France....The Military Powerhouse!!

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Someone e-mailed this to me...I thougt it was funny. It's somewhat abbreviated. You have to love the description of the French Revolution and WW-1. I am still laughing!

Gallic Wars - Lost. In a war whose ending foreshadows the next 2000 years of French history, France is conquered by, of all things, an Italian.

Hundred Years War - Mostly lost, saved at last by female schizophrenic who inadvertently creates The First Rule of French Warfare; "France's armies are victorious only when not led by a Frenchman."

Italian Wars - Lost. France becomes the first and only country to ever lose two wars when fighting Italians.

Wars of Religion - France goes 0-5-4 against the Huguenots.

Thirty Years War - France is technically not a participant, but manages to get invaded anyway. Claims a tie on the basis that eventually the other participants started ignoring her.

War of Devolution - Tied. Frenchmen take to wearing red flowerpots as chapeaux.

The Dutch War - Tied

War of the Augsburg League/King William's War/French and Indian War - Lost, but claimed as a tie. Three ties in a row induces deluded Frogophiles the world over to label the period as the height of French military power.

War of the Spanish Succession - Lost. The War also gave the French their first taste of a Marlborough, which they have loved every since.

American Revolution - In a move that will become quite familiar to future Americans, France claims a win even though the English colonists saw far more action. This is later known as "de Gaulle Syndrome", and leads to the Second Rule of French Warfare; "France only wins when America does most of the fighting."

French Revolution - Won, primarily due the fact that the opponent was also French.

The Napoleonic Wars - Lost. Temporary victories (remember the First Rule!) due to leadership of a Corsican, who ended up being no match for a British footwear designer.

The Franco-Prussian War - Lost. Germany first plays the role of drunk Frat boy to France's ugly girl home alone on a Saturday night.

World War I - Tied and on the way to losing, France is saved by the United States. Thousands of French women find out what it's like to not only sleep with a winner, but one who doesn't call her "Fraulein." Sadly, widespread use of condoms by American forces forestalls any improvement in the French bloodline.

World War II - Lost. Conquered French liberated by the United States and Britain just as they finish learning the Horst Wessel Song.

War in Indochina - Lost. French forces plead sickness, take to bed with the Dien Bien Flu

Algerian Rebellion - Lost. Loss marks the first defeat of a western army by a Non-Turkic Muslim force since the Crusades, and produces the First Rule of Muslim Warfare; "We can always beat the French." This rule is identical to the First Rules of the Italians, Russians, Germans, English, Dutch, Spanish, Vietnamese and Esquimaux.

War on Terrorism - France, keeping in mind its recent history, surrenders to Germans and Muslims just to be safe. Attempts to surrender to Vietnamese ambassador fail after he takes refuge in a McDonald's

 

Well, the Italian Wars I understand, because during the 100 years war the French hired the Italians to handle their balista, and as crossbowman. So the Italians would know the French tactics and so on.

And on the Revolutionary War, the French played a large part in stopping fresh troops and supplies getting into America. And on several battles, the French have played an important part in securing a victory, or blocking of retreating British. Also the french did supply thr Americans with guns, food etc.

On the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon lost to the British, because, he had lost the bulk of his troops, supplies, and horses in Russia.

 

Removed by me.

[ June 06, 2003, 00:29: Message edited by: Yago ]

 

The French were largely the terrors of the Middle Ages. First, don't forget about the battle of Tours. It was there that Charles Martel turned back the Moslem invasion of Europe.

Also, you did not even mention Charlemagne. Probably more than any other king in Europe he was the successor of Roman power after the fall of the empire.

The Normans, also conqured England in 1066. Keep mind that the "English Kings" throughtout most of the High Middle Ages were really French, including such famous warlords as Henry II and Richard I, and later kings (Edwards) carried out wars of expansion throughout Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

The Norman civilization was widespread throughout the UK, southern Italy, and Sicily. Even the early success of the Crusades can be attributed to the Norman participants. On the whoie, the French (or Franks)were probably the most successful fighters in Europe during the Middle Ages.

 

Thoose two I don't like. but

it's just ROFLMAO.

I forgot what I wanted to say next now.

