Veteran’s Day Exists Because of the French

Let’s be honest…French military history is a joke. Of all the great European colonial powers, nobody has found a way to do less with more militarily then the French. The reasons for this are far too numerous to give them all an in-depth discussion, but the over-arching theme can be illustrated with another joke.

How many Frenchmen does it take to change a light bulb?
One. He holds the bulb and expects all of Europe to revolve around him.

There’s really no better example of this than when France left the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1965. As a result, French president Charles DeGaulle demanded the withdrawal of American troops from his country. This prompted U.S. president Lyndon Johnson to ask him if that included “digging up all the Americans at Normandy.”

DeGaulle: Even looks the part.

DeGaulle is the archetypal pompous French asswipe. In terms of the world as a neighborhood, he was that guy who let’s his dog shit in your yard even though you snowblow his driveway. Don’t forget that by 1965, America had saved the French from the Germans twice and were acting as the main bulwark preventing Western Europe from being swallowed by the Soviet Union. All that didn’t stop DeGaulle from pulling the rug out from under NATO.

That’s exactly why in America we have Veteran’s Day in the first place…and why we can “thank” the French for it. The first time was all about marking the end of World War I. That war was the first for us to be all about saving the French, and that’s why November 11th was referred to as “Armistice Day.” That was until the next war about saving the French; after World War II, “Armistice Day” became Veteran’s Day in America.

Be that as it may, the fact that we had to send American boys twice to do a job that French men couldn’t do themselves is the main reason every small town in America has an old tank sitting in a memorial park. It also shouldn’t surprise anybody given the entirety of French military history. Even before France’s general feebleness cost hundreds of thousands of American lives, a celebrated Yankee humorist penned the ultimate review of the sons of Gaul.

“France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country. France has usually been governed by prostitutes.”     

~Mark Twain

Considering that in terms of world history America may be little more than a loud frat boy, which is why we Yanks really don’t appreciate how the French sucked at everything for centuries before we came along. Nothing exemplifies this better that a simple bullet-pointing of their military history.

  • Gallic Wars: Lost. Foreshadowing the next two millennia of French history, the sons of Gaul are forcibly introduced to civilization by the only slightly-less feeble Italians.
  • Hundred Years War: Lost. Nearly saving the French army at the siege of Orléans not only led to a female schizophrenic being canonized as saint after those very same Catholics burned her at the stake. Not only have the French embraced the dark and barbarous ways of Catholicism since then, but it gives us the 1st First Rule of the French Military.
1st Rule of the French Military:
The French are completely ineffective when led by a Frenchman.
  • Italian Wars: Lost. Thanks to the Reformation and the general looniness it caused within the Holy Roman Empire, France becomes the only country ever to lose two wars to Italians.
  • Wars of Religion: Tie. Really a civil war in religious garb, the French Catholics went 0-5-4 against the French Huguenots. France still manages to lose as the monarchy was so weakened it led to…
  • Thirty Years War: Lost. Having a weak king is a great (albeit distinctly French) way to get invaded during a war in which you weren’t a participant. In typical French fashion, they steadfastly refuse to admit defeat; rather they attempted to claim a tie because the invaders got bored and left.

“The French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any better, on average, than the citizens of Baltimore. True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but why this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whiskey I don’t know.”

~P.J. O’Rourke
  • War of Devolution: Tie. While the French did manage to overrun the Spanish Netherlands, Louis XIV immediately gave away his conquest for no particular reason. More importantly, the fact the French mistook fighting ability with fashion concerns leads to the 2nd Rule of the French Military.
2nd Rule of the French Military:
The French have always been more interested in their uniforms than their fighting ability.
  • Dutch War: Tie. In a surge of military wherewithal, the French force a stalemate against an army it outnumbers ten to one.
  • French and Indian War: Tie. Thanks to an alliance with tribes rivaled in their savagery by the pre-Roman Gauls, the French snatch mediocrity from the jaws of defeat. Regardless, three consecutive ties marks the undisputed height of French military power.
  • War of the Spanish Succession: Lost. The Moorish influence let the Spaniards introduce the French to the cigarette, which to this day remains their national hors d’oeuvre.
  • American Revolution: DNP. Despite holding an impressive sailing regatta in Chesapeake Bay, the French didn’t fire a single shot, yet demanded to be included in the spoils of victory. Naturally, this will become a theme familiar to Americans. Later, it will become known as “de Gaulle Syndrome” and serves as the foundation for the 3rd Rule of the French Military.
3rd Rule of the French Military:
The French only win when America does most of the fighting.

“Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion.”

~ General H. Norman Schwartzkopf, United States Army
  • French Revolution: Lost. How did they find a way to lose a war in which both sides were French? Even though the winners were French by definition, this is another case the where the war weakened the nation. Within twenty years of overthrowing the French monarchy, the country was being run by an elfish Corsican megalomaniac.
  • Napoleonic Wars: Lost. Despite being led to a string of victories by the afore mentioned crazy Corsican (see the 1st First Rule of the French Military), he was ultimately overmatched by a degenerate Irish gambler the British saw fit to ascend to nobility.
  • Franco-Prussian War: Lost. Foreshadowing the coming World Wars which gave us Veteran’s Day, this is the first time the Germans use Belgium as an autobahn into the heart of France.
  • World War I: Tie. Well on the way to losing, the French are saved by the Americans. As a result, hoards of French women discovery the joys of sleeping with a winner who doesn’t call her “Fraulein.” But in bad news for posterity, the widespread use of condoms by American troops precludes improvement in the French gene pool.

“The only time France wants us to go to war is when the German Army is sipping coffee in Paris.”

~ Regis Philbin
  • World War II: Lost. To be honest, the only regret the French have about this war is it didn’t last long enough for them to hand-deliver all their Jews to the Nazis. Despite this, Charles DeGaulle still insisted France be included in the spoils of victory as well as having a role in the post-war administration of Europe. That was until Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt reminded him the surrendering had already been done.

“I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me.”

~ General George S. Patton, United States Army
  • Indochina War: Lost. Due to their aforementioned fashion sense, the French knew that weakly surrendering to the German was becoming passé. Therefore, the French blazed their own trail in world history by becoming the only western colonial power to lose it’s entire empire through armed revolution.
  • Algerian Rebellion: Lost. A debacle within a complete collapse; just another example in the rapid fall of the French Empire. Not only did the French believe they could win this war by guillotining Algerians one at a time, the typical French whining and posturing after this loss only encouraged the Muslims to engage in a decades-long anti-western terror war. This also illustrates the 4th of Rule the French Military.
4th Rule of the French Military:
There is no problem on the world stage the French can’t make worse.

“You know why the French don’t want to bomb Saddam Hussein? Because he hates America, he loves mistresses, and wears a beret. He is French, people.”

~ Conan O’Brien
  • Chadian Rebellion: Lost. Another exercise in falling empires; in this case a mob of goat herders with no military training or equipment defeat an elite regiment of French paratroopers largely by just showing up.
  • Mururoa: Lost. In a dispute over a small island being used as a nuclear test site, four tye-dyed Greenpeace activists in a rubber raft sink a French military freighter that was being guarded by an “elite” French commando team.

“Want to buy some French rifles? They’ve never been fired and they’ve only been dropped once.”

~ At least one soldier in every goddamn item on this list

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