Well, well here I am sitting here in the upper Midwest of the states and look what popped into my feed! Had to subscribe, I love history and I love oversimplified so I'm happy. Going to be fun watching this channel grow, thank you for the video and thoughtful commentary
Wow...I am so happy to hear your comments...it is great to see somebody looking at Oversimplified with an honest and critical view. I especially appreciated your comments on the stab in the back myth, and what you had to say about the Maginot Line, and the things you said about the Battle of Britain...but everything you said was very spot on. I am looking forward to part 2 a lot.💯
Regarding Sweden, as I am one myself, not many people knows about this outside of Scandinavia. " Sweden began preparing for "Operation Rädda Danmark" (Operation Save Denmark), in which Sweden was to invade Zealand from Scania. After Denmark had been liberated, Sweden was to assist the Allies in the invasion of Norway. "
The Munich treaty (betrayal as Czechs see it until this day) caused that Germany could re-arm itself much faster. Czechoslovakia even though it was a small country had very strong economy and very good industry. It was one of the largest armaments pruducers in Europe in that time. Czechoslovakia was a democratic country at that time and had strong connections to the West at that time especially France with which they were allies. Czechs even send their military experts to France to study Maginot line from which they took inspiration to build their own defensive line on the border with Germany. They expected that if they were attacked by Germany, they will be able to hold them for enough time to give France and Britain chance to invade Germany from the west. However they practically sold Czechs for extra year of peace. Sudetenland was a place where Czechs had their own “Maginot line” so when they lost it, the country was basicaly defenceless. It would be like France losing Alsace-Lorraine with their defences. That’s also the reason why after WW2 communists took power in Czechoslovakia and looked to the Soviet union. They felt betrayed by the West so they looked to the East.
Why I am writing this. This was a key moment when Allies f*cked up. Germans got Czechoslovak equipment and weapons for free. Because Czechs seeing that they were left alone submited to German demands. In 1940 over 25% of German tanks were of Czechoslovak origin. You can see tanks like Panzer 38 (t) which were Czechoslovak made. If Allies decided to support Czechoslovakia the war could be ended much faster and it could be just a local conflict and not another World war. Germany was not that strong in 1938 yet.
@@saiien2 As a Pole, I can add that the dispute between our nations, Poland and Czechoslovakia, was a huge mistake. Only Germany benefited from this dispute. Polish foreign policy in the years preceding World War II was very short-sighted, and yet we had the same enemy (Germany) and the same ally (France). I think that if Poland and Czechoslovakia had agreed and stood together against Germany in 1938, I think they would have had a chance to defend themselves effectively long enough to actually force France and Great Britain to join the war. Then who knows, maybe the war would end before it even started. However, instead, these disputes led to Poland not only allowing Germany to partition Czechoslovakia, but even taking part in it by occupying Zaolzie (of course, this was justified by the fact that the Czech Republic had previously taken these lands from Poland), but it was also, as I wrote, very short-sighted. In this way, we allowed the Germans to defeat us one by one separately, and together we would have some chance and we would certainly be more effective in putting pressure on the West to help us.
@@saiien2 W. Churchill : "You wanted to avoid war at the price of dishonour. You have dishonour and you will have war." Thank you for this comment dude
Well Churchill should be in charge much earlier. Chamberlain and Deladier were responsible for the fact that the war escalated in the manner we know today.
Some of Czechoslovak generals like Lev Prchala or Vojtěch Luža (highest Czechoslovak army command) were pushing Czechoslovak government to accept some concetions to Poland in exchange of Polish support in this conflict. Even if Zaolzie was the cost. Rather to lose a small territory than 30% of your land which was also crucial for the upcoming conflict. CS government however didn’t listen to it. It was short sighted from them too. Both sides made huge mistakes and our nations paid for it heavily with blood.
You may also be interested in reacting to the channel "Eastory". He works with dynamic maps to explain both the eastern front of WW2 (1941-1945) and the western front (1940 and 1944-1945). His videos are really good.
