Poll: World War 1 and 2 - who did more for the French?

[fix-the-spade]

World War 2

Well, the UK by miles'n'miles.

The British sent an army to fight the Germans whilst America was still saying the Nazi's were merely misunderstood and should be given a chance. Granted they lost but they bought time.

British agents also equipped and trained the French resistance not to mention taking in thousands upon thousands of refugees and retreating soldiers, who the British duly equipped, retrained and put back in the fight. American ground troops got to the western front very, very late.

It's quite surprising how quickly we went back to mutual antagonism actually.

 

[Jenkins]

Wasn't it largely American forces that liberated France? And didn't most of Europe not become liberated until the American forces intervened?

60% of forces were Commonwealth. Another interesting note is that American formations suffered a 20% higher casualty rate in Normandy, despite fighting fewer German formations, and even fewer quality ones (most of the Panzer Divisions were concentrated around the British sector, at Caen).

most of the American's were green coming into the fight, and Patton was very pissed off at Monty sitting outside of Caen while the rest of the troops were pushing forward.

and let us not forget that without the aid of Americans and the lend-lease program, the UK would have been in some deep shit.


I feel that the Americans DO deserve a lot of the credit because we gave the extra manpower as well as the industrial might to push the Germans back.

and if I wanted to point out something of British failure in war. Operation Market Garden.

 

[Irishhoodlum]

I'm an American, just to point that out before saying anything else that will obviously be slightly biased towards my own country.

I would say Britain pulled more weight in World War 1, based off of casulaties, time spent fighting, soldiers sent etc. Though you have to consider World War 1 was hardly America's war in the first place.

World War 2 is much less clear cut. I'm doubtful that the Allies could have won without the help of America, nor without the help of Britain. And if they did, the casualties for the country of the two that stayed (in this case probably Britain) would have been massive. They both needed each other to win. For that reason I'd say that niether did more in the War beyond men lost and money spent. I don't think you can fairly say one side did more than the other. Same story for helping France, where niether would likely have succeeded in the first place without the other. Back to your original post, I would guess that France doesn't mention Britain for other reasons dating back far before WW2 which have little to nothing to do with America. And it would be a little odd for said Frenchman in the Simpsons to say
"America helped save us in WW2, but Britain did more". I haven't seen the episode, but I'd guess that the second half was hardly relevant to the context. The show's a comedy, not a special on The History channel.

It's a bit ironic France isn't an option (not saying it should be) for who helped France the most circa World Wars 1 and 2.

 

[Unreliable]

Russia, not because Russia was decent, or even in France, but because they tied up 75% of the Axis land forces in the East, leaving the West vulnerable for land assault. Without Russia's involvment, land war against the Axis powers would've been impossible.

 

[Adaephon]

WW1, to me i think it was Canada, nobody else could take Vimmy Ridge and we took it with minimal casualties,also Billy Bishop was Canadian and he was the third greatest fighter ace in history(losing only to the red baron and Rene Fonck,and so was Roy Brown(the guy who killed the red baron) so ya, we did the most in WW1, although to be honest we were just a dominion back then and Vimmy Ridge was won under a British general, so really the British Empire as a whole did the most but Canada did still do a lot.

As for WW2, we did a lot but we were mainly concentrated in Belgium and Holland and much less so in France,but as for most important to the French, I'd say probably the British even though all the allies did a lot.

 

[FinalHeart95]

UK, simply because America was too busy dealing with the Japanese (for WWII obviously). WWI was basically a European war almost the entire time anyway, with the Americans late to the party as usual.

I am American by the way.

 

[FallenRainbows]

I say the Commonwealth [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations]. Britain can't take all the credit.
No, America, that does not include you.

Dang ye ninja talents. But yeah the G'd O'l British commonwealth.

 

[FallenRainbows]

Helped the French? You surrendered, without having even one building in Paris destroyed.

Also, nukes were NEVER EVER used in Europe.

I think a Russian nuke test was... I dunno I'm guessing for the sake or guessing.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

Wasn't it largely American forces that liberated France? And didn't most of Europe not become liberated until the American forces intervened?

60% of forces were Commonwealth. Another interesting note is that American formations suffered a 20% higher casualty rate in Normandy, despite fighting fewer German formations, and even fewer quality ones (most of the Panzer Divisions were concentrated around the British sector, at Caen).

most of the American's were green coming into the fight, and Patton was very pissed off at Monty sitting outside of Caen while the rest of the troops were pushing forward.

and let us not forget that without the aid of Americans and the lend-lease program, the UK would have been in some deep shit.


