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If French lacked some sort of courage it was not the physical courage of the soldiers, pilots or sailors but political courage before the war (Munich and so on) and then the courage to take risks and assume responsabilities by high commanders.
The whole Allied strategy in 1940 was purely defensive. The whole strategic thinking since 1918 from the winners of WWI was defensive. The losers started to imagine new tactics while the winners had obviously the good strategy.
The Allied advanced in Belgium because they were planning to arrive on fortified positions both in Belgium and Netherlands. Well existing lines (Canal Albert in Belgium and Grebe Line in Holland) were broken before their arrival and the Dyle line was hardly existing at all.
As for the reinforcement of French army during the winter of 1940, it is true but Luftwaffe and Wermacht were reinforcing at a faster pace !! For example D520 were not used in operations until mid-May 1940. On the other hand Luftwaffe replaced Bf109D with the far superior Bf109E. French were still thinking Bf109 was inferior to their fighters, but that was only true of the Bf109D that was met most of the times during the Phoney War.
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24th February 2005, 18:56
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