Re: HUMOUR> General History of French Warfare

                  Thursday, the 27th of November, 2003

Stainless Steel Streetrat wrote:
  General History of French Warfare
  [...]

Heh, heh, heh. I'm sure people've seen this, but if you go to
the google home page and type in "French military victories"
and click the I'm Feeling Lucky button, you will come upon a funny.

One comment: In the War of the American Revolution,
one of the important battles was the Battle of the Saints
on the 12th of April 1782. The last important battle on American soil
being
Yorktown in the Fall of 1781. What was the Battle of the
Saints and why was it important? Well, it was a naval battle
around the south Caribbean (Windward) Islands known as "The 
Saints". The wonderful, wonderful Nobel-prize winning poet, 
Derek Walcott, is from the island of St. Lucia, and you will
find plentiful allusion to this bit of local history in
his work. Anyway, the two opposing admirals were George Rodney 
for the British and the Comte de Grasse for the French. The Comte 
de Grasses was the singular phenomenon of a victorious French 
naval commander against the British at the Cheasapeake Capes 
(which enabled Washington to trap Cornwallis at Yorktown). Anyway, 
in the Battle of the Saints, Rodney defeated de Grasse handily, 
capturing seven French ships, and preventing a French invasion of
Jamaica. So, why was this important? Well, it was the face-saving
victory
that the British needed in order to sign off on the peace treaty
that ended the war. I.e., the French losing that battle was important
to the US being able to walk away with its independence acknowledged
by the British.

          Mike Morris
       ([EMAIL PROTECTED])