I feel that the Americans DO deserve a lot of the credit because we gave the extra manpower as well as the industrial might to push the Germans back.

and if I wanted to point out something of British failure in war. Operation Market Garden.

1. I wish to point out that Monty was 'sitting' outside of Caen because Rommel had pulled most of his Panzer divisions around it, and most of his SS infantry divisions inside it. This is another American misconception about the war (as is addressed by Carlo D'Estes exemplery work: Decision In Normandy) that somehow the British spent most of their time lounging about. In fact, British forces were tasked with the far more arduous task of taking a large, incredibly well-fortified city and the surrounding bocage from an enemy who had had plenty of time to build defences, lay mines and hole up in the rubble. In short, Patton's continual irritation with Montgomery inevitably stemmed from the fact he, that is Patton, disliked Monty, and could not understand why Montgommery would always be so slow in comparison to him, disregarding the fact that Montgommery invariably faced the more resilient German formations throughout the course of the war simply due to the fact that the Commonwealth landed north of the Americans.

Secondly, Market Garden was a failure merely because of bad intel. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[MalthusX]

I think this question should have been in different polls. For World War One, I beleive that the British Commonwealth as a whole did more, but for World war 2, America did a lot more. Either way, America coming in later worked out well both times. Their troops went in fresh to a war where everyone else had been fighting for years, and brought half a continent of production (production immune to enemy bombers, I might add) into the war.

Seconbd thing, why all the hate against the French? Sure the government surrendered, but there were many French partisans who continued to fight the Germans and Vichy. Plus, the Vichy collaborators were rounded up and executed shortly after the war. they did try to help themselves. They had a very good military too, as they remebered from world war one that Germany was a threat. The problem is is that it was deployed wrong, in a static wall of military force between France and Germany called the Maginot Line. This would have worked great in WW1, but was revealed as obsolete once the Germans rolled around it.

Last... I wanted to say Canada, out of national pride, but that really wouldn't have been true, so I'll just say that Canadian units stood their ground during the initial gas attacks of World War One when alot of other allied units fled, got massacred at Dieppe (attempt to retake Europe #1 in WW2), took Juno beach during actual D-Day, and liberated the Netherlands.

 

[timmytom1]

I like the way Ireland is up there for some reason, our position in the war was to sit down with our fingers in our ears going 'la-la-la'. As for who helped France most I'd actually say the African states that were part of Free France, as they contributed vital troops and then didn't eve get payed much for it.

That`s not stricktly true ,in WW1 we (the UK) corraled you into fighting and if you were good we`d give you independance ,we then withdrew that offer

 

[Spacewolf]

well i would say UK as during WW1 the somme offensive was basically o way to relive pressure from the verdun where the french where comeing close to being completly overrun, but obviously at the time the UK was the empire

 

[Jenkins]

Wasn't it largely American forces that liberated France? And didn't most of Europe not become liberated until the American forces intervened?

60% of forces were Commonwealth. Another interesting note is that American formations suffered a 20% higher casualty rate in Normandy, despite fighting fewer German formations, and even fewer quality ones (most of the Panzer Divisions were concentrated around the British sector, at Caen).

most of the American's were green coming into the fight, and Patton was very pissed off at Monty sitting outside of Caen while the rest of the troops were pushing forward.

and let us not forget that without the aid of Americans and the lend-lease program, the UK would have been in some deep shit.


I feel that the Americans DO deserve a lot of the credit because we gave the extra manpower as well as the industrial might to push the Germans back.

and if I wanted to point out something of British failure in war. Operation Market Garden.

1. I wish to point out that Monty was 'sitting' outside of Caen because Rommel had pulled most of his Panzer divisions around it, and most of his SS infantry divisions inside it. This is another American misconception about the war (as is addressed by Carlo D'Estes exemplery work: Decision In Normandy) that somehow the British spent most of their time lounging about. In fact, British forces were tasked with the far more arduous task of taking a large, incredibly well-fortified city and the surrounding bocage from an enemy who had had plenty of time to build defences, lay mines and hole up in the rubble. In short, Patton's continual irritation with Montgomery inevitably stemmed from the fact he, that is Patton, disliked Monty, and could not understand why Montgommery would always be so slow in comparison to him, disregarding the fact that Montgommery invariably faced the more resilient German formations throughout the course of the war simply due to the fact that the Commonwealth landed north of the Americans.

