Asymmetrical Information

And we all know that the "Google page on French Military Victories" is a hoax, don't we? Just checking.

We all know that the "Google page on French Military Victories" is a hoax, don't we? Just checking.

Larry: Try to type "french military victories" (with the quotes) in the Google search field and click on "I'm Feeling Lucky".

*looks at watch and waits for the usual suspects to start whining about Jane being uncivil to the peace-loving and enlightened French*

Maybe Jane could do a "war as fun" routine on American military victories/defeats.
Jane could go to #1 in Google search results.
Go, Jane, go!

I'm sure there's a large measure of tongue-in-cheekness to this, but I have to point out that the Hundred Years War was an unequivocal French victory. While the English gained a few spectacular battlefield successes, in the long term, they lost all of their continental territory save Calais, some of which had been under English rule since William the Conqueror's time.

Larry: Try to type "french military victories" (with the quotes) in the Google search field and click on "I'm Feeling Lucky".

Are you serious?

The below link lies the original source for the french military text posted by Jane. Kudos to the gentleman of silflayhaka.com for their work.

http://silflayhraka.blogspot.com/2003_01_19_silflayhraka_archive.html#90229835

The below link lies the original source for the french military text posted by Jane. Kudos to the gentleman of silflayhaka.com for their work.

http://silflayhraka.blogspot.com/2003_01_19_silflayhraka_archive.html#90229835

"... waits for the usual suspects to start whining about Jane being uncivil to the peace-loving and enlightened French"

Looks to me like Jane was quite civil by not posting the entries for a few other wars.

Silflayhraka seems to have moved from blogspot and I couldn't get that link for the list to work, but the whole thing's at the link via google, http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/france.html

I did it. HE's serious. It's not a hoax. It's a glitch, but it's not a hoax.

The conquest and consolidation of France itself is France's challenging victory.

Ummmmmm, they won our revolutionary war. I'm certainly no fan of France but it's a bit hypocritical to poke fun at France when there is no way we would have won in the 1780s without them.

You forgot:

French Revolution

Republic evolves quickly into dictatorship due to war. Military genius found to lead nation. France destroys every state within reach, sparing only Britain with her moat, and finally foundering in Russia, setting a pattern for later would-be world dominators. World is stunned: how was it possible for one nation to hold off, then beat, all of Europe? The influence of French cultural and military innovation is felt to this day: the cult of the attack, and the levee en masse still affecting military thought.

Wallster:

While France's contribution to the cause of American independence should not be underestimated, I think you go a bit overboard when you say that they won it for us.

At the end of the day, it still required the willingness of Americans to go and fight and die---and it was American forces that, for example, drove Cornwallis to Yorktown, just as it was American forces that stopped Burgoyne at Saratoga.

Indeed, except for Yorktown, it is worth noting that French military forces fought in few land battles, and only a handful of naval battles (although the Battle of the Capes was essential for winning Yorktown).

Would the American Revolution have been even more drawn out if there had been no French participation? Absolutely. But one wonders, given British mismanagement, whether one could really foresee the Brits WINNING the Revolution?

Was France a help to the U.S. during the American Revolution? Sure, but I don't think the French were motivated to help the Americans as much as they were motivated to hurt the British. They weren't trying to help the American cause, they were trying to help France. To them, it seems, foreign policy is always a zero sum game.

I'm shocked that no one has pointed out that, from an historical perspective, the post that Jane links to is completely full of it, with respect to almost all of the wars mentioned. Prior to, say, 1812, France had more military success than just about any Europeon nation. After that, well, there have been more lows than highs (though the cowardly French meme doesn't really cut it either).

More details later; too busy with work now.

I did it. HE's serious. It's not a hoax. It's a glitch, but it's not a hoax.

Sure it is. Look here. You've been punked.

Link above doesn't seem to work (thanks MT). Click my name to get there.

Leave it to Jane's readers to make a debate out of this.

If there is one thing I think most of us can agree on, liberal, conservative, whatever...it's that it's always fun to make fun of the French.

Fun to make fun of the French? Well, I don't see why, but if that's what floats your boat, go ahead. My problem is this: the linked to post doesn't make any sense (and isn't funny, assuming it was intended to be funny) becuase it had no relation to reality. I mean, its one thing to take shots at the French because of their performance in WW2 (even that is a bit unfair, but, as I said, whatever floats your boat), but pretending that France was not once, and for a long time, a great military power - well, it's a little like saying that the Germans were cowardly pacifists in the first half of this century. It just doesn't make any sense.

Leonard,

The levee en masse worked for the French only because of their concept of the citizen soldier. All other armies used primarily conscripts. Conscripts have to be constantly watched. This made foraging very difficult. In contrast, the French citizen soldiers were there because they WANTED to be there, so foraging could take place over a much wider area (the foragers would voluntarily return to a designated location), so the French were able to field a significantly larger army than any of the other countries. The other countries felt threatened, and rightly so, by a country who was ruled by the people instead of by a king & nobility. Horrors, imagine if that idea caught on! So they formed a coalition against the French, and later formed another coalition, and later another coalition. A lot of the coalition members had absolutely nothing in common except that they were against the non-king & nobility ruled French, so the internal politics of the coalitions were quite interesting, and the squabbling just aided the French that much more.

