Do we learn from History?

Do we learn from history? The question has been dogging me lately and I was wondering about y'all's thoughts on it.

August, 1914, Germans attack Luxembourg and Belgium through the Ardennes Forest.

May, 1941, Germans do the same.

December, 1944, Germans, yet again, do the same.

It seems the Allies never expect, no matter how many times the Germans go through it, an attack from the Ardennes.

I also don't think that the Germans are done with their Jack-Boots yet. So the next time they invade the Low Countries, we should expect it throught the Ardennes.

 

Oh please... :roll:

 

On a broad scale? Probably but not as much as we should.

That specific example? Apparently not.

 

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the Germans as a people, it is just a prediction that I think will come true, and I was actually quoting an old GERMAN WWII veteran.

 

they dont like change?

 

It's not that, it's just that being warlike is in their blood. just like the Scots or the Irish. You can't just erase 3 or 4 millenia of breeding with a few peace protests or a peace movement. Just like you can't erase 1200 years of breeding in france by a pro-war-no-surrender protest or movement. :lol:

 

Here Patton, let me list a number of reasons why France was actually very CLEVER in not committing forces to Iraq
- Its unwinnable
- We're losing
- France has no interests in the region
- France already has the Ivory Coast to deal with
- France doesn't like throwing money away

America and her allies however, have single handedly managed to...
- Lose the war
- Get the world to hate them
- Lose alot of money
- Tied down a very large proportion of their defence forces
- Lose lives
- Lose home support for the government
- Lose the capability to wage another war, say against North Korea
- All round pretty much Lose

Ergo I would suggest that France's decision not to enter into the war was pure military genius, evident obviously of their proud military traditions which extend back to Charlemange, Napoleon and Charles De Gaulle... That 1200 years breeding really made them a smart bunch when it comes to wars, not like us bumbling coalition folk...

i don't remeber the Irish ever winning a war? They just like drinkin' & fightin'

 

were losing but its not lost...

 

Ok, here is a point-by-point rebuttal of what smeghead just said:

-Look, America has not lost the war. Although I will say that we are on the fast track to losing. But if President Bush would get his head out of his ass politically, then I think we can win, we need more troops there though.

-I am pretty sure the world already hated us, mostly because a Republican is in office, and I am sure that the world will continue to hate our freedom-loving asses no matter what.

-We have lost ALOT of money but you always do when you fight a war.

-You also tend to actually USE your soldiers in a war, unlike france.

-Unlike you and the rest of the world, which only pays attention to the liberal biased media, I actually live here, and I know that the American people are divided over it, but I am pretty sure most Americans do support the war.

-Whenever you fight a war against somebody, you lose capability to fight it against someone else.

-Not true.

Besides, if America did stop playing World Police, we would all be speaking Arabic and worshiping allah. So you choose.

And lastly, to absolutly kill ANY belief the french are actually worth anything to this world, please visit the site below.

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/france.html[/i]

 

sorry, here is the correct link.

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/france.html

 

Might I point out something to you Patton...
I am Australian, and our forces are currently in Iraq with yours... I support the decision to keep them there, now that we're comitted... I voted for Howard and I intend to do the same in a few months time... I would also prefer it if the 2 term rule did not exist, so that you yanks o'er there could re-elect Bush... By comitting to the war we threw our lot in with the Republicans and if they are voted out, and someone like Howard-hating Obama comes into office, all the resources we wasted on Iraq will be for nothing... I suppose you could classify me as a 'Republican supporter'

OK... If the Coalition wins in Iraq I'll paint myself red and throw poo at every Frenchman I see (whilst screaming like a monkey of course)...

Well then now they hate you more Plus they hate us... and Britain... But they don't hate France, and you know why that is Patton?

So why fight wars that you don't need to? Surely America has gained nothing from this debacle in Iraq, Australia sure hasn't and our losses are almost non-existant...

Thats 'France' with a captial 'F'... You know if you tally up the numbers, France has actually defeated a larger number of military forces than America in the 20th century alone...

Uh-huh, so when are you going to get around to winning it?

Do I really get to choose?

That is a funny web joke... I sincerely hope you are not confusing it with an accurate assessment of France's history... Not to mention that it is wrong, the French won the Hundred Years war, that is why there as a country today which is called 'France' and not simply another British colony, do you see?

I wouldn't be so high and mighty about disrespecting France if I were American...You're constitution was based upon the French model and the ideals of enlightenment, as it is in pretty much every western democracy today... The French invented freedom

Also might I remind you that France under Napoleon single hadendly defeated and dismantled the Holy Roman Empire, which as anyone with an inkling of History knows was THE great mediaeval power which lasted for over 1000 years... America however has never won a war without the significant involvement of another country... Except of course the American civil war, largely due to the fact that one side was American :roll: America is, however, very good at accepting credit for the Wars of others... WW1 springs to mind, whereby the French played the greatest role of any power in defeating the Germans, though they could never have done it without Britian... American involvment was superflous at best, and they were probably the least competant allied army in the war bar Russia... Most of their casualties were disease related, and their contribution in manpower was actually less than teeny-tiny Australia... WW1 was a mostly a French victory and WW2 mostly a Russian one, though hollywood would have you believe otherwise...

