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

[12th Doctor]

Worth mentioning is that after 1588, Britain indisputably owned the seas.  Philip II, Napoleon, and Hitler all tried to defeat Britain, and found that they could not overcome such a vastly superior naval force.  Sea power is the lifeblood of Empire, and Britain was the dominant force in Europe from the 16th century onwards and built the largest of the European Empires because of its supremacy on the high seas.  France never really came all that close to defeating Britain at sea, and thus failed to overtake Britain.

This is, of course, best displayed in the fact that, within 150 years of Western colonization, Britian was the undisputed master of North America.  The French could not keep up the naval strength needed to defend their colonial pocession against Britain.

Since European efforts were concentrated on the colonies at the time, it is safe to say that, by ruling them, Britain ruled Europe.  The more you analys the Napoleonic era, the more you realize that the French were doomed to fail.  They simply lack the wealth and the ability to protect what assets they had against the British.

India is another good example.  Not many realize that France was the first to colonize India, but they lost control of the situation very quickly.  Britain picked up the slack, becase they had the resources and the sea power to establish and defend their trading routes.

[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.

[12th Doctor]

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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.

People tend to forget that the Dutch were acctualy a world power at one point.

[J. J.]

They really helped at the Battle of Yorktown that essentially won the Revolutionary War.

But, of course, they lost Canada 25 years before and they had Lousiana just long enough to sell it.  The French North American expecience was a not exactly a good one.  It was at the same point when they lost India.

Even the British defeat in North America was, at best, a French victory by proxy, and a short lived on at that (considering that it ruined their economy and helped spark the revolution).

[??????????]

Worth mentioning is that after 1588, Britain indisputably owned the seas.  Philip II, Napoleon, and Hitler all tried to defeat Britain, and found that they could not overcome such a vastly superior naval force.  Sea power is the lifeblood of Empire, and Britain was the dominant force in Europe from the 16th century onwards and built the largest of the European Empires because of its supremacy on the high seas.  France never really came all that close to defeating Britain at sea, and thus failed to overtake Britain.

The US navy of the late 19th century could have easily crushed the British.

[ATFFL]

Worth mentioning is that after 1588, Britain indisputably owned the seas.  Philip II, Napoleon, and Hitler all tried to defeat Britain, and found that they could not overcome such a vastly superior naval force.  Sea power is the lifeblood of Empire, and Britain was the dominant force in Europe from the 16th century onwards and built the largest of the European Empires because of its supremacy on the high seas.  France never really came all that close to defeating Britain at sea, and thus failed to overtake Britain.

The US navy of the late 19th century could have easily crushed the British.

Not exactly.  At that point the US had, by a wide, wide margin, the best defensive fleet in the world.  Most of the ships were not meant to be operated on the high seas.  If Britain had tried to invade the US, or supply Canada or anything on the NA shores they would have suffered a very nasty surprise.

Unfortunately for the British, this is exactly what they would have tried to do.  They had a contempt for so call "brown water" fleets and thought they were in every conceivable way inferior to a "blue water" or high seas fleet.  Fortunately for them the only nation on the planet that both believed in a brown water fleet and funded it heavily was the US. 

This is not to sat that the US did not have a fine high seas fleet.  Indeed, the US navy has a long history of doing very well ship for ship with any navy.  It's just that, for a long tome, we did not have enough ships.

[??????????]

Worth mentioning is that after 1588, Britain indisputably owned the seas.  Philip II, Napoleon, and Hitler all tried to defeat Britain, and found that they could not overcome such a vastly superior naval force.  Sea power is the lifeblood of Empire, and Britain was the dominant force in Europe from the 16th century onwards and built the largest of the European Empires because of its supremacy on the high seas.  France never really came all that close to defeating Britain at sea, and thus failed to overtake Britain.

The US navy of the late 19th century could have easily crushed the British.

Not exactly.  At that point the US had, by a wide, wide margin, the best defensive fleet in the world.  Most of the ships were not meant to be operated on the high seas.  If Britain had tried to invade the US, or supply Canada or anything on the NA shores they would have suffered a very nasty surprise.

Unfortunately for the British, this is exactly what they would have tried to do.  They had a contempt for so call "brown water" fleets and thought they were in every conceivable way inferior to a "blue water" or high seas fleet.  Fortunately for them the only nation on the planet that both believed in a brown water fleet and funded it heavily was the US. 

