Never understood that French coward thing. Any military man with even a passing knowledge of French soldiers won’t be saying that.
The Brits surrendered Singapore to a Jap force they outnumbered three to one. The Brits fled France in WWII at Dunkirk and called it a victory. In WWII the British channel islands surrendered without firing a shot and maintained cordial relations with the Germans. recently the Brits Navy surrendered to Iranians within VIEW of their destroyer that did nothing.
In WWI French soldiers fought to the absolute limit and suffered far more dead than the Brits, yet we never hear the end of Flanders fields, poppies, etc etc.
In WWII the French Army lost roughly what we did in Vietnam in 6 weeks, 60,000 dead, 200,000 wounded, and they inflicted 49,000 German dead.
They were outclassed by modern German tactics, but they fought damned hard.
I’m trying hard to find an example of French military cowardice, but am finding none.
France died in WWI.
The interwar period, France was a hot mess, it was ripe for the pickings. Generals were still stuck in WWI, when the Nazis attacked.
Verdun - French were crazy crazy brave!
During WWII the French soldier was betrayed by the French politicians and to some extent their military leadership.
The Italians also get an unnecessary bum rap. In WWI look at their battles in and along the Alps. The battles along the Ilonzo River which I think there might have been as many as twelve almost all of them showing the typical WWI tactic of charging through machine gun and artillery fire. Italians and Austro-Hungarians bled until there was no blood to bleed. The Italians finally collapsed at Caporetto under a combined German\Austro-Hungarian assault. I think Hemingway was in this battle as an ambulance driver. In WWII the Italians had to fight with for the most part inferior equipment and leadership on the side of someone they for the most part felt they should fighting against not allied with. Remember Fascist Italy almost came to blows with Nazi Germany over the German annexation of Austria. Many of the Fascist leadership were appalled Mussolini threw in with Hitler!