Did you know?.... The French Foreign Legion tried to assassinate a French PM because their government had shunned the military financially and publicly?
Yeah, but what have you done for me lately?
The problem is, even when they win they take on all the worst attributes of the enemy.
I've got to get to work, so I'm bumping this for a reply later today...
Hey John, tell everyone about the Pro-Vichy units and Operation Torch!
The consequence of all this was that he French youngsters had very little enthusiasm for war. Recall that a generation or two had been shot off during the Napoleonic Wars and another generation in WWI. Perhaps they are really just displaying some wisdom.
In closing, there was a saying by an observer about the French army in the latter part of WWI. "The were not very good at fighting, but they were very good at something that sounded a lot like it."
Thats deceptive. France had THREE military treaties with Poland, all stating that France would come to her aid if she was attacked by Germany. One even spelled out in detail the number of troops she would use and the # of days needed for of mobilization. Germany stripped the Seigfreid line to invade Poland. The Poles fought a losing battle with elan and valor, knowing that they need only hold out for a few days because, per the treaty, French armor would soon be slicing into the heart of Germany.
France never even mobilized.
Everything honorable about France died in the trenches of WWI. Take the French propaganda somewhere else. France always betrays her allies. Every. Single. Time. They are Weasels.
While it is technically true that French forces took part in the African battles of World War II, the author could at least be honest enough to point out they they took part in the battles on the side of the Axis.
Just a joke. Charles Martel revolutionized warfare. As I write in "A Patriot's History of the United States," the French victory off New Jersy in 1781---by the way, the ONLY time the French Navy ever defeated the Brits (so how is that for Divine Providence?)---sealed Washington's victory over Cornwallis, no question.
But this is too easy on a French Army that had bigger and more powerful tanks than the Germans in 1940 and which stratigically was utterly blind by hiding behind the Maginot Line when everyone knew that the Belgian border was wide open.
Let them eat frogs.
It bears pointing out that the French based their opposition to the liberation of Iraq from a position of righteous morality - but when the dust settled we discovered it was more about their business contracts with Saddam and the Oil for Food ripoff. The mockery of France is well-deserved.
If we go into medieval history, of course, the French usually won their wars. There is a REASON why France is by far the biggest country in Western Europe, and had a population second only to Russia's until the 19th Century.
We should remember, for example, that the Norman conquest a was the conquest of Anglo-Saxon England by the French nobility, and that the Hundred Years' War with England, which France won decisively in the end, was a fight between the domestic French and English French nobility. Richard the Lion Heart was not really the Lion Heart, he was Coeur de Lion, a French nobleman who happened to be the King of England.
We should remember that the reconquista of Spain and the First Crusade started out as largely French affairs.
Moving on into the Renaissance, Reformation and Age of Reason, we should remember that the French, again were a military behemoth. Out of the picture for half a century due to civil wars of religion, when the French re-emerged, it was the theretofore invincible Spanish tercios that were smashed to pieces by the French army at Rocroi.
It is interesting that Americans who know history generally know the names of a couple of great English victories over the French: Agincourt, Crecy and Waterloo come to mind. But hardly anyone seems to know any of the great battles in which the French defeated the British. Hastings and Orleans come to mind. Indeed, one comes away with the impression that the English never lost and the French never won, when actually, the French conquered Britain and essentially set up modern England, and at the end of the day, in the five grand strategic wars between France and England (the Norman Conquest, the 100 Years War, the Wars of the Age of Kings, the American Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars), three were decisive French victories, one was a draw with significant French territorial gains, and one was a decisive English victory.
Truth is, Americans have been mad at the French since de Gaulle pulled out of NATO, and with good reason too! De Gaulle, Mitterand's refusal of US overflight enroute to Libya, and French skulduggery concerning Iraq have all made France persona non grata in the US. And, of course, for a military society like the US, engaged in important hot wars abroad, it is important psychologically to denigrate the capacities of your political opponents.
1940 was inglorious for France.
But let's be clear. In 1941, the US lost a whole Army without much of a fight too, in the Philippines, and lost almost the whole Navy at Pearl Harbor in a surprise attack. France should have performed better in 1940, but the French were simply rolled over by surprise. Let's remember that the English were unable to hold the Germans back either, and fled for the Channel, leaving their equipment behind at Dunkirk.
The French, English, Russians and Americans all were caught in nasty surprises by enemies using new tactics, and they all got rolled by the enemy in the opening campaigns. The difference is that England had the strategic depth of the English Channel, Russia had, well, the endless expanses of Russia to fall back into. America had the strategic depth of the Pacific Ocean. Paris is 100 miles from the border where the Germans crossed. When the French and British Armies were surprised by the new tactics and rolled, France had nowhere to fall back upon.
All that said, French forces fighting Eisenhower in North Africa was an utter disgrace. Every Frenchman involved in fighting those battles on the German side should have been shot, and the whole Vichy collaborationist regime probably should have been hanged. France's failure on the battlefield in 1940 was comparable to the loss of the US Army in the Philippines and the US Navy at Pearl. But the political collaboration of the French with the Nazis, and the export of French Jewry are marks on French honor, black as hell, that can never be expunged.
For perspective, Benito MUSSOLINI and Italy did not cooperate as much with Hitler's Holocaust as the French did. Despite being an Axis power, Mussolini's Italy only sent about 5000 Jews to their deaths, and many of them only after being directly seized. By contrast, supposedly Allied France shipped cooperated in the export of 40,000 + Frenchmen to their deaths. It is a badge of dishonor to France that the Axis, Fascist government of Italy was less enthusiastically cooperative with the Nazi holocaust than the government of France. That was inexcusable.
Here is the way I put it: walk around Paris and observe carefully. Everything that is truly great in France was built by the Kings, or by the Third Republic. The Kings have all departed, and the manhood of the Third Republic bled to death in Flanders in World War I.
What the French of today are, are like the Italians of 600 AD, dwelling in the grand ruins of a lost Empire that they themselves do not have the capacity to recreated.
France was glorious when ruled by her Kings.
France ruled by her modern accountants is a shrivelled thing dwelling in the dinosaur bones of glorious civilization that bled to death at Verdun.
WWII there is simply no excuse. Yes, France had 3 armored divisions to Germany's ten. But they also had a large number of independent tank brigades, and various tank battalions. In fact, they had more and generally better tanks than than did the Germans. One of the few French generals to actually put up a real fight was DeGaulle leading one of those tank brigades. 'Course, he launched his counterattack in violation of orders....
Since WWII, they managed to win at Suez against token opposition, and to "dominate" the Ivory Coast. Wow. They were completely clobbered by the Viet Minh, and, when they showed up for the Gulf War, asked not to be put into heavy action.
Sorry, but I'm not impressed.
Answer: Duplicitous weasels. AKA Cheese eating surrender monkeys.
Well some might say therein lies the problem of their lousy record.
France today has a reasonably capable military (they operate the only CVN outside the United States Navy, and the Rafale is one of the best combat aircraft in service at the present time). French forces recently carried out a brilliant operation in Cote d’Ivoire, in which aircraft, that had launched attacks on UN peacekeepers, were quickly and efficiently destroyed.
So maybe someone can explain why it took them a week to get Tsunami aid to Asia via rented Russian helicopters, a scandal reported in the French press which bemoaned the fact that such incapacity does not support French claims to being a world power.
They spend their money on social programs and the US is expected to foot the bill and spend the human capitol on European and world defense. The French military might is predominantly power of the mouth.