This is not to sat that the US did not have a fine high seas fleet.  Indeed, the US navy has a long history of doing very well ship for ship with any navy.  It's just that, for a long tome, we did not have enough ships.

Didn't we have this discussion before?

[ATFFL]

Worth mentioning is that after 1588, Britain indisputably owned the seas.  Philip II, Napoleon, and Hitler all tried to defeat Britain, and found that they could not overcome such a vastly superior naval force.  Sea power is the lifeblood of Empire, and Britain was the dominant force in Europe from the 16th century onwards and built the largest of the European Empires because of its supremacy on the high seas.  France never really came all that close to defeating Britain at sea, and thus failed to overtake Britain.

The US navy of the late 19th century could have easily crushed the British.

Not exactly.  At that point the US had, by a wide, wide margin, the best defensive fleet in the world.  Most of the ships were not meant to be operated on the high seas.  If Britain had tried to invade the US, or supply Canada or anything on the NA shores they would have suffered a very nasty surprise.

Unfortunately for the British, this is exactly what they would have tried to do.  They had a contempt for so call "brown water" fleets and thought they were in every conceivable way inferior to a "blue water" or high seas fleet.  Fortunately for them the only nation on the planet that both believed in a brown water fleet and funded it heavily was the US. 

This is not to sat that the US did not have a fine high seas fleet.  Indeed, the US navy has a long history of doing very well ship for ship with any navy.  It's just that, for a long tome, we did not have enough ships.

Didn't we have this discussion before?

A few times, I think.

[Erc]

France hasn't done that badly...it's generally avoided death, which is more than you can say for a lot of other nations.

But even then, it's military record is hardly the most stellar.


Charlemagne was more German than French (his capital is currently in Germany), so we won't consider him.

France pre-1430 or so didn't make a mark...too much fighting among vassals, increasing domination by the Normans/English/Angevins (when the English lost land, it was generally due to their own incompetency, not French success).

Then the French had their successes from 1423-1453, and good for them.  But even then their situation domestically wasn't great at all, despite kicking out the English.  They still had all the dukes to deal with...Britanny, Burgundy, etc.

Burgundy they lucked out because the line there extinguished itself in 1471.  And they did a good job of crushing and annexing the other ones, which they accomplished by 1500 or so.  France, in all its military glory, has managed to take back its own country.  Yay.

Then they try to go overseas...France invades Italy, does well for a while....and then gets soundly thrashed by the Habsburgs.  I think French kings got captured by the Habsburgs twice in the period from 1500-1525...the King was forced to sign a treaty giving back the old Burgundian lands to Spain, make Provence independent...and I think give back Normandy and Acquitaine to the English while he was at it.  Of course, he didn't honor the agreement, but still...

The French were the only thing standing between the Habsburgs and world domination in the 1500s (well, there were also the Ottomans, and the Protestants...)--and they managed to do a decent job of it.  Not too shabby, but not magnificent.

And then came the Wars of Religion, and they faded off the scene once again, killing each other...

Then Henri IV reunified everybody, and everything was good.  Richelieu got involved fighting against the Habsburgs once again in the Thirty Years War, and finally stopped their plans of world hegemony.  Good for them...France was, arguably, the foremost power in the world once they signed peace with Spain sometime in the 1650's (after the Peace of Westphalia).  And then came Louis XIV and the peak of French Power.  The War of Devolution, etc.  France starts encroaching east, taking Alsace-Lorraine, portions of Belgium, etc.  But he runs into resistance in the form of the Dutch, at first...and then the British after his buddies in England mess things up and get the Stadtholder of the Netherlands installed on the throne...and then everybody else (War of the League of Augsburg, which the French don't do that poorly in).  And then comes the installation of the Bourbons in Spain, which everyone was talking about.  And, yes, he did it.  But it wasn't his son (which was what he wanted), it was his brother...so the two crowns were forever separate.  And Louis had bankrupted his country in the process, just as the Habsburgs had bankrupted themselves.  The French lost the War of Spanish Succession (Blenheim, anyone?  There's an accomplishment for the piddly English Army for you--although it did suck at most other times except under Cromwell).  The French did not dominate during the 18th Century...they had cultural hegemony only.  Louis XV was a shadow of his great-grandfather--the ultimate coup comes when the French get conned into supporting the hated Habsburgs in the War of Austrian Succession.  They were still an important power, but they were not the feared hegemon of the 17th Century.

