Many people say the French have always failed in war

I have heard a rumour that, for a time, when you typed in 'French Military Victories' in Google, an auto correct message comes up saying; did you mean French Military Defeats?

The French have won more battles then any other european nation (as far as I know)

I don't know why there is this misconception of French failure in war

The French for what i know are prounouned as failuers for 3 reasons.

1) There isnt acturrly a proper word in french for victories.

2) Many french colinies didnt leave due to trade. They left due to rebelion and the fact the french goverment did little to protect them! 2 prime examples are the vietnam war where the french army staid away from its colinies in few of battle and the loosing of the french colinies in africa.

3) The french have lost many big wars. Just rember Warterloo. Sure the French won the battles, but they lost the wars. Winning in the end is what matters. The winners write the history. Also just remember the world wars. France was taken over quickly, Francew even semi surrendered to avoid getting bombareded by Germany! Thats try loser talk.

Any questions to this history lession?

You counted victorious battles from European nations? Source please. Also what do you count as French? post Charlemagne? Or do you include the indigenous Celts?

As for the google joke it's a joke labelled to many countries based on stereotypes, the Italians suffer the same (if not more) from it.

I believe if the conception comes from anywhere it will come from WWII and the defeat of the French after the Blitzkrieg tactics went around the Maginot line. Exacerbated by the puppet Vichy governments failures.

And the fact that England and France have a long history of rivalry and you googled in English - expect an anti-French bias when you google the French in English. I'm sure it goes both ways.

I think one of the issues with this is that France hasn't been very good in most modern wars. That being said, Napoleon conquered most of Europe, and while he was a Corsican, his troops were French. Also, France was the hardest-fighting nation of WWI, with more casualties than any of the other Western powers (perhaps not Russia?).

This falsehood might be somewhat due to the fact that, at least in my perception, the French people (or public) have a very low tolerance for war. That is to say, the French Army, at least in modern times, doesn't get nearly the support as the US or British armies.

i wonder what other debates we can have here......

I've yet to lose to a frenchman at warlight, so the stereotype holds

The french suck at war

don't bring that locked thread into this scratch

the first thing you did was insult his mother

Scratch, please play Niko, Wazz, or Le Grand Vizir and see if you can stay unbeaten aginst a French player ;)

He was but one in a long line of slayed frenchies in my wake

@skunk940

What do you mean there is no French word for "victories"? The English word victory is actually derived from from as is 40% of the English language.

The French word for Victory is "Victoire".

Whoops,

meant derived from French, not from from.

Zilmorph is right, we have a word for "victory". It's simply "victoire". Actually the english word is derived from old french. Check Wiktionary.

Do you really think, like Bush, that we don't have a word for "entrepreneur"? (fyi entrepreneur is a french word)

Anyway, check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_France

@Valar Morghulis

Sorry, I did mean old french as well.

Could old french also be called Gaulish? I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure there's another name for old french.

oh, btw I'm french as well!

Cool link. From this we learn that the popular notion of France being defeated in every war they've ever participated is inaccurate.

The truth appears to be: If you look at the history of the World as one long game here, the French did have periods where they held a lot of countries with a small number of armies, but are now nearly dead.

In fakt many military words in the english and german languages have frensh roots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3r9bOkYW9s

oxfored foss on the history of english

Oops, sorry not oxford, but the Open University.

(I really should pay more attention to what I type)

Skunk, you have a huge misconception of the military might that was France for the longest time. After forming during many civil wars and fighting the English, they went on to successfully make the Holy Roman Empire look like a joke, and the rest of Europe for that matter. The reason they fell from that high point is only due to the stupidest idea, which is attacking Russia and trying to keep going even during winter.

If you want to talk about Modern times, it's taken a fully-fledged Germany to defeat France twice. Sorry, but even if the USA was located in the positioning of France, they would fall too. Most of the countries who fell to Germany during WWI and WWII were due to positioning. Specifically WWII, blitzkrieg is a strategy that is most effective when the army can breach quickly and be well supplied. (Basically, Blitzkrieg works on LAND, therefore all countries that Germany could reach by LAND fell quickly.)

In terms of military might, France historically was one of the best, only to be trumped by, in my opinion, THE BEST. (For those about to correct me and say USA, I myself am American. We have the biggest military, but there is not enough to judge on atm, besides our Navy.)