FOR SALE: One Vintage World War II Rifle. Dropped once. Never fired.

Surrender #1

In France, people had shaken their heads in disbelief upon the announcement of a new war with Germany. This would be their third major war against the Germans in the last 70 years. Their grandfathers had fought the war of 1870-71, which the French had lost. Their fathers had fought the First World War from 1914-18. And now this.

The great problem for France was that civilian indifference toward this new war was shared by rank and file soldiers of the French Army.

The French officer corps also had its problems. Senior army leaders had witnessed first-hand the horrific carnage of World War I when men died by the tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, during battles of attrition at places like Verdun. Haunted by this legacy, they cautiously committed the entire French Army to a defensive posture this time around, thereby passing up the chance to take quick action that could have drastically changed the course of this new war.

With the German Army entirely preoccupied in Poland, the French had a huge numerical and tactical advantage on Germany’s western border. A hundred well-equipped French divisions stood in place all along the border, while Hitler had just 23 lightly equipped divisions set up as a defensive screen to hold them back. At this point, a French thrust into western Germany targeting the military industries of the Ruhr Valley would have, at the very least, disabled the German war machine by curtailing armaments production, the lifeblood of Hitler’s Army.

Instead, the French held their positions, content to rely on a series of newly built steel and concrete fortifications known as the Maginot Line to ward off a potential German invasion. Four British divisions soon joined the French and also stood by on the defensive. Like the French, the British were commanded by cautious generals who had survived the blood-stained battlefields of World War I.

Worse for the French, the country was beset by bitter and disruptive political in-fighting which caused government leaders to become indecisive at a moment of great national peril. Closely watching all of this, Hitler correctly concluded France’s political leadership, officer corps, and soldiers, really didn’t have the stomach for a fight this time around.  – historyplace.com

…Paul Reynaud and his government now left the French capital and moved to Tours. On 14th June, the Germans occupied Paris. Reynaud now realized that the German offensive could not be halted and suggested that the government should move to territories it owned in North Africa. This was opposed by his vice-premier, Henri-Philippe Petain, and the supreme commander of the armed forces, General Maxime Weygand. They insisted that the government should remain in France and seek an armistice.

Outvoted, Reynaud resigned and President Albert Lebrun, appointed Petain as France’s new premier. He immediately began negotiations with Adolf Hitler and on 22nd June signed an armistice with Germany. The terms of the agreement divided France into occupied and unoccupied zones, with a rigid demarcation line between the two. The Germans would directly control three-fifths of the country, an area that included northern and western France and the entire Atlantic coast. The remaining section of the country would be administered by the French government at Vichy under Marshal Henri-Philippe Petain.

Other provisions of the armistice included the surrender of all Jews living in France to the Germans. The French Army was disbanded except for a force of 100,000 men to maintain domestic order. The 1.5 million French soldiers captured by the Germans were to remain prisoners of war. The French government also agreed to stop members of its armed forces from leaving the country and instructed its citizens not to fight against the Germans. Finally, France had to pay the occupation costs of the German troops. – Spartacus-educational.com

Surrender #2 

YahooNews.com reported that

A third of French voters declined to choose between centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen in Sunday’s presidential election, either abstaining or spoiling their ballots — a record rate in nearly half a century.According to official results with more than 80 percent of votes counted, the abstention rate stood at 24.52 percent — the highest since the presidential election in 1969.

In addition, the interior ministry reported a record number of blank and invalid ballots, accounting for nine percent of all registered voters, compared to two percent in the first round.

“That would make a total of one French person out of three who decided not to choose between the two candidates. It’s really a lot for a presidential election,” Anne Jadot, political science professor at the University of Lorraine, told AFP.

Macron claimed a thumping victory Sunday with some 65 percent of the vote, but it was the first time since the 1969 election that participation in the second round has been lower than in the first, which saw him and Le Pen go through to the run-off as the highest-scoring candidates.

“The presence of the far-right in the second round did not prompt a lot of mobilisation compared to the first round, in contrast to what happened in 2002,” Jadot said in reference to the election where Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie saw voters of all stripes mobilise to block him by backing his opponent, conservative Jacques Chirac.

That election saw a dip in the abstention rate to 20.3 percent.

But this year, “there wasn’t the ‘shock’ effect, because (Marine Le Pen’s) presence was expected,” Jadot said.

Casting a blank ballot — traditionally used by disgruntled French voters as a protest vote — usually increases in the second round.

But this year it went as far as to quadruple, thanks in part to an unprecedented situation of neither the two mainstream left-leaning or right-leaning parties making it to the run-off.

Remember the part in the first cited quote which I presented, where it said that “The great problem for France was that civilian indifference toward this new war was shared by rank and file soldiers of the French Army”?

That indifference eventually required other nations to join together to defeat France’s Nazi Invaders in a battle which sacrificed almost a quarter of a million brave young men.

D-Day, also called the Battle of Normandy, was fought on June 6, 1944, between the Allied nations and German forces occupying Western Europe. To this day, 70 years later, it  still remains the largest seaborne invasion in history. Almost three million troops crossed the English Channel from England to Normandy to be used as human cannon fodder in an invasion of occupied France.

There has never been an exact count of the sacrifices made on D-Day. Although, it is estimated that more than 425,000 Allied and German troops were killed, wounded, or went missing during the battle. 209,000 of those who lost their lives were Allied forces. In addition to almost 200,000 German troops killed or wounded, the Allies also captured 200,000 soldiers. Captured Germans were sent to American prisoner-of-war camps at the rate of 30,000 per month, from D-Day until Christmas 1944. Between 15,000 and 20,000 French civilians were killed during the battle.

Today, France is no longer in danger of an invasion of German Nazis.

Instead, their invasion has begun from within.

France has a history of decades of Islamic Extremism.

It has pursued an immigration plan of assimilation with the Muslims entering France, often winding up with them being “placed” in slums and depressed areas of France, which have led to their radicalization at the hands of willing mentors.

The Terrorist Organization known as ISIS has sought out those disgruntled Muslims in  France and has used them as tools to both polarize and terrorize the French Citizenry.

On one side, you have average Frenchmen, who are worried about the continued sovereignty of their nation. On the other side, you have France’s Liberals, who, like their ancestors before them in the years before the Nazi Invasion of France are indifferent to the growing threat around them.

By electing the “Teacher’s Pet Moderate” Macron, the French have set the scene for another takeover of their country.

Only, this time, there won’t be any allies sacrificing their brave young men to win back their Sovereign Nation when they lose it to a bunch of Barbaric Invaders.

Until He Comes,

KJ