Historically speaking, I admire the French because they were able to implement their democratic ideals (even if bloodily) on the European continent, whereas we were on a separate continent, and even then we had a difficult time succeeding.

On a separate note, James Burke ("Connections") traces Napolean's interest in feeding his army to the development of modern rocket science.

For any serious student of history, particularly military history, this particular aspect of French-mocking is farcical. Yes, it's fun to tease them about fleeing from the Germans in WWII, but not entirely fair, when you understand why.

The example given above about the Napoleonic wars shows perhaps the greatest period of French military dominance; another excellent example is the Western Front in WWI, where French toughness and elan was the only thing that kept the war going until the US arrived to reinforce them (and again, French leadership allowed the Allies to utilize this fresh manhood to carry the day).

When I was a child, we would pick sides for kickball. I didn't want to pick Little Timmy, because he had asthma, thick coke bottle glasses, and the ball was more apt to kick hiim around.

It was my turn. What was I to do?
I lifted my head and said, "We'll take Timmy, but you have to take the French!"

Now that I'm older, I find that lots of people who got their computers from Dell last night have logged onto the internet for the first time, but completely misplaced their sense of humor.

Seriously. Do you know how out of touch you have to be to not understand the long, long history of this joke?

Is the NPR site down or something?

I notice all the cites above tend to leave out Napoleon: maybe because he was the author (or at least took credit for) a number of notable French victories: Toulon 1794; Egypt 1798; Jena 1805; Wagram 1809. Oh, yes: and let's mention such battles as Solferino (1859), St-Privat (1871) [well, admittedly that was in a losing effort];
the Marne (1914) or Verdun (1916) -
face it, folks, France (like most European nations) has won/lost just as many battles/campaigns as it has lost/won.
Rake the Frogs as much as you want - but criticisism of their battlefield prowess can always find a counter-argument (whatever side history determines they were on: remember Dien Bien Phu)

I thought it was widely acknowledged that this was intended as humor?

That being said, the French HAVE had perhaps more than their share of bad leadership. It would be hard, frex, to argue that the French performance in the Franco-Prussian War was anything to write home about.

And while no one should doubt the courage of the French poilu in World War I, the competency of the French high command arguably eclipsed even that of the Brits in terms of stupidity, and certainly that of the Germans. Massive French casualties were due, in no small part, to the cult of the offensive (referred to by Leonard, but which fortunately did not take nearly as deep a root elsewhere). The belief that "cran" and "elan" would compensate for technological advances had no parallel in the pre-war thinking of any other nation (iirc).

Thus, come the opening shots of the war, and the French lose hundreds of thousands in the "Battle of the Frontiers," to no real gain, while nearly losing their country to the Schlieffen Plan. The Nivelle Offensive in 1917 was so horribly planned and conducted that it broke the back of the French army.

And counting Verdun as a French victory, while crediting, again, the courage of the French soldiers, sorta loses sight of the incompetency that cost them Vaux and Douaumont (which were both undermanned and wound up costing tens of thousands of Frenchmen to retake). Pyrrhic is more like it.

Jim, I do understand why the French folded so fast in WWII - incompetent leadership, reflected at all levels from grand strategy (over-reliance on the Maginot Line, the lack of will to slap Hitler down back when a single division could have retaken the Rhineland, and being surprised when the Germans unleashed a lightning attack in 1940 like 1914 and 1870 only bigger and faster) to tactical issues (loading tanks onto trains to go to a rapidly approaching front, and sending the tank crews on separate trains, so they could get captured separately by the rapidly advancing blitzkrieg.) Why is it unfair to poke fun at the French for that?

And of course, it is humor, not historically accurate - exaggerated even for the last 200 years when their only big victories were under the Corsican (NOT French) Napoleon I. Charles Martel and Charlemagne saved Europe from being overrun by Islam, although you might describe their Franks as more German than French. Medieval France was the largest country west of Russia (and even the Russians tried to imitate France), and it's military power was limited mainly by internal conflicts. The English were quite aware that they had once been conquered by the illegitimate ruler of a single French province, and so for several centuries afterwards any French victory was taken for granted and soon forgotten, while the English victories at Crecy and Agincourt were memorialized forever. The Hundred Years War made France a real military power, with a royal army supported by taxes on nearly all French lands rather than a tiny royal troop supported by the King's own estates plus many small independent armies belonging to each Duke and Count. For several centuries after that, only a coalition of several other European countries could beat France on land, and even the English had trouble matching them at sea. Just before the French revolution, the English were more or less equal on sea, and the Prussians could beat them on land, but only because French interests were so widespread they could count on half of the French force being tied up somewhere else.

The first armies of Revolutionary France were easily defeated, but then they found the right general and suddenly overran most of Europe. "Mass armies" was only part of that; with a lesser leader, these gigantic forces could not have been coordinated, with most of them being just a gigantic expense while the small part nearest the general did all the fighting... Pehaps unfortunately, the Prussians eventually figured out how to imitate one genius with a General Staff of hundreds, and mass armies became possible for nations not lucky enough to have a Napoleon.

