Douglas Turnbull of the Beauty of Gray on the French Revolution:
Under Louis XIV, the French were in a dominant strategic position, with an overwhelming force advantage and facing a fractious coalition of England, the Netherlands, and the Empire. Yet they were defeated so frequently and decisively by smaller English armies under Marlborough that the French generals were terrified to take the field against him. Decades of fighting on the part of the huge French army brought little except ruinous debt to the French crown. The economic drain of these futile aggrandizing wars, combined with Louis XIV’s policy of destroying the independent power of the nobility, set the stage for the French Revolution where the French introduced totalitarian tyranny to the world, and followed it up with another destructive attempt to conquer Europe. Thanks for everything, France.
and on the Post WWII French military:
De Gaulle then set the pattern for French policy since then, bringing the allies a fancy uniform, a huge ego, no army, and a big mouth filled with the demand for equal treatment.
and on the French and Palestine:
And don’t get me started on French foreign policy. You’d think the country responsible for 40 years of brutal civil war in Algeria would shut the hell up when it comes to Israel and Palestine, but France brings a unique measure of arrogance to the table to combine with their incompetence, and don’t let their own all too obvious failings get in the way of their strenuous efforts to tell everyone else how to run their own affairs. Of course, Algeria is not alone-there’s a strong pattern of devastation left in the wake of French and Belgian colonialism that contrasts with British and US former colonies. Algeria, the Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, Lebanon, Cambodia and Vietnam, all enjoyed the mismanagement, tyranny, and civil wars that were the fruits of French and Belgian mismanagement.
Go read the whole thing- although I warn you to try not to drink anything while reading it- you will end up washing your monitor.