I was curious, I've always heard about the historic military superiority of England and their many successes...

For France

This is less impressive for France though. They had 4x the population of England.

French didn't have a moat to protect them from their enemies though so it balances out.

No it doesn't. England still held continental possessions, further more, the French Navy was almost as strong as the English one.

France held countless advantages over England.

They were still outnumbered in most of those wars though, due to facing colaitions of big countries
For France, facing such coalitions equated to what fighting a 1vs1 war against France, Spain or the HRE would for Britain
And guess what?
While France had the guts to face these coalitions, Britain never had the guts to 1vs1 one of these countries in a war

>Countries
>Having Guts
Real life is not polandball. A Country is simply a culture and border of people, not a person.

>They were still outnumbered in most of those wars though, due to facing colaitions of big countries
Nope. France had twice the population of Spain, and slightly larger population than the HRE until the 1800's.

But i'd just like to add your 'guts' comment is so retarded it actually made me wince. War is not pretty. If you can fight it with allies, you always do.

>They were still outnumbered
The funny thing is that they really weren't

>Nope. France had twice the population of Spain, and slightly larger population than the HRE until the 1800's.

And now take in account the fact that most of these coalitions comprised Spain + the HRE (a combination which is already above France in term of population according to what you just said) + a few other countries
Retarded bong

Great argument
You sure showed him

Except the HRE was not a singular entity. states did not always join wars. It stopped EVER fighting as a united force after the reformation and began fighting within itself.

France outnumbered its enemies in 4/5 of its wars.

>Except the HRE was not a singular entity. states did not always join wars. It stopped EVER fighting as a united force after the reformation and began fighting within itself.

The two main HRE entities were Austria and Prussia, and these two countries most often joined together (at least it was the case for the wars depicted in the pic above)
Austria had a pretty big population, and combined with Prussia (which had about the same pop as Britain), they matched the population of France
Now had to that the fact that Spain, Britain...etc were also part of the event, and France is outnumbered

It's also interesting to mention that total population and size of the army wasn't perfectly proportional
France had quite a small army in percentage of total pop (compared to countries like Spain or Prussia that had a much higher percentage of their total pop in their armed forces) and thus often ended up outnumbered even when fighting a colation of countries that barely matched its own total pop when combined together

>and these two countries most often joined together
They joined in a handful of wars.

>Austria had a pretty big population
Only the western areas could really be conscripted without facing uprising or anger. They were also spending huge amounts of time fighting the turks.

>and combined with Prussia (which had about the same pop as Britain), they matched the population of France
Yeah, one on one The HRE matches France in its later stage.

>Now had to that the fact that Spain, Britain...etc were also part of the event, and France is outnumbered
Though you should esentially take Britain out of the equation, as they deliberately kept a smaller army for their population, focusing on Navy instead. The British army also had to defend its interests in India and North America, far more than France had to. At its height, the British army in the 18th century had 96,000 men (across the globe).

France had 320,000 (In France).

>France had quite a small army in percentage of total pop (compared to countries like Spain or Prussia that had a much higher percentage of their total pop in their armed forces) and thus often ended up outnumbered even when fighting a colation of countries that barely matched its own total pop when combined together

Though war isn't fought in a vacuum. The reason why Napoleon's army for example was so effective, was that he could efficiently fight his enemies one by one. When the French DID fight their enemies at once (i.e. Leipzig) they got fucked.

France has only fought Britain, Prussia, Spain and Austria all at the same time without allies twice.

France won the first (War of the First Coalition) for 2 reasons:
>They were the first to really introduce the idea of a standing army built on conscription and could utilize their huge population
>They could take on enemies one by one and could knock them out of the war quickly.

I'm not denying France is fucking amazing at war. The nation has some of the best military tradition ever.

1/2

2/2

Rather, I'm asking you to respect that countries are not boxes of 'Based Warriors' and 'Cowards'. Countries are states in which people live, usually under a single culture, though this is not always true. (i.e the German Empire). Claiming that countries lack 'guts' Is like saying a box of dice lack guts for not always landing sixes. Great people build a nation's history, not the nation itself. Like it or not, Britain and France have huge cultural ties and they're far more similar than either like to admit.