Yes I keep on hearing about this channel, and it's been a looong time I haven't watched his videos... But from what I remember they make a solid solid job
it's very interesting to hear a french reaction to this. Very rare for non french speakers to get this. While opinions and interpretations may collide sometimes, it's great to hear them. Btw the opinion that Dunkirk was some sort of victory is a rather exclusively british one. But it was a PR and propaganda masterpiece
"Wars are not won with evacuations". Not a military victory, maybe a moral one, a successull operation greatly promoted. In France too it is seen as a a victory. Thank you 😊
16:00 - If you have to choose between communicating with your troops knowing that your enemy is listening or opting to not communicate with you troops at all. Then the first option seems preferable. But hey if we dont talk about it then maybe Rommels ghost division really only is a ghost?
23:00 - The refocusing on London must be up there among the most significant mistakes Hitler made. Just because it came so early in the war it had an outsized impact on the events following it. Interesting alt history discussion to be had if the Luftwaffe were focused on just military targets.
Je trouve cette video bien trop simplifiée, mais pour une fois que je peux rien dire ! J'habite à deux pas des grands ouvrages de la ligne Maginot, tant de bétises ont été dites à son propos ! Quant à l'épisode des Ardennes et de l'armée Allemande repérée, merci d'en avoir parlé, ça fait vraiment plaisir. Pauve Gamelin, il avait une guerre de retard de toute façon.... Merci d'avoir fait sauter certaines idées reçues... :) L'image de la France a souffert de cette guerre :( Faut pas oublier que la Blitzkrieg a ses forces mais aussi ses faiblesses. Une grande partie de leur aviation et de de leur chars ont été perdus durant la campagne de France. Je suis pas convaincu qu'ils auraient pu tenir le rythme très longtemps mais malheureusement, ce coté négatif de la Blitzkrieg n'a jamais été filmé... les français n'avaient pas de caméra pour le montrer au monde... Et puis, bon sang, le B1 bis ! Quel char ! Bien plus puissant et résistants que les Panzers, y'a qu'a se rappeller Stone ou une seul B1 bis a fait face à une divison entière et les a détruits, tout les 13 !
Faut jamais sous-estimer à quel point la Campagne de France a été violente ! Tu connais la chaîne les historateurs et leur boulot sur la ligne Maginot ? Ils font un super taf !
Ah non, je connais pas, mais j'irai regarder, c'est certain ! T'as de la visibilité maintenant, tu as le devoir de débunker les idées reçues quand tu réagis à ce genre de vidéo, c'est ta mission soldat ! ;)
Fun fact: The French government had actually intended to have the Maginot line stretch up to the coast but simply could not afford the entire completion With a fully completed Maginot line its possible the German army may never have been able to make it past or at least not without tremendous losses and resources and definitely not at blitzkrieg speed
There is also the reason that it would have been contradictory to swear to protect Belgium against any German attack while building fortifications behind them. Thank you!
The series on WW2 has a lot of errors in it, large and small...and I do not even include errors of omission, since that is what Oversimplified does. Here is a comment I try to make on this video as often as I can with the 2 most important corrections I think this video needs, so I hope you don't mind me copy/pasting it here. I hope you spot some of the errors yourself and comment on them. Unfortunately, there are a couple of spots in this one where Oversimplified oversimplified a bit too much, to the point where the things they say are factually incorrect. Specifically, the script has a line that indicates the German people loved the Schmazis, but that is not true...only a relatively small minority of them did. Shortly after that, Oversimplified gets the history wrong on how the Schmazis actually take power. He suggests that Schmazi popularity "grew and grew" and that led directly to the President making that Corporal the Chancellor, but that is not how it happened. The Schmazi's popularity had an upper limit, and actually fell after it reached that upper limit, but they were still the largest party in the Reichstag...and they used that power to force President Hindenburg to make the Corporal the Chancellor. Also, in the section where Oversimplified talks about the Czechoslovakians not being allowed to attend the 4 power conference, they make it seem like it was Britain and France that did not invite them...but it was one of Hitler's demands that Czechoslovakia not attend the meeting.
It's a persistent myth that moustache came to power democratically. In addition to what you're saying, when you have extremely violent militias waging a reign of terror in the streets, can we still talk about the rule of law?
