How Did The French Military Refusing To Fight During World War I

French Military Refusing to Fight during World War I

Did you know that over 1,357,800 French citizens died during the course of World War I? I guarantee you didn’t! But did you know that a majority of these deaths were because of a certain country that basically demolished the French military and France as a whole even when they were one of the most powerful countries in the beginning of World War I! Can you guess the country that wiped them out? Well.. if you didn’t it’s the Germans! The Germans were affecting the French so bad, that it actually came to the point where the French soldiers decided to refuse to fight anymore, so even though the Germans made great strategies and was able to overtake the French’s offense. Which then altered
One quote to properly explain this is, “The strategies put in place were timed to precede and shatter the Great offensive that the French were.” (New York Times, 1918) The New York Times reported this because, the French were mourning the substantial amount of human loss that took place at that time, which gave the Germans a reason to make a smart, and good move towards taking more land from the French, and when they executed this strategy when they rushed the French, they were extremely successful, and was one of the reasons on why the French went into defensive mode. Another quote to show an example on how the French reacted to when the Germans came to attack is, “‘Troops resting in reserve areas refused to return to the front,’ writes historian Adam Hochschild. Rebellion breaks out in more than thirty divisions. An infantry regiment took over a town and refused to move.” (Hochschild, Schuster 2017) Once the French army transitioned into a defensive army. A couple of battles in, the Germans kept on succeeding and this is because, many of the French’s front rows of army didn’t want to fight mostly because they didn’t want to die. The majority who were on reserve or in bases, or trenches also didn’t want to leave because of the fear of death. So, when the small amount of French people fearless and
To properly explain this this quote will tell you the amount they killed. It says on a chart that “Approximately 1,357,800 citizens of France were found dead after the end of the war, along with about 4,266,000 wounded in total after the duration of World War I.” (Ellis, Gaynor, Esler 694) This shows an example on why the French refused to fight, they were afraid of either getting injured or being deceased, which was previously stated multiple times. But the question still stands… Why did the Germans attack the French so much in the first place? Well, this is because the French had a lot of land that they owned, and the German saw loopholes to get through and kill much of the French army, whilst both countries at the time we’re extremely powerful armies. But due to the German’s unrelenting power, willingness and amazing strategies, they were easily able to overcome the French many times, in order to shrink down the French’s army and the population of the citizens itself to make them some of the weakest armies in World War I towards the end and they needed a way to get extra troops for defensive purposes just in case they had to fight back, and America agreed to send some soldiers down to protect the remainder of the French citizens. To prove this the quote shown explains it, “And promised that there would be no more mass frontal