Severe confusion, shame, depression and in time…resentful anger. France is an old, competent and proud power. The grand Allied failure (yes Allied. The British failed too), left them stunned and humiliated. There is a reason, this picture is famous:
France had sent the flower of its youth, 25 years before, to halt the Germans. After 1.4 million dead, millions maimed, and victory, the triumphal enemy marches through their capital, cities, towns and villages?
Europe’s oldest post Roman power was laid low in seven weeks of war? By a nation crushed 21 years ago?
Look at the picture again. There is a “WTF just happened” aspect under all of it.
The Allied loss was a failure of planning and fighting the last war but, that is a subject for another discussion.
Bear in mind something, tens of thousands of Frenchmen died due to Allied bombing after France fell. The French did not complain then and they do not complain now; it was the blood price to rid themselves of Nazis. This picture is not famous, but it is telling:
These are two villagers of the town of Carentan, placing flowers on the corpse of a paratrooper. By the end, the town had been severely damaged by bombing and fighting. However, the Germans were expelled.
That said, there was a reason the British and Americans were so easy on the French during the final year of the war and afterwards. France had to be brought rapidly to her feet, regain her pride and confidence and return to her place. France is the center of Western Europe and was a cultural and industrial superpower. The restoration of her pride and stability was paramount; a weak France only served the Soviets.