I find it unfair how people nowadays tend to "victimize" Germany in regards to WW1 and it's aftermath. Oh how unjust it was for Germany to be forced to pay large reparations! Meanwhile countries like France and Belgium faced total destruction in large parts of their territory. If forcing those reparations on Germany was a mistake, wouldn't that mean the solution was to leave France/Belgium in ruins with nothing to show for it? Not to say people who make those arguments don't have a point, but I have a hard time putting economic concerns over real world destruction. I also think about our attitudes towards things like appeasement and surrender. We love the Churchillian types who are "strong" and "stand up to evil." We don't built statues of people who give in to the enemy, and never consider that it might be the better decision. I look at France, the country who appeased and surrendered. And yet, their fate was arguably better than those who chose to not back down; and definitely a better fate compared to what they went through in WW1. Don't really have a position on this, but something to think about.
What bothers me about the argument around Versailles is that it completely forgets to talk about those who exploited it with the myth of the knife in the back and who bear a huge responsibility for it. And it's very true what you say: you have to assume that people who have made mistakes have often done so with good intentions, taking decisions that they sincerely thought were the best, and under extremely difficult conditions... And that these people were not as weak and naive as they have been portrayed. They were intelligent people faced with extraordinarily difficult circumstances
Don't hesitate to subscribe, I'll upload Part 2 this Friday!
You give an excellent analysis of the war, with great knowledge.
Thank you so much!
Well, well here I am sitting here in the upper Midwest of the states and look what popped into my feed! Had to subscribe, I love history and I love oversimplified so I'm happy. Going to be fun watching this channel grow, thank you for the video and thoughtful commentary
Thank you, that's heart-warming! Greetings from France!
As a Pole, I really liked your reaction and your insights and comments. Good job!
Thank you very much 😃
Wow...I am so happy to hear your comments...it is great to see somebody looking at Oversimplified with an honest and critical view. I especially appreciated your comments on the stab in the back myth, and what you had to say about the Maginot Line, and the things you said about the Battle of Britain...but everything you said was very spot on. I am looking forward to part 2 a lot.💯
Cool! And thanks for the details you've pasted in the comments, I think they're extremely important. Part 2 arrives on Friday!
Regarding Sweden, as I am one myself, not many people knows about this outside of Scandinavia.
" Sweden began preparing for "Operation Rädda Danmark" (Operation Save Denmark), in which Sweden was to invade Zealand from Scania. After Denmark had been liberated, Sweden was to assist the Allies in the invasion of Norway. "
Oh thanks I did not know about this plan, indeed!
The Munich treaty (betrayal as Czechs see it until this day) caused that Germany could re-arm itself much faster. Czechoslovakia even though it was a small country had very strong economy and very good industry. It was one of the largest armaments pruducers in Europe in that time. Czechoslovakia was a democratic country at that time and had strong connections to the West at that time especially France with which they were allies. Czechs even send their military experts to France to study Maginot line from which they took inspiration to build their own defensive line on the border with Germany. They expected that if they were attacked by Germany, they will be able to hold them for enough time to give France and Britain chance to invade Germany from the west. However they practically sold Czechs for extra year of peace. Sudetenland was a place where Czechs had their own “Maginot line” so when they lost it, the country was basicaly defenceless. It would be like France losing Alsace-Lorraine with their defences. That’s also the reason why after WW2 communists took power in Czechoslovakia and looked to the Soviet union. They felt betrayed by the West so they looked to the East.
Why I am writing this. This was a key moment when Allies f*cked up. Germans got Czechoslovak equipment and weapons for free. Because Czechs seeing that they were left alone submited to German demands. In 1940 over 25% of German tanks were of Czechoslovak origin. You can see tanks like Panzer 38 (t) which were Czechoslovak made. If Allies decided to support Czechoslovakia the war could be ended much faster and it could be just a local conflict and not another World war. Germany was not that strong in 1938 yet.
@@saiien2 As a Pole, I can add that the dispute between our nations, Poland and Czechoslovakia, was a huge mistake.
