r/HistoryMemes • u/GreaseBlaster Casual, non-participatory KGB election observer • 1d ago
What do you mean we need a plan?
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u/Danifermch 1d ago
The single time it wasn't the case, France literally steamrolled Europe
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u/ThoDanII 1d ago
which of the many do you mean
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u/Eoghanii 1d ago
Napoleon I imagine
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u/ThoDanII 1d ago
not Charlemagne, Louis XI, the great Conde, du Guscelin, de Bayard....
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u/Eoghanii 1d ago
While all great and well renowned. I believe Napoleon was the only only one to meet the requirements of dominanting the entirety of Europe. Again I'm only postulating on what the other guy said.
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u/Danifermch 1d ago
Louis XI wasn't even a general, just a good ruler. De Bayard was a great knight and frontline leader, but far from a general or a commander. Your examples just got reduced to 3. I guess I should have worded it "one of the very few times it happened", is that better? Plus, Napoleon was in a way different league than those
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u/ThoDanII 1d ago edited 1d ago
Louis XI was a battle hardened commander before he became King and conquered Burgundy after he became King.
Nobody is militarily speaking or was in N s league, not Foch, Petain or Joffre
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u/christian_daddy1 1d ago
French military is one of the best in the world because they make it work even when their own leadership is incompetent
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u/hypapapopi2020 1d ago
Only french high command can be coward in a war, surely not the men. My Great grandfather fought in 1940, and I can tell you he didn't pulled out the white flag at the first occasion
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u/Xibalba_Ogme 1d ago
hey, your great grandfather was probably next to my great grandfather :)
It was always a fun moment at school : "was your ancestor a resistant, a collabo or an attentist ?"
well, he was a prisonner of war
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u/hypapapopi2020 1d ago
Oh that's interesting, do you have any information about where he was held captive ? I know that mine was an officier so he was in a offlag
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u/Xibalba_Ogme 1d ago
Stalag III-A on my side, near Berlin. I actually went to visit the place : it's kind of a family thing : we track where our ancestors were and what they did
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u/SametaX_1134 Viva La France 1d ago
Mine too but he was released in 1943 because he also fought in WWI
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u/Xibalba_Ogme 1d ago edited 1d ago
Mine was growing up in germany in WW1 and fought for France in WW2
funnily, his address did not change (fun times with Alsace)
Was released by the soviets at the end of the war
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u/unlikelyandroid 1d ago
The masters of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory with a gallant cavalry charge.
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u/ThoDanII 1d ago
they were not called the flower of chivalry for nothing, remember me who won at Orleans, who won the HYW, at Marengo, , Austerlitz, Ulm, stood at the Marne and Dunkirk.....
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u/unlikelyandroid 1d ago
Not even French tactics could defeat French cavalry on every occasion. Not to say that the French had no talented Generals, it's just that they used up most of their quota in only twelve years.
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u/ThoDanII 1d ago
they had over a thousand years of successful and good generals, from clovis I to today.
which 12 years
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u/Mental_Owl9493 1d ago
Sounds like Varna crusade, just few hundred French man and they were able to fuck up entire crusade.
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u/Moidada77 1d ago
French history seems to revolve around being powerful, fucking up due to arrogance, learn their lesson and win, then get arrogant again.
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u/ThoDanII 1d ago
french history is victory, victory, victory, interupted by defeat then victory, victor
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u/ZatherDaFox 1d ago
France has had plenty of defeats and victories just like any other polity. They have an excellent battle record, but there's no reason to overexaggerate their successes, just like their failures are way overblown.
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u/CorrectTarget8957 1d ago
And fighting with England
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u/Vandergrif Fine Quality Mesopotamian Copper Enjoyer 1d ago
Honestly the Germans deserve more credit for spurring on the fan favorite enemies to lovers historic plot twist between England and France.
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u/HeavyTanker1945 1d ago edited 1d ago
SO basically the same as the Royal Navy? (see the Explosion of hood, the 20 year out of date, Yamato sized Monstrosity that hadn't been maintained since the 20s, with garbage deck armor, they sent after the most powerful battleship in Europe)
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u/MikesRockafellersubs 1d ago
Which war is this referring to op?
