Transmigrated as the Crown Prince

France's performance in World War II was a joke in the eyes of many military fans, and was on par with Italy.

However, before World War I, France was the second largest colonial power after the British Empire. Its colonies are spread across all continents, covering an area of ​​more than 12 million square kilometers. It is no exaggeration to say that in addition to the British Empire, France can also be called the empire on which the sun never sets.

With such a vast colony and protecting such huge interests, there is no doubt about the combat effectiveness of the French army. Since the Napoleonic era, the French army has been very powerful in combat. It has been fighting openly and secretly with the British for hundreds of years, with major and minor battles never ending.

With the rise of Prussia in the mid-to-late 19th century, France had one more enemy and began to compete with the Germans for European hegemony.

In order to unify Germany, Prussia defeated Denmark and Austria in 1864 and 1866, but France still controlled the South German states behind the scenes in an attempt to hinder German unification.

On July 14, 1870, Prussian Prime Minister Bismarck issued a provocative "Emes Codex" on the succession to the Spanish throne, which angered the French government. On July 19, France declared war on Prussia, but after the war began, the French army was defeated one after another. On September 2, French Emperor Napoleon III personally led nearly 100,000 French troops to surrender in Sedan. On September 4, a revolution broke out in Paris. The French big bourgeoisie established the Third French Republic and the Second French Empire fell.

But the Prussian army still marched straight in. On January 18, 1871, King William I of Prussia was crowned emperor in the Palace of Versailles, France, and established the German Empire. The French bourgeois government requested an armistice. On February 26, the two sides signed a preliminary peace treaty in Versailles, France. A formal peace treaty was signed in Frankfurt on May 10.

France suffered a crushing defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, but the French were still dissatisfied and continued to quarrel with the Germans. They learned from the lessons of the Franco-Prussian War, reconciled with the British, pulled the British together to deal with Germany, and tried their best to kill Germany.

When World War I broke out not long after, the French took the lead and fought extremely bravely, and finally teamed up with the British to defeat the Germans. The French army's performance in this battle was so brave that it was almost comparable to the French army during the Napoleonic period.

As a result, after experiencing a tragic war, the French, as the victorious country, became cowardly. They were no longer as bellicose as they were before the war, nor were they as disobedient as they were before the war. They actually became cowards.

In fact, this is understandable. Before World War I, France was a world-famous loan shark country with a full treasury (after the Franco-Prussian War, France paid 5 billion gold francs in war reparations to Germany; equivalent to 14 years of French military expenditure and 1 year of total exports. The French government issued three national bonds to the country , as a result, 45 billion gold francs were raised, equivalent to 9 times the compensation!!), and the country was strong.

The tragic war not only emptied the French treasury, but also caused the French to owe a lot of debt (a debt of 9.1 billion US dollars to the United States and a debt of 300 million US dollars to the United Kingdom. Due to the collapse of the Tsarist Russian government, Tsarist Russia owed France The debt of hundreds of billions of francs came to naught because the Soviet Union did not recognize the debt at all, which made the French economy even worse. The fiscal deficit in 1918 was as high as 18 billion francs).

In order to raise money, France even did not hesitate to offend Britain and the United States and sent troops to the Ruhr to collect debts from the Germans. However, such a reckless move caused France to not only become politically isolated, but also failed to obtain the expected economic benefits. Its net income from plundering from the Ruhr, excluding the expenses of the occupying forces, was only 500 million francs. The occupation of the Ruhr caused Germany to stop paying reparations, and France's share of the total reparations amounted to more than half, which in turn seriously damaged its financial credibility; it was simply more losses than gains.

The second is that France lost an entire generation in the war. During the war, the French army lost 50,000 lives and injured more than 2.8 million people, turning France from one of the most populous countries in Europe to a "widow country."

Wartime production and frontline service caused a loss of 50,000 working people, and the total number of casualties exceeded 5 million. Due to the shortage of labor, France's industrial production and economic development have been seriously affected, and even conscription has become a problem.

Finally, due to the economic depression and poor people's livelihood, France's domestic conflicts abounded, triggering continued domestic turmoil, which slowed France's development and caused France to slip from the world's first-class echelon to a semi-first-class one, falling to the same level as Italy.

The losses in this battle filled the French with fear of war. It's not that the French don't want to be cowardly, the French also want to be high-profile but their strength doesn't allow it.

Although France is still known as the world's largest army power, in fact, most of its huge army is patchwork, either farmers or retired, and some have not received decent training. Although the French have strong industrial production capacity, their operating rate is seriously insufficient, and their industrial output value is less than one-third of Germany's. Although the French appear to be very powerful, they are actually weak on the outside and weak on the inside. They have been living on their laurels.

When World War II broke out, the French quickly revealed their true colors. They were defeated by the Germans in one round and remained idle until the end of World War II. Fortunately, de Gaulle and others went overseas to join Britain and the United States, allowing the French to win without much effort and directly become the victorious country. France may be the first player to hang up and win in the fifth row.

However, Germany occupied only the French mainland in Europe. Outside Europe, France also has colonies covering more than 12 million square kilometers. These colonies are distributed all over the world, such as the French African colonies in West Africa and North Africa, the Indochina colonial position in Indochina, French Guyana in the Americas, and so on.

After France surrendered, France was divided into two parts by Germany, and 60% of the country, including the capital Paris, was directly occupied by Germany. The southern 40% of the territory was ruled by Vichy France, headed by French Marshal Pétain. Of course, this so-called Vichy government was actually a puppet regime of Germany.

Although in theory France's large overseas colonies should be under the jurisdiction of Vichy France. But in fact, with only 100,000 troops and being directly controlled by Germany's Vichy government, it simply does not have the ability and strength to continue to control France's large overseas colonies.

Naturally, various countries began to covet France's rich colonies. Therefore, many countries, including the Allies, began to attack French colonies. For example, the United Kingdom successively occupied Syria, Lebanon and other regions in the Middle East with the cooperation of Charles de Gaulle's Free France. Madagascar, the largest island in Africa, was also occupied by the United Kingdom.

Between August and November 1940, France's large colonies in Africa, such as Chad, Congo, Cameroon, Ubangi, Gabon and other places, successively joined the Free French. Prior to this, the French colonies occupied by Britain, such as Syria, Lebanon, North Africa and other places, were also placed under the leadership of de Gaulle.

Therefore, after France surrendered during World War II, France's colonies were divided into two parts. One part was in the hands of the Allies, including Free France. This part of the colony was also the largest part, and the other part was still under the rule of Vichy France.