"We surrender" Said the French
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:S But the French won the 100 year war.poncho14 said:But guess who still won the 100 year war? Thats right the British
I'm not sure why I think it's to do with WW1/WW2.
The ENGLISH fought to claim the French crown, the French fought to push the English onto their island and tell 'em what for.
England ended up with only Calais I think.
Please tell me how that counts as a British victory?
Though the English may have seen early success, their armies were quite thoroughly outdone when the French got good at using cannons and the English army became outdated.
Also let's not forget the BEF (basically the entire British army) abandoned France to the Germans when they lost the first few battles, leaving the French defence forces in disarray, a major factor in their surrender.
Damn guys use a search engine in future and I won't have to go all history nerd on yo asses
It mostly stems from the fact that France is a nation of extremely ignorant and arrogant snobs who have been more or less irrelevent to world affairs since the time of Napolean and refuse to admit it.
I understand that a lot of people also criticize America as being ignorant and arrogant, but the differances is that we are a global superpower, people don't like us for a lot of reasons. Among them the simple fact that unlike other world powers that have come before us, America is likely to remain eternally relevent even if we cease to be #1 at some point simply because we have the WMD based firepower to destroy the world 10x over. Nations like France, Spain, and others that have in the past dominated the globe do not have capabilities anything
like that even if they do have some WMD.
A good example of why people dislike France would be things like the Oil for Food scandal. It's not just that France opposed "the war on terror" while breaking international embargos for it's own profit, it's also that the French people remained ignorant of the fact after it had been outed due to the fact that while they believe France has a free press, it's far from true. They love to run around screaming that America and other nations are ignorant, but when you get down to it their that nation that usually is.
Then of course you have things like their "film industry" that basically has a bug up it's collective butts about the fact that it's not Hollywood and chances are it never will be.
As far as the "Surrender Monkeys" thing, well consider that Napolean for all of his hype got defeated by "The Iron Duke". Then there is the fact that France talked a good game during two world wars, but surrendered both times.
France's surrender in World War II was less due to a hopeless battle, but also because a lot of the French were actually nazi Sympathizers. Hitler was hugely popular globally (international man of the year), right about a LOT of things, and nations like the US basically had to institute some killer propaganda campaigns and what amounted to martial law not only to fight the war, but also to demonize a man/group who had a pretty big following in the US.
France likes to claim "we never surrendered, we had this huge resistance" but that is played up after the fact and becomes a big part of the entire joke when you think about it. They DID have a resistance, but NOTHING like is claimed after the fact.
France is also compared to nations like England who fought tooth and nail to stop the Nazis. France did not do this, and if they HAD fought they could have done a lot to stymie Hitler. But they chose not to and that gave him a massive advantage he didn't even have to fight for.
Basically France is known for having a substantil, and very arrogant, military force, but in the end having that military wind up being irrelevent to anything but talking a lot of crud. France *DID* have an empire and a decent military track record for a long time, but that is not what France is now.
In the most recent news, look at what happened with the Russians. These guys invaded Georgia which is right on the borders of the EU, threatened Poland for hosting defensive military bases which would make them (and the EU) more difficult to attack with missles (though not impossible). Something that is there in case oh well... someone starts invading their neighbors. Then Russia cut off the gas to the EU.
The EU, and especially France, are very vocal about why they didn't do anything other than whine diplomatically. England and other nations have the excuse of their military being tied up in The Middle East. *BUT* France which talks the game of being a massive military power doesn't have their troops tied up the same way.
In the end France kind of showed the nature of the EU (trade alliance, where the big members don't really give a Cr@p about the smaller ones), and also the fact that France is a group of bullies. Basically they are wonderful at acting big and bad when they know nobody is going to call their bluff, or dealing with someone weaker than they are, but present an actual threat and France cowers in the shadows with their cheese and wine.
This is why people joke about how if the US was to withdraw and stop playing global police that the world could simply call France. Nowadays France is fairly good at invading the weak or kicking someone while their down, but not much else. That's just their attitude.
These are my opinions (and I'm trying to say negative things about France without going overboard). I know many are going to disagree, but that is how I see things.
