WI: French Not Seen As Cowards in Popular Culture?
- Thread starter JonasResende
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Indeed. And a very recent meme too - IIRC, during the years after the war popular sentiment in America was more along the lines of 'stalwart France kept resisting even after they were occupied' than 'cowards'.
And not all popular culture... Cap had some pointed words for people who call the French 'cowards':
EDIT: I often think it's ironic how this meme ended up propagating given that France have the largest of the EU militaries, have consistently maintained power-projection capabilities and didn't fall prey to the post-Cold War reductions that afflicted other Western European militaries
Wow, so who whipped the CSA and Spain in the 19th Century? Must've been the same folks who kicked Saddam out of Kuwait
Ironic hyperbole aside, the "French = cowardly" stereotype is as undeserved as it gets. There's lots of relatively true negative attributes one could level at the French (as much as toward anybody, anyway), but WWI proved that willingness to fight ain't one of them. The casualties they sustained per capita were mind-blowing, and they still ended up on the winning side. That's hard-core.
It might be related to different strategical and operatical realities : French army is now renowed for its capacity, with relatively limited numbers and logistics, to control and "pacify" a given territory, not in small part due to its late/post-colonial warfare experience. It's telling that a lot of counter-insurgency operatics and concepts can be traced back to the French etat-major of the 60's.EDIT: I often think it's ironic how this meme ended up propagating given that France have the largest of the EU militaries, have consistently maintained power-projection capabilities and didn't fall prey to the post-Cold War reductions that afflicted other Western European militaries
Similarily, and for all the bombastic preview of stuff like Leclerc tanks, French armored vehicle are generally more focusing on adaptability, switftness and rapidity (it's been theorized that it was initially a reaction against German tactics of 40; while other countries reacted against the more massive and slow German tactics of 42/43.
Of course, that France kept its own sphere of influence in Africa and fight tooth and nails when this influence risks to be taken over (by other powers, insurgents, or legal governments) does helps that. I remember how an officer went to schools to explain why they were in Mali and basically told because while there were ideals of democracy and all of this, it was mostly to secure uranium supply to western African ports and then to France.
This is an old article (and horribly, horribly translated, sorry about this) that can help about the mindset.
Have the Frenchies manage to win a war against an equal opponent after the death of Napoleon.
200 years, and the closest thing they have to a victory is WW1, which was as Phyric as a victory can be for the French.
200 years, and the closest thing they have to a victory is WW1, which was as Phyric as a victory can be for the French.
It's something that most people don't know, but, back in the Cold War days French veterans of the Algerian War were teaching "counter-insurgency tactics" (aka torture) to Latin American military - French veterans from Vietnam even taught Brazilians how to fight in the jungle! Why the French felt the need to meddle in the US' backyard I have no idea whatsoever.
Americans with military experience take issue with the French because they have brought us into a lot of conflicts in the 20th century. Vietnam being the most distasteful.
Ho Chi Minh was a US ally during ww2 fighting the Japanese. We turned on them after the war because of a French ultimatum not to join NATO unless they got Indochina back. The French then could not control the area, and Ho Chi Minh got indoctrinated into communism for money and weaponery.
So the US was requested to come save a French Colony. We are still very sore about this and how it turned out. It made the US very Anglo-Centric only trusting our closest allies.
That and Parisians can really be jerks. But so can New Yorkers for that manner so c’est la vie.
Ho Chi Minh was a US ally during ww2 fighting the Japanese. We turned on them after the war because of a French ultimatum not to join NATO unless they got Indochina back. The French then could not control the area, and Ho Chi Minh got indoctrinated into communism for money and weaponery.
So the US was requested to come save a French Colony. We are still very sore about this and how it turned out. It made the US very Anglo-Centric only trusting our closest allies.
That and Parisians can really be jerks. But so can New Yorkers for that manner so c’est la vie.
Wait. We do have this kind of power over you that we can compell you all to our will? We just happen to have a massive debt you can deal with for us. Chop-chop now.
I always tought it was a good idea that we managed to hypnotise USA into Cold War. I'm not sure what the endgame was, but it was probably worth it.
And the Third Gulf War...Of course it was all our plan all along. And we'll have gotten away with it too, if not for these meddling kids!
And of course, "French Jerk" trope only serves the idea even more. Pure genius.
Well, counter-insurgency while not exactly something essentially nice, isn't restricted to torture but to a whole strategical tought about psychological and social warfare, how to win an unequal warfare (which generally doesn't come favorably to conventional power : Vietnam, Afghanistan, Cuba, etc.).