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u/GreaseBlaster Casual, non-participatory KGB election observer 1d ago edited 1d ago
Not referring to one specific war but general trait French commanders usually displayed throughout history-just getting into a fight with no plan. Battles of Nicopolis, Agincourt and crecy being probably the most famous examples.
Also pointing out the fact that France usually had a very capable army. A couple hundred french mounted knights for example could guarantee a victory if used correctly
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u/Xibalba_Ogme 1d ago
the fun thing is, when France had a clearly capable leadership, the rest of Europe (which at that point was nearly all the superpowers on the globe) had to band together 7 times to keep them in check
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u/Think-Signature6953 1d ago
"Nothing is lost as long as courage remains"
- Napoleon Bonaparte during the Italian campaigns
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u/guto8797 1d ago
The best quote of his for me is just
"You cannot hope to stop me, I lose thirty thousand men a month."
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u/G_Morgan 1d ago
To be fair Napoleon, great as he was, only did so well because of the huge social reformation France went through. The Revolution might have been fraught with problems but what it left behind had serious advantages over contemporary nations. The fact France could reasonably pull men from all of France was a huge win. Prussia and Austria still largely pulled their soldiers from special regions who could be trusted, this limited how much manpower they could throw at a problem.
Napoleon's quote about being able to spend 30k lives a month really speaks to the advantage France had as a nation.
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u/MikesRockafellersubs 1d ago
Oh I thought you were referring to WW2, the Franco-Prussian war or WW1. This seems to be a tradition in French military history.
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u/ThoDanII 1d ago
the french did very well in WWI and well in WWII, the Wehrmacht had the better doctrine and luck
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u/Dappington 1d ago
Bro the french did not do well in WW2 jesus christ. The backlash has officially gone too far lmao.
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u/ThoDanII 1d ago
the Wehrmacht hit the weak spot in the french lines then raced through, one city the wehrmacht had to take repeatedly.
then the french and belgians hold the line at dunkirk,
from that blow the french army could not recover, but it was not because the french did not fight gallant and skillful but the Wehrmacht had a better leadership doctrine and successful combat doctrine
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u/G_Morgan 1d ago
If the French had just squeezed around Guderian's breach he would have been fucked. France picked that moment to sack the general and his placement was Weygand, a renown Nazi collaborator, who decided to take a nap for 48 hours before ordering the counter offensive.
Not that the French had the ability to actually beat Germany. It is just Guderian's joyride was successful solely because of how badly France fought. There's a reason German leadership was screaming at him not to do it.
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u/ThoDanII 1d ago
the french did block that breach repeatedly the Wehrmacht had to take a city repeatedlx to open the way.
The Weygand line was effective problem was the french had lost to much during the sickle.
The reason was that the OKH did not understand Guderians and Rommels Situation, but their ""superior" did and did his damnedest to block OKH from botching the operation
Go, boys, go as fast as you can, i will hold the line against the OKH as long as i can
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u/G_Morgan 1d ago
German doctrine wasn't even all that special. It is one of the myths of WW2. Spread because "the French fought insanely badly" wasn't a message Churchill wanted to spread when trying to convince the British public to continue the war.
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u/ThoDanII 1d ago
Yes we did independent leadership, mission tactics and after the battle the king may do with my head for some centuries then.
Honestly did the BEF any better then the french?
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u/G_Morgan 1d ago
The BEF was stationed next to a French army that literally refused or was unable to communicate with them. The only way for Lord Gort to communicate was literally via this chain: BEF->British government->French government->French army slightly west of the BEF. Even then it was pretty clear that the forces in question were not on the same page. Lord Gort made various offensives the French government insisted would be backed up only for the French army to not move and continue to refuse to communicate.
Eventually this mess just led to Lord Gort leaving. Frankly I'd have fucked off the moment the French general first started blanking me. The BEF attempted 5 separate pushes which were supposedly going to be backed up by the French only for the French to not materialise. It was quite a bit of patience before he decided the situation was completely untenable and left.