America has had her chances to win wars by herself; Vietnam, and now Iraq... Now, there's nothing wrong with making mistakes in war... But making fun of France, just to make up for one's own inadequacies is really poor show

P.S. As you can tell I don't like it when people get all huffy about France being sucky, they really don't deserve it... I mean, lets not lie here, France probably has the greatest legacy of any country upon the modern western world; They invented enlightenment, and then they marched all the way to Russia and spread it... They are a historical powerhouse :kill: Without France we'd all be wearing Kaiser helmets and invading each other for 'glory', it really is too bad they were defeated in WW2, but lets be honest... Someone needed to take the fall, no country (America included) could hope to stand against a German Blitzkrieg in the open field in 1940... France's sacrifice allowed the allies to learn the tactics and adapt

 

it would suck to have limey soccer hoolligans with longbows on your one side and teutonic feildgrau hard nose squareheads on the other side ....for your neighbors ,,,,for ever and ever ...no wonder the french decided to concentrate on food ,wine and women....royal navy here ,picklebaub prussians there ...yer fekked either way...what other country would fare well in that location?

 

Smeg, you make some very good points. You are right about the US being late to WWI, but GB was about 2 weeks away from surrendering to the Krauts, but we bolstered their resolve.

Now, y'all Aussies, I like ya, in fact my girlfriend was born in Perth, but you did get your balls blown off in the Dardenelles strait.

Well, right now I am 16, my 2 older brothers are in a college ROTC program. The elder is a Junior and the younger is a freshman. In 16 months I will join them. 4 years after that I will be a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army. Roughly 6 to 12 months after that I will be where ever the Army sends me. (Hopefully strait to the hottest zone of action.)

So as you can see I have quite an invested interest in who is running the country in 6 years.

Also, the United States of America won the following wars without foreign help; The Spanish-American war, The Mexican-American war, and the War of 1812.

I would also like to point out that the US Constitution was first singed by the State of Delaware in 1787, a full ten years before the french revolution took off.

This is all the french revolution really was, a peasant uprising that overthrew the king of france. The french people tried to replace the old monarchy with a true democracy, the USA is a Republic.

The Holy Roman Empire;
1. Wasn't Holy.
2. Wasn't an empire, more like a loosely formed German Confederacy.
3. And it wasn't Roman

So really it can be said that the HRE wasn't the most powerful state in the medival time period. So it's really nothing to say that Napoleon destroyed it, even when he was destroyed in the end. I am also pretty sure Napoleon was the worst thing to happen to france since the Black Death. He completely drained france's manpower and money.

And lastly, if America was sooooo unimportant to the winning of WWII, then how was france liberated? Or Operation Overlord become a sucess? Or the invasions of Sicily and Italy suceed? Or the Bulge repulsed in December of '44? Or General Patton, being the first allied commander to cross the Rhine, kick the Krauts out of central Germany, THEIR HOMELAND?

P.S. I don't capitalize france or french because I don't capitalize useless, unimportant, and worthless things.

 

Patton, speaking as a retired SNCO of Marines, to a potential officer in the US Army, I would submit that proper spelling will go a long ways in school, and tact will go a long ways in life.

You're 16. Your sum life experience is just about null. I wouldn't be so quick to "talk trash" to people who have seen more, and done more, than you, when your overall knowledge is limited to books.

 

Nice attitude. Frankly your world view is small minded and very ignorant, try actually learning something rather than repeating tired old cliches. You need to grow up a lot.

 

Why does France always come in for flak, particularly from us Brits and you Yanks*?

As has been pointed out above, it has a long history of being a world leader in many areas, from Intellectual thought (where were the first ever universities?) to warfare to fashion to... (the list continues). It even leant a hand to an overseas colony of it's neighbour, allowing them to become independant, and then sneer at them for the next 200 years*. Who do you think gave America the Statue of Liberty?

Even today, the French military remains one of the best in the world. It is a nuclear power, it has a strong domestic armaments manufacturing base, has top-notch home-grown planes, tanks and ships (including a navy more formidable than the RN). During the 1st Gulf War its troops performed at least equally well as the other troops within the Coalition.

Basically, France's sins are:

1) Could not stand up to Germany in 1940 (when nobody else could either)
2) Chose not to join in Gulf War 2

:roll:


* Not all Americans, obviously.

 

This is a picture of the French Military Cemetary at Kapelle (in the Netherlands).
It's a memorial for the French soldiers that died in the Netherlands between May 1940 - May 1945.



I wonder why those guys died over there if France didn't "use" them?
They died for My country not even their own! Remember that (for maybe one day you may lie on such grave!)!

 

So,the world is in so grave danger... I'd like to know if the Iraqi, Iranian etc war machines are(or were...) so formidable to impose their might upon Europe...



A small parenthesis

Agreed Ricky, but a small correction;

Constantinople already had a University by the 9th century AD and so did the Muslim states of Spain, Morocco (IIRC 9th century) and Egypt(10th century). Those types of universities--especially that of Constantinople--were functioning in a way closer to our contemporary ones.

[/quote]

 

Fair point, I was being very Europe-Centric.

 

You're 16. Your sum life experience is just about null. I wouldn't be so quick to "talk trash" to people who have seen more, and done more, than you, when your overall knowledge is limited to books.

what the?

Just because your 16 doesn't mean your an ignorant dumb ass..

I'm also 16 and planning to join the military, but age really shouldn't play that much of a role and degrading some one because of age is EVEN less mature.

True some 16 year olds might be ignorant but generalizing everyone is kinda hypocritical.

Ome_Joop I hope Americans have a fancy cemetery like that because we also helped liberate your country

(I'm not defending his attacks on France, just the comment about inferior age means inferior mind)