Still, Napoleon was beaten eventually. And then by ignoring most of the wars between Napoleon and Joan of Arc, and deciding that Napoleon, the Normans, and Charlemagne's Francs weren't really French, you arrive at the statement: "The French only win when their leader isn't a Frenchmen." Good joke. Don't take it seriously.

But that's history. From what I can see of the French nowadays, I doubt they could win a war against any effective modern army, even if they resurrected Napoleon, Joan of Arc, William the Conqueror, Charlemagne, and Roland to lead them.

Jim, I do understand why the French folded so fast in WWII - incompetent leadership, reflected at all levels from grand strategy (over-reliance on the Maginot Line, the lack of will to slap Hitler down back when a single division could have retaken the Rhineland, and being surprised when the Germans unleashed a lightning attack in 1940 like 1914 and 1870 only bigger and faster) to tactical issues (loading tanks onto trains to go to a rapidly approaching front, and sending the tank crews on separate trains, so they could get captured separately by the rapidly advancing blitzkrieg.) Why is it unfair to poke fun at the French for that?

And of course, it is humor, not historically accurate - exaggerated even for the last 200 years when their only big victories were under the Corsican (NOT French) Napoleon I. Charles Martel and Charlemagne saved Europe from being overrun by Islam, although you might describe their Franks as more German than French. Medieval France was the largest country west of Russia (and even the Russians tried to imitate France), and it's military power was limited mainly by internal conflicts. The English were quite aware that they had once been conquered by the illegitimate ruler of a single French province, and so for several centuries afterwards any French victory was taken for granted and soon forgotten, while the English victories at Crecy and Agincourt were memorialized forever. The Hundred Years War made France a real military power, with a royal army supported by taxes on nearly all French lands rather than a tiny royal troop supported by the King's own estates plus many small independent armies belonging to each Duke and Count. For several centuries after that, only a coalition of several other European countries could beat France on land, and even the English had trouble matching them at sea. Just before the French revolution, the English were more or less equal on sea, and the Prussians could beat them on land, but only because French interests were so widespread they could count on half of the French force being tied up somewhere else.

The first armies of Revolutionary France were easily defeated, but then they found the right general and suddenly overran most of Europe. "Mass armies" was only part of that; with a lesser leader, these gigantic forces could not have been coordinated, with most of them being just a gigantic expense while the small part nearest the general did all the fighting... Pehaps unfortunately, the Prussians eventually figured out how to imitate one genius with a General Staff of hundreds, and mass armies became possible for nations not lucky enough to have a Napoleon.

Still, Napoleon was beaten eventually. And then by ignoring most of the wars between Napoleon and Joan of Arc, and deciding that Napoleon, the Normans, and Charlemagne's Francs weren't really French, you arrive at the statement: "The French only win when their leader isn't a Frenchmen." Good joke. Don't take it seriously.

But that's history. From what I can see of the French nowadays, I doubt they could win a war against any effective modern army, even if they resurrected Napoleon, Joan of Arc, William the Conqueror, Charlemagne, and Roland to lead them.

All: one aspect of studying the arc of French military success or failure is what it might tell us of possible futures for American military endeavors. Don Vandergriff and others have pointed out that the victors of a specific war can fall victum to the lessons they garner from that war. The French, for instance, learned that "methodical battle" or a battle focused on top-down centralized control and planning was the prescription for success in the firepower centric war that was the Great War of 1914-1918. Unfortunatly for the French, the Germans, as the defeated, had a greater incentive to garner other lessons and the result played out in 1940 with a wide-ranging concept of war that did not rely on strict adhearance to a central plan (focus was on the goal-not how to get to the goal-mission orders) and encouraged individual initiative and action. Perchance the U.S. military can avoid repeating these errors.

McQ,

The U.S. Marines underwent a gradual paradigm shift (What's that noise? It's the boss making a paradigm shift without a clutch!) to Maneuver Warfare, beginning in the mid-70's among company grade officers, to being fully embraced by General Al Gray in the 80's. Mission oriented orders to subordinates leave it to the subordinate how best to accomplish the overall mission. And the mission is not, take that hill, but rather, deny the enemy the ability to observe our forces. Hans Guderian typified the use of maneuver warfare by the Germans in WWII. In this latest war, the Marines bypassed strongpoints (typically cities) because taking the strongpoint was not essential to the mission. At a later time, mopping up operations can include taking the strongpoint, which in many cases, is willing to surrender because the defenders know that the larger war has already been lost.

I can't speak for the other services, but I've seen signs that the Army has units that also believe in maneuver warfare. So I think that, yes, the US military has absorbed the right lessons.

Markm,
You wrote: "From what I can see of the French nowadays, I doubt they could win a war against any effective modern army..."

I liked your comment overall, and am curious what you are basing this statement on.

Regarding the conquest of Gaul by Caesar, the Gauls were not French; didn't speak French; and (according to this theme) didn't fight like French. They were Celts; brave warriors facing the world's superpower, they had no real chance of victory. That they held on as long as they did is a testament to their courage and fighting skills. Alas, the superior organization and logistical capability of the Romans ruled the battlefield.