The idea that it was less about control of territory than support (or at least neutrality) of the populations was relatively new then (and still not that understood besides a vague "winning the hearts") and understanding that annihilation of the insurgent forces (which was already a problem when it was about annihilating the ennemy forces German-way, which rarely if ever worked out) was besides the point outside a global war as long as insurgents could find logistical support in countries as USSR and Pop.China.
This was exported in US' backyard because US leadership was itself at odds with the concept and still needed some technical support there (you probably know at this point that the movie The Battle of Algiers was studied as a basic case and model by American staff), and that the tactic of using a big staff/gun and to crush everything remotely moving socially simply didn't work. It tooks decades to have something remotely useful to take lessons from, but at this point it also tailored the army and militarized/military police quite efficient if certainly ruthless.
Think of it as "technical experts" rather than "influence agents" in this case even if, you're entierely right, you can't split both of these roles.
You are talking about a complete impossibility: according an old wisdom, an idiot (no matter of which nationality) who understands that he is an idiot is not an idiot.
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Well, following that logic and keeping in mind that Iraq was a monstrosity created by the Brits, we may probably expand the list of those whom we can blame for something (including our closest allies). Oh, BTW, as far as the jerks are involved, we can expand the list as well.
Well, between Napoleon's time and 1900 (to be within allowed time frame) they managed to beat Austria and they supplied most of the troops during the Crimean War. Which wars against an equal opponent the Brits managed to win on their own in post-Napoleonic times?
Well, following that logic and keeping in mind that Iraq was a monstrosity created by the Brits, we may probably expand the list of those whom we can blame for something (including our closest allies). Oh, BTW, as far as the jerks are involved, we can expand the list as well.
The Iraq quagmire has been fun hasn’t it. We really only made it worse too. Also don’t forget Iran with the brits as well.
But the Brits always came back with us.
What every soldier loved was that during the second Persian gulf the French refused to come. Then tried to do a PR move by sending troops into the Central African Republic and got tossed out after a few months.
France is just now starting to get back into the power projection game.
You are right but only partially. « Taking the French leave » was not an American-forged but a British-forged saying. And it was forged way before WW2, due to the long Anglo-French enmity.
The French have a symmetric expression « taking the English leave », which gives in French « filer à l’anglaise ».
And although the surrendering monkeys expression refers to French defeat in 1940, that one is probably the most unfair to France since Britain and the USA strive to hamper France between 1918 and 1939 and contributed as much as the wormy French general staff and pacifist politicians in creating the conditions of French defeat in 1940. Their policy was to ensure the balance of powers by checking the terribly dangerous 40 million people winner of WW1 against the terribly weak 70 million people (before the Anschluss) loser of WW1.
And from a French point of view, if there ever was one time when the most damaging English leave ever occurred it was precisely during the battle of France during the tragic decisive days when the British Expeditionary Force led by Lord Gorth began retreating from the front on 1940 may the 25th, to abandon the French under Churchill’s personal order. This caused the failure of (and even completely wrecked) the French counter-attack that Weygand had just set-up and that was going to take between two claws the over-reached german spearhead and its logistic line. This plan had quite high odds of succeeding and would have halted german offensive and mays have caused the crumbling of the Wehrmacht’s spearhead.
So there is not much to do about spin. All this is spin. Blaming someone else for one’s own faults.
By the way, this underlines what is the true nature of the Dunkirk movie : a good lying propaganda movie that magnifies the personal courage of a few good men in the hidden context of a diplomatic treason against an ally that Britain had just decided to throw under the bus just to make sure not to risk losing its own quite small army.
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This is why I asked if it was a sort of Francophobia. It's not like Britain has done any better without a little help from their friends (or America for that matter - I don't count the Civil War as a win anyway, since that you win against yourself still means that you technically also lose). Yet no one calls the British losers because the Americans and the Irish kicked their arses. Just saying
Right. This is wrong. Ho Chi Minh became a communist in WWI when he was working in French factories.
Also wrong. The US came because it didn't want communists in Vietnam due to the domino doctrine. The US wanted the French out if their colonies in the first place, and it's only the Brits that convinced them otherwise. The US has always been Anglo-centric for some strange reason
The shock of France losing in a bit over a month in 1940 compared to 1914 - 1918 where they lasted 4 years and came out on top at the end. So just have France decide to pull their forces back to Algeria to continue the fight. This butterflies the Iraq War, the Simpsons, and freedom fries too.