Well the French high command in WW2 was the worst possible, well, maybe except the Italian
Nearly every field marshal was 80-90 (no kidding!) years old, there were scarcely any real plans or a well-organised General Staff, many officers didn't quite know whose orders to follow as the authorities of some generals overlapped, on top of that the CIC had no radio or phone (!!!) in his HQ and all messages were brought to him by motorcycle (!!!). So, despite the good performance of the soldiers one-on-one, the army very quickly fell apart and if you don't have a good command and organisational system, it doesn't matter if you have the best soldiers or the heaviest tanks in the world.
What irks me is the myth of the French being bad soldiers, which in fact has no ground in history whatsoever. When they suffered defeats in 1871 or in 1940 it was because of the high command errors, not because of soldiers cowardice or anything. In fact throughout history the French soldiers and officers have been some of the most spirited, they even started WWI with this theory that the "elan" (battle spirit) of their soldiers will be enough to wipe out any enemy
Well it wasn't, but at that time their army was second only to the German, and that was a pretty close second...
anyway enough with the rants
(that was a joke)
