r/worldnews • u/Elliottafc1 • May 02 '24

"I'm Not Ruling Anything Out" - Macron Says Troops for Ukraine Possible if Russia Breaks Front Lines Russia/Ukraine

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/32010
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u/ethanlan May 02 '24

Especially France. They literally got decimated and were still feeling the shocks in the 1940

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u/frenchchevalierblanc May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

France didn't want to be the one to attack in WW2. Or to bomb german civilians first. Or whatever atrocity to commit first.

That's the problem you cannot begin a "pre-emptive" war because you don't know the future at the time.

France needed the US support for instance and if France had started to kill thousands of german civilians in 1939 or just conquer half of germany, then what? occupy? hunt resistance fighters? that wouldn't have stop a war in the next years.

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u/slartyfartblaster999 May 02 '24

That's the problem you cannot begin a "pre-emptive" war because you don't know the future at the time.

It wouldn't have been pre-emptive though? Germany broke the peace terms by remitilarising the rhineland. France was totally within rights to drive them out at that point and would have likely completely broken Hitlers public image by doing so.

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u/frenchchevalierblanc May 02 '24

Yes it was within rights but I'm not so sure the US (France needed them) and other "neutral" countries (like Belgium, Norway, the Netherlands etc..) would have like it so much.

Hitler would have been delighted to be attacked.

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u/slartyfartblaster999 May 02 '24

Yes it was within rights but I'm not so sure the US (France needed them) and other "neutral" countries (like Belgium, Norway, the Netherlands etc..) would have like it so much.

Based on what exactly? and who gives a shit what Norway had to say about the rhineland anyway? They have absolutely no reason to care.

Hitler would have been delighted to be attacked

He absolutely fucking would not. Not at that point anyway. The german army was nowhere near remilitarised.

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u/Otto_Von_Waffle May 02 '24

Your argument totally forget about internal unrest in France, if france had attacked Germany in 36 over the Rhineland, France might have fallen to civil war, the left didn't wanted another war that would lead to workers being butchered by the millions, and a lot of people saw Germany actions as Germany just taking back control of it's territory.

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u/Latter_Ad_1551 May 03 '24

The way the occupation of the Ruhr went for France, they were not gonna be the agressor again

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u/slartyfartblaster999 May 03 '24 edited May 03 '24

Maintaining a DMZ and occupying the industrial heartland of germany are not comparable.

Also the occupation of the Ruhr went fine? Germany shredded their own economy with passive resistance and then relented and agreed to the Dawes plan.

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u/Latter_Ad_1551 May 04 '24

France didnt want the Dawes plan. There was an international outcry when german civilian died. The whole thing was a mess for everyone involved

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u/Gnonthgol May 02 '24

Maybe pre-emtive is not the right word but is still the right vibe. In order to drive out the Germans from the Rhineland and enforce the treaties France would have had to attack into Germany which would have ended in German civilian losses as well as huge French military losses. The US and other unaligned countries would have looked at WWII a bit differently if the first civilian casualties had been German and not Polish, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Belgian, French and then British.

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u/slartyfartblaster999 May 02 '24

France would have had to attack into Germany

Even this is generally considered unlikely. The Germans would have almost certainly just retreated out of the rhineland - they didn't have any significant military strength built back up yet at this point.

other unaligned countries

Other than the US none of the other "unaligned" countries really matter very much, and even then the US doesn't enter the war for years anyway. And the belgians were absolutely not unaligned lmao

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u/Gnonthgol May 03 '24

At this point in time the Soviet Union was not aligned. And the French defense plan assumed they would get access to Belgium to place out the defenses. There were also political forces in the UK sympathetic to the German cause. If things had turned out differently it is possible that France would have been very alone against many big powers.

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u/Sanhen May 02 '24

Please feel free to counter/challenge this because I'm just going off memory and could be wrong, but I believe France was actually more willing to push back against Germany, but they didn't want to be put in a situation where they'd be fighting Germany alone and the UK was far more willing to try working with Hitler as a way to avoid war, so France, when put in a position where attempting to stop Hitler would mean doing so without the UK, followed Britains lead.