Quote:
Originally Posted by Donger
Well, sure, it was mostly fought on their soil. France lost something like 4% of their population during WWI. The Brits lost about 2.5%, I think.
But, France still started WWII with 5 million troops. The Germans had 2.5 million.
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My recollection was that Germany had more soldiers than France at the outset of WWII but I'd have to look that up somewhere to confirm.
But what I don't need to look up was that Germany was the aggressor that had begun in/around 1935 in re-armament with the intent of eventually kick-starting another European war. So while France may have had troops, they weren't out there building massive armored divisions, a Navy that could compete with Great Britain and probably the most formidable air force in the world at the time.
Again, Germany was taken over by a totalitarian state and had essentially created a wartime economy 4-5 years before the war actually started.