Of course, Napoleon was quite successful, and no-one will deny that.  He did lose, of course, but that's another story.  And after that the French really haven't done well at all.  They did well in the Crimea, but that was more of a diplomatic victory than anything (which ended up hurting them later)--and they got crushed by Bismarck.  Their own soldiers mutinied in WWI, and they lost their country in six weeks in World War II.

And see any of the other posters for the A.T. Mahan interpretation.

All-in-all, they're probably not the worst...but certainly not the best of the Europeans militarily.

[Storebought]

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This is true, yet by this line of reasoning, you can also say the Hapsburgs' advantages were a matter of geography: Spain by virtue of being on Iberia benefitted along with Portugal with both proximity to Africa and the Cape of Good Hope on one hand, and a large Atlantic coastline on the other hand. Austria clearly benefitted from having weak neighbors. England benefitted from being defended behind the English Channel and having a large coastline, accustoming it's people to shipbuilding and navigation which helped it build it's empire.

Storebrought,

When did the muslims overrun Sicily? The Byzantines did keep a check on the muslims, but we don't know how far the muslims would have advanced without them. But their ultimate failure to hold Anatolia hardly recommends them as a foremost European power.

At the same time the Muslims were battering against the walls of Constantinople, they had already conquered the Persian Empire and were spreading fast to the Indian subcontinent.

I think you have the same prejudice against the East Romans/Byzantines that Edward Gibbon did.

Gibbon said their empire was just 1000 years of decline. But 1000 years is precisely how long France has been an extant nation.

Personally, I think Greek empire was a (the) European power from Constantine (330) to their loss at the Battle of Manzikert, 1071. That's 740 years!

But that's as far as I will defend the Greek empire.

[12th Doctor]

The French were the only thing standing between the Habsburgs and world domination in the 1500s (well, there were also the Ottomans, and the Protestants...)--and they managed to do a decent job of it.  Not too shabby, but not magnificent.

And then came the Wars of Religion, and they faded off the scene once again, killing each other...

Then Henri IV reunified everybody, and everything was good.  Richelieu got involved fighting against the Habsburgs once again in the Thirty Years War, and finally stopped their plans of world hegemony.  Good for them...France was, arguably, the foremost power in the world once they signed peace with Spain sometime in the 1650's (after the Peace of Westphalia).  And then came Louis XIV and the peak of French Power.  The War of Devolution, etc.  France starts encroaching east, taking Alsace-Lorraine, portions of Belgium, etc.  But he runs into resistance in the form of the Dutch, at first...and then the British after his buddies in England mess things up and get the Stadtholder of the Netherlands installed on the throne...and then everybody else (War of the League of Augsburg, which the French don't do that poorly in).  And then comes the installation of the Bourbons in Spain, which everyone was talking about.  And, yes, he did it.  But it wasn't his son (which was what he wanted), it was his brother...so the two crowns were forever separate.  And Louis had bankrupted his country in the process, just as the Habsburgs had bankrupted themselves.  The French lost the War of Spanish Succession (Blenheim, anyone?  There's an accomplishment for the piddly English Army for you--although it did suck at most other times except under Cromwell).  The French did not dominate during the 18th Century...they had cultural hegemony only.  Louis XV was a shadow of his great-grandfather--the ultimate coup comes when the French get conned into supporting the hated Habsburgs in the War of Austrian Succession.  They were still an important power, but they were not the feared hegemon of the 17th Century.

 

As I mentioned before, they might have been prominant after the fall of the Habsburg Empire, but they certainly were not dominant.  The 1500's saw the rise of the Netherlands as a serious global power and this status remained until the mid-1700's, by which time, Britain has become the dominant power in the world.  The Swedes were also a considerable power during this time period.

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The problem with Napoleon is that he got too greddy.  But if he hadn't, we wouldn't be talking about him today, so that is kinda a double edged sword.  The more I study the period, the more I think that Napoleon was doomed from the start.

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Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that France and Britain got rocked, militarily, by Russia during that conflict, inspite of both countries having considerable technological superiority over the Russains.

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I think that it might be fair to say that, for the past 1000 years, France has been the most consistent European country in terms of power, but the best, they never were.

[12th Doctor]

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.

You would be correct.  England's rise was not immediate.  I hate to keep beating this point in, but the Dutch were the formost naval power in the world for most of the 1600's.  The British rise to prominence in that field really did not occure until the 1730's.  Up until that time, Britian's navy was still largely a privateer force.