Congratulations to Mr. Prewitt. It should be noted, however, that France’s highest order of merit is called the Legion of Honour (Légion d’honneur), not the Legion of Armour, and also that France doesn’t actually have knighthoods in the same sense as Britain does. “Chevalier” (knight) is indeed one of the Legion of Honour’s five levels, and the name is a holdover from the days when France still had an aristocracy, but the French nobility system went out the window with the French Revolution. I once saw a series of amusing cartoons depicting what life in France would be like today if the Bourbon monarchy hadn’t fallen, and one of them showed an irate air traveler standing at the ticket counter of “Royal Air France” and telling the ticket agent “But I’m a baron and I have a confirmed reservation!” The agent replies, “I’m sorry, sir, but the Duke of So-and-so has precedence over you, so we gave him your seat.” In fairness, the same sort of thing actually happens in real-life republican France. A few years ago, there was scandal involving one of the major D-Day anniversaries (I think it was the 50th one), when the French government contacted various hotels in Normany and appropriated some of their existing reservations so that various French officials could have rooms for the event. Some of those rooms, however, had been reserved by foreign veterans of the D-Day invasion. When the story broke on the front page of French newspapers (under such headlines as “Our Liberators Insulted!”), public opinion was outraged and the French government beat a hasty retreat. The prevailing editorial opinion over this affair was: Do this to our own citizens if you want, but don’t do this to the heroes who ended the occupation of France.
Is there too much contempt for the French from A&A players?
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@Imperious:
This is totally true to the point where post war French revisionists constantly churn up all these stories of Resistance, while at the same time never recount the vastly greater stories of collaboration as as not to appear like they just flop from one side to another based on advantages. In truth they flew the flag of whoever was in power at the time actively helping that side and selling French pride down the gutter.
The “greater” stories of collaboration are bigger simply because it was easier to do so. To resist the occupier was basically a death sentence, whereby you also put your family and loved ones at great risk. In addition, not a few French people saw the Resistance as dangerous. What outweighed both collaboration and resistance, however was people trying to lead relatively normal lives as best they could. This of course changed over the years when the German occupation began to severely affect the population, and the Axis occupation of Vichy France.
I am against Francophiles who have nothing to hang their hat on in terms of any argument that France was among the bravest nations since 1870. They were not.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. Is a nation as a whole considered “brave” if it wins a war? If we go by that logic than Germany is the most cowardly nation on the planet for losing both world wars.
Russia was invaded and they didn’t go for the big wall option.
That has a lot to do with the fact that a)they had undergone a violent Revolution, and the new Soviet government was too busy modernizing the country (at the cost of millions of lives) and purging its own ranks and b) the Russian border with the rest of Europe is immense. Do you honestly think any sort of “big wall” option is feasible for distances that large?
Yea you got that right. But by different we must conclude that France became less interested in dealing with actual problems, preferring to make walls to hide behind, while letting Poland die even with a great advantage in force on the Franco-German border. If you want to label that with “bravery” thats fine. France had the most brave soldiers of all time who could not even be contained from rich French food and just ran out of the border and attacked Germany in 1939. They had great success!
You keep on assuming that we must blame the French nation as a whole for the decisions their government and higher ups made.
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@Imperious:
Another thing France does well is somehow they always find a way to fight on the winning side, even if this means switching sides or conveniently making the official “French Government” on a new side as the war turns against the side that they originally sided with.
case in point: the governments of Petain and Col. De Gualle. De Gualle’s exiled government only gained currency when it was clear that the axis would lose the war. In reality, the official former French government was Vichy located in southern France, not the "Free- French located in England. De Gualle, just assumed power and it was easy since the British financed his endeavors from 40-44.
IN the Great War they made Germany a scapegoat for starting everything relating to WW1, when clearly France’s interest was not Serbian issues but getting back Alsace Lorraine, which was lost in a war that France started and lost in 1870. France just needed a spark to join in any side that would be willing to fight Germany, so they can take back that territory. Pretty suspect reason if you ask me.
