“Never forget that France lost over a million and a half soldiers in battle in the two World Wars – more than any other Allied nation except Russia, and three times as many as America.”
I’ve always strongly looked down upon using military casualties as a measure of a nation’s effectiveness in or commitment to warfare.
American military doctrine puts a premium on American lives, a view frequently not shared by others. Even during WW2 we put an emphasis on denying the enemy resources and equipment while overwhelming them with our own. The strategic bombing campaign over Europe, for instance did far more to win the war than the body count of airmen would suggest.
So, you say the French lost a lot of people in war, and I look at that as evidence of incompetence more than anything else.