Only Germany benefited from this dispute.
Polish foreign policy in the years preceding World War II was very short-sighted, and yet we had the same enemy (Germany) and the same ally (France).
I think that if Poland and Czechoslovakia had agreed and stood together against Germany in 1938, I think they would have had a chance to defend themselves effectively long enough to actually force France and Great Britain to join the war.
Then who knows, maybe the war would end before it even started.
However, instead, these disputes led to Poland not only allowing Germany to partition Czechoslovakia, but even taking part in it by occupying Zaolzie (of course, this was justified by the fact that the Czech Republic had previously taken these lands from Poland), but it was also, as I wrote, very short-sighted.
In this way, we allowed the Germans to defeat us one by one separately, and together we would have some chance and we would certainly be more effective in putting pressure on the West to help us.
@@saiien2 W. Churchill : "You wanted to avoid war at the price of dishonour. You have dishonour and you will have war." Thank you for this comment dude
Well Churchill should be in charge much earlier. Chamberlain and Deladier were responsible for the fact that the war escalated in the manner we know today.
Some of Czechoslovak generals like Lev Prchala or Vojtěch Luža (highest Czechoslovak army command) were pushing Czechoslovak government to accept some concetions to Poland in exchange of Polish support in this conflict. Even if Zaolzie was the cost. Rather to lose a small territory than 30% of your land which was also crucial for the upcoming conflict. CS government however didn’t listen to it. It was short sighted from them too. Both sides made huge mistakes and our nations paid for it heavily with blood.
Watching from 🇬🇧. Very good analysis and use of the english language
Thank you!
You may also be interested in reacting to the channel "Eastory". He works with dynamic maps to explain both the eastern front of WW2 (1941-1945) and the western front (1940 and 1944-1945). His videos are really good.
Yes I keep on hearing about this channel, and it's been a looong time I haven't watched his videos... But from what I remember they make a solid solid job
12:44 - other good movies about Nanking are Devils on the Doorstep and Flowers of War
Ah thank you I need to see it!
Great video👍
Thank you!
it's very interesting to hear a french reaction to this. Very rare for non french speakers to get this.
While opinions and interpretations may collide sometimes, it's great to hear them.
Btw the opinion that Dunkirk was some sort of victory is a rather exclusively british one. But it was a PR and propaganda masterpiece
"Wars are not won with evacuations". Not a military victory, maybe a moral one, a successull operation greatly promoted. In France too it is seen as a a victory. Thank you 😊
Just a small nitpick but it's officially known as The Battle of Britain, not The Battle of England
Yessss you are right, thank you for correcting me. I was wrongly applying a direct translation ofthe "Bataille d'Angleterre" as we call it in France
Wait wait wait, wasnt the last one the war to end all wars?
Oh well, at least this time we know we are done with world wars for good
16:00 - If you have to choose between communicating with your troops knowing that your enemy is listening or opting to not communicate with you troops at all. Then the first option seems preferable. But hey if we dont talk about it then maybe Rommels ghost division really only is a ghost?
Would also love for you to do a video on the Saar offensive. Maybe even some own original content? 😃
18:45 - The King's Choice as well. It is a fantastic Norwegian film.
23:00 - The refocusing on London must be up there among the most significant mistakes Hitler made. Just because it came so early in the war it had an outsized impact on the events following it. Interesting alt history discussion to be had if the Luftwaffe were focused on just military targets.
Je trouve cette video bien trop simplifiée, mais pour une fois que je peux rien dire ! J'habite à deux pas des grands ouvrages de la ligne Maginot, tant de bétises ont été dites à son propos !
Quant à l'épisode des Ardennes et de l'armée Allemande repérée, merci d'en avoir parlé, ça fait vraiment plaisir.
Pauve Gamelin, il avait une guerre de retard de toute façon....
Merci d'avoir fait sauter certaines idées reçues... :) L'image de la France a souffert de cette guerre :(
Faut pas oublier que la Blitzkrieg a ses forces mais aussi ses faiblesses. Une grande partie de leur aviation et de de leur chars ont été perdus durant la campagne de France. Je suis pas convaincu qu'ils auraient pu tenir le rythme très longtemps mais malheureusement, ce coté négatif de la Blitzkrieg n'a jamais été filmé... les français n'avaient pas de caméra pour le montrer au monde...