France deliberately linked the Allies creating the conditions for war and encouraged the Czar to mobilize, which forced Germany to mobilize. The Czar was effectively tricked into mobilization, which was a very influential motive behind why Stalin latter didn’t trust the Western Allies the next time Germany was planning to attack the Soviet Union. Stalin didn’t want to be goaded into mobilizing into another war.
Really, without these alliances the Serbian conflict should have been Russia and Serbia vs. Germany and Austria.
England only entered because they had a treaty with Belgium. They didn’t set up a war to start based on some need to gain back land.
Good post! I agree that France’s reasons for entering WWI–and persuading Russia to enter–had nothing to do with Serbia. (Any more than its entry into WWII was based on any desire to protect Poland.) I also agree that France’s decision to fan the flames of WWI to get back Alsace-Lorraine was pretty suspect–especially because the vast majority of the people in Alsace and Lorraine were Germans.
Russia’s decision to enter WWI caused it to experience one of the bloodiest wars in its history, got the czar and his family murdered by communists, all in support of a world war which achieved less than nothing. Other than that, the czar’s decision to go along with French wishes worked out just fine!
This being said, there’s one point where you and I may differ. There are times when a defensive strategy is the most logical. In 1914, the French felt that elan–as exemplified by the bayonet charge–would prove the deciding factor. The result was that hundreds of thousands, or perhaps millions, of French soldiers were machine gunned down by the Germans. Once both sides had dug trenches, the offensives of WWI tended to cost the attacker rivers of blood for inches of land.
Both Germany and France sought to escape the staggering cost of WWI-style offensives, albeit in differing ways. The French method was to seek a defensive war, and to build fortifications to enhance a defensive strategy. The German method was blitzkrieg. “Never again trench warfare!” Hitler once said. Neither side wanted to see its infantry get chopped to pieces in WWI-style offensives.
The French military strategy was a perfectly logical response to the experience of WWI. However, the German response was even more logical. (And far more creative and daring.)
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The French Resistance
It seems to me that French COLLABORATORS outweighed French Resistance, if you consider the duration of the war.
Here’s a passage from “112 Gripes About the French”
“The French mostly collaborated with the Germans.”
The Germans would disagree with that. The Germans tried for four years to get more Frenchmen to collaborate. That’s why they killed so many hostages. That’s why they destroyed 344 communities for “crimes” not connected with military operations.
The Germans overran France in 1940. For two years they used every promise, trick and pressure to induce the French people to work in Germany for the German war machine. They offered workers better food, clothes, privileges and protection denied them in France under occupation rules. And in all of France, during that entire period, about 75,000 French workers enlisted. The Germans admitted the campaign was a failure.
The LVF (Legion Volontaire Francaise), the French volunteer army that the Germans tried to organize, was a gigantic flop.
The glaring reality, is that our experience with French culture, whether at home, or abroad, is one of isolation, cowardice, and insult.
I’m not quite sure what to make of this. I have lived in France for about five years, and overall I did not feel any of the above as a foreigner. Of course you have your bigots, but those exist in every country. Not many fellow Americans I met in France (or Quebec, for that matter) told of any overwhelming insults.
Everytime other nations attempt to make the world a better place, it seems they’re garunteed to get a scathing comment from a frenchman.
Could you explain this more? I recall France being at the forefront of UN missions in Africa, most recently the civil war in the Ivory Coast.
French culture is even true to your own post Spacy, how you make it seem that this observed disposition towards the french being laughable is somehow OUR problem.
It’s no one’s problem actually. It’s a viewpoint that is quite frankly irrational and unfounded.
@Imperious:
Another thing France does well is somehow they always find a way to fight on the winning side, even if this means switching sides or conveniently making the official “French Government” on a new side as the war turns against the side that they originally sided with. case in point: the governments of Petain and Col. De Gualle. De Gualle’s exiled government only gained currency when it was clear that the axis would lose the war. In reality, the official former French government was Vichy located in southern France, not the "Free- French located in England. De Gualle, just assumed power and it was easy since the British financed his endeavors from 40-44.
