Posted on 03/31/2002 3:17:14 PM PST by Pokey78
THE French identity is based on an historical nonsense, according to an academic who says that the Gauls were a fiction invented by the Romans and exploited by French revolutionaries after 1789. Christian Goudineau, Professor of History at the respected Collège de France, says in a new book, Par Toutatis, that the Gallic people never existed and that contemporary symbols are figments of the popular imagination. Take, for example, the cock that always accompanies French rugby supporters to Twickenham. M Goudineau claims that the bird is not the Gallic emblem that France believes it to be. In fact, it was an insult thrown at Philippe Auguste, the 12th-century French King, by English scholars who wanted to ridicule him by comparing him to a rooster. According to the book, which debunks the myth that the French are descended from the happy-go-lucky people embodied by Asterix, it was the Romans who did most to falsify French history. The professor, considered to be one of the country’s most eminent historians, says that when the Romans marched into what is today called France they encountered a disparate array of peoples. It was Julius Caesar who gave the name of Gaul to the territories he had conquered, drawing an arbitrary boundary between France and Germany. In their quest for glory, the Romans depicted their enemies as warlike, courageous and uncontrollable, an image that retains its force in France today. Yet many, according to M Goudineau, had done deals with Caesar and put up little or no fight. His book, named after the Celtic god Toutatis, is significant because it attacks the legend that forms the basis of the modern French state. Schoolbooks, for instance, peddled the idea that France was a single geographical and cultural entity. They also perpetuated the widely held belief that the French character derived from two sources: the undisciplined but likeable Gauls and the rational, centralised administration imposed on them by the Romans. Such ideas are false, M Goudineau says, yet they permeate all levels of French society. President Chirac, for example, had accumulated failure upon failure during his term of office, but remained popular because his roots were seen to be deep in the Gallic myth: a healthy appetite for food, alcohol and women, a strong sense of humour and an ability to resist in adversity. Until Caesar, Gaul had been a term used to describe most of continental Europe, from the Atlantic coast to Hungary, according to M Goudineau. Caesar’s version gained credence after the French Revolution, when the country’s leaders sought to unite a nation that had lost the cementing factor of royalty. M Goudineau says that, despite the academic accuracy of his research, his compatriots are unlikely to abandon a myth driven by two centuries of propaganda. He points, for instance, to the untainted halo that hangs over Vercingetorix, the warrior who led a revolt against Caesar in 52BC. To the French, Vercingetorix is a founding father who placed himself at the head of a Gallic army. M Goudineau says that he was the leader of the Arvernes, who were one among a “mosaic of peoples” in what is now France.
--Julius Caesar, Bellum Gallicum1.1.1
The whole of Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, and the third a people who in their own language are called "Celts," but in ours, "Gauls." They all differ among themselves in respect of language, way of life, and laws. (Translated by Carolyn Hammond, Oxford World's Classics)
The Latin word for "a Gaul" was "Gallus," but the word "gallus" also meant rooster.
As for their caving in, just like their descendants in WWII:
1. The French fought a great many wars (probably hundreds) over the last thousand years or so. Of those wars, they were ignominiously defeated in exactly one. They didn't always win, but they always fought bravely. Not a bad record, overall.
2. Caesar, perhaps the greatest military mind leading the most perfectly adapted military machine in history, took eight years (I think) to conquer the Gauls. Of the six million Gauls, at the end of the war perhaps 2,000,000 were dead and another million had been sold into slavery.
So much for ignominious surrender. They were defeated by superior technology and (especially) discipline. Nobody, especially the Romans, ever claimed they weren't brave.
Caesar is very clear that Gaul was not a united nation, but had a multitude of separate, frequently warring tribes. They all spoke related languages and were at least as much a "nation" as were the Greeks of the same era, who thought of themselves as a single people even though they had many separate governments.
Would that be the Franco-Prussian war, or WWII?
I don't think you can fairly call the French performance in the Franco-Prussian War ignominious. Their armies were surrounded and captured due to the incompetence of Napoleon III and his generals. But they raised new armies and fought on bravely for many months, despite the fact that all their professional trained soldiers were captive in enemy hands.
Those who fight bravely but are defeated have nothing to be ashamed of.
Now WWII was an ignominiious defeat, but it is also fair to point out that Britain would have been defeated equally as ignominiously if not for about 12 miles of seawater.
Yeah, right. Then on 9/12 they started critizing American policies. F**k the French.
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