There were clearly quite a few Frenchmen who thought this way; even General Gamelin himself was probably among them. France's calculation was nothing more than to see whether the Maginot Line could hold. If it worked well, they could still make a fight of it. If it could not hold...
The French placed such importance on the Maginot Line precisely because France only wanted to defend its homeland and had absolutely no desire to take the initiative and attack Germany.
In that case, subconsciously, the French had already lost half the contest with Germany.
Still, this was understandable. The price France had paid in the First World War had been too crushing for the French. The loss of an entire generation of young and middle-aged men had turned "We cannot fight another war like that" into a social consensus.
Those young people who should have been full of vigor and ideas, unwilling to fall behind, had either died on the battlefield or become disabled, sinking day after day into miserable, numb, bewildered lives. The whole society had inevitably been affected as well, falling into collective despair and pessimism.
France could not contend with the stronger Germany in terms of economy, military strength, or morale.
Colonels like Douss were instead oddities in present-day France. Faced with General Gamelin's indifferent attitude, he sighed helplessly in his heart. Perhaps this was also a path for France. France truly could no longer endure the devastation of another war.
Unlike the lifeless French, after the Warsaw Pact was signed, Germany was now conducting military exercises in Eastern Europe while secretly reinforcing its military deployments along the Western European border.
Yet Germany also had one urgent matter to complete: it needed to pocket the spoils negotiated in the Warsaw Pact as soon as possible.
After