Although it's attracted practically no attention in the news, today is the 70th anniversary of France's surrender to Germany during WWII. I was watching "France Falls," the episode of the series "The World At War" dealing with the French collapse.

Even after all these years, the story is unbelievable. The program interviews a German general who says that if the French had only invaded Germany in September 1939, when the war began, they could have defeated the Germans. Instead, they advanced only five miles into the country (the "Saar Offensive"), and even that petered out. They then spent the winter of 1939-40 inactive on the border, and when they did fire their big guns, it was mainly to impress visitors like the Duke of Windsor! It would be hilarious if it didn't really happen with serious consequences. Then, in four days during May 1940, the Germans broke through and starting racing all over France. The French did virtually everything wrong despite the fact that victory had been in their grasp. Unbelievable.

Today is also the anniversary of the beginning of "Operation Barbarossa," the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, which took place exactly one year after the defeat of France. It will surely be a big deal in Russia when the 70th anniversary of the invasion rolls around next year, given that WWII is rememred much more there than in the U.S. (the Soviet Union lost about 27 million people in the war, compared to about 400,000 for the U.S.).