The French under Charles Martel also halted the Muslim advance into Europe at Tours in 732 and preserved Christendom (for good and ill):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tours

hi,
"Markm,
You wrote: "From what I can see of the French nowadays, I doubt they could win a war against any effective modern army..."

I liked your comment overall, and am curious what you are basing this statement on."

i second that request
cas

Folks, this thing is a joke. Sheesh.

Hell, it was going around the e-mail circuit back in February.

Everyone's also seen what happens when you type "weapons of mass destruction" with the quotes into Google and push "I'm feeling lucky", right?. Try this.

Le Français moderne peut ne pas être aussi courageux que leurs ancêtres, mais il y a d'autres raisons de rire d'eux. Ils sont grossiers, isolationist, et ayez une attitude de la supériorité. Ils ne veulent pas être une partie de la communauté globale, mais ils ne peuvent pas se permettre de renvoyer à distance de l'EU. Ils sont, pour tous les buts pratiques, les cousins "snobby" que vous avez toujours détestés à la famille fonctionne.

Jim and cas:

I'm not markm, so I don't want to be mistaken as replying on his behalf, but several thoughts DO come to mind:

1. France has little strategic lift. THerefore, any conflict requiring more than light infantry, and certainly any involving "forced entry," would probably cost the French what forces they do have.

2. France, like the rest of the EUropean militaries (but not the Brits) have invested nowhere near enough into C4ISR. Their command and control systems are simply years behind that of the US (less so against the Brits, who are also behind, but not by nearly as much). The French commitment to AFghanistan, frex, could not participate in the air-tasking orders, but had to be given their orders separately, iirc. France has marginal recon satellite capability, and very limited data-linking and cooperative engagement capacity. The French Air Force's AWACS contingent is probably about the same as that of Saudi Arabia or Japan (i.e., can keep one in the air 24/7, at most).

3. The French navy's ability to project power rests, at this point, on a single carrier, which due to its design, is unable to reach the necessary speeds to launch fixed-wing aircraft on a regular basis. With its small air complement (mostly Rafales and elderly Super-Etendard Exocet-launchers), it would be rapidly overwhelmed by either a substantial surface, air, or sub-surface force.

I don't know whether markm had these aspects in mind or not, but worth thinking about, I would suggest.

Dean, I hadn't realized their equipment was in that bad shape, but thanks for the reinforcement. I had in mind the apparent lack of will in the French leadership and intelligensia. They have quite enough hypocrisy to send their small professional army into a bloody small-scale war (if it can get itself there), but if they ever have to ask the average Frenchmen to sign up and fight for his country again, they'd damn well better hope that the masses haven't been listening to them for the last 20 years or so.

Didn't Napoleon say something like, "the moral is to the physical as 10 to 1"? I think once they run through the few percent of men that have somehow avoided absorbing the zeitgeist, they'll be severely lacking in both.

There are changes afoot in Europe though, which will transform its ability to globally project force over the next decade or so. For a summary, see the second half of my article "Enemies at the Gate":

http://www.theculture.org/rich/sharpblue/archives/000031.html

there seems to be a few comments relating to the stupidity of the british, this is interesting coming from a country that have managed to bomb more of their own soldiers and that of their allies than any other country, It should also be remembered that the americans were not the only allies that liberated many parts of europe in ww2

Joan of Arc, Philip the Great, St. Louis, Valmy, The French invasion/occupation of England (1066), Clemenceau, Joffre, deGaulle. need we say more?

Joan of Arc, Philip the Great, St. Louis, Valmy, The French invasion/occupation of England (1066), Clemenceau, Joffre, deGaulle. need we say more?

Joan of Arc, Philip the Great, St. Louis, Valmy, The French invasion/occupation of England (1066), Clemenceau, Joffre, deGaulle. need we say more?

Find out was really behind the France bashing campaign.

How the Anti-French Campaign was organized from the top down.

ADMINISTRATION LEVEL : diminish France's position in the World, leak dubious information about France to the press
FEDERAL POLITICIANS : Anti-French legislation, French-Bashing on the Hill & in the media
JOURNALISTS : propagate Anti-French news items, write "tongue-in-cheek" Anti-French pieces, innuendo, unfounded claims
COLUMNISTS AND COMMENTATORS : amplify and justify Anti-French rhetoric from the American Administration
COMEDIANS : disseminate Anti-French jokes, make France a laughing matter, reinforce France-Bashing in the minds of the masses

More :

HISTORICAL POINTS OF INTEREST

FRANCE & THE THIRTEEN BRITISH COLONIES 1776 - 1783

LA FAYETTE AND ROCHAMBEAU

In 1778, Louis XVI recognized the Independence of the 13 colonies and signed treaties. The United States was born.

Louis XVI sent over an expeditionary force to the USA and 6 million French pounds to George Washington. In 1781, the French forces beat the British at Yorktown in Virginia.

Remember Yorktown - The French-American alliance that once was -- and could be again.
At the tour's outset, our guide stressed that George Washington's troops would never have won this battle without the help and strong support of French soldiers, ships and weapons. The Marquis de Lafayette and Comte de Rochambeau - By Pierre Taminiaux

Names on Yorktown French Memorial

French financial contribution to the war of Independence :

3 million French pounds in 1778
6 million French pounds in 1781
Beaumarchais contributed 3 600 000 Francs worth of weapons, 800 000 F of which were reimbursed in 1836,
Cost of the French flottila : over 1 billion Francs
In 1978, an opinion poll asked americans in France has played an important role in the Independence of the United States, 80 % reponded NO !

