Euro Thursday: It has come to my attention....

Alright, so most people are familiar with how France was invaded during World War II. Germany invaded through Belgium, steamrolling over the small nation in order to have a convenient way around the Maginot line which defended the France-Germany border. Yes.

A lot of people also know that this happened before, back in WW I. The ironic part was that they actually did much better the first time, when it was a legitimate surprise. I know I had an entire post about France needing to get it together, but seriously now. Was it really that surprising that they would get invaded through Belgium again? They did it the first time, and that was before they had what everyone knew to be a straight up douchebag in control of their armies. It's not like the invasion itself was a surprise; Hitler had invaded Poland the previous year and actually waited out the winter to move all his troops into position to invade France, which is apparently far too busy looking at their impressively useless fortifications to realize that the man who had already violated the neutrality of multiple nations might not really mind having to go through a small, defenseless nation in a strategy that almost worked the last time this situation happened, and in fact would have worked wonderfully had the German general in charge hadn't decided to split up his troops.

To add insult to injury, France had an even better reason to be prepared for this: Belgium had the plans for the invasion, quite literally, in their hands. And the French had heard about it. A plane crashed, carrying the invasion plans, in Belgium. At this point, Hitler had a novel talking about his plans for world dominance and giving his enemies a nice little warning, and they had the invasion plans. So they sent one army group to hold off the roughly 800,000 German soldiers that were meant to be advancing. Germany didn't even revise their plans after this incident; they had evidently figured out that the rest of the world was, in fact, incredibly thick.

The development of the invasion plan over time. Note the lack of arrows in the bottom part of France, where the entirety of their defenses were organized. Also note: Holland was two revisions away from getting its shit wrecked.

So the French army stands around this whole winter, evidently doing pretty much nothing. Italy comes in at the end with a declaration of war that was the international equivalent of kicking somebody while they're down (a fairly weak kick, considering that Italy's claim to fame was finally having achieved punctuality). And then, Hitler brought the hammer down. Several million German troops stormed into France through (and nobody saw this next part coming) Belgium, taking everyone but the one French general who had warned of exactly this completely by surprise. That general's name was Dyle, and you can bet your ass that he got one of the best "I told you so" moments in history.

The only story that doesn't embarrass the allies coming out of this is that the English managed to get their troops out at Dunkirk in a "heroic and daring escape". Turns out, it was just the Germans being cautious and not advancing because they were already pretty surprised that this plan had kicked as much ass as it did.

Hitler wasn't that brilliant: The French were just that slow.

Euro Thursday: France needs to get it's shit together.

Thursday has been officially designated as European history Thursday. I encourage all of you to get on that and find your favorite quote, event, or even your own observation on the craziness that is Europe and put it as your status. Or write a blog post about it, like me. There's plenty of crazy shit to choose from, trust me. And if you're at a loss, good ol' Fourier here can provide you with plenty of stuff. Wikipedia doesn't do justice to his craziness. Anyways, happy Euro Thursday everyone!


If you think about it, one of the most ridiculous things for anyone to say after looking at France's history between 1750 and 1950 is anything to the effect of "hey, this looks like a stable country to me. I bet it'll last into the modern era." It's no secret that France has had a few issues down the road (everyone knows about the guillotine), but most people don't really get just how bad this country is at keeping its act together. If the Ottoman Empire was the sick old man of Europe, France was the hyperactive child who just wanted to beat the bejesus out of everyone on the playground and didn't realize that he was actually way smaller than everyone else and kept accidentally punching himself in the face. I could make a lot of other bad metaphors to get this point across, but I think it's more effective to show you. Let's go visit France in the mid 18th century, shall we?


Backdrop: Everyone in Europe just experienced a wave of revolutions, creatively titled the 1848 revolutions, as a result of France "sneezing", AKA deciding that they really didn't like the government they had just installed and starting a revolution. 'Cause that's what French people do when they're bored, I suppose. Afterwords, everyone decides to party it up with a second Industrial Revolution, this time led by Germany who has decided that the key to being a successful nation is to build a lot of stuff and kill a lot of people. This "Blood and Iron" doctrine will, quite obviously, be problematic for everyone somewhere down the line, but is immediately very bad for France, who has graciously volunteered to be that "lot of people" for Germany to kick around with all its new toys by competing over influence in Spain.**


Once Bismark manages to make France look evil enough to his people, the Franco-Prussian war happens and France gets its ass whooped by Germany. But France can't just lose a war; look at what they did last time when that happened. They exiled their leader, got him back for a bit, fought some people, exiled him AGAIN, then lost pretty much everything they had gained in the last 30 years and started a good ol' revolution just for kicks. But it would be different this time. This time, they want to be a little bit less obnoxious to everyone around them and opt for a nice civil war instead, where they at least have the advantage of being able to say they won either way. During the siege of Paris by the Germans, the Parisians decide that they don't like their government. So after a nice feast of zoo animals and family pets, they declare Paris as an independent commune. And then possibly eat a few of their new countrymen. Meanwhile, the actual French government decides that this isn't good and marches to Paris. Not to lift the siege or fight off the German invaders, but to disarm the National Guard present in Paris. The Parisians don't like that, so they start shooting. Civil war. While they're already in the middle of losing a war with Germany. And also almost getting in yet another war over a small place in Africa called Fashoda, which I suppose is actually prevented by the civil war. So, yay?


The government of France manages to restore order by storming into Paris and killing a lot of people, saving Germany the trouble and making Bismark a little sad. At this point, they finally get a working government together that doesn't manage to piss off everyone. Right before World War I, when they get invaded and have to start all over again. Post-World War II France is now the 5th Republic, and they were on the 2nd before all this.


Seriously, France. How do you exist? Something to be said for tenacity, I suppose. 
I'm Derek, and that was Euro Thursday.


*Despite mostly being in the middle east? Europe just encompasses whatever the hell it wants, I guess, regardless of geography. European history encompasses everything on the continent as well as whoever they screw over. Which is everyone. Now I know why it seems so similar to world history at times. 
**Which is a dumb thing to compete over. Spain at this point has basically been taking a siesta since it stopped being awesome way the hell back in the 1600's and didn't really have much going on.