The War Nerd makes the case that the French have done really well over the last 1000 years. Well great. On balance, so did the Mongols, but they aren't doing so hot right now.

The bad French reputation comes from:

1. The fact the Brits finally did beat Napoleon, including a monster naval victory at Trafalgar.

2. The incompetence of Napoleon III.

3. Their awful showing in the Franco-Prussian war.

4. The need for British and American troops to prevent collapse in WWI against an approximately equally sized German enemy pressed on two sides (and who beat the Russians on one side). Sure, the Germans had the help of the Ottoman Empire, but that was more to protect their southern (well, south-eastern) flank and put pressure on British colonial interests. Germany were over-achievers, but they still make France look bad here.

5. The premature surrender in WWII along with the collaboration of the Vichy government.

6. Their inability to hang on to Algeria or Indochina in the latter half of the 20th century. (Of course we didn't do so well with Vietnam, either.) Suez, where they joined with Britain but still lost didn't help much, either.

Two of their marshalls, Foch and Petain, are synonyms for high-ranking incompetance including an inability to face reality on the ground (Foch) or a tendency to surrender with little provocation (Petain).

I'm sure there are plenty of stories of French valor from the 1820's on, but I don't know any. Maybe it's just because I'm American (and Hollywood is, too), but for every shameful story of a Lt. Calley in the U.S., there's an inspiring Sargeant York or Audie Murphy moment. Is there the equivalent in France that counters the shame of france's persecution of Dreyfus?

To be fair, France really does shine in the special forces. But even these have been used laughably. The most notorious mission of the French special forces was the sinking of Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior.

France makes very good jets (the Mirages) and ship-to-ship missiles (that were used by Argentina in the Falklands) and has nuclear weapons, so they aren't to be trifled with. Still, their military heyday was hundreds of years ago. The biggest probelm they have is their competition. France will always suffer when contrasted with Germany and Britain, the two top-performing countries that, unfortunately for France, have been her traditional enemies. The French probably think "Thank God for Spain and Italy" or they'd be surrounded by countries that whupped up on her and be the worst thing you could ever call a French man... Belgian.

France has a lot to be proud of, but her recent military history is not one of the country's strong points.

YIKES! I think the point was that the case you've just made has been made 18 billion times on the web by 18 billion brutish anti-French thugs!

I'm sure the case has been made that we breathe air a lot, too. That doesn't mean it's not true.

I'm not saying the French aren't brave, I'm just saying their results are not good recently. A lot of that is because they get compared to two massively overachieving traditional enemies, Britain and Germany. I'm sure the famous French individualism and political cynicism is also to blame.

I'm certainly not anti-French. I think they're great. If I weren't American I would love to be French. I'd make sure we stayed out of any wars, though.

"Suez, where they joined with Britain but still lost didn't help much, either."

It wasn't so much a military defeat as a colossal political fiasco. I've never totally grasped all the details, but I think they basically got cold feet, along with the British, when it became obvious from the start that the whole thing was going to be bad news for them in terms of combined US and Soviet opposition. The idea, if I have the details right (they're so weird that I'm not sure I do), was that the Israelis would attack Egypt in the Sinai Desert, all the way down to the Suez Canal, and then the French and British would intercede between them on the claim that somebody had to stop the fighting, with their real goal being to prevent Nasser from nationalizing the Canal (and Israel's goal being to strike a heavy blow against Nasser for sponsoring lots of cross-border terrorism). But the French and British either didn't get there, or only partially got there, or something like that, before the US and USSR were both demanding that the whole thing come to an immediate end. I don't think Egyptian military resistance was all that much of a factor. Israel's initially dominant victory ended with them pulling out of the Sinai after a few months, under severe diplomatic pressure from both world superpowers.