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Yeah, that's right - only the seminal turning point in British history...

The Normans were of Viking stock. The Kingdom of France at that time was further south and west. So no, we didn't loose to the French. In fact, one of William the Conqueror's reasons for wanting to add England to his posessions was to expand the resources available to him to fight the French.

You're quibbling... true enough that the Normans were not descendants of the Carolingian Franks, but they were in fact from Normandy. Linguistically and in many ways culturally, they shared more in common with the true Franks than with Scandinavians.

The point that the key reason for the Conquest was to support William's wars against the Kingdom of France stands - and those wars continued throughout the reigns of the Norman and Angevin kings and into the middle Tudor period. Regardless of their lingusitic and cultural background, they had a track record of not getting on well with their Carolingian neighbours.

And yes, I am quibbling, but the number of exceptions to the "cheese-eating surrender monkey" rule strongly suggests that that's quibbling as well.

American Revolution - Yorktown
In a move that will become quite familiar to future Americans, France claims a win even though the English colonists saw far more action. This is later known as "de Gaulle Syndrome", and leads to the Second Rule of French Warfare; "France only wins when America does most of the fighting."

And the Normans were not French. Whether or not they shared the linguistics or even some culture, they were not French. Just as the British are not American - just because some British moved to America a few hundred years back, and they share some culture and speak the same language, does not make us American.

Yorktown was really won by Admiral De Grasse at the Battle of the Chesapeake (or the Virginia Capes). By fighting the Royal Navy to a standstill (and thus forcing them to withdraw north to resupply), he prevented resupply or evacuation of Conwallis' army and forced British acceptance of the revolution.

We did get out own back through - a year later Rodney destroyed De Grasse's fleet at the Battle of the Saintes, incidentally introducing the tactic of breaking the enemy line, a tactic that would become almost the Royal Navy's SOP, most famously at Trafalgar.

Captain Seafort wrote:the number of exceptions to the "cheese-eating surrender monkey" rule strongly suggests that that's quibbling as well.

I don't know exactly who began to speak about French military puissance here, but I always presumed it referred to 20th century exploits - maybe even going back to the Franco-Prussian War. In that context, the stereotype holds up - even though we all know stereotypes are evil and to be avoided, right?

Before that, they had the Napoleonic carabiniers, the grenadiers/the petard, etc., tracing military innovation all the way back to the francisca. After that, though, we get the Maginot Line. "Nuff said about htat.

And by your and Thorin's definition, I am Polish and Galician rather than American. But it doesn't work that way.

Mikey wrote:And by your and Thorin's definition, I am Polish and Galician rather than American. But it doesn't work that way.

Do you live separately to Americans, call yourself Polish, grown up in a Polish environment (whether or not you lived there), share mostly in the cultures of the Polish?

If your answer is yes to all of these, then I would call you Polish.

Mikey wrote:And by your and Thorin's definition, I am Polish and Galician rather than American. But it doesn't work that way.

At the time the concept of the nation state hadn't really developed - England was probably the closest to it, but the continentals were following feudalism, with the concept of a federal Christendom, where all land theoretically belonged to the Pope, who leased it to the Holy Roman Emperor, who leased it to his underling, who leased it to theirs, etc, etc. The relationship between France and Normandy was something of a mish-mash of fellow Christians, rival underlings, and overload to underling. Very complicated.

That was what I was going to say - at the time it was more the matter of personal loyalty to a lord than to a nation.

Please - I very well understand manorial economics and feudal politics. I brought this up in response to a claim about the nationality of the Normans, and to tell you the truth, I was just trying to have a little fun with Captain Seafort after his little dig about Yorktown.

However:

Thorin wrote:Do you live separately to Americans, call yourself Polish, grown up in a Polish environment (whether or not you lived there), share mostly in the cultures of the Polish?

No, I live with Americans, call myself American, have grown up in an American environment, and share mostly in the cultures of America - AS DID THE NORMANS WITH GALLIC CULTURE - NOT SCANDINAVIAN! Thank you for exemplifying my point for me.

WOW!

I really sparked something here didn't I.
All I said was the Brits lost to the French.
Is that really so bad for England!

thats weird mikey, i'm actually in the process of painting a 54mm napoleonic french carabinier, trying to construct a diorama of the Berezina river crossing, using epoxy resin and varnish for the ice

That must be where the vibrations in my brain came from.