Wrong. Charles de Gaulle was officially recognized by Britain as the “Leader of all Free Frenchmen, wherever they may be” on June 28, 1940 and did not recognize Vichy France as the legitimate government.
France deliberately linked the Allies creating the conditions for war and encouraged the Czar to mobilize, which forced Germany to mobilize. The Czar was effectively tricked into mobilization, which was a very influential motive behind why Stalin latter didn’t trust the Western Allies the next time Germany was planning to attack the Soviet Union. Stalin didn’t want to be goaded into mobilizing into another war.
Really, without these alliances the Serbian conflict should have been Russia and Serbia vs. Germany and Austria.
England only entered because they had a treaty with Belgium. They didn’t set up a war to start based on some need to gain back land.
Right, and poor Germany was a victim of intertangled alliances in Europe all orchestrated the imperialist French. Clearly Germany was pacifistic and reluctant to go to war with France at all. World War I caused by the French? That’s a first.
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The “greater” stories of collaboration are bigger simply because it was easier to do so. To resist the occupier was basically a death sentence, whereby you also put your family and loved ones at great risk. In addition, not a few French people saw the Resistance as dangerous. What outweighed both collaboration and resistance,
Funny how in Yugoslavia and occupied Russia, these people fought Germany behind the lines, where in France they just served coffee and “collaborated” out of fear of reprisal. The mark of courage is to face death while struggling, not making pancakes for German officers.
however was people trying to lead relatively normal lives as best they could. This of course changed over the years when the German occupation began to severely affect the population, and the Axis occupation of Vichy France.
You can explain it that way, but in other countries the official act was fighting by all means necessary at great risk. Vichy should have fought on in Brittany or “officially” left France for establishment in Dakar or elsewhere.
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I am against Francophiles who have nothing to hang their hat on in terms of any argument that France was among the bravest nations since 1870. They were not.I’m not sure what you mean by this. Is a nation as a whole considered “brave” if it wins a war? If we go by that logic than Germany is the most cowardly nation on the planet for losing both world wars.
Brave means resolve to fight on elsewhere. If UK was occupied, they would have continued from Canada or elsewhere. But not France. One and done.
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Russia was invaded and they didn’t go for the big wall option.That has a lot to do with the fact that a)they had undergone a violent Revolution, and the new Soviet government was too busy modernizing the country (at the cost of millions of lives) and purging its own ranks and b) the Russian border with the rest of Europe is immense. Do you honestly think any sort of “big wall” option is feasible for distances that large?
The “big wall” is the only option for nations that have no resolve to mitigate basic national defense. They can just build some wall and avoid the problems. That is why Soviets realized that the solution was to modernize.
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Yea you got that right. But by different we must conclude that France became less interested in dealing with actual problems, preferring to make walls to hide behind, while letting Poland die even with a great advantage in force on the Franco-German border. If you want to label that with “bravery” thats fine. France had the most brave soldiers of all time who could not even be contained from rich French food and just ran out of the border and attacked Germany in 1939. They had great success!You keep on assuming that we must blame the French nation as a whole for the decisions their government and higher ups made.
When they retreat and surrender who else can we blame? You cant make an argument that the French soldiers fighting are brave, while the generals order retreat. The result on the battlefield dictates the orders from “higher ups” The only thing you can look at is the result.
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Right, and poor Germany was a victim of intertangled alliances in Europe all orchestrated the imperialist French. Clearly Germany was pacifistic and reluctant to go to war with France at all. World War I caused by the French? That’s a first.
Right, and poor Germany who mobilized because France talked the Czar into going to war, so France can get back that damm land they lost, much like the allies said that Hitler wanted to get back lost post Great War lands except of course France was on the “right side”, and conveniently after the war she could put any truth on the verdict of the Great War while enjoying Alsace Lorraine countryside.
The victors do make the rules and the truth because the result favors them.
Look up Raymond Poincaré
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@Imperious:
Funny how in Yugoslavia and occupied Russia, these people fought Germany behind the lines, where in France they just served coffee and “collaborated” out of fear of reprisal. The mark of courage is to face death while struggling, not making pancakes for German officers.