These arguments are silly because they imply countries have human minds and the world is a paradox game. It's not.

> the historic military superiority of England
england was never a major land power, it had naval power and a fuckton of money

so like trafalgar and the battle of the nile

>When the French DID fight their enemies at once (i.e. Leipzig) they got fucked

Nice cherrypicking from the very end after the French army had died in winter
Austerlirz also saw Napoleon fight his enemies at once and prevail

Russian soldiers were hideously equipped and trained.

Thank you friendo. It is not often I get to read a well thought out and intelligent response on Veeky Forums. So again, I say thank you. People like you are why I come and lurk on this train wreck of a board.

>England
So are you talking about England or Britain/UK?

There are examples of England winning wars by itself, i.e. France, Scotland, Spain. Yet as centuries passed, politics and warfare and thus alliances became more and more common.

>There are examples of England winning wars by itself, i.e. France, Scotland, Spain.

Against Scotland maybe, but against France and Spain?
Care to give one exemple?

>I've always heard about the historic military superiority of England
Is this actually a thing people say?

England never once won a war on its own against a European power, in fact since getting humiliated against medieval France it never again even attempted to fight one.

England's strong point has always been trade and finance, certainly not warfare.

lel this sums it up pretty well.

A big part of winning a war and keeping hold of territories/resources is getting other people to fight along side or (even better) fight the war for you. Less damage and cost to you, especially if the fight took place in someone elses country. Added bonus if you can make them reliant on you through loans to fund the war and by selling arms to them.

But it is a fact. The HRE was incapable of recruiting a sizeable army and Castile had 1/4 of France's population.

>Muh manpower = actual army
Every. Fucking. Time.

>and Castile had 1/4 of France's population.

A good thing they could recruit troops in other parts of Spain as well as in the Low Countries, Germany and Italy then
For a long time, Spain had a bigger army than France despite France having the biggest population in Europe

>Is this actually a thing people say?

Occasionally you hear English muttering in it in an attempt to deny that the UK is nothing more than an America's airbase.

>A good thing they could recruit troops in other parts of Spain as well as in the Low Countries, Germany and Italy then
But they barely could. Aragon's and Navarra's fueros allowed them to send a minuscule force. Naples had Aragon's fueros and the Dutch were in rebellion since the second half of the XVI century. There were more Irish troops than Dutch in the Spanish army.

>manpower = actual army
France was extremelly centralized and had a huge army. They just had outdated tactics from the XV century to the second half of the XVII century

The German possessions were a huge source of manpower though
The Spanish army was full of landsknechts

>were a huge source of mercenaries.
Yeah but for all of Europe. Even France hired German mercenaries

>1654 Anglo-Spanish War.
>First Barons' Revolt

Well they beat the Welsh, Scots and Irish on their own on multiple occasions but I assume you're American and by "English" you mean British.

In which case, no. The British have never had a strong land army, never professed to having a strong land army and never relied on having a strong army to defend itself and expand it's borders. They've always used the help of allies, money, tricks and the navy to achieve those goals.

>1654 Anglo-Spanish War.
England was allied with France
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Spanish_War_(1654–1660)

>First Barons' Revolt
Not a victory
"Return to status quo ante bellum, with some monarchic concessions to the rebellious barons."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barons'_War

>england was never a major land power, it had naval power and a fuckton of money

debatable, it never had a large army, but it was a professional volunteer force for most of its history, this meant that while it had a small army it was a very good army on a unit for unit basis, sometimes managing feats which dumbfounded both its allies and enemies alike as at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Minden#Battle and during the spanish succession the british contingent of the allied army were generally considered by all to be as good or better than the rest of the army

and during the Napoleonic wars the british infantry were generally a match for the french often notably superior

>OUTNUMBERED
LUL pic related frog

And it wasn't the Russian Army that defeated them in the 1812 war.
The French Army post-Russia was in awful condition

>debatable, it never had a large army, but it was a professional volunteer force for most of its history, this meant that while it had a small army it was a very good army on a unit for unit basis
That's a meme invented by the Americans to make their win in the Revolutionary War seem more impressive than it really was
Pre 18th century English army was utter garbage and the 18th century one was really average

>and during the Napoleonic wars the british infantry were generally a match for the french often notably superior
Not really
Despite the fact they fought on what was a secondary theater for the French and were mostly pitted against unexperienced conscripts they outnumbered 80% of the time, they still managed to get stalled for 6 years in Spain and experience many humiliating defeat

The British army doesn't have any particularly impressive history, but they have also always had to play second fiddle to the British navy which has a great history, albeit, not without it's VERY dark moments, most notably getting rekt by the Dutch.

