Does France actually have the best military record of western nations?

[Emsworth]

Worth mentioning is that after 1588, Britain indisputably owned the seas.

While England did defeat the Armada in 1588, I don't think that it necessarily became the world's foremost naval power immediately. I believe that a year later, England sent a similar naval expedition to Spain, and suffered an equally inglorious defeat.

[Emsworth]

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As Supersoulty noted earlier, this does not appear to be a valid assertion. At the earliest, the alleged period of French hegemony would begin during the life of Cardinal Richelieu (more specifically, at about the time of the Thirty Years' War). It would come to an end, at the latest, with Louis XIV's conflicts with William III.