Actually, we did not have a lot of help from France in World War II. De Gaulle had few resources. Darlan's fleet was sunk to prevent its appropriation by the Nazis. Half the country was occupied, the other half under the Vichy regime. Even in Occupied France, a lot of people were collaborationist. It is true that the Maquis provided invaluable help in implementing the D- Day invasion, especially for our paratroopers, but it is also true that few people were involved in the Maquis. After the war, there was nearly a civil war, as kangaroo courts were convened to exact punishment on collaborators.
It is true that we owed France a great debt for its help in the Revolutionary War. We pretty much paid it in the First World War, though. Certainly the Brits have been great friends, and more or less made up for the earlier unpleasantness. Still, they would have gone under without Lend- Lease and American entry into the war. In any event, I am more a Francophile: I love French food, watch French movies, have a good reading knowledge of the French language. I have met a lot of pro- American French. But face it, there is a lot of anti- Americanism, especially among the elites, and it can be quite exasperating.
By the way, it is true that the Soviet Union lost a lot of people, but most of them were not Russian, but Ukrainian, Belarussian, and others. Not to mention the fact that if Stalin had cut a deal with Britain and France in the first place, instead of Hitler, all of that might not have happened. |
