We have fought many wars since our existence. France would not be France and would not exist if the french military was a bunch of coward surrendering monkeys and weak. Actually the tradition of the french military is deep and some painful defeats and glorious victories made what our military is. Yes the cliché about surrender,in our history,it wasn't the soldiers that were "surrender monkeys",but it is the politicians that were surrendering.
The propaganda about French were surrendering monkeys was high after we refused to go to Iraq with the us,for good reasons,and the haters can say whatever they want,it won't change anything,i have worked with many US soldiers in Afghanistan,and were always angry when someone was saying that we were a bunch of cowards...
Saying this is an insult to all those who fought and died protecting our motherland,it is an insult to those who fought in Verdun.... and all other battles,an insult to our military history that is envied by many..
(Adolf Hitler responded to the journalist Lutz Koch, (concerning the french troops) coming back from Bir Hakim: “You hear, Gentlemen? It is a new evidence that I have always been right! The French are, after us, the best soldiers! Even with its current birthrate, France will always be able to mobilize a hundred divisions! After this war, we will have to find allies able to contain a country which is able of military exploits that astonish the world like they are doing right now in Bir-Hakeim!”. Rommel himself declared that “nowhere in Africa was I given a stiffer fight”.)
Precisely said, mon ami
@Gabriel92 . France is an ancient civilization with a history, a proud military history at that. From its Cis-alpine Gaullic roots, which raided and threatened the Roman civilization some 5 centuries before the birth of Christ, to its transformation into Provincia Gaulia, or the Romanized France, the civilization of present day France has a cultural and military fusion of its Roman past, to the eventuality of its national identity. This was especially seen during the reign of the French Emperor, Charlemagne the Great, who is considered the Father of modern day France and Germany. It was Paris that was considered the cultural heartland of Europe for over a thousand years immediately after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
Like you said, France, has been engaged in variuos civilizational wars that involved its influence in Spain, Italy, Germany, and central Europe. It engaged in hundreds of battles and wars, some it lost, but overwhelming majority it won. This historical paradigm is a lesson for all military and historical strategists to appreciate the aspect of France as a civilization that is a continuity of its cis-alpine identity, fused with its Roman character. France never perished, rather, she is the extension of the Roman Civilization, a Great Power, and as history has vindicated through France's abilities to triumph over obstacles and adversaries, will continue to be a Force to be reckoned with.
France is not just a military power, but she is , by her shear existence, a cultural gem, and the very progenitor of European Republicanism, which heralds to this day, "Vive Le Fraternite, Egalite et Liberte..."
It was France, the first Kingdom, to throw down the shackles of Autocratism. Democracy and Republicanism that is so cherished in Europe today --- heralds its birthplace in Revolutionary France of the 18th century. Where the great heroes , the Jacobins, Marats, and the General Assembly are remembered, commemorated --- as civilizational changers.
VIVE LE FRANCE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!