Here’s a few things the French Resistance did:
They sabotaged production in war plants. They destroyed parts, damaged machinery, slowed down production, changed blue-prints
They dynamited power plants, warehouses. transmission lines. They wrecked trains. They destroyed bridges. They damaged locomotives.
They organized armed groups which fought the German police, the Gestapo, the Vichy militia. They executed French collaborationists.
They acted as a great spy army for SHAEF in London. They transmitted as many as 300 reports a day to SHAEF on German troops’ movements, military installations, and the nature and movement of military supplies.
They got samples of new German weapons and explosive powder to London.
They ran an elaborate “underground railway” for getting shot-down American and British flyers back to England. They hid, clothed, fed and smuggled out of France over 4,000 American airmen and parachutists (Getting food and clothes isn’t easy when you’re on a starvation ration yourself. It’s risky to forge identification papers). Every American airman rescued meant half a dozen French lives were risked. On an average, one Frenchman was shot every two hours, from 1940 to 1944 by the Germans in an effort to stop French sabotage and assistance to the Allies.Serving coffee, hmm?
Brave means resolve to fight on elsewhere. If UK was occupied, they would have continued from Canada or elsewhere. But not France. One and done.
A few things the French did:
-The French fought in Africa, in Sicily, liberated Corsica, fought in Italy, took part in the invasion of Europe and fought through the battles of France and Germany – from Normandy to Munich.
-Units from the French navy participated in the invasions of Sicily, Italy, Normandy and South France.
-Units of the French navy and merchant marine took part in convoying operations on the Atlantic and Murmansk routes.
On June 5, 1944, the day before D-Day, over 5,000 Frenchmen of the resistance dynamited railroads in more than 500 strategic places.
-They delayed strategic German troop movements for an average of 48 hours, according to military experts. Those 48 hours were tactically priceless ; they saved an untold number of Allied lives.
-French resistance groups blew up a series of bridges in southern France and delayed one of the Wehrmacht’s crack units (Das Reich Panzer Division) for twelve days in getting from Bordeaux to Normandy.
-About 30,000 FFI troops supported the Third Army’s VIII Corps in Brittany: they seized and held key spots ; they conducted extensive guerrilla operations behind the German lines.
-25,000 FFI troops protected the south flank of the Third Army in its daring dash across France: the FFI wiped out German bridgeheads north of the Loire River; they guarded vital lines of communication; they wiped out pockets of German resistance; they held many towns and cities under orders from Allied commmand.
-When the Third Army was approaching the area between Dijon and Troyes from the west, and while the Seventh Army was approaching this sector from the South, it was the FFI who stubbornly blocked the Germans from making a stand and prevented a mass retirement of German troops.
-In Paris, as the Allied armies drew close, several hundred thousand French men and women rose up against the Germans. 50,000 armed men of the resistance fought and beat the Nazi garrison, and occupied the main buildings and administrative offices of Paris.Some comments from generals on the FFI:
“General Patton cabled General Koenig, the French commander of the FFI, that the spectacular advance of his (Patton’s) army across France would have been impossible without the fighting aid of the FFI.”
“General Patch estimated that from the time of the Mediterranean landings to the arrival of troops at Dijon, the help given to operations by the FFI was equivalent to four full divisions.”
“The Maquis who defended the Massif Central, in the south-central part of France, had two Nazi divisions stymied; they kept those two divisions from fighting against the Allies.”
When they retreat and surrender who else can we blame? You cant make an argument that the French soldiers fighting are brave, while the generals order retreat. The result on the battlefield dictates the orders from “higher ups” The only thing you can look at is the result.
So, again, by that logic, we should blame Germany for being cowardly because they ultimately lost. There are instances where local French units fought and won tactical victories in the 1940 invasion, and the British likely would not have got out as intact as they did from Dunkirk had the French remnants fighting around the perimeter simply threw up their arms in surrender.
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Hey Spacy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2qFfuLy_fs&feature=related
There’s a bunch of French folk, insulting YOUR country, en mass. Because they are french.
