France...yet another post!

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He, he, yes that is true, but Calivn was the responsible for the presbyterian/baptist branch of the protestant church. In Switzerland, we're presbyterians, not lutherans.

(reformiert, nicht evangelisch)

That is, if someone lives on the mountains, than he's propably catholic (like me), because rumours about protestantism haven't reached far away places.

 

@ Ruler of the known universe

Could you explain exactly what kind of bad thing France did in WW 1/2, other than lose their country rather quick ?

 

Oh sure pac man thats easy. Well maybe not WW1 oh yes WW1 as well. End of WW1 1918 treaty of versailles, the french demanded hard terms on the germany which lead to the start of WW2. With a great amount of help from USA they caused they most destructive war ever to be seen (sofar) on this planet.

But no one has yet answered my question.
What do people have against France?

 

Not quite true, French have proven that they are ruthless when they want to defend or to promote their interests. Remember "Rainbow Warrior"?

They were responsible for the terms of the Versailles treaty, which led to WWW2. Also thousands French volunteers joined the Waffen SS. Of course, they were not the only ones, thousands foreigners joined the Waffen SS, but the French divisions ("Wallonien" and "Charlemagne" if I remember right)were the ones that had an excellent combat performance.

 

That's what a lot of people in the occupied territories did. Not only the French, I think they were on a normal scale. Than people were concscripted too. And the impact of the French is mainly due to the fact, that it is still one of the bigger European countries. The Dutch did the same, but as there are fewer Dutch, there numbers accordingly were smaller. As far as I know, from the Western countries, I really really respect the Danish, how they handled their occupation.

Concerning the Nazis. In my opinion, they left a giantic wound all over Europe, involving every country, because in every country, even in mine and not excluding the Island on the west coast, some form of collobaration happened.

Edit:
Conscription acutally is one of the main problems -> The Germans and the French traditionally fought about the land at the frontier between them. Elsace-Lorraine and Saarland (Maybe even more). After the fall of France, Germany declared the people living there as "Germans", which forced them to joing the Army (conscription). Some of them volunteered, some of them resisted and were killed. That's the reason, why in Strassbourg, capitol of Elsace-Lorraine, now are so many EU-buildings, the people there were either victims of the French or of the Germans. War-memorials are special in this region too, in France, they're normally soldiers in French uniforms, in Elsace-Lorraine, their naked men, because in every war between Germany and France, they were split in two and were attacked by both sides. And in this region, the death toll was always the highest.

Concerning the Versailles-treaty. Not only the French are to blame. Other countries, mainly Britain, had a huge anti German following too, most prominent-> Winston Churchill.

BOC, maybe we disagree in responsibility for the Versailles-treaty, but I agree, this treaty was one of the main causes for the rise of the nazis.

[ May 06, 2003, 13:09: Message edited by: Yago ]

 

Yago

I'm not talking about numbers but about combat performance. The french and the scandinavian volunteers divisions are the only ones that can be considered of equal combat value with the elite german formations. What I'm trying to say is that the french volunteers fought more fiercely compared to the volunteers from others european nations.

As for the Versailles treaty, I don't think that we disagree. The British are responsible as well, but don't forget, that Germany was the archenemy of France and that the French were the ones who occupied german territory for almost 15 years after the end of WW1.

Edit:
I just saw the paragraph you added to your post. The French Waffen SS were not considered German and that's why they belonged to SS and not to Wehrmacht since Reich's legislation didn't allow foreigners to join Wehrmacht. They wore the german uniform but they had the french flag in their arm.

[ May 06, 2003, 13:06: Message edited by: BOC ]

 

BOC, oops, I maybe have interpreted your post a little bit wrongly. Well, than we agree.

I can't answer that. I don't dislike them more than Germans, Austrians and Italians. Or in other words, I equally dislike all our neighbouring countries.

 

My personal hero!

 

Sorry, Yago, I did not mean to take credit away from your homeland for a thinker and writer who could stand up to the likes of Voltaire. I remember reading his letters to V. in college and was impressed, but that has been some years. That explains why I did not do well in that class.

 

BOC
How could i not remember the rainbow, well actully i don't remember it, it was before my time, but every one who any one here knows of it. It happened just down the bloody road from where i live (well really an 8 hour drive). But blowing up one ship is nothing at all compared to what the people from USA have done, and most other countries for that matter.

 

Ruler of the known universe

Rainbow Warrior is just the top of the iceberg. In 1972 French warships rammed Greenpeace ship Vega in Mururoa and the following year another Greenpeace Ship, Fri, was boarded and its crew was retained by French commandos. Also, think the reasons for these incidents. The nuclear tests in Mururoa, which the French did without caring about their concequences for the people of the surrounding islands, prove that French are not less evil or good than USA or any other country.

 

you learn a new thing every day, or so they say.
But i still think that is nothing at all compared to what the USA have done. For example in Cenral Amarica, i did a research thing on this just two months ago. Some of the stuff i found ... well i wont get into to much detail but lets say it made me write the BEST speech i have ever writen. By the end i had the whole class so shocked that they didn't say a thing once i finished (prehaps it could have been just me). IF you want any more details on this go to the new internationist web site (i think it was them).

 

The French Revolution was in-part based on the concepts developed in the early United States.

The second part is the fact that the French Government was bankrupt and overtaxing the peasants. Some of the financial problems arose over the money invested in the American Revolution. The rather extravolent lifestyle that the aristocrats contributed as well.