I understand that a lot of people also criticize America as being ignorant and arrogant, but the differances is that we are a global superpower, people don't like us for a lot of reasons. Among them the simple fact that unlike other world powers that have come before us, America is likely to remain eternally relevent even if we cease to be #1 at some point simply because we have the WMD based firepower to destroy the world 10x over. Nations like France, Spain, and others that have in the past dominated the globe do not have capabilities anything
like that even if they do have some WMD.
A good example of why people dislike France would be things like the Oil for Food scandal. It's not just that France opposed "the war on terror" while breaking international embargos for it's own profit, it's also that the French people remained ignorant of the fact after it had been outed due to the fact that while they believe France has a free press, it's far from true. They love to run around screaming that America and other nations are ignorant, but when you get down to it their that nation that usually is.
Then of course you have things like their "film industry" that basically has a bug up it's collective butts about the fact that it's not Hollywood and chances are it never will be.
As far as the "Surrender Monkeys" thing, well consider that Napolean for all of his hype got defeated by "The Iron Duke". Then there is the fact that France talked a good game during two world wars, but surrendered both times.
France's surrender in World War II was less due to a hopeless battle, but also because a lot of the French were actually nazi Sympathizers. Hitler was hugely popular globally (international man of the year), right about a LOT of things, and nations like the US basically had to institute some killer propaganda campaigns and what amounted to martial law not only to fight the war, but also to demonize a man/group who had a pretty big following in the US.
France likes to claim "we never surrendered, we had this huge resistance" but that is played up after the fact and becomes a big part of the entire joke when you think about it. They DID have a resistance, but NOTHING like is claimed after the fact.
France is also compared to nations like England who fought tooth and nail to stop the Nazis. France did not do this, and if they HAD fought they could have done a lot to stymie Hitler. But they chose not to and that gave him a massive advantage he didn't even have to fight for.
Basically France is known for having a substantil, and very arrogant, military force, but in the end having that military wind up being irrelevent to anything but talking a lot of crud. France *DID* have an empire and a decent military track record for a long time, but that is not what France is now.
In the most recent news, look at what happened with the Russians. These guys invaded Georgia which is right on the borders of the EU, threatened Poland for hosting defensive military bases which would make them (and the EU) more difficult to attack with missles (though not impossible). Something that is there in case oh well... someone starts invading their neighbors. Then Russia cut off the gas to the EU.
The EU, and especially France, are very vocal about why they didn't do anything other than whine diplomatically. England and other nations have the excuse of their military being tied up in The Middle East. *BUT* France which talks the game of being a massive military power doesn't have their troops tied up the same way.
In the end France kind of showed the nature of the EU (trade alliance, where the big members don't really give a Cr@p about the smaller ones), and also the fact that France is a group of bullies. Basically they are wonderful at acting big and bad when they know nobody is going to call their bluff, or dealing with someone weaker than they are, but present an actual threat and France cowers in the shadows with their cheese and wine.
This is why people joke about how if the US was to withdraw and stop playing global police that the world could simply call France. Nowadays France is fairly good at invading the weak or kicking someone while their down, but not much else. That's just their attitude.
These are my opinions (and I'm trying to say negative things about France without going overboard). I know many are going to disagree, but that is how I see things.
Which is and was part of France, so the "Where was he from?" argument doesn't have any legs to stand on.Skeleon said:
The sterotype (probably) comes from how the French are pacifists and during WW2 they were conquerred in a month or so. Obviously this is stupid reason to joke about them. Being conquerred is not funny and they didn't just surrender, they helped the British/ran an underground sabotage effort (I think) against the Germans. And since when is pacifism a bad thing?
Eh, last time I checked, defeat isn't the same as surrendering, especially after bringing all of Europe to it's knees, and in regards to your second comment, well, it's stuff like that that maybe should make you think that France is right about you Americans.Therumancer said:
Re: above about the Italians...
The average Italian soldier was generally as brave as any other nation's.