Secondly, Market Garden was a failure merely because of bad intel. Nothing more, nothing less.

aye, bad BRITISH intel, and the lack of cohesion between British armor and paratroopers, also, it was due to the fact that the British armor was too slow to get up the route.

They had to halt all progress on the front to funnel fuel and other materials to market garden, if they had given that much support to Patton, they would have pierced the German lines which would have most likely shortened the war and cause the German lines to fold.


I guess we shall never know.

 

[Nickolai77]

WW1-
Britain did the most for France, as someone pointed out before the Somme offensive was to relieve pressure on Verdun. Further more, in 1917 the British and Commenwealth offenses in areas such as Pachendale where also to keep the German army on the backfoot, as the French Army had just mutinied, another German offensive on the French would have caused the French army to collapse. The Americans played an important role, providing resources for the allied war effort and coming in 1918, just in time to help repulse a German counter offensive and end the war.

WW2-
America, the "arsenal of democracy" gives Britain the resources it needs to keep fighting the war, and also contributes around half the troops that landed at D-DAY, as well as many more troops in general throughout the war. The majority of troops on the ground in France and Belgium after D-Day where probably American. On balance, America contributed more to liberating France in WW2. Britain did more than the Americans in WW1.

Overall, with two world wars combined, Britain would come first, then followed very closely behind by America.

Personally though, the French will rather thank the Americans than the Brits for their role in liberating them in the world wars. Britain and France have a long history of warfare against each other, and like any neighboring countries, we generally dislike each other in our own weird and unusual way- we Brits call them "Cheese eating surrendering Monkeys" for surrendering in WW2, while they call us chickens for evacuating our army at Dunkirk.
Thats probably why the French prefer to congratulate the Americans rather than their old historical rivals.
(Maybe the French are jealous that Britain gets on so much better with America than they do )

 

[blaze96]

In both world wars yea Britain wins. America though did play a major role in both wars, it cannot be denied WW1 stalemate America shows up in 1918, and the war ends the same year. We were not the most important but you have to admit there does seem to be a rather striking correlation between American involvement in the world wars and ultimate victory for the side we end up on. In WW2 we also spent the money to rebuild the countries affected and during the war, the Allies were losing until we joined in with our considerable number of troops and weapons that hadn't been caught in the krieg. So while I agree with others that Britain gets most of the credit for both world wars, seeing as they were there from the beginning, America should at least get some credit for victory in the two world wars.

 

[Outamyhead]

Sorry, but I just hope that's sarcasm (not an easy thing to put across in a forum post). There were no nukes dropped on Germany and it was the Russians who first took the eastern part of Europe, then the Allies were able to surround Berlin in the months following D-Day. I'm guessing you were being sarcastic, but I just can't be sure. No offence meant.

Considering the Russians were closer to Germany's border that would make sense, seeing as British and American troops had to fight the whole way from the beaches and through France first before they could move onto the western borders Germany, I'm not saying the Russians had it easy either, they were getting hammered until the Winter season started.

 

[Lordmarkus]

For me it's pretty obvious that Britain helped the most in both wars. Firstly, they were allied with France before and during both wars. Secondly, Britain managed to gather enough canon fodder from all over the world to supply the hungry western front, and keeping the Germans at bay. In WW2 they at least tried to hold the Germans at bay and when it was time for the great invasion they sent more soldiers than the rest.

Though, kudos to America and Russia for their supposedly infinite resources and their succes at kepping the Germans occupied.

 

[ipswichjk]

Russians for seemingly impossible number of them were there to fight and be killed by the germans and distract them to let the us (the British) and the Americans kick there asses

 

[mdk31]

Gonna say America. We provided the bulk of the weapons, equipment, vehicles, aircraft etc., as well as a hell of a lot of soldiers. Not gonna say more than any other, because I can't find any solid figures, but I know there were a lot.

 

[darkless]

Who said Ireland? We didn't help France all we did was send British pilots back to them and a large amount of Irish people joined the British army, we also provided the weather reports used for D-day whatever help that provided and some of our docks where open to British use, but at no point did we help France.