[ June 03, 2003, 20:54: Message edited by: SoCo ]

 

The difference was, that the North-American continent was a huge field full of factories, far away from any danger, which supplied the Russians and the British with goods and armaments. And it was mainly the British fleet, which took the risk to transport the stuff and suffered terrible losses.

That's why the bombed Germany to a pile of rubbish, because Germany hadn't a whole continent full of factories save from harm and couldn't match the production of air-force. Not to mention, that there's not too much oil in Europe, and that's pretty problematic, if one's fighting wars with tanks and planes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwtwo/how_the_allies_won_1.shtml

[ June 06, 2003, 00:30: Message edited by: Yago ]

 

Sir Belisarius - ROTFL!

[ June 04, 2003, 00:06: Message edited by: Blackhawk ]

 

Wow. A thumbss down, rolleyes...AND a move!?! The Horror!

 

To peasant wives and daughters mostly.

That was in 732.

Most of that was the Pope's idea.

The Dukes of Normandy were descended from Rollo, originally Hrolf Ganger, who was as much of a Frenchman as I am of a woman. The only French blood they had was from dynastic marriages with Carolingians and Capetingians. That they were partially indocrinated is a different thing.

So all glory goes to Normans, who were Germanic in origin.

If you exclude the English, the Spanish, the Italian, the German, the Protuguese, the Scottish, the Polish, the Turks, the Hungarian, the Swiss, the Arabic, the Turkish, have I omitted someone?

 

Like most people in North Africa and the Germanic realms Italy, France and Spain (k, North-Spain). I am not so sure about the Swedes though (joke). Most Germans are clearly not (no joke).

Yes, the French and Sicilians are Norwegian, so ?

He, he, we could this thread into a thread about migration. The north-Italians are lombards and allemans, which were subdued by the franks after they subdued the westgoths which subdued the romans and gauls, wereas the English are Schleswig-Holsteiner which became French under the Norwegieans.

Following your view point, the Normans didn't invade England but a part of Germany.

Chevalier, actually you should know better, making distinctions between germanic or slavic tribes by connecting it to the concept of "nations" which exist today is pointless. And if you look the first post, it's equates the "gauls", a.k.a "the celts" to "France" and the "Romans" to "Italians", which includes galia cisalpina, just a cheap rant by some "White Supermacy idiot". In the WASP ideology, all Europeans who are not Anglo-Saxon are niggers.

And talking about "bloodrelations" is even more pointless, because this depends on the assumption, that the germanic and slavic tribes walked all the way from Russia to Europe, spread all over Europe, the Mediterranian and North-Africa without making babies for about 1000 years.

[ June 04, 2003, 07:16: Message edited by: Yago ]

 

Chev -- Thank you, thank you, I am glad you opened this up, because everyone of your points are valid, except the sarcasim, of course. This is one of those open areas that students are so fond of in Medieval studies. And it is disputed back and forth on whether or not the Normans were truly "French" or not (at the time in question). Even though, as even a lot of American school children know, because of the WWII invasion at least, Normandy is in France. Ok, so let's get into it. Maybe there is a particular time in which Normandy became decidedly "French" for you. Which dates/events are you working with in this regard?

First, the Battle of Tours, and the date is 732, ok, that does put it in the Middle Ages. Maybe first we should define our dates for the period under discussion. For me it is somewhat traditional, the fall of the empire, 476 AD to 1485, the Battle of Bosworth Field, which begins the Tudor line of rulers in England and the end of the series of English civil wars, known as the "Roses."

The battle at Tours was won by the French, under Charles Martel, grandfather of Charlemagne. I hope you don't dispute that much. That is a French victory. Again, if these are not good dates for you, then we can open our dialogue to include a discussion on the Middle Ages/Renaissance beginning and end, that would be fun as well, since these periods begin at and end at different times and regions of Europe.

Of course, this was not really France at all, but an area under control of the Frankish Gaul, which includes the area of roughly modern Fance, Belgium and the German Rhineland. Now, you claim that the Spanish were better fighters than the French. Ok, what was the Spanish situation in 732? The Muslim armies had already swept throught the region, and were in fact threatening the European continent.