Et puis, bon sang, le B1 bis ! Quel char ! Bien plus puissant et résistants que les Panzers, y'a qu'a se rappeller Stone ou une seul B1 bis a fait face à une divison entière et les a détruits, tout les 13 !
Faut jamais sous-estimer à quel point la Campagne de France a été violente ! Tu connais la chaîne les historateurs et leur boulot sur la ligne Maginot ? Ils font un super taf !
Ah non, je connais pas, mais j'irai regarder, c'est certain !
T'as de la visibilité maintenant, tu as le devoir de débunker les idées reçues quand tu réagis à ce genre de vidéo, c'est ta mission soldat ! ;)
@@-Griffin- Ouais ! Dans la partie 2 je vais m'attacher à expliquer au monde entier comment en fait on a quand même gagné la 2nde GM !
Ahah exactement t'as tout compris ! :) :p
Fun fact: The French government had actually intended to have the Maginot line stretch up to the coast but simply could not afford the entire completion
With a fully completed Maginot line its possible the German army may never have been able to make it past or at least not without tremendous losses and resources and definitely not at blitzkrieg speed
There is also the reason that it would have been contradictory to swear to protect Belgium against any German attack while building fortifications behind them. Thank you!
The series on WW2 has a lot of errors in it, large and small...and I do not even include errors of omission, since that is what Oversimplified does. Here is a comment I try to make on this video as often as I can with the 2 most important corrections I think this video needs, so I hope you don't mind me copy/pasting it here. I hope you spot some of the errors yourself and comment on them.
Unfortunately, there are a couple of spots in this one where Oversimplified oversimplified a bit too much, to the point where the things they say are factually incorrect. Specifically, the script has a line that indicates the German people loved the Schmazis, but that is not true...only a relatively small minority of them did. Shortly after that, Oversimplified gets the history wrong on how the Schmazis actually take power. He suggests that Schmazi popularity "grew and grew" and that led directly to the President making that Corporal the Chancellor, but that is not how it happened. The Schmazi's popularity had an upper limit, and actually fell after it reached that upper limit, but they were still the largest party in the Reichstag...and they used that power to force President Hindenburg to make the Corporal the Chancellor.
Also, in the section where Oversimplified talks about the Czechoslovakians not being allowed to attend the 4 power conference, they make it seem like it was Britain and France that did not invite them...but it was one of Hitler's demands that Czechoslovakia not attend the meeting.
It's a persistent myth that moustache came to power democratically. In addition to what you're saying, when you have extremely violent militias waging a reign of terror in the streets, can we still talk about the rule of law?
You are best
Thank you 😃
I find it unfair how people nowadays tend to "victimize" Germany in regards to WW1 and it's aftermath. Oh how unjust it was for Germany to be forced to pay large reparations! Meanwhile countries like France and Belgium faced total destruction in large parts of their territory. If forcing those reparations on Germany was a mistake, wouldn't that mean the solution was to leave France/Belgium in ruins with nothing to show for it? Not to say people who make those arguments don't have a point, but I have a hard time putting economic concerns over real world destruction.
I also think about our attitudes towards things like appeasement and surrender. We love the Churchillian types who are "strong" and "stand up to evil." We don't built statues of people who give in to the enemy, and never consider that it might be the better decision. I look at France, the country who appeased and surrendered. And yet, their fate was arguably better than those who chose to not back down; and definitely a better fate compared to what they went through in WW1. Don't really have a position on this, but something to think about.
What bothers me about the argument around Versailles is that it completely forgets to talk about those who exploited it with the myth of the knife in the back and who bear a huge responsibility for it.
And it's very true what you say: you have to assume that people who have made mistakes have often done so with good intentions, taking decisions that they sincerely thought were the best, and under extremely difficult conditions... And that these people were not as weak and naive as they have been portrayed.
They were intelligent people faced with extraordinarily difficult circumstances