French military successes?

Question

Off the top of my head, I can't think of many wars which the French have won. Can someone please give me some examples to restore my faith in the French?

P.S I don't mean just battles, I mean full campaigns or wars.

Answer 1

Against the English in the later years of the Hundred Years war the French managed to drive us out, the bast*rds.

Most of Napoleon's campaigns up to the Russian invasion were incredibly successful.  Since then its been a bit dry for them though.

Answer 2

French military success?  That's an oxymoron.

Napoleon lost in Russia.  He went in with 510,000 and left with 10,000, stupid b*****d.

Answer 3

don't listen to the pundit idiots, they won many wars.  plan 17 in WW1 was bad, and the Maginot line was poorly thought but much of this was due to advancement in technology, not a lack of fighting prowess. Napoleon was a h**l of a tactician, as were many before him. saying the French somehow are weak is a fools game, comforting myth for the anti French rhetoric fools.....if a Frenchman shoots you, are you OK, because Rush Limbaugh Say's they can't fight, he can't but they have and can

Answer 4

During the Hundred-Years War in the 15th century, the French army under Joan Of Arc defeated the English at Orleans. This victory paved the way for the later withdrawal of all English forces from France, except at Calais, a few years later.  Calais was liberated many years later.  Thanks to St. Joan's sacrifice, the English were prevented from making France an English provence.

Answer 5

They destroyed the Roman Empire with the rest of the Gauls (Celts)

Answer 6

There have been plenty of them. It's just that many of them aren't very famous today, and in others you forget the French were involved.

France didn't become the most powerful country in Europe, with one of the largest colonial empires in the world, by losing wars.

Hundred Years War. 1337-1453

Breton Wars of Independence. 1485-91

War of the League of Cambrai. 1508-16

Thirty Years War (effectively a French victory). 1635-48

Franco-Spanish War. 1635-59

War of Devolution. 1667-68

Franco-Dutch War. 1672-78

War of the Reunions. 1683-84

American Revolutionary War. 1779-83

War of the First Coalition. 1792-97

War of the Second Coalition. 1798-1801

War of the Third Coalition. 1805

War of the Fourth Coalition. 1806-7

War of the Fifth Coalition. 1809

Crimean War. 1854-56

Second Italian War of Independence. 1859

First World War. 1914-18

There have also been a whole bunch of victorious colonial wars. E.g.:

Sino-French War.

First and Second Franco-Dahomean Wars.

Franco-Siamese War.

Wadai War.

First, Second and Third Mandingo Wars.

Second Opium War.

Rif War.

etc

Just look them all up in Wikipedia.

Answer 7

actully (no joke) if you google french millitary victorys, it says " did you mean french millitary defeats" at least it used to

Answer 8

1066 - occupied England and never defeated, still occupying it today

Answer 9

*We won the 100 year war

*we came up on the Spanish and Austrian Succession Wars under Louis XIV

*Won most of our wars betwwen 1790 and 1810... Napoleon only started to lose when he overdid it and tried to invade russia, completely depleting his army in the process. His only major setback prior to that were sea engagements agains the British navy

*successfully conquered Algeria and Indochina, staying there for more than a century before trouble brewed up again.

*won Napo III's Italian campaigns and even kept Nice and Savoy

*were among the winners of both world wars

and that's not taking into account wars by Merovingian, Carolingian, or direct Capetian kings against regional powers that led to France being the way it is rather than, say, Burgundy, Alsace and Lorraine being completely German areas.

Answer 10

France, although their military might has diminished greatly, was once a very strong world power. I find however only one man worthy of mentioning that would be Napoleon.  Napoleon constantly ousted his adversary in the campaign on the Italian peninsula around 1796, castiglegone (sp?) , and also during his European campaigns, the battle of Austerlitz being his greatest victory. To deny Napoleon's military supremacy is to deny what was taught at west point in decades following napoleon's campaigns. Robert E. Lee, the military genius behind the confederate army during the civil war, relied heavily on what he had learned about Napoleon and Napoleonic warfare to help him oust forces constantly larger than his own. Napoleon therefore affect American Military history as well as france.