The Spanish were unable to hold. The Muslim army itself was composed of Arabs and Berbers. The same ones who ended the Visigoth monarcy in Spain just a few years before and conquered most of Portugal as well, and were now in France. This is the high-tide of the Muslim invasion of Europe and the Franks stopped them in the Loire Valley.

The historical significance of the battle cannot be underestimated. Some believe that Europe could be following Mohammed today instead of Christ if the French had not been able to turn them back. The important fact in our debate is that the French were the first to stop this very successful Muslim army, which had swept across North Africa, Egypt, Spain and Portugal, in any real way.

[ June 06, 2003, 07:30: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

Oops, yes, the thread turned into a thread about migrations, so, it has to be moved again.

 

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/victories.html

 

Well, I'm very sorry to tell you this, but someone has to anyway. You're completely and utterly wrong at least as far as what can be derived from my post or what I know or don't know is concerned.

I'm completely free of WASP ideology since I don't have a drop of Anglo-Saxon blood in my veins and I'm not even remotely close to Protestant heresy I'm not supporting the Americans here either - I think we could talk about 'US - the military powerhouse' or 'the history of democracy in US' too

For your information: Slavic people haven't moved further than the Eastern part of today's Germany to the West and the only place where they reached the Mediterranean and settled there is Balkans. Some of them also moved a bit further, to Northern Greece (Justinian himself was in part Slavic), but not really much further to the South. None, and I mean none Slavic tribe has ever settled in North Africa. Germanic, yes, Vandals, but that's all - and they still constituted only the foreign ruling element. Their reign laster for about one century until Belisarius got rid of them.

Moving back to the subject for a change, there is no way one could deny that Normandy was given as a fief to Rollo by the French king Charles in 911. Go quarrel with chronicles if you have a different opinion. Rollo's original intent was to loot and carry away as much as his ships could handle, therefore he was accompanied by a large group of his compatriots sufficient to constitute the army of the new feudal dutchy of Normandy. You could argue that a few of the guys could as well be Slavic, but pray don't.

Thus Normandian common people were nearly all French, but the nobility and some of the richer or more important commoners were Normans - Normans means men of the North and that's where the land's name is from. No need to dramatise and single me out as a revisionist, just read the post as I wrote it and not as I could or would have written it. The idea of ekhm... the children of war being the major part of a society is quite strange. You would have to assume that they raped any woman that could have children, that each of them survived and that each gave birth to at least one child from the rape and also that the children survived. What's more the children would still be half-breeds and not full-blood Germanic (please see the difference between Germanic and German) or Slavic.

The name Norman, contrary to the name Normandian which means a man living in Normandy just like in present time, was applied to the English kings, their nobles, knights and soldiers who followed them to England from Normandy and were originally Scandinavian until late 14th century when the first king whose native tongue was English was born. Of course, Normans spoke some rustic French and had a provincional French culture with Nordic mix-ins, but that doesn't make them French, especially the time between 911 (the fiefdom of Normandy) and 1066 (William the Bastard aka Conqueror in England) is a mere 155 years. Also William's mercenaries represented about all nationalities present in Europe at that time, but still they weren't the most numerous element. It's of course enough to make Normans (not Normandians!) French in practical sense, but not to give the true French any glory for them!

Let's set the record straight once and for all in terms of 'Franks' (I shall repeatedly kill everyone who calls them 'Francs'):

The King of France was styled 'Rex Francorum' - the King of Franks until late mediaeval age and occasionally even until Revolution since he technically was the King of Franks.

The name France is inherently tied with Franks - so even in the times one couldn't really speak of Franks, the term Frank is used for a Frenchman.

The name 'French' or 'Frenchman' was already in use at the beginning of the 13th century.

In Crusader times and especially in countries of Levant the name 'Franks' was given to Latin Christian crusaders ie every Christian being who came from Europe and wasn't Orthodox. This included even Polish crusaders who weren't ethnically close to Franks (who were Germanic) or the French (the mix of Franks and gallo-roman population plus several mix-ins where appropriate). The logic behind that was similar to the logic behind calling all Muslim opponents Saracenes.