FRANCE & THE USA - THE QUASI-WAR, THE XYZ AFFAIRE, Alien and Sedation Acts

In 1798, tension between Republican France and the USA erupts. For several years the USA refused to let American pirates seize the assets of countries at war with France at the request of Charles Edouard Genet, France's representative in the US. The United States didn't want to enter a war with Spain and declared themselves neutral in 1793.

Negotiations between France and the United States went very wrong over a 10 million dollar debt and a 250 000 dollar bribe destined for Talleyrand. John Adams then ordered the seizure of French ships. Ten thousand men were mobilized to fend off a potential French attack.

In the United-States French-Americans were viewed as enemies, even though the French-Americans no longer had any allegiance to France. Many had in fact come to the U.S. to escape oppression. Because of this, in Philadelphia innocent people of French origin were imprisoned, and those who were not imprisoned were kept under surveillance.

The Quasi-war ended around 1799 when American prisoners in Bordeaux were released.

FRANCE & THE USA - THE LOUSIANA PURCHASE

In 1803, following negotiations in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte ceded the territories of Louisiana to the United States for 15 million dollars. According to Napoleon, the Louisiana cession would "establish forever the might of the United-States" against Britain.

FRENCH IMMIGRATION TO USA

"In politically correct America, the French are one of the last groups it is still okay to bash. One reason may be there are so few French Americans to object -- just 2 percent of European immigration since 1820 has been from France." - David Montgomery

FRANCE & THE WAR OF SECESSION

Although sympathetic to the South at first, the French under Napoleon the IIIrd, refused to intervene. In 1861, Napoleon the IIIrd declared French neutrality. Over 26 000 French citizens enrolled in the Confederate (60%) and Union (40%) armies. Several French officers were amongst the ranks of the two armies: princes of Orléans, the count of Paris, the duke of Chartres aided general MacClellan. General Trobriand was also with the Union army. On the Confederate side, General Camille de Polignac, son of a minister of Charles the Xth of France was nicknamed the Southern Lafayette.

THE STATUE OF LIBERTY

"No two countries were closer during the 19th century. Americans named streets after the Marquis de la Fayette, Louis' liaison with the founding fathers. During the Civil War, France bankrolled the Union to neutralize British financing for the Confederacy. How many Americans remember that the Statue of Liberty was a gift from French schoolchildren? " - Ted Rall

FRANCE & USA - WORLD WAR I

American neutrality was shaken in 1915 with the sinking of the Lusitania. In 1917, Woodrow Wilson asks the European powers to accept Peace without Victory. The Zimmermann telegram changed everything: a potential alliance between Germany and Mexico forces the United States to enter the First World War. The assistance of the Americans under Pershing in decisive battles of 1918 tipped the balance in favor of the Allies.

FRANCE & USA - WORLD REPARATIONS

A member of the Republican Party, William Borah (Illinois, 29th June, 1865 - Washington, 19th January, 1940) led the charge against France in the 1930s, claiming France was not properly honoring its War Debt of over 4 billion dollars. The political rhetoric on each side of the Atlantic became ferocious, much of the European press had even then changed the designation of the United States from 'Uncle Sam' to 'Uncle Shylock'.

FRANCE & USA - WORLD WAR II

The German War Machine had destroyed Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands before crushing the French Army. As the French government fled to Bordeaux, Paul Reynaud pleaded for help from the United States. Isolationism and neutrality were still holding strong in the USA and Roosevelt could only put forth economic assistance.

The United States established diplomatic relations with the Vichy government of Marshall Pétain, a puppet regime of Nazi Germany in the hopes of being able to influence it. Roosevelt refused to recognize the FREE FRENCH and Charles de Gaulle. Roosevelt also wished to diminish the influence of France around the world and hoped that the colonial empire of France would not be returned to Paris after the war.

READ : 112 Gripes about the French - Published in Paris in 1945 by the 'Information & Education Division' of the US Occupation Forces.

FRANCE & GERMANY, WW II

Analysis: A bit of real history - Claude Salhani (UPI)

"Blame it on Bart Simpson if you will, but history was never really his forte to start with. Bart, the superstar character from the popular Fox TV hit cartoon series "The Simpsons," is the one who coined the term "cheese-eating surrender monkeys." He was, bien sur, talking about the French.

Much like Bart Simpson's historical oversight, what has not been said in the American media, since anti-French bashing became de rigueur in the United States, is that Germany's victory over France did not come cheap. Nor did France's defeat for that matter.
France lost 84,000 men before their surrender to Nazi Germany. Total French military losses during the war amounted to 340,000. (By comparison, the United States lost about 58,000 service personnel in Vietnam.)

The French inflicted 156,000 casualties on the Germans; 45,000 killed and 111,000 wounded.

World War I figures are even more staggering. According to official French war historians, in the battle of Verdun alone French losses amounted to 337,231 of which 162,308 count as dead or missing. German casualties were just as high: 337,000 of which 100,000 dead or missing.

