"The Black Monk" wrote in message
om...
"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...
"The Black Monk" wrote in message
om...
"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
ink.net...
"The Black Monk" wrote in message
om...

He means the Franco-Prussian war.


That's one. What are the other two?

France was defeated by Germany in WWII (despite putting up a fight
that was more heroic than the Americans had done in 100 years).


Hardly, the US Civil war had only happened 50 years previously
and the cost to the US in terms of losses as a percentage of
population far higher than France sustained in 1940.

I meant the last 100 years, prior to today. It was my lack of clarity
here though.


In which case the heroic defence of Bastogne by the US airborne
forces has to be counted as does the massive defeat inflicted
by Patton's army in the breakout from Normandy

Lets not forget either the courage and doggedness the USMC
showed at Guadalcanal , Tarawa and a dozen other islands
when fighting a determined enemy unafraid of death.

Indeed one hesitates to call the French defence heroic,
individual French units certainly fought heroically and noone
doubts the courage of the french soldier but the
army, as a result of poor organisation and leadership,
did not put up a good performance.

I differentiate heroism from organization and leadership. Poland's
forces were well organized on the "platoon" level, but in general were
extremely poorly organized (mobilization, for example, was a
tragicomic mess). Yet the Poles may have been the most heroic army in
World War II.


We are talking of the French not the poles and for the most part
the French army was not especially well organised even at platoon level.

Keith