong to the fish. That's my own point about Frenchmen...
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