French Military Victories

NRO Corner ^ | 1/28/03 | Jonah Goldberg, sorta

[staytrue]

I think they won at the battle of hastings in something like 1066.

[widgysoft]

lol

[lexington minuteman 1775]

BWAHAHAHAHA!

[xJones]

That was the Normans in 1066 and they had a large strain of Viking in them. But the question is tough. I don't think they won anything after losing Waterloo in 1815. Napoleon won a lot of battles, but he wasn't French. He was born and raised in Corsica. Sheesh, I give up.

[bray]

They did win the Battle of the Bismark.....no wait, that was the Rainbow Warrior...never mind. Does the French Minister of Defense have the combination to the White Flag Armory?

Pray for GW and our Troops

[Principled]

that google thing is great....
i'm wiping tea off the monitor!
lol!!

[Veracious Poet]

Actually, The French engineered the victory at Yorktown...without them I doubt the Continental Army would have won the American Revolution.

[Principled]

yes, they showed up in their ships and saved some arse that day.

[CougarGA7]

Joan of Arc helped garner some victories for the French.....so they put her to death.

[ricpic]

It took a Grand Alliance (Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, Austria-Hungary) to defeat Napoleon.

The French army was formidable in the first decades of the 19th Century.

In WW I, of course, the tables were turned. It took the British, the French, and the Yanks to stop Germany. But the French fought ferociously. Think Verdun.

[Britton J Wingfield]

That's why this is considered humor. It does not have to be literally true throughout all of hsitory.

I am grateful for Msr. Laffayette's assistance, but that France was an entirely different entity than the one that now bites at our ankles.

[MattinNJ]

First let me say that I hate the French.

However, one must give credit when it is due. Charles the Hammer (Charlegmagnes grandfather) turned the tide of Islamic expansion at the battle of Tours sometimes in the 700's (738?). The religion of peace was raping and pillaging their way over the Pyrenhees. They attacked on horseback and ran smack dab into heavy Frank infantry. Charles the Hammer repelled wave after wave of cavalry attack and then his infantry stomped the fallen horsemen to death. When night fell both sides made their way to their respective camps. Charles went to resume the battle the next day only to find the whipped curs had run away. That marked the high tide of Islamic expansion. His grandson went on to reunify Europe.

Of course, I'm not sure that the French are the true descendantsof the Franks. The Franks were as physically large as the Germani and the Celts (Gauls)which is no longer true. I think there was a lot of intermingling in the centuries to follow.

[weikel]

Wrong. The Normans were not French at all. They were originally a tribe of Viking raiders. The French actually had a good record militarily between the time of Cardinal Richileu and the defeat of Napolean. Broken by that huge idiot Louis XIV who was spared the English capturing Paris only by Duke Churchill's being falsely accused of corruption by political enemies.

[MattinNJ]

Kudos to Napoleon for accomplishing what he did with a largely French army. I think it adds 20% to the degree of difficulty (Although he may get some points deducted because a lot of his troops were actually Prussian mercs).

[Britton J Wingfield]

I think that credit goes to Jonah Goldberg, and the anonymous creator of the jpg.

[weikel]

Germany had WWI won. They had everyone beat right when we entered the war. It was too bad we did the only people who benefited from Germanies defeat in WWI were the French and the Bolsheviks.

[MattinNJ]

Interesting post. I posted something about Charles the Hammer but I was unsure if the "Franks" would be considered "French". Any info would be appreciated.

[LTCJ]

French Military Victories

I'll take "Null Sets in the 20th Century" for 1000, Alex.