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To: Moderatz
And yet, just shortly after French "vistory" at the Battle of the Virginia Capes, DeGrasse got his a$$ handed to him in a crushing defeat at the Battle of the Saintes by the same Admiral Hood and Admiral Rodney ... because they had the guts to ignore the Fighting Instructions and attack the French fleet in a squadron by squadron general melee.

The French are not .. and have not been for the last 150 or so years .. friends of the United States. And, before you go off half-cocked about "allies" during two world wars, they weren't so much our allies as the enemy of our enemies. And they were absolutely no help during the Cold War when DeGaulle threw the US/NATO forces out of France.

We should have dug up all of our WWI and WWII dead from the French military cemetaries and returned them to our soil ... why should we have the French continue to spit on their graves?

88 posted on 04/24/2002 3:45:14 AM PDT by BlueLancer
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To: BlueLancer
...the French are not .. and have not been for the last 150 or so years .. friends of the United States. And, before you go off half-cocked about "allies" during two world wars, they weren't so much our allies as the enemy of our enemies...

"...on the other hand, the Battle of Verdun crowned the French with victory and prestige. The French spirit, although strained at times, rebounded in strength as expressed in their rallying cry "On ne passe pas" (They shall not pass).

The French, not well prepared, pressed back to a point less than three kilometers from the city of Verdun by an incredible leviathan, a war-machine unprecedented in history either in size or organization, must be envied for their fantastic will to resist under the most terrifying and enervating conditions. They poured sixty-six divisions into the battle. Three hundred-seventeen thousand were killed or died there-23% of the total French losses for the entire war. They fired twelve million artillery shells during the eighteen months of fighting, an average of more than twenty-two thousand each day."

http://www.vahs.org/wwi/chap06.htm

98 posted on 04/24/2002 5:28:39 PM PDT by Byron_the_Aussie
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