Yeah, WWI is a pretty clear example of what happens when your technology for killing people is more advanced than your technology for healing people... This is a time when they’d figured out how to blow holes in the ground the size of a cadillac, but hadn’t yet figured out antibiotics.

This. Not to mention the incalculable dearth of leadership in the late 1930s, thanks to all the men who’d died twenty years earlier. The “Lost Generation” really meant something different in France and Britain, where up to 1/3 of all men born in some years had died.

Are you serious? The Italians fought for years and made no progress except to be slaughtered.

The French in no way got their ass kicked in WWI at all. They held and then wore down the Germans in the bloodiest fighting imaginable.

I am posting this under you because you seem the most reasonable here... Lets talk WW1. TLDR it was the worst thing ever. Here is a lovely first person account I found today on the matter.

Yeah, you’re a bit like Trump... You like soliders who don’t get captured huh? Asshole.

Ah, I see. “Mission accomplished.”

Yeah, americans did so well in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq or Afghanistan... If you compare the french vs american records, wanna guess who did worse in the past century.

What fight? The French have a hugely active military presence overseas, particularly in francophone Africa, where they have an ongoing anti-insurgent operation after single-handedly ousting an Islamist coup in Mali.

Yeah because the 11 millions soviet soldiers that died on the eastern front, forcing Nazis to fight on 2 fronts at the same time instead of concentrating their troops against one enemy, most certainly kicking that enemie’s ass had he be alone, is for NOTHING in the fact that allies won WW2...

Sorry, but no. You can’t say that the French military sucks because it doesn’t win wars (or in the case of WWI, because it doesn’t win wars in a manner of your liking), and then go around and claim that the US military shouldn’t be judged on the conflicts it fails to win. I don’t even agree with your shitty metric to…

In your firsthand experience? Oh, I’m sorry — I didn’t realize I was speaking to a 130-year old WWI veteran.

No one’s saying they didn’t lose. Clearly they did. But the idea that these weren’t hard-fought battles by brave soldiers — the implication of your joke about French rifles — really shows how little you know about the topic.

From someone who’s both French and American: fuck you. You’re incredibly ignorant and shortsighted. During WWII, to name but one example, the Allies wouldn’t have won without the French Resistance or without US manpower. Both were needed. Study history. You might learn a thing or two.

Lol, WWI they were saved primarily by the Brits. WWII was won mostly by the Russians. They had the Wermacht in retreat before we even opened the second front.

OK, well, I perform professional genealogical and statistical research on American casualties in the European theater of WWII — as a side job to the actual book I am writing about Operation Torch.

Look, we could go on about this at length, but I assume you’re just trying to troll me. So why don’t we just accept that I definitely know more about this than you do, and we can both get on with our days?

WWI is actually the case that’s most galling (no pun intended) — 1/6 of the country was occupied by the enemy, 11% of the entire population was either killed or wounded by the war (including more than 2/3 of their soldiers).... If the French were really such inveterate defeatists, wouldn’t they have surrendered then?

According to the British historian Niall Ferguson, France has participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars fought since 1495, and in 168 battles fought since 387 BC, they have won 109, drawn 10 and lost 49: this makes France the most successful military power in European history - in terms of number of fought and…