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I really don't know why "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" became a meme.
Historically, French armies have had a lot of problems:
- Charging recklessly at fortified enemy positions, and not stopping even once the futility was clear. "Élan!"
- Fighting other French armies over politics, instead of the foreign enemy
- Shagging anything in a skirt, married or not, pissing off local men wherever the French army deploys.
Surrendering easily was never a French problem
Just a guess, but perhaps it came from World War II and being occupied by Nazi Germany?
I blame Monty Python. 😎
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This was supposed to be reply to your comment.
They put up quite a fight despite being hopelessly unprepared.
But otherwise France in WW2 is SO point #2 on my list.
Vichy troops loyal to Petain fought the Maquis for nearly the whole war. The French "Legion de Tricolour" fought FOR Germany on the Eastern Front, and were possibly the second hardest bunch of MFers deployed there (#1 goes to Francoist Spain's "División Azul").
(My comment vanished, no idea why!)
Well, the brave ones all died off because of napoleon.
The rest are the surrender monkeys.
I think the surrender monkeys spend their lives unwittingly raising the brave one's illegitimate kids.
Can't think of any other reason for the persistence of boneheaded heroic stupidity and beautiful gestures in French military history :p
What have they won after napoleon?
This is Nostr, not a PHD thesis :p
Everyone knows Verdun.
But some of my favourites:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_N%C3%A0_S%E1%BA%A3n
https://warhistory.org/@msw/article/the-franco-thai-war-1940-1941
Absurd, against-all-odds tactical victories; that turned out to be strategically fruitless.
Nothing could be more French Army than a "beau geste".
Odd.
They also helped us out a lot in the Revolutionary War.
No serious student of history finds those jokes funny.
So maybe we can forgive one another for the times when we are less than the best versions of ourselves and get along by uplifting each other to make the future brighter than our past.