Talk:Battle of France

fall of france

what caused the fall of france 70.26.105.194 (talk) 18:57, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

One factor was that they left the ardennes to go and hep defend belgium, a region with heavy treeline and bumpy hills because they thought that Hitler couldn't penetrate the area with so many troops and tanks however, Hitler did penetrate his forces through the area and blasted through the french lines which French Commanders were caught veyr off guard by. 72.138.179.198 (talk) 17:55, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

BEF size

In the prelude section under 'Allies' it states that at the start of battle the BEF was 1.6 million men. Given the BEF was only 13 divisions that is clearly wrong. Firestar47 (talk) 10:47, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

I think that seeing as 250,000 were taken home from Dunkirk and another 150,000+ emigre contingents from other ports it might be that the 1 in 1.6 million is wrong. Keith-264 (talk) 11:02, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Maybe. Annoyingly all the books on my shelf give only the number of divisions. The number though is written in full so is unlikely a typing error. Firestar47 (talk) 11:00, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

The number of 1.6 million men refers not to the BEF but to the total armed forces, territorial divisions and units in training included.--MWAK (talk) 14:11, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Prelude

It says that the french mobilised 5 million men but that only half served in units in the north. So where were the other half? Are we talking about the navy as well? I feel this needs clarification. Firestar47 (talk) 10:56, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Well, the text now states "France mobilised about one-third of the male population between the ages of 20 and 45, bringing the strength of its armed forces to 5,000,000" but this is a clear mistake. The male population of France numbered about twenty million in 1940 and about six million of these were between 20 and 45 years old.--MWAK (talk) 14:30, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Well I've just been to my bookshelf, both books I checked gave the mobilization figure as 5 million so that bit seems right. Firestar47 (talk) 20:56, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Size of Allied Forces involved

(originally from Loic on AHF) "Pierre Le Goyet La défaite 10 mai-25 juin 1940 gives for Metropolitan France 1. may 1940

2 651 802 "aux Armées" (means the Front) 529 028 des formations du territoire (Interior) 675 386 Depôts et Centres d'Organisation (Interior) 75 638 Foreigners (RMVE & Légion in Métropolitan France, Polish & Czechoslovak Armies) 53 466 in the hospitals"

Overseas and Air forces aren't included in the above nor is naval. For the Belgians and Dutch, the wiki articles show 600,000-650,000 men and 280,000 men respectively. The BEF in France was 390,000 men. Luxembourg had 693. Even if we only go with the Front armies for the French and even then exclude the 150,000 French attributed to the Alps (and no airforces), go with the lower Belgian estimate, and ignore the RAF that totals to at least 3,770,000. Something is seriously wrong with the article. 47.220.25.18 (talk) 06:12, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Do you have any written sources for your claims? Keith-264 (talk) 20:30, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Plan names

Somehow I noticed and lowercased "Weygand plan" before noticing the other named plans. Looking at n-gram stats, it seems that these were initially much more often lowercase, but the capitalization has been creeping up over years. Still, not close to the "consistently capitalized in sources" criterion in the MOS:CAPS guideline about what to treat as a proper name. The Escaut plan shows up much less in sources, but also sometimes lowercase, as here (one of several books quoting this 1941 passage, or maybe something older). On the other hand, the names "Plan D", etc., seem more often treated as proper names. So shall we fix them accordingly? Dicklyon (talk) 21:50, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Seeing as you've taken the time to do the work, why not? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 07:30, 10 August 2024 (UTC)