On the part of the French, their replacement system was limited by the amount of training infrastructure they had been able to re-establish since reentering France in August 1944 and was further strained by a controversial French decision to "whiten" the French forces in Alsace by sending experienced Senegalese and other colonial troops—exhausted from fighting in Italy—to the south and replacing them with French Forces of the Interior (FFI) troops of varying quality and experience. While the FFI troops were capable of defensive operations, they had to undergo a steep learning curve in order to become effective at offensive operations, particularly where complex activities such as combined-arms operations were concerned.