For Sale: Antique French Army rifle, only dropped twice.
After the great and destructive wars in which the French leader Napoleon swept the length of Europe and back, only to eventually be crushingly defeated, the French pretty much lost their appetite for combat. French mothers taught their sons to shun war and war-like play, in all forms and in all ways, much like the “zero-tolerance” policies in today’s public schools shame children for pointing their fingers and going “Bang! Bang!”, or biting off a Pop-Tart into the shape of a pistol and pointing it at other children.
When the Great War of 1914 came to be, the French were only interested in defense, not strategically cutting off the enemy and carrying the war to HIS doorstep. The great battles of the First World War were defensive in nature, fought mostly on French soil, with non-traditional forms of warfare, like poison gas and strafing from aircraft, came into being, both of which only much prolonged the war.
The French, in their own version of “Never again!”, disarmed themselves, and pacifism became the watchword. Civilians were never again to be engaged in war, that was left to the professionals, who, in typically French fashion, were underfunded and largely held in rather low regard, (Sound familiar?)
The French Foreign Legion was a particular extension of that policy of not involving “Metro” France in war. They were the professional soldiers who were to be kept at their distance. In fact, it was expressly forbidden for the French Foreign Legion to even enter the French homeland, and many of their members were not even French citizens. The Foreign Legion had the reputation of being one of the roughest, most fierce fighting forces in the world, with a brutal discipline that would have made the Spartans of Greece look judicious and reserved in comparison.
But those famed fighters of years ago have become almost one with the Spartans, forgotten, and their glory discarded on the trash heaps of history. The pacifism is so deeply ingrained in the current French culture, it is highly unlikely only one or two attacks by the bearded men with burning eyes will jar loose the basic instincts for self-preservation.
The hens in the coop are easily quieted after the fox departs, having made its kill.