From another forum. Valid points made here:
France accmoplished what no other European nation has ever been able to do since the Romans, which is be the dominate european power for over a century.
More so, they were the dominate European power many times and for long stretches.
Napoleonic empire was larger than any other european empire, ever.
It left no lasting remnent.
True. Except for liberalism, nationalism, Latin America, and the beginning of the End of History, (see Fukuyama, Battle of Jena), no remnant at all.
The German "empire" you refer to consisted of part of Germany plus a tiny sliver of what is now Poland, which had not been a country since the 1700's, well before German unification. It did not include the significant part of Germany controlled by Austria. Hence, it was not even a complete nation-state, let alone an empire.
And it divided after his death.
No, really? The fact is, his empire was the first major empire since the Roman empire, and represented the first glimmerings of the revival of European civilization since antiquity. It was also a bulwark against North African expansion into central Europe.
England didn't want a European empire, save for Gibraltar, which they still have. Hanover was considered a drain and they gave Helgoland to Germany in exchange for colonial posessions. Their European policy was not to have a powerful state holding the low countries (and the invasion staging points).
LOL. England's army sucked, end of story.
See above. After they lost their empire, they rebuilt it in 25 years.[/quote]
Once again, they only managed to keep their country united from late 1939-1944, a 5 year period out of the 2,000 year history of the German people. France on the other hand has been united almost all of its history, with a few exceptions during the Hundred Years' War. On that alone Germany should be stricken from all consideration as a military success.
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Bleh bleh bleh. Spain piggybacked on Portugal's pioneering navigation and then held onto a sucky backwater that failed to develop economically while giant Spanish ships shipping back inflation into Europe couldnt' defend themselves against an uneducated Englishman on a tiny little boat (see Francis Drake). Spain's grand armada was then destroyed by a tiny little heretical island-nation led by an illegitimate heretical young woman in a single day. No European nation is more of a failure than Spain. Not to mention that it was ruled by North Africans for 800 years, the only major European nation to be ruled by Africans.
Very true.
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(1) No: the Spanish (Habsburg) monarchy during the reign of Charles V was the largest in history
(2) The Byzantines, shifty and nasty as they were, were the real force keeping the Muslims out of central Europe, not the French.
(3) And, no, I don't know where you produced the nonsense that France was united throughout its history (i.e. since Hugh Capet founded his dynasty in the 900s)
The French kings had to fight one unruly vassal after another just to keep their country from falling apart (good ex., the Burgundians). Not to mention, French history just goes blank during their Wars of Religion--not until Henry of Navarre became Henry of Bourbon did France become a real country again.
France dominated Europe, as Bono said, when fat Louis put his nephew on the Spanish throne, and even then, French domination was based more strongly on diplomacy, language, and culture than on true military prowess--their humiliating loss on all three fronts of the Seven Years' War bears that out.
