The French descent into irrelevancy

>Napoleonic Wars
>France is a grand empire. It destroys the Germans easily and is defeated only by an alliance of the rest of Europe led by the hated Anglos.
>World War I
>France is a major empire, though no longer the most powerful in the world. It matches the Germans but cannot defeat them alone. Only by allying with half of Europe and the hated Anglos does it finally defeat Germany.
>World War II
>France is nominally a major empire, but the Germans defeat it in the time it took me to write this sentence. It gains its independence only because the Anglos help it.

French decline after Napoleon is unironically hilarious.

You left out the part where less than 50 years after Napoleon, the French lost the Second Franco-Mexican War. And the time they got smashed in just a few weeks during the Franco-Prussian War.

Also, they didn't really defeat Germany in World War I. Without British intervention, the Germans almost certainly would've taken Paris in 1914. And the Michael Offensive probably would've succeeded in 1918 without the Americans helping France. The Germans won practically every battle against France. The greatest French victory of the war, Verdun, was so costly that it drove them to mutiny.

So, in short, you were overly generous to them, user.

>Without British intervention, the Germans almost certainly would've taken Paris in 1914.
Except that's fucking bullshit because there was barely any British presence on the Western Front before mid 1916.

Why did Euros give up on conquering Europe? Was it the existence of the New World?

Seeing that long line of exclusively blue, white and red headed by Napoleon makes me smile. The madman took on everyone and still almost won.

There were always vague dreams by monarchs of recreating the Roman Empire; which was the closest political entity that united Europe.

Unless you count the EU today, which is way too loose and decentralized to compare to the Romans, but it's still a "united" Europe, just in a different way.

Because life became good enough and weapons dangerous enough that a war would threaten everything worth conquering.

>the French lost the Second Franco-Mexican War.
You mean, they retreated from mexico because the US told them politely but firmly that fighting a war against a peer enemy across an ocean is poor fun?

The French were God-tier at war until the end of the Napoleonic Wars (the one country everyone allied against)

After that they became British-tier (only able to defeat third-world shitholes alone, and needing allies to fight in Europe).

>the French lost the Second Franco-Mexican War.
Not really
They conquered the country, occupied it for years and then withdrew undefeated by the Mexicans, because the US threatened them with war

>Without British intervention, the Germans almost certainly would've taken Paris in 1914.
Absolute bullshit
The Germans advance in 1914 was stopped by the French at the First Marne
The French were basically alone on the Western Front until the British finally got involved significantly in 1916
The French would most definitly have lost by 1917 without Britain, but not in 1914

>A History of France from the Earliest Times to the Treaty of Versailles
Is a good book. Unless you wish to read a flavorless unbiased encyclopedic account of events.

Why is it always France vs everyone else? And they say 'perfidious Albion' when Gaul is clearly the target

all chads died off
Germany did the same but in 50 years.

...

This thread is cancer
Frogs on this board are autistic but bullying them like this is just pathetic
T.bong

they were too equally matched, they could only conquer outward

>the Michael Offensive probably would've succeeded in 1918 without the Americans helping France

The absolute state of /his...

Not all frogs. Some just want an intelligent discussion about medieval anglo-french wars without it turning into a nationalistic revision thread

You can thanks the republic don't ever do the same mistake thoses who still live in a relevant country

This

t.lindy