Consider yourself cordially INSULTED.
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5000 + 35000 + 25000 = 65,000
That’s still 10,000 less than JUST the ones who LEFT HOME to work in Germany, and COLLABORATED with the Gerries.
Not including the pancake makers.
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Hey Spacy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2qFfuLy_fs&feature=related
There’s a bunch of French folk, insulting YOUR country, en mass.� Because they are french.
Consider yourself cordially INSULTED.
Oh no, some rowdy sports fans booed. I guess I better hold a grudge against French people everywhere and universally hate their culture!
This is getting increasingly irrelevant.
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Scandal widens in France, politicians extorted money from African dictators for years.
Sarkozy, the president of France, allegedly received millions worth of cash from brutal African dictators. Many of the dictators that recent French leaders are accused of extorting bribe money from make Qaddafi look like a great leader.
So much for being at the forefront of UN involvement in africa. Everything France touches ends up like the oil-for-food scandal.
French self promotion, = international resent for france.
To answer your question, the title of your thread
“Re: Is there too much contempt for the French from A&A players?”
No, there isn’t nearly enough.
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Scandal widens in France, politicians extorted money from African dictators for years.
Because putting it in a bigger font is supposed to be more dramatic…somehow.
Sarkozy, the president of France, allegedly received millions worth of cash from brutal African dictators. Many of the dictators that recent French leaders are accused of extorting bribe money from make Qaddafi look like a great leader.
You haven’t even given a source.
5000 + 35000 + 25000 = 65,000
That’s still 10,000 less than JUST the ones who LEFT HOME to work in Germany, and COLLABORATED with the Gerries.
Not including the pancake makers.
So what exactly are you trying to prove here? All or most of the French collaborated with the Germans? Out of how many Frenchmen total at that time?
ancient jokes and one picture
So far in the last few posts, all you have posted is a YouTube videos of French Canadians booing, another post with unnecessarily large font with an uncited, alleged (as you put it) claim, and yet another posting a link to an ancient, overused joke sprinkled with some pictures depicting even more ancient French jokes. I’m not sure if you’re trying to be funny or witty, but either way it’s not contributing in any way.
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it’s not contributing
Au Contrair!
Once you open your eyes enough, to see the things France has done in the last 200 years, And they way as a culture they have behaved, you will understand why the French see so much contempt.
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There’s a bunch of French folk, insulting YOUR country, en mass. Because they are french.
And you probably found in you tube… US people insulting their own country, Canadian insulting their own etc,etc…what the heck??? -
it’s not contributing
Au Contrair!
Once you open your eyes enough, to see the things France has done in the last 200 years, And they way as a culture they have behaved, you will understand why the French see so much contempt.
I never knew any culture was a single, monolithic entity and “behaves” in any certain way. I’m pretty sure living in the country for five years qualifies as “opening my eyes”. I don’t think sitting behind a computer and ranting about monolithic cultural entities and posting horribly old French jokes qualifies, however.
And no. It’s not contributing. It’s pictures and links to unfunny, overused jokes.
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Spacy… would YOU paint hearts on your tank, before going into battle?
This last shot - so close to the barrel, appears particularily menacing!
Power percieved is power achieved!
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All that said however, I believe the worst of the negative french sentiment, particularily in north america comes from Quebec. � Their laws and regulations are particularily racist, and culturist. � The people and the governments they choose in Quebec hate on the military, hate on the federal nation, and hate on America, and this “Spit on their face” mentality is consistent.
LOL…wow…I don’t konw what you ate before to write this post…but if it was peanut butter stop right now please…your healt is on the line!Go to a Montreal Canadians game, the fans mock any moments of silence for the troops, boo the American Flag, and boo the American Anthem, also refusing to sing our own.
Mock moment of silence?..never seen that but yes somes peoples boo american and canadian anthem and I know who…
Worn out drinking fans…yes… because Molson beer is far away better than US beer!!! -
Once you open your eyes enough, to see the things France has done in the last 200 years, And they way as a culture they have behaved, you will understand why the French see so much contempt.
