StormTrooperTR889 wrote:Pablo, where do you live? France CANNOT WIN WARS.
I live in the real world. Do you want me to go through the wars piece by piece?
- 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.
Already answered this one.
- 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." Sainted.
Jean's role is greatly exaggerated, much in the same way that English like to exaggerate Wellington's role in beating Napoleon. The French beat the English and toss them off the continent thanks to an inherently superior national military capacity and the efforts of legitimate military geniuses like Arthur Richemont and Gilles de Rais.
- Italian Wars
- Lost. France becomes the first and only country to ever lose two wars when fighting Italians.
This would be better if the French hadn't actually lost to the Habsburgs and their buddies, who were in point of fact the most experienced and accomplished military in Christendom at the time, and probably pound for pound one of the top 10 armies of all history.
- Wars of Religion
- France goes 0-5-4 against the Huguenots
No familiar with this one.
- 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.
Or maybe France fights Spain (the largest most powerful country in the world) to exhaustion, smashes up German Catholic troops, and singlehandedly subsidizes the efforts of Gustavus Adolphus. In the end it was French arms and French money which saved north German protestantism, and fatally weakened Spain.
- War of Revolution
- Tied. Frenchmen take to wearing red flowerpots as chapeaux.
- The Dutch War
- Tied
No real disputes here.
- 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.
The French come within a hair's-breadth of total continental victory and only tie because of the intransigence of the Tzar.
- War of the Spanish Succession
- Lost. The War also gave the French their first taste of a Marlborough, which they have loved every since.
Lost? I see. So
that's why a Habsburg sat on the Spanish throne after the war.
- 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."
Yeah. Because the French didn't make up more than 50% of the Continental Army at Yorktown, and that fleet under Admiral
de Grasse was 100% American.
- French Revolution
- Won, primarily due the fact that the opponent was also French.
And Austrian. Don't forget how they beat the shit out of the intervening powers.
- 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.
This is the worst one, because it's clear that even the guy who wrote it doesn't believe it. He keeps packing on the qualifiers to distract us from the fact that France made nearly every other notable nation on Earth it's bitch for more than a decade and put up impressive numbers in every battle. The Napoleonic War
S are actually a series of wars, all but one of which France was able to win with much bonecrushing and destruction of her enemies.
- 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.
France loses against the strongest military industrial complex in the entire world. Wow, they must suck.
- 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.
Jingoistic ahistorical masturbation ahoy. American troops under French command, using French tactics, and in many cases French weapons, help finish up a war in the final year.
- World War II
- Lost. Conquered French liberated by the United States and Britain just as they finish learning the Horst Wessel Song.
See Franco-Prussian war response.
- War in Indochina
- Lost. French forces plead sickness; take to bed with the Dien Bien Flu
America lost the same war much more thoroughly and humiliatingly.
- 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.
The French choose not to cling to stupid colonialist aspirations and just let it go. What losers. And hey, let's look at the Brits through the same lens--no wait, we won't, because they're friendly to the USA.
- 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.
France DOESN'T want to fight an unwinnable war against an abstract concept which is getting worse by the day? Cowards!
A good thing to point out about the wars which France lost in the period of 1500-1860 is that they only lost when fighting alone against coalitions.