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Tias posted:So, dumb facebook debate had me wondering, how many wars have French fought( for ease, let's say post-ancien regime), and how many of them have they won? Roughly speaking. It really depends on how you divide it up. Is Napoleon one lost war or many winning wars capped off by a defeat?
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May 10, 2017 16:13
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Tias posted:So, dumb facebook debate had me wondering, how many wars have French fought( for ease, let's say post-ancien regime), and how many of them have they won? Roughly speaking. Cyrano4747 posted:It really depends on how you divide it up. Is Napoleon one lost war or many winning wars capped off by a defeat? And how do you classify wars where they were part of a coalition of allies? They were a part of the allied forces in the Crimean War, and they were an extremely important factor in the Allies winning World War 1. WW2 didn't go nearly as well but Charles de Gaulle and thousands of others fought with the allies the whole war. Where does that joke originate from anyway? I'd imagine it's from before the early 2000s but I feel like it really became popular again after they refused to participate in the Iraq invasion.
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May 10, 2017 16:37
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Nothing says cheese eating surrender monkeys like refusing to participate in the international gank squad.
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May 10, 2017 16:40
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Cyrano4747 posted:It really depends on how you divide it up. Is Napoleon one lost war or many winning wars capped off by a defeat? And because people disparaging the French on facebook would certainly count it as one war, it should be pointed out that by that criteria France won WWII. Jamwad Hilder posted:Where does that joke originate from anyway? I'd imagine it's from before the early 2000s but I feel like it really became popular again after they refused to participate in the Iraq invasion. It's definitely a WWII thing, and was certainly around before 2003, but 2003 seems to be the thing that brought it roaring back to life as a meme. e: VVV Since I just looked it up, the episode in question is from 1995. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZUKEVU-TwM PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 16:48 on May 10, 2017 |
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May 10, 2017 16:41
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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OwlFancier posted:Nothing says cheese eating surrender monkeys like refusing to participate in the international gank squad. "Cheese eating surrender monkeys" specifically was originally a joke on the Simpsons. edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZUKEVU-TwM Acebuckeye13 fucked around with this message at 16:45 on May 10, 2017 |
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May 10, 2017 16:43
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I feel like the French performance in Indochina accompanied by their generally being punk bitches about their whole overseas colonies thing postwar did not help matters.
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May 10, 2017 16:49
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Acebuckeye13 posted:"Cheese eating surrender monkeys" specifically was originally a joke on the Simpsons. But the feeling that the French surrendered too easily basically goes right back to 1945.
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May 10, 2017 16:51
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Alchenar posted:I mean my point is 'there's always a ton of plausible counterfactuals', but I don't think 'Stalin panics because of the German advance and insists on immediate unplanned attacks by forces that look strong on paper but in reality are essentially combat ineffective' is that unrealistic because that's basically the story of 1941. The problem wasn't Stalin panicking, and much more the fact that he had all the competent officers shot prior to the outbreak of the war, so no-one knew how to conduct an offensive properly. Fortunately the Soviets had taken the correct lessons from WWI and had made preparations to completely replace their combat losses within a matter of months and so could absorb these casualties in a way the Germans couldn't.
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May 10, 2017 16:56
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Since Charles de Gaulle has been mentioned, I'll post this again: https://youtu.be/_uukBpYD9PU I posted it before though not in the milhist thread, and at least one person enjoyed it then, so here you go. It's easy to forget de Gaulle existed after WWII. Lyrics in description
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May 10, 2017 17:55
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bewbies posted:I feel like the French performance in Indochina accompanied by their generally being punk bitches about their whole overseas colonies thing postwar did not help matters. It's not like America did any better in Indochina in the end, though, is it?  Edit: as for wars fought/won, just as with Britain you'll see a whole bunch in 19th century Africa where they did both (being Maxim-gun havers).
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May 10, 2017 18:01
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Even with conservative definitions of war participation the French are the most winningest nation in the world.
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May 10, 2017 18:05
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Phi230 posted:Even with conservative definitions of war participation the French are the most winningest nation in the world. Yeah but what have they done for us lately
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May 10, 2017 18:06
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Ainsley McTree posted:Yeah but what have they done for us lately I ate a macaron a couple weeks ago Phi230 fucked around with this message at 18:44 on May 10, 2017 |
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May 10, 2017 18:13
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May 10, 2017 18:41
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Kassad posted:But the feeling that the French surrendered too easily basically goes right back to 1945. quote:AMERICANS believe in the right to criticize . We defend America has come a long way
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May 10, 2017 18:57
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bewbies posted:I feel like the French performance in Indochina accompanied by their generally being punk bitches about their whole overseas colonies thing postwar did not help matters. By most measures the French "won" Algeria but committed so many atrocities in the process that the government had to be dissolved. Then the Foreign Legion tried to start a coup, for anime-esque reasons. On the whole, France has much warmer relations to their former colonies than any of the other colonial powers.
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May 10, 2017 19:09
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MikeCrotch posted:The problem wasn't Stalin panicking, and much more the fact that he had all the competent officers shot prior to the outbreak of the war, so no-one knew how to conduct an offensive properly. The Soviet performance in the early stages of the Winter War proved to Stalin that yes, the Soviet armed forces had issues. It wasn't mostly that everyone competent had been shot, but a lot of officers were green and had been promoted rapidly to replace those who had been purged. A competent batallion commander won't be a competent commander of a division on day one. The Soviet later offensives in the Winter War were carried out competently under the leadership of Shaposhnikov and Timoshenko when they got their poo poo together and leveraged the resources of the Soviet Army properly. In general, the Soviets were rebuilding the military still in 1941 but Barbarossa happened mid-reforms and they simply weren't ready for it. If Germany for whatever reason would have waited until 1942 or 1943 it would have been vastly different.
