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To: Alter Kaker

No, I’m not. I’m just not gonna ever pass up an opportunity to rip the French.

But are the French up to it?

Have they ever been? Remember that during our own revolution the Frogs did what they do best. When Admiral Howe’s British fleet showed up, Admiral DeGrasse FLED with his numerically superior fleet.


28 posted on 04/05/2008 8:21:48 AM PDT by Emperor Palpatine (And infidel beheadings)
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To: Emperor Palpatine
When Admiral Howe’s British fleet showed up, Admiral DeGrasse FLED with his numerically superior fleet.

DeGrasse was a great seaman and fighter. E.G., His actions prevented the British from shipping in more troops and supplies at the battle of Yorktown, enabling Washington and Rochambeau to force a British surrender..

As the Revolution wore on, your typical continental soldier carried a French musket, powder and shot, wore a French-supplied uniform and boots, slept in a French-supplied blanket, even ate French rations. Artillery: French. Our Army units, modeled on the French.

Rochambeau, the French Army Chief in our Revolution, to which France also sent over 10,000 troops, was also a master strategist ... which old George was sometimes not. Lissen, the Frogs had a couple of bad centuries, and we bailed them out in WWI and II, but they are the US'oldest, if not constant, ally. There is even a well-founded theory that the money they spent on us, and the taxes they raised to get it, ruined the French Monarchy and led to THEIR Revolution!

And, they are plenty brave, just sometimes unlucky. Very good Navy. Very good Air Force. Very good Army. Of course, getting them to use force on our behalf is sometimes difficult ... as with any other ally.

39 posted on 04/05/2008 8:40:23 AM PDT by Kenny Bunk (GOP Plank: Double Domestic Crude Production. Increase refining capacity 50 percent)
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To: Emperor Palpatine
Have they ever been? Remember that during our own revolution the Frogs did what they do best. When Admiral Howe’s British fleet showed up, Admiral DeGrasse FLED with his numerically superior fleet.

This is completely false. The British fleet under Graves attempted to break the French blockade of Yorktown in the Battle of the Chesapeake and failed; Cornwallis surrendered the next month.

There's a reason we named a destroyer after DeGrasse.

43 posted on 04/05/2008 8:47:48 AM PDT by Strategerist
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To: Emperor Palpatine
Remember that during our own revolution the Frogs did what they do best. When Admiral Howe’s British fleet showed up, Admiral DeGrasse FLED with his numerically superior fleet.

The British Admiral was Graves (there was an Admiral Howe in the RN during the Revolution, but he never fought de Grasse) and what you've described is quite the opposite of what actually happened.

61 posted on 04/05/2008 9:30:38 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback (It's not conservative to accept an inept Commander-in-Chief in a time of war. Back Mac.)
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