The first was referring to prior wars, and was a joke.
The Germans DID occupy France, so a joke regarding their room and board expenses is valid, and doesn't refer to any perceived or actual military capability or the sacrifice of theirs,
The last, well, are you making the argument that the maginot line WAS effective? And I don't mean "effective because it forces them to roll through the Ardennes and kill Belgians instead of going directly from Germany to France while not actually resulting in substantial delays of the advance because dammit, those Germans won't take armored units though woods..right?"
Not only that, I didn't refer to the British, Belgian, or Dutch at ALL.
Basically, chill out, not only has the French as a bunch of smelly flag waving surrender monkeys been around since, well, like the beginning of time, as most of European history (napoleonic wars and various british/french "who's island is it" times notwithstanding) is basically "people from the east (usually those organized imperalistic ones with harsh consonants and extraordinarily long compound words) invade France...repeat"
As for discrediting the Wehrmacht? Where did you pull that one out of?
It's more underestimating what they accomplished. By saying the French rolled over blinds a person to what one can learn. The Maginot line worked tactically but not strategically and they had what they thought were good reasons for building the thing.
In short the planners didn't account for the fact that the speed of war had increased. Not their fault really, it even took the Germans awhile to figure it out and only because Guderian kept pushing it. Also they thought it would be trench warfare again and a fortress is better than a trench any day. So it came down to what would they build, more armored divisions that can be ordered away or destroyed before being fully mobilized or something that couldn't? Well, they went with the giant concrete boxes.
The Germans had virtually no success in reducing the fortifications and most of them surrendered after the rest of France was lost. A section near Lyon was still fighting a week after the fall and the German commander could only get them to surrender by threatening to use his siege mortars on the city.
Now yes, the leadership was bad. It was fighting the wrong style war with mostly untrained troops and with a serious lack of material and they were a week behind from the very first day of the fight as there mobilization process was predicated on it taking the Germans 9 days to reach France through Belgium etc. and it only took three. The tactical leadership was lacking, but then they were using an obsolete doctrine.
So yes, the French lost. As would have the US given the same conditions because no one saw what was coming. Even the Germans were worried it wouldn't work, beating up on the Poles was one thing, France was another thing entirely. Also it took 40 days. A lot of people forget that. Even with all their handicaps it took the Germans 40 days to finally beat them.
To sum up: France gets unfairly dissed when no other army in the world at that time would have stopped the Germans.
And I am so chill you can keep a side of beef on me for a week.