As far as any other nationality that I mentioned in my above post goes, each of them is valid from some point in Middle Ages and none is younger than 14th century. Again, consult different opinions with history books, chronicles and mediaeval documents and not me.

@Chandos:

No, I pretty much agree with the 476-1453 option, or 476-1492, or whatever similar, but it's not really important in this case The thing is that the battle of Tours was looong ago and we weren't talking specifically about Middle Ages. What's more it's a Frankish and not French victory. Some French politicians claim that the worst French defeat was Allesia in 52 BC, but we all know something about them, don't we?

[ June 04, 2003, 19:57: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

YAGO

I beg to differ...according to my American History Professor, Roosevelt expected us to eventually get into wwII, though not in the fashion we ended up doing it.

We were in a war-time economy for most of the late thirties, and the losses(except man-power) at Pearl Harbor were replaced with in weeks. We were making a Battleship every few weeks, and 5-6 planes a day. To say nothing of small arms and ammunition. And this is the late thirties.

 

Hilarious post.

[ June 06, 2003, 00:01: Message edited by: Jack Funk ]

 

Me neither.

He, He, yes. Ahm, I shouldn't have put them together in one phrase. So, first phrase, equatation with Slavic or German tribes with today exisiting countries today. Then the Germanic and Slavic Migration, which ended in different parts of Europe, like you described (Actually, they now reached Switzerland ). That wasn't clear in my phrase.

No, in this phrase I was talking about the way of migration in general.

Both, germanic and slavic tribes migrated into Europe (Germanic to western Europe and Africa, Slavic don't). "Without making babies" related to the way migration worked for both and all tribes in general.

I see that difference, I'm talking about the way of migration, -> How migration actually happened, not the particular (Goths, Normans) or general (Germanic or Slavic) tribes, but the migration in general.

The old way migration was taught, that's why "blood-realtionship" got me off the hook, the tribes were one group, which didn't separate and moved hundreds and hundreds of kilometers and staying together all the time. This view was obviously the fundament of later conclusions. This view has changed. They moved in great bulks which loose groups. This groups separated from the main bulk and said:" Nice, land, enough, stay here". So they actually left people behind all the way. Rape may have played a part, but that wasn't what I meant. Just loose groups with stayed and separated from the main bulk. Migration produced layers and those layers can be very well traced back, because obviously, higher and not so frutile places were left out first and came populated later. The big moving group is the exception, the migration like "raindrops" is the usual way.

Example for the Slavs.

Silesia : In this case, Germanic tribes were the layer.

Orthographic pedant.

 

Chev -- The dates were only important because I mistook you to mean that the Battle of Tours did not occur in the Middle Ages. I thought that perhaps you thought of the Dark Ages as a separate period from the Middle Ages; some believe so, which is ok. As far as this topic on the "French," I am only concerned with the topic of the French and Medieval culture and warfare. I really could care less about the rest, mostly because the real specifics are out of my range of knowledge.

The French are Franks in my opinion. To say they are not is the same as saying that the Anglo-Saxons were not English. Of course they were Germanic, being Angles and Saxons, having invaded in the Fifth Century, but today they are almost synonymous with being English. Many English men would be surprised to hear of Alfred as not being an "Engilsh King."

I still hold to my point about the French being the real "terrors" of the Middle Ages in Western Europe, with the Vikings running a close second. But, if you take the Franks and the Normans out of the discussion, as you are doing, then you don't leave me much left to stand on, since as you state, the real "glory" belongs to them.

I wish I could see the Normans in a more "glorious" light, but, alas, for me they were "terrors" in the real sense of the word. I chose that label deliberately because they were a voilent and oppressive bunch, greedy, foul and brutish. To call them merely opportunists is being very generous. They were a scurge to almost every region with which they came in contact, and that includes William the Bastard and his goons, Tancred (Prince of Galilee), Bohemond I (Prince of Anticoh), Robert Guiscard and so on.

[ June 06, 2003, 07:52: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

Chandos, Chevalier and Yago are all three right in most things and Chevalier is the only one who wrote down the accurate most-successful nations of the middle ages. All of those nations wrote down were at some point (some longer than others of course) a great power in Europe.