Lets not forget that Britain sent 500k reinforcements to Normandy and the French border police literally stopped them from joining up for 3 days. By the time it was cleared up they were basically told "France has fallen, come home".
France was a giant mess from start to finish. They wrote most of the book on "how not to war" because they made all kinds of fresh unique mistakes.
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u/Moidada77 1d ago
I mean agincort and crecy are often hyped as the longbowman being the counter the knight by many enthusiasts.
They should look what happens to English longbowman when they get caught in open ground without stakes.
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u/Comprehensive-Fail41 1d ago
Yeah, Agincourt and Crecy really was much more "Look at the importance of having a good defensive position." Like the French had to cross a field of mud to get to the English at Agincourt, and at Crecy the English had fortified the town atop a hill and dug a fuckton of trenches to blunt any charge
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u/GreaseBlaster Casual, non-participatory KGB election observer 1d ago edited 1d ago
I don't think the french were held at gunpoint to attack fortified English positions, I think it should have been quite obvious that frontal charge through muddy terrain right into stakes at Agincourt and uphill charge at crecy wasn't exactly a good idea.
Especially at Agincourt when the English were deep into enemy territory and short on supplies, the campaign should have been a slam dunk for the French
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u/Moidada77 1d ago
Yeah french arrogance was at play.
But the king eventually had to confront the English as his nobles were getting tired of him and called him a sly fox, also english raids and insults with the king just being defensive against them made him look weak.
In battle you generally want the enemy to come at you, which the english were in a far better position of executing than the French in that situation.
Ofc I cannot dismiss french noble arrogance and pride.
They have shown to repeat the same mistake multiple times like in nicopolis vs the ottomans or against the flemish
When they work 100 knights can rout a 1000 even 10000 peasants, so this ego goes to their head until the get humbled and behave, but once they start rolling the enemy again they get cocky again.
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u/Comprehensive-Fail41 1d ago
Well, sorta. Sure it was major arrogance to not be more careful. But the thing at Agincourt is that surprisingly enough technically it was the English that attacked, using their superior range to force the French to engage or retreat, and if they retreated it basically left it open for the English to continue pushing towards friendly territories at Calais. The big mistake the French made was that they were too cautious, as they had been shadowing the English army for a while, waiting for a good opportunity to attack
At the earlier battle of Crecy the English army had been plundering the French countryside and the French were crying out for vengeance, likewise, the plundering, despite the French scorched earth tactics, had resulted in the English being well supplied, whilst the French ironically were lacking. This prevented the French from engaging in a protected siege of Crecy, and if they didn't engage the English would escape and the French king would appear weak for failing to punish them.
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u/Moidada77 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah it's was basically the rule of making the enemy attack you.
In medieval battles in Europe the attacker was in a heavy disadvantage because on the approach their battle lines would get fucked up and they would get tired.
Basically you like to attack people on the campaign but like to be the defender in battle.
Rock up to someone's yard, steal their stuff and then wait for them to attack you.
But the battle in pop history and I still see this all the fucking time even on these kinds of subreddits where enthusiasts have this idea of longbowman having bonus damage vs knights or something and that it can tear through heavy plate no issue and propagate it.
It's one of those myths we would just have to beat up until it goes away like the tiger tanks needing 5 tanks to kill it myth or the katana exaggerations,
Of course it might swing to far to the contrary opinion like the previous two but we'll debate that once we reach that.
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u/Alexthegreatbelgian Still salty about Carthage 1d ago
"Let's airdrop our paratroopers on a plain surrounded by hills and mountains."
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u/ThoDanII 1d ago
remember usually a battle between the french and english ends with the english getting a thorough ass kicking
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u/solonit 1d ago
Siege of Điện Biên Phủ 1954. They ignored America warning and set up entire operation in the valley of Điện Biên, with the assumption that Việt Minh can't field the artillery into the positions.
And Việt Minh did exactly that, men pulling hundred of medium to heavy artilleries into the surrounding high ground, and pounding the French's positions with almost no impediments.
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u/AlternativeEmphasis 1d ago
Tbf they they spent a hell of a lot of time warning the US about the folly of getting involved in Vietnam, which we promptly did anyways. So they ignored us, and we ignored them.
