James thanks for your empathy,
though I am trying to bring some complements, Since Napoleon’s wars, (that foreign people know the most, I suppose because Napoleon was a big threat to the Anglo-Saxons 
) France made her important colonial conquests (so did the Brits) ; in between, there was Crimea war, that we won, the Brits were our alliees in that one, but were soon overwhelmed with deseases, their unprepared bataillons were eliminated in front of Russians guerillas, while ours benefited from the later conquest wars in north Africa, could achieve the job.
WW1 won, WW2 won (ok, not alone, but without our resistance, none of the Alliees could have made it) Algeria war won, (ok, Algeria got her independance, due to the referandum, when 70 % of the french population voted for the abandon of Algeria)