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May 10, 2017 19:17
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:By most measures the French "won" Algeria but committed so many atrocities in the process that the government had to be dissolved. Then the Foreign Legion tried to start a coup, for anime-esque reasons. By most measures except the actual objectives of the campaign? 
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May 10, 2017 19:49
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A French guy once explained to me "Algeria for us is kind of like Vietnam is for the US... except we never, ever, ever talk about it."
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May 10, 2017 20:02
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I thought Vietnam was their Vietnam.
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May 10, 2017 20:08
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zoux posted:I thought Vietnam was their Vietnam. Fortunately America's adventures there overshadow France's--dien bien phew
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May 10, 2017 20:22
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zoux posted:I thought Vietnam was their Vietnam. Vietnam was pretty much both their Hong Kong AND Singapore.
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May 10, 2017 20:23
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:
Um, I'm pretty sure the Commonwealth would have something to say about that.
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May 10, 2017 20:36
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Ainsley McTree posted:Fortunately America's adventures there overshadow France's--dien bien phew I was actually pretty shocked to learn (embarrassingly recently) that France lost significantly more dudes in the First Indochina War than the US did in Vietnam. America really does do an incredible job of making everything we do seem to be the biggest/greatest/best #MAGA etc
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May 10, 2017 20:37
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Cyrano4747 posted:Um, I'm pretty sure the Commonwealth would have something to say about that. Yeah, we'll collectively challenge them to a game of cricket over that!
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May 10, 2017 20:45
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bewbies posted:I was actually pretty shocked to learn (embarrassingly recently) that France lost significantly more dudes in the First Indochina War than the US did in Vietnam. America really does do an incredible job of making everything we do seem to be the biggest/greatest/best #MAGA etc We make a lot of movies and TV shows about our wars and well we are the cultural hegemon.
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May 10, 2017 20:46
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Squalid posted:By most measures except the actual objectives of the campaign? FLN was legitimately suppressed, and the French army was cutting off rural support by making literal concentration camps. It was stuff that would have worked in like 1912. I don't think the military was responsible for changing the social fabric of France through its actions though, that was the culmination of the previous 50 years of French history. Cyrano4747 posted:Um, I'm pretty sure the Commonwealth would have something to say about that. Settler colonies notwithstanding, I don't think Commonwealth does much besides play international cricket.
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May 10, 2017 20:50
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bewbies posted:I was actually pretty shocked to learn (embarrassingly recently) that France lost significantly more dudes in the First Indochina War than the US did in Vietnam. America really does do an incredible job of making everything we do seem to be the biggest/greatest/best #MAGA etc Less than 20% of French losses were actually from France though. In addition to Vietnamese and other Indochinese in French service there were also North Africans and the foreign legion. France didn't have a draft so they relied heavily on the colonies.
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May 10, 2017 20:53
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France was quite possibly Europe's most consistently powerful great power in the early modern period.
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May 10, 2017 21:42
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Panzeh posted:France was quite possibly Europe's most consistently powerful great power in the early modern period. I feel like the Von Hapsburgs might have something to say about that.
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May 10, 2017 21:54
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Kassad posted:But the feeling that the French surrendered too easily basically goes right back to 1945. Thanks for posting this. I read all of this using the .pdf linked in the article and it's pretty fascinating
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May 10, 2017 22:04
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Ithle01 posted:I feel like the Von Hapsburgs might have something to say about that. Rocroi is a compelling argument against the Hapsburgs.
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May 10, 2017 22:16
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Ithle01 posted:I feel like the Von Hapsburgs might have something to say about that. France was a great power before the hapsburgs became one.
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May 10, 2017 22:33
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Nebakenezzer posted:There are philosophy departments that *don't* read Kant and Hegel? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_philosophy to get anything interesting you have to talk to the polisci people or the german department
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May 10, 2017 22:47
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Phi230 posted:Even with conservative definitions of war participation the French are the most winningest nation in the world. 
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May 10, 2017 22:52
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xthetenth posted:Rocroi is a compelling argument against the Hapsburgs. and consider that it's the spanish army inside france, never vice versa
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May 10, 2017 22:55
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HEY GAIL posted:are you from the us? it's all this poo poo now: Oh, these guys I know all about their work but while some aspects of this are quite interesting it usually makes me roll my eyes, these guys are moving mountains to create molehills, and usually those molehills are in dedication of "ignoring certain basic developments of the past 150 years, like pragmatism and the existence of psychology."
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May 10, 2017 22:56
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:On the whole, France has much warmer relations to their former colonies than any of the other colonial powers. Let's, uh, not forget that France's former colonies include fun, exciting, and exceptionally stable places like Syria and Lebanon.
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May 10, 2017 23:12
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Panzeh posted:France was a great power before the hapsburgs became one. Considering how often France had to join a coalition or alliance of forces to take on the Hapsburg family web I'm not sure we can say that France was the greatest of the Great Powers in the Early Modern. edit: what time period are we talking about here? I'm genuinely asking because I'm assuming around mid-15th century to ~1800. Ithle01 fucked around with this message at 23:37 on May 10, 2017 |
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May 10, 2017 23:28
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Let's, uh, not forget that France's former colonies include fun, exciting, and exceptionally stable places like Syria and Lebanon. I'm not saying they can't be? Lebanon is alright.
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May 10, 2017 23:34
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