Cheese eating surrender monkeys

Day 674, 14:02 • Published in United Kingdom France • by Potier


Hi United Kingdom. I am fighting the anti-french ideas 😉. Thanks for reading and forgive my english.
I don't want to be boring, forgive me if i am. (and forgive my english again xD)

Pour mes lecteurs français, pardonnez cette encartade sur les îles britanniques, mais j'avais envie, voilà..

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"We had to surrender, the Germans were very mean!"

"Why are the streets of Paris lined with trees? So that the Germans can walk in the shade."

The French suck at war. At least, if you ask American and British popular culture, especially over the last, oh, fifteen years.

This is a specific and very common example of an Acceptable Nationality Target. The French, so the story says, are useless at war, will surrender at the drop of a hat, and need to be bailed out by the Americans/British in any major war.

Grossly untrue, in reality. Historically, France was one of the centers of military theory, with every military academy in the world teaching the French style. French forces led by Charles Martel stopped Muslim expansion into Europe at the Battle of Tours in 732. Of course, Napoleon conquered most of Continental Europe in the early 19th century. Even when France was an occupied country, most famously during World War II, the French people didn't exactly roll over. There's a reason it's "La Resistance," after all. Unfortunately, the collaboration of the Vichy government often overshadows the Resistance. There's a reason it's called Les Collaborateurs as well. One thing that's commonly forgotten is if the UK had had a land border with Europe, the "plucky Brits" would have been steamrolled by the Wehrmacht just as handily.

Also, fun fact which surprisingly few English people seem to realise: The French won the Hundred Years War. The English like to talk about Crecy and Agincourt, but the simple fact is that Joan of Arc kicked the living shit out of them. Americans have a similar historical amnesia in that it was partially due to French aid that they won the War of Independence. And while Americans taunt them over World War Two at the time of France's surrender the US was bitching about how Roosevelt was risking their neutrality for daring to send supplies to Great Britain. The Americans arguably 'surrendered' long before the war even started.

Sometimes this is referenced by claiming that France only wins when led by a non-Frenchman. (Napoleon was a Corsican, Joan a Frenchwoman). Also, others like to point out that 60% of Napoleon's armies were made up of foreigners from across the continent, but this is a matter of some debate. Another version is that French officers are useless, while French soldiers will kick nine kinds of crap out of you if you get them angry.

That said, France's 'losing' reputation comes from their rapid losses in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, and World War II. World War I was a battle to exhaustion that was very closely run through the middle of 1918. However, Germany looked like it was winning because it seized a lot of French territory early on and the war bogged down so they held it till the end.

Grenade - French for pomegranate. Bayonet - named after Bayonne, in south-west France. Esprit de Corps - Military spirit. Not to mention every other Knight In Shining Armor in Chivalric Romance. The rise of this current reputation is due to geopolitical fighting, divisiveness, and brinkmanship in recent years. The high-point was perhaps the international debate leading up to the USA's 2003 invasion of Iraq, with the peak being when the House of Representatives declared that its restaurants would refer to French Fries as Freedom Fries. At this point, the internet collectively facepalmed itself, and it became a Dead Horse Trope on many internet sites that had popularized it.

Keep in mind that this trope wasn't always about the French. Earlier on it was also about Italy, which, after the collapse of the Roman Empire, is portrayed as being systematically butt-raped by every invading army. That would make them Pasta Eating Surrender Monkeys. Machiavelli hammered it pretty hard in all his major works.

Keep in mind that the British doing this are most likely to be English or Protestant Northern Irish. The Scots, contrary to the Simpsons episode, and the Welsh are actually cool with the French.
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It's not my creation. You can read this here. Thanks 😉