Can't really just use numbers of the dead as a statistic to show who did more fighting, though, it doesn't lead anywhere. Russia lost almost 24 million people in WW2. Germany lost between 7-9 million. Russia didn't do 3x the fighting, they fought each other...
Indeed. If we're going to talk about France in World War I, we should talk about how the bravery, steadfastness, and self-sacrifice of her soldiers allowed them to overcome serious deficiencies in her military leadership until Petain became supreme commander in 1917.
We should talk about how France kept on fighting for more than four years, even after the Germans occupied the richest, most industrialized, and most productive part of the country.
We should talk about how the French withstood the full fury of the enemy for months in 1916, during the Battle of Verdun, and still managed to scrape together the resources to make a major contribution to the Battle of the Somme.
We should talk about how the French Army never folded, even after the Nivelle Offensive of 1917 sparked widespread mutinies. And about how the war would have been lost, no matter what the British and Americans did, if the French had thrown in the towel the way the Russians did. Every great Continental army eventually fell apart under the strain of heavy losses and repeated defeats--except the French.
In fact, to judge from the horrible losses that France sustained during World War I, and the damage inflicted on their country, it might have been better for the French if they
had all been cowards. For France, World War I was a Pyrrhic victory. They would have been better off surrendering. And I'm sure that fact was weighing on a lot of people's minds in 1940.
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