Speaking of the Hundred Years' War lasting...116 years, one of my history teachers in school was very pro-English and anti-French, and because I was extremely contrary, I would naturally argue the opposite position. One day, after school, we had this exchange:
Teacher: The French were so weaksauce they needed a sixteen-year-old girl to lead them! Me: She was sevent--wait a minute. The English were so weaksauce they got their butts kicked by a sixteen-year-old French girl! Teacher: Don't you have a bus to catch? Me: They ran when they saw her coming! Teacher: Your bus is leaving soon, Mildred!
I say I won that exchange. :P
So yes, I'm in favor of the English needing a reason for why the Germans didn't get their butts kicked by a French teenage girl. ;)
Note: we don't actually know how old Joan of Arc was; like many peasants, she didn't know herself, and she made her best guess at her trial. Young, anyway!
I applaude your debate skills, and you definitely won that exchange!
I once read an (US) book on history as present in the movies, and in one chapter, the author muses on the weirdness of "the same noble English you root for when watching Henry V are the guys you root against not twenty years later in just about any adoption of the Joan of Arc story".
(Well, not La Pucelle, one assumes. BTW, I read in one of the biographies that Voltaire wrote an essay to make it clear he actually respects and admires historical Jeanne, he just had to have a go on the way her legend is used, and I get that, given in Voltaire's day as well as in ours hte most bigoted and nationalistic crowd abuses Joan as a symbol. She and Fritz have Worst Fanboys in common.)
But the English hang-up about the French is really weird. When it's not "rarr rarr Agincourt!" it's "Waterloo!" (presented as a Wellington solo effort, which, see above), or "OMG you surrendered and we stood firm in WWII".
Meanwhile, yours truly: hang on, guys. First you were conquered by Normans. Then you had Angevins ruling you for the next two centuries. Then it was a Welshman majorly supported by French-Breton troops who won at Bosworth. After the Tudors, you got the Stuarts, and as Charles II, one of the few charming ones, put it in "Horrible Histories", "I'm Scottish-French-Italian, a little bit Dane"... Then there was the Dutch interlude. (Statement by Dutch person I know: That time the Netherlands concquered Britain, and no one but a bunch of Northern Irish fundies ever remembers!)
And then we exported the Hannovers to you. As I was reminded just a few months ago, E2's father was the first King of England since the Georges arrived who actually did not marry another German (or Dane, in one case). So, about that unconquered island....
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Johnsonia
Date: 2021-02-28 06:01 pm (UTC)Teacher: The French were so weaksauce they needed a sixteen-year-old girl to lead them!
Me: She was sevent--wait a minute. The English were so weaksauce they got their butts kicked by a sixteen-year-old French girl!
Teacher: Don't you have a bus to catch?
Me: They ran when they saw her coming!
Teacher: Your bus is leaving soon, Mildred!
I say I won that exchange. :P
So yes, I'm in favor of the English needing a reason for why the Germans didn't get their butts kicked by a French teenage girl. ;)
Note: we don't actually know how old Joan of Arc was; like many peasants, she didn't know herself, and she made her best guess at her trial. Young, anyway!
Re: Johnsonia
Date: 2021-02-28 06:17 pm (UTC)I once read an (US) book on history as present in the movies, and in one chapter, the author muses on the weirdness of "the same noble English you root for when watching Henry V are the guys you root against not twenty years later in just about any adoption of the Joan of Arc story".
(Well, not La Pucelle, one assumes. BTW, I read in one of the biographies that Voltaire wrote an essay to make it clear he actually respects and admires historical Jeanne, he just had to have a go on the way her legend is used, and I get that, given in Voltaire's day as well as in ours hte most bigoted and nationalistic crowd abuses Joan as a symbol. She and Fritz have Worst Fanboys in common.)
But the English hang-up about the French is really weird. When it's not "rarr rarr Agincourt!" it's "Waterloo!" (presented as a Wellington solo effort, which, see above), or "OMG you surrendered and we stood firm in WWII".
Meanwhile, yours truly: hang on, guys. First you were conquered by Normans. Then you had Angevins ruling you for the next two centuries. Then it was a Welshman majorly supported by French-Breton troops who won at Bosworth. After the Tudors, you got the Stuarts, and as Charles II, one of the few charming ones, put it in "Horrible Histories", "I'm Scottish-French-Italian, a little bit Dane"...
Then there was the Dutch interlude.
(Statement by Dutch person I know: That time the Netherlands concquered Britain, and no one but a bunch of Northern Irish fundies ever remembers!)
And then we exported the Hannovers to you. As I was reminded just a few months ago, E2's father was the first King of England since the Georges arrived who actually did not marry another German (or Dane, in one case). So, about that unconquered island....