Have the french ever won anything?
I mean come on, they must have.
shareIf you look at individual successes, they did win battles, it's just that in most cases they lost the overall war.
They won one naval battle in Mauritius during the Napoleonic Wars.
They also fought off the English over a long period of time in the Middle Ages and occupied large parts of today's France that were previously held by the English. That is why Joan of Arc is one of France's heroic figures.
They invaded Italy in the 15th Century but didn't manage to keep anything and Louis XIV was fairly successful early in his military endeavours but I think they were eventually reversed.
Napoleon himself won many land battles up till 1814 and ruled over many European countries and principalities until Britain with a changing array of allies eventually stopped him.
Charlemagne was the first emperor in western and central Europe since the fall of Rome three centuries earlier.
In the Thirty Years War, 1618-1648, France broke the power of Spain, whose armies had been feared throughout Europe for a century.
French assistance to the Americans was vital in the achieving of US independence.
And, as indicated above, Napoleon conquered all of Europe from the border of Russia to parts of Spain.
In World War I, they fought Germany to a standstill, along with the British and, toward the end of the war, the US.
So for what it's worth, the French military has seen its share of military success over the centuries.
- The Battle of Bouvines (by which they got Normandy back from the kings of England)
- The Hundred Years War.
- the War of the Spanish Succession.