why

why france is the 4th victory nation in second war?

France was overrun and conquered by Germany. Some french fought with the allies in exile, but equal numbers also fought with the Vichy Government against the Allies.

Until Paris was liberated in August 1944, France was not really in a position to contribute to beating the Germans.

The main nations fighting Germany were Britain, USA and Russia. Russia did the most to destroy Germany on the land. American air forces did the most damage to Germany from the air.

The Soviets really took very little part in the war against Japan until the last week or so in 1945.

From late 1944 however France was treated as an equal in postwar considerations.

adding to that, the British fought Germany and Italy single-handedly for more than a year, refusing to give up when everything was seemingly stacked against them.

It can be said that Nazi Germany was beaten down only because all the big allied powers did their part. Britain did also that part, keeping faith when everything seemed lost. In fact it can be said that Britain kicked Italy out of the war mostly for itself (by the time US strenght came into play the British empire forces had already given the italians a run for their money so hard that they had lost most of their will to fight).

another very overlooked thing was the fact that the Soviet Russia would've possibly never won the war without US and british assistance. It's easy to see that a big factor in the german defeat was the considerable attrition emplaced on them by the soviets in the Eastern Front, but usually people pass over the fact that the soviet offensives during 1942 (Mars and Uranus) and 1943 counter-offensives would've never happened with the massed mechanized support they received via Murmansk, Persia and Siberia.

Even during 1944-45 the soviet offensives would'0ve never happened without this support.The whole halftrack inventory of the soviet army was based on M3 imports (the soviets never had a proper indigenous APC during WW2). Three out of each five radio sets fitted into soviet tanks were built in the United States.

Whole soviet mechanized corps were running on american and british tanks. Whole VVS squadrons fought in british and american fighter and bomber planes.

But more important than that,the soviets received more than 600.000 trucks during the war. during the 1944 Bagration offensives it was widely aknowledged by the same soviet high ranking officers that the only reason they could launch those deep-thrust penetrations was because they later they could supply it with a logistic system that relied in a truck fleet composed on 80% of american trucks. And logistics that made possible the massive supplies needed coming from the rear lines were also only possible because american support. Not much people realize that in 1945 three of each four soviet trains were running with US lend lease locomotives, and those were vital to keep the soviet economy running, and the front line units properly supplied.


Operationally speaking, a lot has been spoken in many places about the importance of the soviet victory at STalingrad, for instance. Not many of them are eager to remember that just 3 months later (in April 1943) the US/UK forces in Tunisia forced the surrender of a force of troops bigger than the one that was defeated in Stalingrad, that the Kursk offensive was called off because of the invasion of Sicily or that in 1944 the consecutive victories of the US/UK troops at Normandy/Falaise destroyed almost 1/3th of the whole german armored assets in existance at that time (apart of pinning them down in the west just as the soviets were launching Bagration). Or that the western allieds captured almost 1.300.000 german troops in the Ruhr pocket and rest of the battles associated with the crossing of the rhine during March 1945 (again, just on time so the Russian push to berlin could happen as it did).

So even while I agree that it was the soviets who attrited down the german forces to the breaking point, and that they were the ones who held the right of the line in what regards to defeating the German Heer, I'd say that UK and (more importantly) the US did "something more" than "beating germany by air". That, they also did (drawing and pinning some 100.000 AAA guns that could've been perfectly used in dual roles in the eastern front or elsewhere in the meantime). But they also did their fair share of land fighting...

and more than anything else, they did the ECONOMIC share to win the war. Had the soviets faced the Germans without US Lend Lease, they'd been never been able to win their share of the war.



as for France, it was the "4th victor" just because Churchill and Roosevelt (later Truman) got sick of de Gaulle's attitude and would have him as one of the victors (even while France itself did nothing of real value in WW2 in what regards to national efforts) rather than have to stand his constant whining for being excluded of said group.

RAMjb I wasn't attempting to belittle Britain's role. I'm British myself and my father was at Normandy on D-Day. My comments were an effort to condense and distil the essence.

The Bombing campaigns of the RAF by night and the Americans by Day crushed german industry in 1944, including wrecking their fuel supplies.

Whilst the Russians were primative, they simply overwhelmed the Germans in the east, but none of the three powers alone could defeat Germany.

The French contribution was quite minor and in reality they were given a seat at the table in Potsdam 1945 more as a courtesy.

Np, Kiwiguy. Just found strange that you said nothing of the UK in the conflict. It might be that the British Empire contributed less in overall military/economic terms (tho they did commit themselves to the extreme they could) than either the USSR or USA, but still, fighting a full year alone in a (Seemingly) lost cause versus Germany and Italy, deserves high praise.

I agree with you: all three powers were neccessary to win WW2 (or at least win it in as little time as possible), neither of them "won" the war by itself.

I also agree with what you say about France. Even if I sound sarcastic, I'm not: actually they were treated as "victors" in equal terms (sorta) as the USSR, USA and UK, because Churchill and Roosevelt couldn't stand De Gaulle's arrogance, and would shiver only by thinking what would the hell he would create be like if he was forced out as a "legit" victor of the war. It might be not the only reason for it, but it really played a big part.


Finally I have to mention that the allied combined bombing campaign was not as succesfull as you point out. At least not until the 8th and 15th AFs and Bomber Command switched targets to focus into the Oil Industry. There they indeed played a big part because fuel was always the big achilles heel of the 3rd Reich and it was easy to create big returns for the invest in bomber sorties against oil targets.

It was also very succesfull in utterly destroying the german railway infrastructure, something that played a big role specially during the Normandy campaign. Fun thing is: the bomber high officers were really against attacking rail targets, as they saw it as a waste of bombs. However it did prove a very effective campaign.

The same can't be said about the campaigns about the ball bearings production (an utter disaster which yielded no real benefit), against the industrial centers (German military production industrial output during late 1944 was the highest of the war), and much less against U-boat production centers/shelters or politically forced campaigns against the V-weapons sites (which most of them were just decoys, anyway).

The Allied bomber offensive fought the key target to bring Germany down to it's knees only after more than a year of combined offensive (and four years of british night bombing). While its true that it had a huge strategic impact in the war, be it because resource distractions (most of the German Fighter wings were tied up in Reich Defence, and those large number of 88s in the Eastern Front would've been a massive shock for the soviets), or because the late effect on fuel supplies for the german Heer and Luftwaffe, truth is that, while succesfull, it was not THAT succesfull in what it really tried initially: Stopping german industrial production.

THAT, the bombing couldn't do; in fact it was far from achieving it; yet it was the initial objective of the allied strategic offensive. So, in the end succesfull it was, but with some lights and shadows here and there. It was not as clear-cut as it might seem at 1st glance

I think you are right that Britain held the line alone for three years, whilst Franklin Roosevelt was trying to negotiate between Britain and Germany for their co-operation in Hitler's war on Bolshevism.

I suspect one of the secrets which will emerge when many classified documents become public at the end of 100 years of secrecy will be that Churchill accepted an offer brokered by USA on behalf of Hitler to avert the invasion of Britain in 1941.

I suspect too that Churchill may have even leaked advanced knowledge of Barbarossa to Stalin, who with typical paranoia ignored the warning.

Britain was buying time before the other two powers came into WW2.

UK's single greatest contribution in my opinion was the breaking of Enigma, which they could not have managed without some very brave Poles in 1939.

Also since WW1 the UK had developed a sophisticated spy network across Europe which kept the Allies two steps ahead of Hitler.