By the end of eight months of some of the worst fighting in history, which included the use of mustard gas, the combined casualties from the French and German sides amounted to about 1 million, of which 700,000 had died. Many of the bodies were never recovered.

By the end of the war more than 1,400,000 Frenchmen had died defending their country.
The horror of those astronomical figures could possibly explain France's reluctance to engage in war, hoping instead that diplomacy could have prevailed. But with the war now well under way, that all seems like a moot point. As Bart's father, Homer, would say, 'Doh!'"

SAINT-PIERRE-ET-MIQUELON

During WORLD WAR II, the island or MIQUELON along with its counterpart Saint-Pierre was liberated by the FREE FRENCH* and joined in the WAR EFFORT despite the OPPOSITION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA**.

This island were a symbol of the spirit of FRENCH RESISTANCE and FRENCH DETERMINATION. The people of Miquelon, and Saint-Pierre feared nothing and no one , not even the battleship Arkansas or the North Atlantic Weather.

The 1941 affaire: When Washington was at war with the FREE FRENCH and backed the VICHY REGIME: www.grandcolombier.com

LIBERATION OF FRANCE

Beyond the Steven Spielberg vision of World War II, the fact is the USA did not liberate France during World War II, the ALLIES did. On D-Day, men from Canada (Juno Beach), Britain (Gold and Sword Beaches) and the USA (Utah and Omaha) landed in Normandy. The Free French participated in another landing in Southern France.

Link Les Fleurs de la Mémoire - Normandie 1944

Link WWUSVets.com

LIBERATION OF PARIS

"As far as WWII goes, I remind him that Paris was freed in August 1944, thanks to the rebellion of Parisians and the French Free Forces (Leclercq's 2nd Division Blindee), while U.S. and British forces cautiously stayed away.
Probably they hoped the Germans would deal with the French Resistance fighters, which they never trusted because there were communists among them. This would also explain why they did not send weapons to the Vercors Plateau, which was under control of the partisans, making them unable to resist the massacre of 750 children, men and women of all ages (July 1944, after D-Day).
Yes, even the liberation of France by our friends had its dirty sides." - Laurent Lechifflart

"American recognition of the collaborationist government of Vichy France, the failure of Washington to inform de Gaulle of the impending U.S. landings in North Africa the previous year, and the persistent friction between him, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had already strained de Gaulle's relationship with his allies. And the French general also had other foes to consider. Determined to be his country's postwar head of state, de Gaulle saw in his political opponents, the Communists, a threat as great as the occupying Germans. With the French underground resistance movements predominately left wing, he had dispatched agents to spy on his countrymen as well as the Nazis. He learned that the Communists were planning a major uprising in Paris to liberate it themselves before the Allied armies arrived, hoping to entrench themselves politically as the emancipators of the capital and shunt the towering general into the obscurity and exile he so feared.
When de Gaulle learned of the plan to bypass the city and delay liberation, he became convinced that the Americans were for some as yet unknown reason plotting to destroy his political future. Whoever expelled the Germans and freed Paris would likely build for himself in the process a power base with which to dominate the entire country in years to come. De Gaulle estimated that the Communists had 25,000 armed men in the city (if this figure was accurate, they outnumbered the Germans); he ordered the cessation of all Resistance-bound arms drops into the area. While Eisenhower brooded in his gloomy headquarters, de Gaulle was in Algiers, busily sending trusted subordinates to the City of Light to do everything in their power to head off any premature insurrection that might well sow the seeds of a civil war. France, drained by four years of Nazi occupation, was in no condition to endure such a calamity." - Kelly Bell

MASSACRE OF ORADOUR-SUR-GLANE

"In 1944, as a reprisal for a Resistance attack, SS troops murdered 642 residents of tiny Oradour-sur-Glane, including 190 children and several Jews the villagers were sheltering. Only two residents survived, a woman and an eight-year-old boy. No American, not even a war veteran like Rooney, has the right to make easy judgments about what happened in occupied France. " - Thane Peterson

Note: Mel Gibson misused this horrible event in his movie The Patriot but this time the perpetrators were the British Red Coats and the victims American Patriots. Historically inaccurate but hardly anyone noticed...

FRENCH RESISTANCE

"The French, West Germans, and others obviously were lucky to have been liberated by American-led forces (who gave them freedom and the Marshall Plan) and not the Russians (who would have tyrannized them for 45 years). But Russian troops played a heroic role in winning the war, just as the French Communist party played a heroic role in the French Resistance. And many French people, rightly, remember that." - Thane Peterson

JEAN MOULIN

"It's also not true that all the French were cowardly and collaborated during the war. Americans who believe that should acquaint themselves with the story of a man called Jean Moulin, Charles de Gaulle's on-the-ground liaison with the French Resistance. Moulin was captured and endured terrible torture by Klaus Barbie (the savage Gestapo officer known as "the Butcher of Lyon") but died never having given away his comrades. Town squares all over France have monuments to him. If there was a greater hero of World War II of any nationality, I haven't read about him." - Thane Peterson

COVERT CIA-NATO OPERATIONS IN FRANCE

After the war, covert "stay behind" units were in operation throughout western Europe. In France the unit was called Glaive or Gladio, the purpose of these secret networks was to fight communist accession to power. French Defence Minister, Jean Pierre Chevenement (1997-2000), said Glaive, had been dissolved by President François Mitterrand.