I can't remember the name, but King Louie #-something called an immergancy meeting of a government body to resolve the problem. If I remember my history, the body hadn't met in well over a hundred years.

But, anyway, France did do an excellent job purging Europe of many Monarch and Tyrants.

 

Yes, and the American revolution was influenced by the ideas of Montesquieu (as well as by taxes on tea, seems that taxes do piss people off).

For the record:
The king was Louis 16 (lost his head later), in 1789 he called for a meeting of "Les Etats Généraux" (not sure how to translate that) which last met in 1614 during the regency of Marie de Médicis.

 

Ruler of the Known Universe: Guatamala, San Salvador or Nicaragua ?

At Blackthorn:
[Hey don't direct that at me; I didn't say the following quote! - BTA]

That is not so true. Well, there is something to it, but as Chandos the Red cited Rousseau and Oxymore Montesquieu, the American Revolution and the French Revolution based both mainly on ideas which were laid out in a theoretical way in books before (by more people than the two cited). There are huge similarities, which can be explained:

A: There was correspondence going on over the Atlantic.

B: The most important part: Both had the same theoretical background and theoretical agreement -> Both aimed at a "Roman Republic" and a "Greek Democracy".

C: The French Revolution had a lot more success and impact. It went a big leap farther then the American Revolution.

The Differences between the French and the American Revoulition, are the reason that there are so many differences between the USA and Europe. Two very different cultures.

Impact: France (and Prussia) shaped the whole continent of Europe (except maybe that Island)-> Schoolsystem, judicary-system (Code Napoleon and "Rechtsstaat"), the way we think about Goverment. The impact of the 3.5 million Americans of that time is nearly zero.

(I know there were backlashes in both continents, but the foundation was introduced and never ceased to exist -> Like all the Tricolores show, which make a clear link back to Frane)

There are a lot of differences, but the main difference is equality and human rights.

The French declared human rights are are valid always and forever -> The Americans used it to legitimze there revolution, and then dropped it. -> Slavery and race segragation is not possible, when Human rights exist.

Equality -> Equal protection of the laws was only introduced in the 14 Amendment of the US, the French had it from the beginning.

Universal Suffrage. The Americans introduced one man, one vote only about 1900. A lot of European countries did that earlier than the Americans. (We did 1798, the French redid it 1848, when Germany came into existence 1871, it had it from the beginning).

Again, the differences between the American and French Revolution are the reason for the main differences between the USA and Europe today. We just have a different concept, how "Democracy" should be.

[ May 07, 2003, 17:01: Message edited by: Blackthorne TA ]

 

That's off MSNBC. I dunno if it's true. Time will probably tell. But, man. If it's true, this seriously changes the equation. Completely.

For the past 50 years, France just hasn't really been all that important. And they're pissed that they aren't. But there is a point at where you are no longer neutral...

 

Ooops, sorry BTA. Youre name is just so short, that's very comfortable to write it. But it was my mistake, sorry.

Another great thing from the French: The metric system

http://www.essex1.com/people/speer/metric.html
http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/metric.html

 

Forget freedom fries call them French Fries why? Because the French hate that word because they did not invent it and don’t get them started on French toast because when Disneyland of France opened up the French government made them Change the name to just Egg toast and fries because they like their words pure…..

 

My own two cents to the French revolution issue:

Ideals? It was very idealistically aimed to take the power from aristocracy and give it to the citizenry, possibly decreasing the King's competences. Later on, the Jacobins intended something close to general equality, after killing out the nobility and several wealthier merchants of course, but were only speaking much about freedom and sometimes not even that. The Jacobinic constitution was suspended immediately when passed and it never was the law. Then, the directoriate period's activists were heirs-of-the-line of Girondists and mostly objected on the freedom of trade and equality of business subjects. However, their political supporters only requested several rights and protection thereof and were more interested in business than the actual ruling - to which they weren't really suited, but that's another thing. Here enters Bonaparte, Cambaceres and Lebrun. The newly acquired rights of the bourgeois kept, the nobles allowed to come back safely, but not to reclaim their land, the people given some illusion of democracy - districtal lists, departamental lists, national list 1804 - adieu la revolution, vive l'Empereur . Even Code Civil (originally Code Napoleon) that is supposed to be the most glorious codification of what the revolution had acquired was prepared by a few experts - judges of ancien regime courts (which is a good thing, actually).

 

RotKU wrote:

I answered before, I don't know it. But I have this theory, which makes defend France versus the Americans, every time they bash it. A lot of Americans have a huge contempt versus Europeans in generall. But as Europe is a mosaic of many, rather small nations, it's problematic, to put them all under one bashing-roof.

So, they picked one country out, France. France is a bigger European country, most Americans know something about it. The French language can be recognised and differentiated from other languages, whereas it would be difficult to differentiate between languages like Hungarian and Slovakian. Even more difficult to know something about the history of those countries.

They divided Europeans into "good" ones, a.k.a. Europeans who know their place and act as they should act, mostly the British. And the "bad" ones, the ones who think for themselves and dare to disagree. mostly the French. Underlying is a general contempt versus all Europeans, but Europeans who do as they should do, do not deserve bashing, mainly because they don't even deserve attention. So, in my opinion it is not the country (France = bad, UK = good), but generally Europeans, does not matter at all from which country, which dare to disagree with the history in American history books and do not do as they are told.

That's from another forum, I think this quote is a good example for generall dislike versus Europeans, mostly for practical reasons reduced to (only) "French Bashing".

[ June 02, 2003, 11:29: Message edited by: Yago ]