Abu Muqawama retains its autonomy and the views and beliefs expressed within the blog do not reflect those of CNAS.
Tom highlights a quote from Ike:
French divisions are always a questionable asset." -- Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1945.
Well, yeah, and I can imagine what Eisenhower thought of the Wehrmacht, too. But that just makes me wonder what he would make of NATO in Afghanistan today. Up is down and down is up? Or, as a French diplomat friend of mine complained in frustration, "Look, aside from 45 days in 1940, we're really a quite martial people."
That made me chuckle when he said it, but he's right, of course. The way Americans view the French military has been long overdue for a revision, and I think that revision has taken place to a degree -- driven by study of Galula and Trinquier and Bigeard and at the expense, perhaps, of the Germans -- in the U.S. military's officer corps if not in public perceptions.
Any people who allow their beautiful young vixens to sunbathe in the nude in public parks, while imposing a ban on the covering of women's bodies and faces, are OK in my book.
Q: Why did the French plant trees along the Champs-Élysées?
A: So the German army could march in the shade!
this post makes me miss SNLII.
"I'd rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me"-- Not really Patton, but I wish he actually said it.
The truth is, the French have already proved their mettle, against pirates and those damn Greenpeace beatniks
When I was in Africa, the people who would have rescued us if the need had arisen, would have been the French.
While everybody else would have been thinking about, the French Army would have been there. I always bring this up when the French are mentioned.
Lets not forget 1870-1871.... or the fact they are the only country to lose a war to Mexico. Oops.
But I kid because then again without the Prussians running amok in Alsace-Loraine the fam probably doesn't head to the Big Easy.
But just in case my 5th cousins were taking in too much Sarkozy man love for Uncle Sam lately there's this....
The French minister in charge of humanitarian relief called on the UN to "clarify" the American role amid claims the military build up was hampering aid efforts. Alain Joyandet admitted he had been involved in a scuffle with a US commander in the airport's control tower over the flight plan for a French evacuation flight. "This is about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti," Mr Joyandet said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/...
Although La Marseillaise does kick the carp out of the Star Spangled Banner.
Don't forget the fact that the French yum-yums (female beauties) do NOT shave up there, as well as down there.
"US accused of 'occupying' Haiti as troops flood in"
Might as well occupy Haiti too, we're already in 4 ass backward useless countries shedding useless American blood. What's one more Stone Age country to occupy, without any benefit what so ever to the American people?
Actually, some reports out of Kapisa have indicated the French have done a piss-poor job following up on the good will TF Tigre built up this time last near. The new guys, TF Lafayette, have re-abandoned the Alisay Valley, NGO workers in norther districts like the Kohistans and Mahmud-i Raqi, and even Nijrab have been complaining about more and more HiG fighters imposing curfews on populated areas, and IEDs have spiked. Meanwhile, the Tagab has not become noticably safer compared to last year, and the Ghayn Valley is basically impassable because the French refuse to drive through RPG ambushes.
So whatever good they HAD been doing there, doesn't seem to have done the trick. Or the new CO hasn't been continuing them. I don't know - there's very little information coming out, even over unofficial channels. The French are obsessed with Sarobi, and have de-emphasized Kapisa as the centerpiece of their strategy.
Just a thought. Though RIcks is still wrong: the French are not UNIQUELY bad in the area. They're firmly average, performance-wise.
Yeah. I have heard good and bad things about Lafayette—good (or generally good) in Sarobi, though that could also be clever PAO-ing. But the two people I know who've ever heard of recent events in Kapisa say the French have lost it there.
Still, I'd love the chance to go check up on some people I know who live there. Some day...
Having been up with the French there briefly last year (Spring), things looked pretty good. I'd not be surprised if their unwillingness to engage in the hard slog was down to political direction from home. Just a hunch..
A few years ago when I was an exchange student at the French Naval Academy the French who had deployed to Kosovo were critical of the way American's rarely interacted with the population, (eating off the local economy etc.). It seemed to me that maybe similar to the British experience with their colonies that this would have carried forward to coin ops, maybe not though. When we did exercises they always talked about légitime défense. I would be interested to hear how the ROE for French troops in Afghanistan compares to American ROE.