FRANCE AND THE USA, POST WORLD WAR II

The United States helped in the rebuilding of France with the Marshall Plan. American interference in the politics of France is achieved to keep the French Communists, heroes of the Resistance, at bay. American Commanding Posts are set up in Paris.

1945 - 1958 : U.S. aid and a national plan foster economic growth. France, however, remains unstable : the Fourth Republic becomes a rapid succession of ineffective governments. After French defeat in Indochina and bitter civil war in Algeria, a revolt in Algiers and Paris overthrows the Fourth Republic. De Gaulle returns, with the Army's support to become president with wide executive powers under a new constitution in 1958.

FRANCE AND THE USA, THE INDOCHINESE WAR

Indochina was one of France's colonies and a festering war of Independence had started after World War II. American anti-communist actvism within Indochina prompted Charles de Gaulle de denounce these activities during his Phnom Penh speech.

"There is little likelyhood that any people of Asia would submit themselves to the law of a foreign power from the other side of the Pacific, no matter what their intentions are, no matter how powerful they are." Charles de Gaulle. Phnom Penh, Cambodia. September 1st, 1966

.
AMERICAN CULTURAL INFLUENCE : THE MOVIES IN FRANCE

In France, a Screen Quota had been introduced around 1927 to protect the French Movie Industry. After the war, one of the conditions of The Marshall Plan was the removal of tariffs and trade barriers, including any protectionist measures in the movie industry.

The French economy in the late 1940s needed a jump-start. The government of Félix Gouin sent Léon Blum as special Ambassador to France along with the Governor of the Bank of France to negotiate new loans with the American Government. On May 28th 1946, the Blum-Byrnes accord settled the issue of the war debt and set up the frame-work for a new twenty year loan. Other accords that where tagged along had to do with opening the French market to American Movies. The Blum-Byrnes agreement established a quota of four weeks of French films per quarter.

French protest against the Blum-Byrnes accords was led by the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC), the French Communist Party and the CGT, France's most powerful union. Actors, Producers and Writers in France mobilised against these accords. Jacques Becker, Jean Grémillon, Louis Daquin, Yves Allégret, Jean Marais, Simone Signoret, Madeleine Sologne, Raymond Bussières and ten thousand others were in the streets on January 4th 1948.

Under pressure, the French Government renegotiated the Blum-Byrnes agreement in 1948. The new accord established a quota of five weeks of French films per quarter. Production subsidies were put into place. The 'Blum-Byrnes' agreement (a Franco-American accord) established terms of trade, including a screen quota. Another declaration on motion pictures was signed on 16 September 1948 with the Motion Picture Export Association of America (MPEAA).

In June 1960, the French government signed a pact with the MPEAA to relax, but not remove, the limitation on the number of US films allowed into France.

Today, France is still invoking, along with Canada, a right to maintain a Cultural Exception when negotiating tariffs and trade.

AMERICAN CULTURAL INFLUENCE - BUCK DANNY : A PRO-AMERICAN CARTOON

Buck Danny, Sonny Tuckson and Tumbler are the main characters of a pro-US cartoon that featured young fighter pilots in many theaters of operation : Midway, China and Korea. Buck Danny was created in the late 1940s by Hubinon et Charlier who worked for World Press, a Belgian publishing company headed by Georges Troisfontaines.

The Comic was picked up by the French weekly Spirou. Resolutely pro-american, the cartoon enjoyed decades of popularity.

USA & ANTI-SEMITISM DURING WW II

America & the Holocaust
"For a short time, the US had an opportunity to open its doors, but instead erected a "paper wall," a bureaucratic maze that prevented all but a few Jewish refugees from entering the country. It was not until 1944, that a small band of Treasury Department employees forced the government to respond. "
The Perilous Fight
"By contemporary standards, America in the first half of the 20th century was a profoundly racist nation. Jews and people of colour were openly barred from clubs, colleges, neighbourhoods, and mainstream American life. In vaudeville, racist humour dominated. Performers playing African Americans were required to appear in blackface, while stage Jews had to wear long beards, and be venal Shylocks. "
"By 1939, the anti-Semites had two causes: keeping America out of the European war, and keeping European Jews out of America. And they had two famous men in their ranks. Henry Ford was a true rags-to-riches hero. He was also an anti-Semite, who railed incessantly against "the Jewish plan to control the world" in his newspaper, the Dearborn Independent (circulation allegedly 700,000), which Ford dealerships distributed free of charge."
THE TRAGIC NUMBERS OF WORLD WAR II CASUALTIES

These numbers show clearly the terrible toll of war inflicted upon these many countries. Millions of citizens of other countries died. This tragic part of our collective history deserves respect and understanding, not politicising and childish "humour".

