Freedom Fries

Thanks again to the BBC's this day in history feed, I learned that the Battle of Agincourt took place in October. This battle, who is now remembered thanks to Shakespeare's Henry V, allowed England to achieve its maximum expansion in French lands. In some circles, it has been used to mock the French and their seeming inability to win wars, specially when compared to the English and Germans. I was once witness of those jests, and frankly, I thought it was wrong. I don't object the mocking of the French. I guess I don't object the mocking of anyone, specially when they take their nationalities too seriously. I disagreed with this mocking because, in this case, the stereotype does not have the slightest grounding on fact. Is as if they were mocking Italian or Jewish mothers for not being sufficiently protective of their kids: it makes no sense.

This whole prejudice has been based mostly by the disaster of May 1940, when the Germans invaded France. However, except for that event, the French military history is one of the most complex and interesting out there. And for Americans even to mock them, it takes an incredible dose of ingratitude or ignorance.

Let's start first with Agincourt. Yes, it was a French military disaster. However, while they lost that battle of the Hundred Years War, they won the last one, at Castillion. At the start of the war, the English crown controlled about half of modern France; at its end, the French king controlled pretty much all of France. The Hundred Years War, while costly, was a near total victory to the French.

Then, when Charles I of Spain became also Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, France would become surrounded by the hostile Hapsburg powers: to the North, Spanish Flanders (modern Netherlands and Belgium); to the East, the Holy Roman Empire and the Spanish Franche Comte, to the Southwest, the new Spanish superpower. Charles V had the first worldwide empire, with his American, African and Asian possessions (with Phillip II, the Portuguese and Spanish crown would be briefly united, giving the Hapsburgs their colonies as well).

France would then follow a policy for self preservation that would eventually take them to European supremacy. While the kings were Catholic, they fueled the Protestant revolts in the Holy Roman Empire, undermining the Austrians. Ironically, this policy was advocated and implemented by two French princes of the Catholic Church (or Cardinals): Cardinal Mazarin and Cardinal Richelieu. Cardinal Richelieu would be the one to coin the term raison d'etat to justify these policies.

As a side note, while helping Protestants abroad, Cardinal Richelieu crushed the Huguenots, French Calvinists, at home. Their main stronghold, La Rochelle, fell in spite of help from the English. Many Huguenots would emigrate to the English American colonies and found the city of New Rochelle, in New York, where I live.

Coming back to the French, they consistently made war with the Spanish, weakening them. They even supported the Turks, a non-Christian nation, to further their European ambitions. Eventually, Spain, after fighting their Eighty Years War, which ended with the independence of their northern Flanders provinces (the new Dutch Republic), stopped being their menace. France had become the prevalent power in Europe. All the courts of Europe would speak French. And, in came the most magnificent despot history ever knew: His Most Christian Majesty, Louis XIV, King of France and Navarre, the Sun King.

The builder of Versailles was the best example of the enlightened despot. Great patrons of the arts, but absolute in power and believer on the divine rights of the monarch. During his reign, a totally fortuitous event would insure French supremacy for years to come. In Spain, Charles II, the mentally retarded king, died without an heir. The natural heir was the son of Maria Teresa of Spain: Louis the Grand Dauphin, the son of Louis XIV, and heir to the throne of France. This would have meant the union of the crowns of Spain and France. The first one in decadence, but with the largest ultramarine empire; the second one, the most populous and powerful country in Europe. Naturally, this was something that the rest of Europe could not accept, lest they all became eventually French subjects. Therefore, the first real worldwide conflict happened: the War of Spanish Succession.

While the war prevented the union, it did show that France would then, from then onwards, be the supreme power in Europe, and thus the world. Spain would be under the rule of the French royal family, the Bourbons. To this day, the kings of Spain bear that family name.

The French, as the most important continental power, had to have a large standing army. As a sign of that power, Versailles, the seat of the French kings, was built without military defenses. No foreign army was to get there. Louis XIV never thought that it would not be an army, but a Parisian mob, one that would breach his precious palace, kidnap the royal family, and eventually kill them all.

Anyway, in 1778, the English were confronting this revolt in their American colonies. Benjamin Franklin convinced Louis XVI to give the rebels support. France's intervention made the United States of America's existence possible. What greater gift than that one? Since then, the US has had in France their longest friendship. With the British, while they share the language, they went to war again in 1812; and if they hadn't passed a naval limitations treaty, they might have had another one between the 2 world wars.

The French would then kill their royal family and become the first communist state. The French Revolutionary Wars would start after that. Fortunately for the French, (1) they would win that war and (2) the communist (or Jacobin) terror, aptly called "The Terror", ended by the beheading of the mastermind of that insanity: Maximilien de Robespierre. The short and happy interbellum, the Directory years, ended with the rise of Napoleon, and then the Napoleonic Wars would ensue. In 1805, after the defeat in Trafalgar, Napoleon then knew that defending the French massive possessions in America would no longer be possible. Rather than surrendering them to the British, whom he hated, he sold them to the Americans. Thus happened the Louisiana Purchase.

So, no freedom fries for me. Give me the French version (even though they are originally from Belgium). When mocking the French, mention the stupidity of headbutting an opponent in front of a referee during the World Cup final match. But, don't call them surrender monkeys.