Answer 11

They had a few sucesses in the first world war didn't they?battles and the war.

Answer 12

Charlemagne's conquests gave the Franks control over most of Western Europe and resulted in the pope crowning him Emperor. (Frankish expansion, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Frank...

Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, French armies defeated coalitions and armies from every country in Europe and conquered large areas of it  over a 20-year period (French empire at fullest extent in 1811,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Europ... .  Later established the second-largest colonial empire in the world after Britain.

France also won the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) . It was also  the main victor in the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) and won the Franco-Dutch War (1672-78),  which secured France's position as the most powerful country in the world.

Answer 13

They won the Hundred Years' War, not to mention all of Charlemagne's victories.

France was a bada** in the Middle Ages.  'Course, they let it get to their heads from time to time and you had things like the Battle of Agincourt, which might have been winnable but they made sure it wasn't.

Napoleon wiped the walls with Continental Europe, till he made the same mistake as Hitler and invaded Russia.

The French had an awful lot to do with the Allies winning World War I.

They were also instrumental in us (the US) winning our war of Independence.  Without the French, the American Revolution would have almost surely failed.  They provided large amounts of money and generous numbers of muskets.  Also Yorktown wouldn't have even been fought if the French fleet hadn't come up the coast to lend us a hand.

Those are the ones that come to my mind.

Answer 14

Well they did have that short little dude who conquered most of europe.

Plus there were lots of smaller wars where they won, just ask the brits (although you wont get a truthful answer from them regarding this subject)

Also if you saw all of europe rolled over and conquered in three weeks, and completely destroyed, would you think twice about fighting the people who conquered them? (it is a reference to Germany taking Poland, and the Poles were ready for them! and had a better army than the Frogs)

Answer 15

You mean France grew to eight times it original size without winning a single war?

Or you just believe the propaganda spouted by someone who also declared that Iraq was full of WMD ?

Just a few out of the top of my head...

-1337-1453- Hundred Years' War

- 1618-1648 Thirty Years' War

- 1667-1668 -Devolution war

- 1672-1678 - Dutch war

-1688-1697 - Nine years war

- 1701-1713 - Spanish Succession war  

- 1719 - Spanish war

- 1735 – Polish succession war

- 1740 -1748 – Austrian succession war

- 1780 - Yorktown and other such piffling battles

- 1793-1797 - First European coalition

- 1798-1800 - Second European coalition

- 1805 - Third European coalition

- 1806-1807 - Fourth European coalition

- 1809 - Fifth European coalition

- 1853-1856 Crimean War.

1914 - WWI

Algeria - won military but decided - rightfully - to give Algeria back to the Algerians

1990 - Gulf war (bet you didn't know there were French under US command)

Edit: Jason, thanks for the colonial list, I couldn't remember the details

Answer 16

France held onto Indochina (now known as Vietnam) for over 100 years (while subsequent attempts by Japan and the U.S. to control Indochina/Vietnam each failed much sooner) and had massive colonial holdings in West Africa.  Overall, the size of the French colonial empire as of 1900 was second only to that of the British empire.

France was a member of the coalition that won the Crimean War of 1854-56.  Subsequently, it won (on its own) the Franco-Austrian War, aka Second War of Italian Independence, aka Austro-Sardinian War, in 1859 (as a result of that war, France gained Savoy and Nice, which it controls to this day).

France was a member of the coalition that won World War I.

France actively participated in World War II, even after its government capitulated; read up on French Resistance (whose contribution general Eisenhower estimated to be worth 15 divisions) and Free French Forces (which were 20 divisions strong when allies first landed in France).  Suffice it to say that after World War II, Germany was officially divided into four occupation zones, American, British, French, and Soviet.

Answer 17

The French have won more wars than the US.