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History Guy
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Reads too many books...
Oct 2001
time: 23:23
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Senor Borc, I understand the quandary. Firstly, Writing does not exist in any way, shape, or form, though I am sure certain civilizations shall soon have their hands on it's secrets. Secondly, none of us have actually encountered each other...officially, have we? The world is seperated, so it seems, still in the cradles of mankind.
And yet, I cannot stress to you the benefits of forming early on a substantial friendship, as I feel we of Spain shall have with your people of Arabia. I know that whatever the future holds for the rest of civilization, we two countries shall be as blood brothers.
Hernan de History Guy Calamari II
Squid Baron of Madrid
Ambassador to the Holy Lands of Arabia
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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:23
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Long post, but I want to pinpoint some elements of French history, to show that our 'sissiness' reputation mostly comes from our 'incompetence' (which is much more real)
To be precise, the French are a Latin people, with some Celtic interbreed. The Franks weren't many enough to overhaul the complete population, they were more conquerors than settlers. It resulted the Franks became at first the military elite, and later the nobility (who were rumored to have "blue blood" because blue is the traditional Germanic colour).
And France did win many battles even when Napoleon wasn't around (it almost matched Germany in WW1, even if it needed its allies to break the status quo for instance. And no, the French didn't fled from the horrible bloodbath).
The reputation of sissiness of the French comes from their defeat in WW2, and maybe from their defeat in Vietnam, and now the refusal to go to war when peace is possible (much like the Canucks or modern Germans actually).
To understand the stunning defeat of the French army during WW2 (since all this bad reputation is about that), sissiness isn't a factor. Demotivation and incompetence explain it better :
While nobody wanted to go to war again in 1939, so little time after WW1's bloodbath (the most murderous war our history), the mobilization proceeded smoothly. But, betweem Sep 1939 and April 1940, nothing happened, save for a few attacks in Norway and Germany : the French generals wanted for hitler to break his teeth on the invincible Maginot line  We all know what happened : German troops simply turned around the Maginot line, and took it easily (it wasn't even planned someone could attack from behind ).
The generals didn't understand at all what happened : every time they retreated from German advance because of their unreadiness, they found themselves caught back extremely early because they couldn't fathom a Panzer could move all day long (for example). This led to an impression of German invincibility in the public opinion and everybody became to fear (although, in the few encounters where French troops were ready to fight, the Germans weren't invincible at all). That's why Petain thought we had lost the war in 1940, but that's also why De Gaulle (and many other top politicians) thought we only lost a battle. Surprisingly  , the bold one became a hero of French history.
For more details, you can check L'Etrange défaite by Marc Bloch (I guess that reads 'the Strange Defeat in English'), a historian being a reserve officer during the war, who explains all the little details which really made for a poor strategy.
The blatant incompetence of the French generals was shown again in the first Vietnam war. While the kill ratio is clearly in French favor (that's what we can expect from a modern army fighting a guerilla), the defeat of Diên Biên Phû is exceptionnaly significant.
Before peace talks of Genava, the army wanted to defeat Viets badly, to raise the French bargaining power. Massive troops were gathered in Diên Biên Phû, a small patch of flat land under the hills. A military airport has been built, as well as fortifications, and soon, many soldiers kept the place. The spirit of the upcoming battles was 'let the savage Viets come with their spears and die as they run to our bunkers' .
Of course, the Viets came with cannons sold by China, and calmly dispatched them on the hills without the French noticing something big was coming (thick jungle to cover the moves). You can imagine how badly the modern French army was defeated. The irony is that, if the French had retreated this time, they would have scored something big : a big chunk of the Viet army was stucked in this useless zone, and hadn't any vehicle to move faster, while the French had planes, and could have dispatched troops in another, undefended area of the front almost immediately (if you want to make fun of the French military, I strongly suggest you keep the Diên Biên Phû example in mind... to my knowledge, even Azincourt wasn't as dumb  )
As btw, during Algeria war, French troops massively tortured people, including completely innocent people, to get info to fight terrorism. So much for sissiness, I'd like we'd have been more sissy this time.
Today, the French military has peacekeeping functions in Europe, and some in Africa and Asia. The places our soldiers are in, I doubt many of you brave Americans from Apolyton will want to be there - I sure don't (as a matter of fact, American troops do the destroying part, mostly from their planes, while European troops participate much more in peacekeeping, because of the superior numbers of their infantry).
Maybe our reluctance to go to war comes from the fact we have millenia of destruction and massacres on our territory, and that the sheer horror of both world wars really made us hate war in most circumstances. Imagine, in the next war, you suffer several 11th Sept. each day : maybe then you'll understand we're not as gung ho as you.
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06-12-2002 22:27
let us wait some hundred years until we all are more than a group of apes without any history 
Not that long ago, I did (a localization of) one multimedia title on WW1, another one on WW2, and yet another one covering - beside other notable modern military events - Dien Bien Phu, I have to agree to everything you've said. Incompetence, that's the curse of the Modern French military.
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