You got a point on this one…in fact last 236 years…when France helped USA during independance war against UK. It was their first mistake. :-DI am against Francophiles who have nothing to hang their hat on in terms of any argument that France was among the bravest nations since 1870. They were not.
Wow what a stupid reason…I have a lot of US friends and I know they won’t hang their hats on your coments!!! -
@UN:
Right, and poor Germany was a victim of intertangled alliances in Europe all orchestrated the imperialist French. Clearly Germany was pacifistic and reluctant to go to war with France at all. World War I caused by the French? That’s a first.
Imperious Leader’s statements about France’s involvement in WWI were accurate. I don’t think that he was trying to put 100% of the blame for WWI on France. But it’s clear, and beyond reasonable dispute, that France deserves a significant portion of the blame for WWI.
As I’d alluded to earlier, France had had a strongly anti-German foreign policy for centuries. The Peace of Westphalia, which France played a large role in engineering, caused Germany to become divided into hundreds of small weak city-states. Over the next several centuries, those city states were gradually united under Prussian rule. Not coincidentally, Prussia was the German state farthest from France.
It’s worth noting that during the Middle Ages and 1600s, France was the most populous nation in Europe. But starting in 1800, the populations of Germany and England began growing at a much faster pace than France’s population. By the time the Franco-Prussian War arrived, Prussia had become a stronger nation than France. But France hadn’t yet adjusted to the idea that it was no longer the big bully which could push Germany around whenever it wanted. The idea that Prussia/Germany could actually stand up to France created a lot of resentment. The French felt humiliated, and wanted to get even.
After beating the French militarily, Otto von Bismarck offered the French a peace treaty. They refused. Prussia then proceeded to beat them up even more soundly; and ultimately forced them to agree to harsher terms than the ones initially offered. France was to pay a reparations payment; and Prussian soldiers would remain on the ground they had conquered until it was paid. Prussia/Germany would receive most of Alsace, and part of Lorraine. (Both of which were populated mostly by Germans.) France would be forced to recognize Germany as a unified nation, and would no longer be allowed to interfere in German affairs. (For example by attempting to keep Germany weak and divided.) These were the reasons for the intense French resentment against Germany. After the Franco-Prussian War, France’s foreign policy became strongly revanchist. It’s worth noting that the peace treaty Prussia imposed on France after the Franco-Prussian War was much, much milder than the one France and Britain imposed on Germany after WWI.
WWI was not due entirely to France’s revanchist foreign policy. The Kaiser’s diplomatic tone deafness greatly contributed to the war, and to Germany’s defeat in that war. In the late 1800s, Britain had been pursuing a foreign policy of “splendid isolationism.” Germany should have left that situation well enough alone. Instead, the Kaiser randomly alternated between dramatically focusing on Germany’s navy while reducing funding for the army, and randomly focusing on the army while reducing spending on the navy. During one of Germany’s periods of dramatic (and unneeded) naval funding, the British were persuaded that they could not maintain all their naval obligations around the world, while also defending against a German naval attack of Britain itself. Accordingly, they formed an alliance with France, with the thought that the French navy would take on some of the obligations of the British navy. Winston Churchill bore some of the responsibility for this error in British foreign policy. After forming this alliance, France drastically reduced its naval spending, on the theory that Britain would do most of the work.
Despite this alliance, Britain did not enter WWI until the Germans invaded Belgium. The invasion of Belgium represented another instance of the Kaiser’s diplomatic tone deafness. During WWI, the French and British fleets imposed a food blockade on Germany and Austria, leading to hundreds of thousands of hunger-related civilian deaths. In an effort to return the favor, the Kaiser enacted unrestricted submarine warfare against Britain. That unrestricted sub warfare was instrumental in bringing the United States into the war.
France’s quest for vengeance against Germany was as vindictive as it was unjust. But if France had powerful allies in that quest, it was because of the Kaiser’s own foolishness.
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wow!
quite the discussion
all I can say is the french I have met ,including french speaking canadiens ,were a bunch of arrogant pricks
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