Christophe Chazot wrote:

"Keith Willshaw" a écrit dans le message
news: ...

"Christophe Chazot" wrote in message
...

John

My apologies, I thought it was about 1914-18.

What happened to our army in 1939-40 had little to do with what was
achieved
in 1917-18...


Actually I suspect it did. The horror of WW1 was so strong in the
generation
of 1940 that they were determined to avoid it happening again.

This is I think what lay behind the reluctance to take the offensive
against Germany in 1939 when their troops were busy in Poland.


Keith

I was talking about what happened to our army in a strictly military field.
The morale questions were important too, and the massacre of WW1 certainly
had a reverse effect on the will to fight again 20 years later, as you
quote. By the way, the reluctance to take offensive in 1939 was also due to
the lack of drive of general Gamelin, a peacetime chief of staff who had
been promoted for peacetime reasons but who seriously lacked the required
skills for such a job at such a time. It was also due to some technical and
logistical shortfalls, that resulted from the budget cuts all along the
1930s and that were not corrected until it was too late, but that's a bit
off-topic on naval newsgroup.
Regards,
Christophe

I seem to recall that The French began WWI with an offensive
into Germany and received heavy losses, which probably made
them reluctant to do so in WWII.

Joe


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