French Military Victories

[Beet]

Gustaf, this is getting kind of silly-- you have to pick a definition of "winning a war" and stick with it. If you say "The French won in the end in WW1 but they suffered so many battle defeats/fought it so poorly that it shouldn't count" you can't also say "The French won so many battle victories and fought so well in the Napoleonic wars but lost in the end." The thesis that the French have not won since Poitiers now has more holes in it than swiss cheese. Not the first being that "Poitiers" is the name of a city where a battle was fought, there was no "War of Poitiers".

Here is a at least partial list of French Military Victories since 732 (not including wars against non-Europeans)

1914-1918: WW1
1859-61: War of Italian Independence
1854-56: Crimean War
1820-23: Wars Against Spanish Republicans
1809: War of Austrian Independence
1804-07: War Against the Third Coalition
1800-1802: War Against the Second Coalition
1792-1797: War Against the First Coalition
1778-1783: War of American Independence
1672-1678: The Dutch War
1667-1668: The War of Devolution
1635-1659: War of the Pyrenees
1618-1648: The 30 Years' War
1584-1590: War of the Three Henries (ends when Catholic majority forces Henry of Navarre to accept Catholicism).
1328-1453: The Hundred Years' War (Edward III began the war to seek his claim on the French crown).
to 1320: War Against Flanders
1223-1225: War against the Angevins
1204-1215: Wars of Philip Augustus
1142-1144: War Against Champagne
to 1100: War Against Bourges
to 1082: War Against Vexin
to 1077: War of Brittany
to 1047: War Against Norman Rebels
1003-1016: War for the Duchy of Burgundy
888-894: Wars Agaisnt the Normans
795-806: Wars Against Barcelona, Navarre, and Asturias
772-804: Wars Against the Saxons, Bavarians, and Avars
742-774: Wars Against Pavia, Lombardy, Saracens, and Aquataine
(53 campaigns from 772-814).

(source: Wilkipedia)

[Beet]

No hostility involved. If I sounded a little testy it was probably because of the far-fetchedness of the claim. It was particularly striking in view of having been to the Gallery of Battles in Versailles. Also, considering France's prominent place in Europe and long history, plus the fact that it is a rather smug, self-satisfied country with many monuments to past military victories.

[Beet]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yeah, I have to agree that France is more known for foreign relations than military might. Before WW-1, Wilhelm really shot himself in the foot by not renewing the treaty of friendship with Russia and building all those worthless battleships.

Supersoulty:
The Crimean war wasn't about conquering Russia, it was more about keeping the Russians from imperializing Turkey.

Regarding World War I, no country had a majority of troops on either side, and the "primary participant" on the Allied side based on the number of troops calculus was Russia, but it's kind of hard to argue that Russia was the winner in World War I. But more importantly, under that calculus you wouldn't be able to say that the United States won World War II , because, once again, Russia provided most of the manpower on the Allied side so it was the "primary participant". Yet under any practical list of U.S. military victories, you are sure to find World War II. Perhaps a better question to ask would be... which side would have won if country X was not in the war? (in other words, was country X's participation decisive).

Also, how were all the other wars "eventual defeats"? France largely held onto all the territory in wars it gained up until 1678, and last I heard, the United States and Italy were still independent. Russian is not spoken in Turkey. The Hapsburg Empire does not rule over Europe. Protestantism is alive and well in Germany.