>Napoleonic wars the british infantry were generally a match for the french often notably superior
Not at all. They was never considered good, the British only cared about their Navy - which was superior to the French. The British army was very under trained and undisciplined - Even Wellington hated them. The French army in the Peninsular war was also of far lower quality than the rest of the Grande Armee, it was also severely outnumbered, under supplied and demoralized, but still managed victories over the British. The British typically had numerical superiority. The British only really came close to being a match for the French soldiers when most of them were killed in the 1812 invasion.

Guys?

>French invade England. Get defeated. Return to France.
>Not an English victory.

kek

See Literally a meme invented by American media (The Patriot and similar stuff) to make the victory in the Revolutionary War seems more impressive

You won't find any source from prior to US cultural hegemony stating that British redcoats were superior to the rest of European armies

More like

>English king (who was French btw) is at war with rebel barons
>French invade England and occupy it for 16 months before withdrawing because the war was impopular at home and hippies were fucking shit up
>War ends with English king making huge concessions to barons

Epic win!!!!!!

You can point to America and similarly say 'You won the cold war? Then where is America's example of gigantic military success'.

The reason why the 19th century is known as the 'Victorian' Era is because Britain was so dominant, nobody tried to challenge that position. And if they did, Britain could summon up Concert of Europe to frighten potential challengers away. This, coupled with the fact that Britain's might lay outside of Europe, meant that it could run a beneficial balance of power at low cost. It wasn't the Britain + the empire could dominate all of Europe, it was that Britain + the empire could stop anyone else from dominating it.

For examples, see the Congress of Berlin and the Fashoda Incident for examples of Britain literally scaring the other European powers into submission with no large wars.

>nobody tried to challenge that position

Only because Britain had zero power in Europe and didnt try to have any
The big guys (Germany, Russia...) were fine with Britain taking all the third world shitholes they wanted as long as they didnt meddle in Europe's affairs

>third world shitholes
Literally the two examples I citied are European powers plotting to take away those "third world shitholes" they apparently didn't want. Russia, then Germany, always thought the key to defeating Britain lay in taking India, hence the Congress of Berlin to stop the constant war scares with Russia over Afghanistan (the supposed invasion route into India).

Then the Fashoda Incident was a good old fashioned 'If you French come over here, we are going to mow you down and take your colonies'.

And Britain at the time helped France try to keep central Europe destabilized and with no one big power. Once the center of Europe had become unified under one country, that's when the balance of power became shifty. But before the French got destroyed by the Prussians, and in the period afterwards up to 1914, no single Euro power could do shit to stop Britain doing whatever they wanted.

>Only because Britain had zero power in Europe and didnt try to have any
>The big guys (Germany, Russia...) were fine with Britain taking all the third world shitholes they wanted as long as they didnt meddle in Europe's affairs
pure, dank /int/ horseshit
>"The Great Game" is a term used by historians to describe a political and diplomatic confrontation that existed for most of the nineteenth century between Britain and Russia over Afghanistan and neighbouring territories in Central and Southern Asia. Russia was fearful of British commercial and military inroads into Central Asia, and Britain was fearful of Russia adding "the jewel in the crown", India, to the vast empire that Russia was building in Asia. This resulted in an atmosphere of distrust and the constant threat of war between the two empires.

Plus there's the Scramble for Africa in which Germany colonised Togoland, Cameroon, German East Africa, and German South-West Africa.

We're not talking about the nationality or ancestry of John, we're talking about England and France.

Louise was welcomed by the Barons as a potential replacement for John. The French/Barons have some success at besieging castles until they meet the Royal force in open battle (Lincoln) and are trounced. They lose again at Sandwich and return back to France. Sounds like a defeat to me.

The Barons realise the game is up and start supporting the new King, Henry III.