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France actually conquered almost all of Europe. During the Napoleonic era they were one of, if not the strongest military force on earth. Prior to that, they saved our backs in the revolution.

While there military pride as of late does not exactly pay testimony to that, its fairly simple.

Ww1 took its toll on france hard.Unlike the Germany though, they were not able to rebound so fast, when ww2 came around, they were practically defenseless. And when the nazis took out the main body of militatry, free french resistance forces led by de Gaulle actually fought very gallantly

Ill hate on the french as much as the next guy, but ill always give credit where its due...