Killed Wounded Prisoner or missing civilian deaths total deaths
France 213,324 400,000 350,000 563,000
United States 292,131 671,801 139,709 6,000 298,000
U.S.S.R 11,000,000 7,000,000 18,000,000
United Kingdom 264,443 277,077 213,919 92,673 357,000

FRANCE AND THE USA, KOREAN WAR

During the Korean War, the French were part of the 2nd Infantry Division and fought with their American counterparts against the communist forces of North Korea. The French Battalion won three American Presidential Citations, five French Citations, two Korean Presidential Citations. The French Battalion was the most famous unit of the United Nations Forces in this war.

FRANCE AND THE USA, THE CUBAN CRISIS

Charles de Gaulle was the first to express support for Kennedy against Khrushchev at the time of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

DE GAULLE AND ANTI-AMERICAN IMPERIALISM IN QUÉBEC

In July 1967, Charles de Gaulle's "Vive le Quebec libre!" in a speech made in Montréal underlined de Gaulle's opposition to American imperialism while defending France's historical presence in North America. His comments drew sharp criticism from Ottawa and his own Prime Minister, Georges Pompidou.

1986 : Lybia

In 1986 Ronald Reagan asked permission to use French airspace in his attack on Moammar Quadaffi in Lybia. The French declined the United States use of her airspace.

1995 : France Accuses 5 Americans of Spying; Asks They Leave.

France has accused five Americans, including the former C.I.A. station chief [in Paris] and his deputy, of political and economic espionage and asked them to leave.... The other Americans ... asked to leave were two other C.I.A. agents who are listed in diplomatic jobs on the roster of the United States Embassy, and a woman working as an undercover C.I.A. agent who lacks diplomatic status. - New York Times, 23 Feb. 1995

SEPTEMBER 11TH

"In August 2001, the United States had in its custody a man named Zacarias Moussaoui. We brushed aside warnings about this little-known person. He turned out to allegedly be the infamous 20th hijacker.

Had we listened to the warnings, Sept. 11 may have turned out differently. We'll never know. But we do know who provided us with those warnings. It was our friends in Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire, or, in plain English, French intelligence. We were not listening then. Maybe we should be listening now". MORE

SEPTEMBER 11TH

Chirac was the first foreign leader to visit New York after the 9-11 disaster.

"The attack on the World Trade Center is beyond what we would call a crime, it is the height of human foolishness."

"Today it is New York that was tragically struck but tomorrow it may be Paris, Berlin, London"

"So of course France will determine the ways and means which it will contribute after making an evaluation and after reaching agreement with the other Europeans and the Americans and all its other partners."
Chirac over Manhattan: "When you see it you feel like crying"

More at www.miquelon.org
Long live France
Long live the United States of America

I live in Coventry, that's the original one in England, and as we ended up inventing a new word 'Coventrated', which means a total destruction from the air in 1940 (Gosh, did WW2 really start that early?), I Did like the fact that apparently the USA won both WW1 and WW2, despite being three years late on both occasions.

Does that explain your current behavoir?

You know, wanting to be in right at the start this time?

PS- Did you know that the only ship to survive pearl harbour (notice the 'u'?) was sold and became the Argentine ship 'General Belgrano', sunk in the Fawklands War?

You would forget that Napoleon managed to conquer most of Europe before finally being put in his place by the Russians. France didn't rearm after that fiasco for the same reason Germany didn't rearm after the first two World Wars: empire-building has gone out of fashion in Europe (haven't you heard?).

The only reason American has won so many wars overseas is because it hasn't had to fight them on its own turf. France had its colonial empire as well, up until the mid-20th century. We musn't forget Vietnam, or North and West Africa.

No, I think France has learned its lesson that militarism isn't necessarily a good thing, as has a good portion of Rumsfeld's "Old Europe." Maybe it's time we learned as well.

Lapdog, lapdog, lapdog. We "won despite being three years late" in World Wars I & II? No, no, no, my friend; it was precisely *because* we were three years late that we won, not in spite of it. Learn your history, man! Because he had not been bogged down by war we were able to provide fresh assistance in each case to win the side we joined -- just like the French provided assistance to us when we won the Revolution and the War of 1812. But I guess we won both those wars in spite of them too, right?

Download an enjoy !

http://www.espace-francophone.com/karaoke/englais/divers/We_f_the_world.zip

"Ummmmmm, they won our revolutionary war. I'm certainly no fan of France but it's a bit hypocritical to poke fun at France when there is no way we would have won in the 1780s without them"

...Wallstar are you serious!? Read up on your history, and you will find out that France didn't even reach the U.S. to help us fight until the colonists had already put the British armies on the verge of defeat.

Omar...just be quiet. You're gonna make me take up all my time correcting your "knowledge". France did not appear in the American Revolution until the colonists had already pretty much won the war, and the war of 1812 you talked about how the french "helped", you should really reread your history books on that one too. Omar, Omar, Omar...you say we haven't had to fight any wars on our own turf, where then were the American Revolution and war of 1812 fought.

Omar...just be quiet. You're gonna make me take up all my time correcting your "knowledge". France did not appear in the American Revolution until the colonists had already pretty much won the war, and the war of 1812 you talked about how the french "helped", you should really reread your history books on that one too.

Some of us seem to be forgetting that Napolean wasn't French (he was Corsican) which only goes to show that the French CAN be a powerful military force, but historically have not had good success unless commanded by someone who wasn't French.

Comments are Closed.