Unfortunately for the average Italian soldier, their commanders were promoted by seniority not competence, and had never given much thought to developing new tactics. They had no high command worth the name to co-ordinate large action. Mussolini was a titanic military idiot - he ordered attacks without allowing his generals time to prepare enough troops, sort logistics and training. They had utterly inferior equipment because Mussolini hadn't bothered much to think he might need more modern stuff, and even if he had, Italy had very little heavy industry to build it anyway.
The average Italian soldier was generally as brave as any other nation's.
Unfortunately for the average Italian soldier, their commanders were promoted by seniority not competence, and had never given much thought to developing new tactics. They had no high command worth the name to co-ordinate large action. Mussolini was a titanic military idiot - he ordered attacks without allowing his generals time to prepare enough troops, sort logistics and training. They had utterly inferior equipment because Mussolini hadn't bothered much to think he might need more modern stuff, and even if he had, Italy had very little heavy industry to build it anyway.
You've probably been given your answer already by now, what with the 8 pages of words that I can't be bothered trawling through, but it definitely started because the French, during WWII, declared Paris an "open city" (basically the invading force is told that the city is free to take without any violence). Paris is their capital, and the fact they capitulated without fighting tooth and nail for it, because they didn't want the city to be damaged, would most certainly have brought forth jokes from probably either the UK or the USA, seeing as Britain was basically left on its own as a nation and might've felt slightly bitter about it, or because the USA would presumably like to joke about events far away from it, right up until it was completely caught by surprise three years into a global war.Sovvolf said:
Well, that would be quite problematic then. The Italians were on the same side as France during WWI.Exocet said:
Actually, they took Moscow, but seeing as at the time it wasn't even the Russian capital the Russians basically withdrew and waited for the cold to take over.Exocet said:
That's true. Americans seem to believe they won the war of independance all be themselves. In reality they would've been crushed horrifically if the French and the Spanish hadn't helped them against Britain. So in reality, America is indebted to France, and they won't acknowledge it.Ghostkai said:
Pacifism pretty much leads to you get stomped on a lot and that you dont stand for anything except your own interests. The only place it preserves peace is in the country that's practicing it.oppp7 said:
e.x Congo
The U.N was allied in trying to help these people out except for one pacifist country
Starts with an "F" and ends with an "rance"
Another example of pacifism failing
U.S during WW1
U.S during WW2
Lets face it we jumped in at the point of where the axis powers were about to burn that pretty little island off of Europe's coast and we provided enough force to push the allies over the top and start the topple of the axis powers. While we waited millions were gassed, burned and shot in concentration camps.
That's why to me pacifism means cowardice
The principle of using military force as a last resort is not pacifism.
The French may argue that the US has often behaved as a jackbooted thug with its military stomping around places it is neither welcome, helpful, nor justified to be there. And looking at various misadventures like Iraq and Vietnam, they've got a point.
I also think quite often they decide, quite realistically, there's very little that can be usefully done and/or that there is no benefit to their country getting involved in military escapades abroad, and I can't say I blame them for that either.
The French may argue that the US has often behaved as a jackbooted thug with its military stomping around places it is neither welcome, helpful, nor justified to be there. And looking at various misadventures like Iraq and Vietnam, they've got a point.
I also think quite often they decide, quite realistically, there's very little that can be usefully done and/or that there is no benefit to their country getting involved in military escapades abroad, and I can't say I blame them for that either.
Meh, the French have a pretty good record for their Middle Ages years (Joan of Arc and Charlemagne, oh and Charles "The Hammer" Martel against the Muslims) , and basically stayed decently good until Napoleon, of course a nation as long-lived as France is going to have some fails (Can you say Crusades? Not that England or anyone else did that much better). However, I think the debt we owed them from lending us a hand with their navy and supplies as a colony struggling for independence during the American Revolution is something we might not ever fully repay. One "bailout" for World War One as they had continued fighting but the infusion of American troops broke the stalemate and basically insured the defeat of Germany, though only Germany and not the other Central Powers, though by that time Germany was carrying most of the war effort on its shoulders. World War Two was a save, the Nazis had control of France and along with the Brits, we helped free all of Nazi-occupied Europe.