Which historians call the Battle of France a decisive victory?

[Attrition]

.... Rather than a pyrrhic victory or a decisive French defeat?

[Tom from Cornwall]

Do you mean in 1940 or in 1944?

Cheers

Tom

[Attrition]

Fnar! 1940....;O))

[Knouterer]

Another good question: which historians tie the laces of their right shoe first?

[Attrition]

The sarcastic ones?

[Sheldrake]

1940 was a decisive German victory over France and her allies. WW2 could have petered out as a cold war over the English channel had the Germans not invaded the Soviet Union.

[Attrition]

So it wasn't decisive to the Second World War.

[Sheldrake]

So it wasn't decisive to the Second World War.

This argument leads to the conclusion that only the last shot was "decisive". Britain went to war to preserve the independence of Poland. Was 1945 really decisive, if Britain's war aims of 1939 were achieved in 1989?

In my book a decisive victory leads to some change in the political/ strategic situation. The battle of the Marne in 1914 was decisive as it ensured that the Germans could not defeat the French in 1914 and that the war would not be over by Christmas. The Battle of Midway was decisive because was a turning point on the balance of naval power in the Pacific.

[Attrition]

No, the Germans lost the war, so none of their victories were decisive. The watershed when winning the war went beyond the German capacity to force a victory was at Smolensk in 1941. 1940 could be construed as a decisive French defeat but even then, Britain was on the winning side and became equally a US protectorate, demonstrated by the Suez conspiracy of 1956, when both countries were demonstrably brought to heel. Britain went to war in 1939 to oppose German hegemony in Europe, Poland was a casus belli not an end in itself and Poland didn't become independent in 1989, it exchanged hegemons.

[Ironmachine]

No, the Germans lost the war, so none of their victories were decisive.

That kind of argument leads to the conclusion that, as the Allies won, either all their victories were decisive or, as Sheldrake already pointed, only their last victory was decisive. Nothing in between would do.

[Attrition]

See my post above.

[MarkN]

In my opinion, Germany achieved a resounding and decisive victory against Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and France during May and June 1940. But not against Britain despite overcoming the greater part of the land capability.

To suggest that these efforts were not decisive based upon what other countries (namely Russia and the US), who at that time were not even involved, achieved at a later date seems to me to be a rather incoherent argument.

Would you have argued in 1940, after the fall of France, that Germany's conquoring of France at that point 'proved' that the Allies had not achieved a decisive victory in 1918?

[Attrition]

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.ar ... PUB272.pdf

~~~~The victory decided that France, if not all of its empire, was definitively hors de combat. The most important decisive effect of the victory, however, was its influence on German self-evaluation in general, and the Fuhrer's self-confidence as warlord in particular. What the victory decided was that Germany would judge itself militarily unbeatable in continental warfare. The planning for Operation BARBAROSSA, and then the (mis-) conduct of that campaign from June to December 1941, showed the effect of the "decisive" victory of May-June 1940.54~~~~ p. 19

The coalition that defeated the Germans began to form in 1938 and the events of 1940 galvanised the process. Britain was still in the war and had a greater prospect of success than Germany. A decisive defeat for France perhaps but not a decisive victory for Germany, just a big one. Germany was still excluded from world markets, increasingly dependent on the USSR and incapable of stopping US rearmament.

[MarkN]

In June 1940 it was not a 'world' war. Russia was an ally of Germany and the US somewhat disinterested. It was the effort of those two which 'decided' Germany's ultimate fate - not a punch drunk French nation coming back off the ropes. The fact, which we know in hindsight, that they ultimately turned on Germany through Germany's own bad politics does not alter the military victories of 1940.

Perhaps it would be help if you clarified something. Does you original question pertain to military or political victory?

[Attrition]

A Clasuewitzian definition I think, so politico-strategic. It was always a world war, Russia was still appeasing the Germans after the Anglo-French volte-face in 1938 but rearming as well, as was the US. The defeat of the Allies in 1940 wasn't war winning so can't have been decisive.