 Originally Posted by Tricky
Regardless of that,she is still the head of the British armed forces by default so its only right that she should be there to commemorate the soldiers who died in the Normandy campaign,i'll be disgusted if they send someone like miliband to represent us there! I just hope Sarkozy & Obama dont treat the remaining British veterans who will definitely be there in person with the same level of ignorance & contempt
@ kortick, the french have always had a bit of a problem with the english & us with them,some of it goes back centuries, such as the battle of agincourt & the napoleonic wars,but the french were also bitter towards us during world war 2 because we abandoned france in 1940 after it was clear the germans had won, & our forces would have been destroyed at dunkirk if we hadnt evacuated back to england. The french expected us to fight to the last man for their country which we couldnt do, and they were ungrateful when we came back with the americans & canadians 4 years later to liberate them,i dont think they like the fact they had to be saved by their old enemy...
Well, the "French" (some of them) still hold a lot of grudges about having to go to war with Germany in the first place and feel that they were virtually forced into by Chamberlain's reckless declaration of war on Sept 3rd 1939, thus diverting Hitler's attention away from Eastern Europe and onto French soil. Also, the British attack on the French fleet at Oran in 1940 certainly didn't help matters. Neither did bombing campaign over France, which killed thousands of civilians. In addition, the decision to pull the BEF out of France and leave the French "flapping in the wind" as one British General put it, will never be seen as anything other than a betrayal by the British.
There's still a lot of animosity floating about.
To be honest though, I'll be glad if/when the glorification of D-Day is put to rest. Your're correct, Tricky, that Hollywood has skewed the event (and the war itself) into even newer heights of absurdity than ever existed before and the whole "greatest generation" thing really gets up my nose. Sure, D-Day was an important event and the largest seaborne invasion since the Spanish Armada, but it DIDN'T win the war in Europe and in terms of scale, is absolutely dwarfed by the likes of Bagration, just a few weeks later. Besides, when D-Day was launched in 1944, the war in Europe had to all intents and purposes been won the year before...by the Soviets.
But I fear that as long as there is nonsense produced on the "history" Channel and by Hollywood, that D-Day will be the "beginning, middle and end" to some peoples view of the Second World War in Europe.
But, should the French be snubbing Britain in a D-Day ceremony? No.
Originally Posted by Tricky
lets also not forget that during the falklands war the french were supplying exocet missiles to argentina to fire at our forces! I guess theres still bad blood about that one too....
Well, they weren't "suppyling" the Argentines with the Exocet. They had sold them a number of missles in a deal that was made long before the Falkland's War broke out.
The French actually held off deliveries of Exocets to Peru lest they end up in the hands of the Argentine Navy.
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