The French Army lost 200,000 men in six weeks in 1940. They didn't lose through not fighting; they lost through a combination of confused strategic priorities, really bad doctrine on some key topics like armour and air defence, a very odd command structure, and some bad decisions. You can go on about which factors were most important. (For example, something Alistair Horne's To Lose a Battle: France 1940 often mentions but doesn't really discuss is the role of logistics - he mentions a lot of incidents, especially with the French armour, where the softskinned vehicles ended up arriving without the tanks, or the tanks arrived without their logistic support and ended up being abandoned out of fuel, or half the division made it to the assembly area and the rest was stuck on the other side of the panzer corridor.)
Alex:
If you haven't already, I'd take a look at Strange Victory by Ernest May (who recently died, according to Stephen Walt). He blames (in part) French intelligence failures.
ADTS
Alex:
If you haven't already, you might want to check out Ernest May's "Strange Victory," in which he (partly) blames French intelligence failure.
ADTS
After reading "Hell in a Very Small Place" I will never ever talk about the Frenchmans will to fight. But they do have piss poor leadership at least in that book.
@ADTS: thanks...
On the french: http://exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=7061&IBLOCK_ID=35
Gary brechter, read and weep.
@ Visitor 11:05.
You're damn right. When I was back at the mere patrie (gosh my french is horrible now) years ago it was explained part of the possible reason for the collapse both in 1871 and 1940 was a cultural response of rallying around the family more so than the country (of course tell that to the soldiers of the Revolution, 1870 and 1914) so that when things tanked, they returned home to protect their family. Maybe just a random professor rambling on though.
Seems like an issue of political will rather than a will to fight over the years which a few of you are insinuating may be happening again. Of course, that just give sAM more fodder to research for his next project. Clauswitz would be happy.
just like that French family helping Avner (Eric Bana's character in Munich) and his team of Mossad assassins.
Their soldiers are a squared away bunch.
Their leadership and elites are something else altogether. I'm not saying you have to love America or even trust us - especially the latter. And they have some reasons to dislike us after losing their Empire. But anti-Americanism as a reflex?
The women: must be saved. If their men won't or can't save them from the horrors of hijabdom then they get blanket passports issued en masse. BTW they mix well too bloodwise - say with Greek. See Trish Stratus.
Shaving and grooming are minor issues my dears, they will conform to the standard.
the Milk Kinship fatwa may just reach consensus in France. for a fatwa to be law, it needs consensus. what better place than France. although there should be a fatwa specifically for shaving armpit hair--pubic hair in the vaginal area has always been tolerated by the Prophet, as he was a known connoisseur of hairy pussy (ala 70s porn variety).
In 1940 the French Army was technically and Numerically superior to the Germans. That makes the defeat all the more embarrassing.
The Char 1bis could handle frontal shots from any of the German tanks. The Germans needed to roll up PAK-38s to take it out.
Look up the Battle of Stonne. One Char took out an entire German column and held the town but had to pull back to get support. This is because the French did not put radios in their tanks. They used a signal
France lost in 1940 because with the exception of de Gaulle, it failed to learn the new style of mobile warfare. France was refighting WWI while Germany was fighting mobile tank warfare.
The French Army suffered an embarrasing loss in 1940 because they were the only Western Army that was forced to confront the Germans. The Brits and US would have suffered a similar type loss if they had faced the Germans in 1940. So the fall of France had more to do with bad luck and a lack of strategic foresight, not a lack of a willingness to fight.
Save the women. Damn the Republic.
In particular if it lacks the strategic foresight to avoid becoming an Islamic Republic.
"Or, as a French diplomat friend of mine complained in frustration"
Hasn't anyone told you that excessive name dropping is usually a sign of inscecurity?
Hello,
Who was in Kapisa? I was there for 9 months. The French have too much turnover. 6 months is not enough stability and every task force has to recreate the wheel. They have alot of territory to cover with not enough guns.
I always thought it best to live and integrate with the locals. Then they know they are commited or not. Living with them, they will either fight you or like you.
Damage Control
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