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HenryMc
4:13 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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Massively chippy people.
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Scraper
2:37 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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The French soldiers of WW1 initially looked exactly like Napoleon era horsemen. Brightly peacock coloured, perfect targets. They were in for a bit of a shock when they encountered a modern kraut army.
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Far Cough
2:31 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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Yes, good old Sir Larry
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neilalex
2:31 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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Oh I'd agree FC, its nothing that didn't happen many times elsewhere, and would have been commonplace on the Eastern front. The impact comes from the fact that the whole thing is frozen in time, and the people and events are so well remembered and documented in word and photograph, that they become very real to you. Then there is the village graveyard, where these people who have become real to you are buried, with virtually all the graves showing the same date of death as 10th June 1944.
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Gavros
2:27 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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Far Cough 2:23 Fri Aug 29
Partly at least because Ourador is featured in the opening scene in the defining programme on history of the war.
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Far Cough
2:26 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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*Oradour
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Far Cough
2:23 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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Absolutely terrible what happened in Ourador but no more tragic than countless towns and villages in Soviet Russia which for some reason doesn't get quite the same feeling?
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neilalex
2:20 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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On a different note, in the sense that its anti war, I visited Oradour sur Glane last year. If you get the chance, you should go, it's a very moving place, and a quite brilliant and fitting idea to leave it completely intact as a memorial.
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Crassus
2:14 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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Bloodlines to Denmark.....
Denmark were the Vikings fags, now they really were the kiddies. Right tough fuckers and mobile too.
When you see the Ukrainians on TV with blond hair and blue eyes, all very Ayrian, thats down to the vikings. All over the shop they were.
Greenland, possibly North America too, across to the Baltic states, down to Constantinople and right through the Med and up to Iceland - proper lads and game with it.
In fact, they went to Jerusalem on a mission prior to any formal crusades, fascinating lot with considerably more about them than the rucking side.
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Serious Drinking
2:08 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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Historically, the Normans were double hard bastards really. I believe their bloodline started in Denmark, though they were assimilated French I suppose.
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Annony
2:06 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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Alright,alright but he did have a heart of a lion.
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White Pony
2:05 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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Richard the Lionheart was anything but. He was in reality a cowardly man who hated England.
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Gavros
1:54 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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All this "the French are all wimps" is just utter bollocks. The French had the best army in Europe for a good couple of hundred years, and under Napoleon did a better job of trying to take over Europe than the Nazis ever did. They were as good soldiers in the first world war as anyone else, and in the second world war, thanks to relative underinvestment and a failure to keep up with battlefield tactics, were rolled over by the Germans, just like everyone else, including the British, and definitely including any hypothetical American fighting force. The Channel saved us and allowed us the time to catch up with the Nazis. The French didnt have that luck. post-war, France has maintained a solid military capability that has allowed for force projection on a number of occasions, something that only the British can also do in Europe. As noted before, it has taken a tough line against Islamists abroad militarily, and has done about a million times more than we have to fight the Islamist threat at home.
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Crassus
1:48 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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Fine place France, down here right know as it goes
Pleasant people, great food, countryside, buildings, wine etc
Total Charlie of a president but then again they have had a few over the years. Politically I find them a conundrum, from cheese eating surrender monkeys on issues that you imagine would get a rise, to prancing cockerels impervious to world opinion on others.
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Far Cough
1:44 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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The Vikings started to raid the Seine Valley during the middle of 9th century. After attacking and destroying monasteries, including one at Jumièges, they took advantage of the power vacuum created by the disintegration of Charlemagne's empire to take northern France. The fiefdom of Normandy was created for the Norwegian/Danish Viking leader Hrolf Ragnvaldsson, or Rollo (also known as Robert of Normandy). Rollo had besieged Paris but in 911 entered vassalage to the king of the West Franks, Charles the Simple, through the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. In exchange for his homage and fealty, Rollo legally gained the territory which he and his Viking allies had previously conquered. The name "Normandy" reflects Rollo's Viking (i.e. "Northman") origins.
The descendants of Rollo and his followers adopted the local Gallo-Romance language and intermarried with the area's original inhabitants. They became the Normans – a Norman-speaking mixture of Scandinavians, Hiberno-Norse, Orcadians, Anglo-Danish, Saxons and indigenous Franks and Gauls.
Rollo's descendant William, Duke of Normandy, became king of England in 1066 in the Norman Conquest culminating at the Battle of Hastings, while retaining the fiefdom of Normandy for himself and his descendants.
Yes you're right, no Scandies there at all?
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Nurse Ratched
1:41 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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Feck sake, Swiss, we're just larking about.
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Swiss.
1:40 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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The Normans get their name from Norseman who were the rulers but but scandies didn't migrate there. So basically they were french hence the language. The territories fought over in france were more of family fueding where the Kings used their 2nd class saxon peasants to fight.
People on here need to get a reality check.
For example Richard the Lionheart an English 'hero' spent most of his life in france.
When I hear this anti French stuff it sounds a lot like the moaning Scots attitude towards the English.
Chips on shoulders etc.
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Admiral Lard
1:31 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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Or buggered by the cook and very probably, both!
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Nurse Ratched
1:20 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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*chuckles*
If you had been a matelot in charge of a French naval vessel, you would have been awarded the legion d'honneur.
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Admiral Lard
1:17 Fri Aug 29
Re: France
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Sailed round Cape Trafalgar in a Ton Class Minesweeper during a Force 11, took 36 hours to make the 40 NMs to Gib.
My 2 wheel house oppos were puking like a couple of stagnight virgins so I stuck one on the wheel and went up to the Bridge to find the Jimmy over one side the Skipper over the other howling at the great basin below.
I was, for a very brief period, in command of a Royal Navy vessel..... Didn't get a bloody medal mind...
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