Germany invades France
With armed resistance and war almost two million French died during WWI.
Let’s consider the nonviolent resistance alternative.
In the absence of armed resistance the Germans “take over.” They begin stealing valuables. They move in heavy equipment with the idea of extracting resources.
The French people resist in a nonviolent way. They refuse to do anything. They eat whatever provisions they’ve had in the pantry and then they stop eating. They do no work for, they cooperate in no way with the German invaders.
The Germans are stranded. Nothing is being produced in the France they are occupying. For some months they attempt to bring in provisions for their occupying troops from Germany. German trucks come in to France with provisions and with personnel to work the mines and factories. It is an enormous job that takes up a lot of the resources of the German army. Very little production is actually able to take place. The German troops try to brutalize French citizens into doing work but nothing comes of it. The French go limp. Relatively few French can be “engaged” in such a way and most of those who are brutalized don’t do anything, don’t cooperate. Hundreds of thousands of French die of starvation or deprivation over a period of months.
Just about everyone outside of France and Germany can see that the situation is one of heinous German aggression and almost no belligerence on the part of the French. No country can be viewed as aiding Germany or being in alliance with Germany. Almost every country sanctions Germany. Many take action to blockade Germany.
There is German-wide suffering while the country gets very little benefit out of the occupation of France. The little that can be extracted from France is not worth it. The occupation lasts eight months. Germany is recognized as bellicose and treated as a pariah state for a long time.
The final toll for the French: 300,000 dead. By meeting violence with violence, by going to war, five times that number would have died. And as the world saw two belligerents squaring off in violence and counter-violence, debates about which side was more evil would come to no definite conclusion.