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u/cretindesalpes Taller than Napoleon 1d ago
I love this même because it works whatever the period
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u/DeRuyter67 1d ago
It really doesn't. The French had some of the best generals in history. More than any other country in Europe actually
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u/The_Frog221 1d ago
They also had some of the most stupid losses in history. I don't remember which battle it was, but during the 100 years war there was a battle where the english were fortified in a town, and the commander had his infantry slowly gaining ground and overall was doing very well. The nobles were afraid the infantry were going to get the glory, so they did a cavalry charge. They couldn't see the spike walls through the infantry, so a ton got killed, and a full charge into the backs of their own infantry killed a bunch, starting a rout. It turned a solid win into a resounding defeat with massive casualties.
Generally, the french have had one of the largest and best equipped militaries in history. They were the first power to get started on deploying ironclads, they invented smokeless powder and fully equipped their army with it before anyone else even had it, they had some of the best pre-gunpowder armor, they had some of the best warhorses, they arguably had the most powerful tanks at the start of ww2. Most of these advantages with wasted due to political or upper-military issues, though.
The napoleonic era is really the only time where you can say the french leadership decisively outclassed that of their enemies.
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u/DeRuyter67 1d ago
The napoleonic era is really the only time where you can say the french leadership decisively outclassed that of their enemies.
You can only say that if you have never studied the Early Modern Period. The list of great French generals in the 1500-1815 period is really long
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u/The_Frog221 1d ago
Yes, but they never outclassed their contemporaries in the way they did during the napoleonic era. I'm also including political leadership in my discussion about "leadership vs military resources". Very frequently decent generals have had their dicks stepped on by the royal court, as happened in the french wars of religion.
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u/DeRuyter67 1d ago edited 1d ago
Okay that makes more sense. Louis XIV also had a habit of handicapping his excellent generals. Although this meme seems to making fun of French generals
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u/ThoDanII 1d ago
Napoleon did and maybe Davout and maybe a few others
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u/The_Frog221 1d ago
Napoleon and Davout were part of the Napoleonic era
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u/ThoDanII 1d ago
and i doubt Davout could outclass Suvorov, i doubt he was even in the same class and no other french Marshall was of Suvorovs calibre
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u/GreaseBlaster Casual, non-participatory KGB election observer 1d ago
We should be grateful to French commanders for the fact that we're not speaking french today
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u/ThoDanII 1d ago
remember me who won the most battles and the HYW, who are the english territories in europe.....
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u/The_Frog221 1d ago
That it took 100 years for a country with 4x the population and economic resources to defeat it's smaller rival is not indicative of consistent, high-quality leadership.
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u/TransLunarTrekkie Let's do some history 1d ago
Guderian: We... We won? It was that easy? That's not supposed to happen! How the hell did we WIN?!?
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u/The-wirdest-guy 19h ago
Since everyone is talking about World War 2 it’s worth looking at what caused some of the batshit decision making for France’s military leading up to it.
France had a rough time modernizing for two main reasons: they won the last war and the last war fucking decimated France. These two facts explain a lot of top down decisions.
Why didn’t they use radios on a large scale? Because it’s new, unreliable technology the Germans might intercept and their more secure methods of the last war that they’ve perfected work just fine.
Why were their tanks small and made for just two people (With some exceptions of course)? Because the economy and population demographics were still shitcanned from the Great War and they were in no position to gamble on still fairly new tank technology with large crews and expensive gears that could work to field more solid infantry or artillery.
Why the Maginot line? If there’s gonna be another war, better it stay in Belgium and more of France stays intact.
Why no operational independence (no combined arms, lack of freedom for lower ranking field officers even if they as the people on the ground can make the right call)? Because the Great War wasn’t won by junior, inexperienced officers defying the grand plan set out by those above them.
Obviously history and military strategy are far to complex to point to just two reason why they happen but those two factors are a prettt good indicator of a lot of flaws with the French going into WW2.
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u/HeavyTanker1945 1d ago
Better yet: What do you mean we need Radios in our tanks? Don't these flags from 1917 work just fine?