The Anger of Compassion

Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys--Not

According to Michael R. Eades, M.D. and his wife, Mary Dan Eades, M.D., authors of Protein Power, certain notions are what they call vampire myths, myths which "simply refuse to die." For example, the rates of death in China from cardiovascular diseases is similar to that of Americans--contrary to myth. I'd like to add one notion that's had little enough attention paid to it in the blogosphere: the notion that the French rolled over and played dead in front of the German advance in 1940. The popular term is "cheese-eating surrender monkeys," and one variant was expressed by Rachel Lucas:

Almost 60 years ago, thousands of Americans died on a beach in France. They were there to liberate France from the Nazis, who'd been occupying France for four years, ever since France had capitulated to its own chickenshit tendencies and surrendered without so much as a fight.

Trouble is, it didn't happen that way. Not even close. I quote figures from Table 3, German and Allied casualties, 1940 (page 209), of Len Deighton's Blood, Tears and Folly: An Objective Look at World War II:

German dead: 27,074

French dead: 90,000

German wounded: 111, 034

French wounded: 200, 000

Sound like chickenshit numbers to you?

Other (total) casualties:

BEF (approx. 40 days fighting): 68,111; Belgian (17 days fighting) 23, 350; Dutch (5 days fighting) 9, 779.

Cheese-eating surrender monkeys? Dutch, five days fighting? We don't hear about Gouda-eating surrender monkeys, do we? Or wooden-shoe wearing surrender monkeys?

And as for that figure of 90,000 French dead: Eugenia C. Kiesling, assistant professor of military history at the United States Military Academy, in her book Arming Against Hitler: France and the Limits of Military Planning, puts the figure at over 120,000.

As Rachel Lucas points out, there are plenty of other reasons to be angry and annoyed with the French government and with much of its population, too. And I agree with her (and you should still check out her blog). But this isn't one of them. The French rollover in 1940 is a myth, although it keeps coming back like a bad penny or, as the good doctors Eades would say, a vampire.

90,000--120,000 dead in May and June 1940? The French didn't roll over and play dead: they were dead.

If we are to honor the thousands who died liberating France from Nazi aggression-occupation, then justice demands we honor those who died defending her from Nazi aggression-invasion. To cheapen the one cheapens the other.

UPDATE: Rachel Lucas has removed the above linked post.

Posted by Craig Ceely at July 2, 2003 08:41 PM