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1. Gaul vs. Rome
   
   Gauls sacked Rome: BC 387. (Allia river battle)
   
   Diodorus Siculus wrote: "The Gauls flamed into the uncontrollable anger which is characteristic of their race, and set forward, with terrible speed, on the path to Rome. Terrified townships rushed to arms as the avengers went roaring by; men fled from the fields for their lives; and from all the immense host, covering miles of ground with its straggling masses of horses and foot, the cry went up 'To Rome!' . The sheer speed of the Gallic advance was a frightful thing. The air was loud with the dreadful din of the fierce war-songs and discordant shouts of a people whose very life is wild adventure."
   
   The Romans were compelled to pay a ransom so that the Gauls would return Rome to them. When the Romans bitterly complained about the amount as it was being weighed out, Brennus, the victorious Gallic commander, famously threw his sword onto the scales and said "Vae victis !" ("Woe to the defeated !").
   

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2. Gaul vs. Greece & the rest of Europe
   
   Gauls sacked Delphi while heading to Asia Minor: BC 278.
   
   It took 20.000 Gauls only. They crossed over to Asia Minor, in two divisions. The two groups joined, and hired out as mercenaries to Nicomedes I, King of Bithynia, to defeat his younger brother. Nicomedes rewarded them with land in the heart of Asia Minor, now known as Galatia. You'll notice their territory includes the section of Turkey formerly known as Phrygia. The brave Galatians frequently worked as mercenaries in subsequent years, and were hired by Pompey in 64 B.C. Rome relied pretty much on them to win more battles. The Galatians' last king, Amyntas, fought victoriously at Actium, BC 31, on the side of Octavius. After the death of Amyntas, Augustus proclaimed the land of the exported Gauls the Roman province of Galatia. About 75 years later St. Paul wrote his Epistle the Galatians.
   
   In addition to Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Northern Greece & Asia Minor (today's Turkey), the Gauls also conquered Spain & Portugal (Galicia), Great Britain ("Wales" derives from "Gales" as "war" does from "guerre"), Ireland (Halloween was brought there by Gallic conquerors), Germany (Germania Gallica), Northern Italy (Cisalpine Gaul) and most of Poland (Galicia).
   
   As the world-famous French comics Les aventures d'Astérix le Gaulois reminds us, our Gallic ancestors conquered Europe long before the illustrious Napoléon -our Great Emperor- recently repeated this extraordinary feat for which all nations have been envying us so bitterly.

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3. Gallic Emperor of Rome
   
   Marcus Cassianius Latinius Postumus (reign AD 260 - AD 269) was a Gaul from the tribe of the Batavians. When Emperor Valerian was captured by the Persians, his time had come. As Governor Ingenuus and then Regalianus staged unsuccessful revolts in Pannonia (Austria), this took the Emperor to the Danube, leaving Postumus, who was Governor of Upper & Lower Germany, in charge at the Rhine. Postumus' confidence grew as he successfully dealt with German raiding parties and it wasn't long before he fell out with Emperor Gallienus still occupied with the Danubian revolt. Postumus moved on Colonia Agrippina (Cologne) and forced its surrender. The Prefect Silvanus and Saloninus, by now declared Augustus in a vain effort to intimidate Postumus, were put to death. Postumus now declared himself Emperor and was recognised not only by his own German troops but so too by those of Gaul, Spain and Britain - even the province of Raetia sided with him. The new emperor set up a new Roman state, completely independent from Rome, with its own Senate, two annually elected Consuls and its own Praetorian Guard based at their capital of Augusta Trevivorum (Trèves - Trier). Postumus himself should hold the office of Consul five times.

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4. Franks vs Germans
   
   AD 496 : The Battle of Tolbiac was fought between the Franks under the brave Clovis and the Alamanni (German tribe of late antiquity). The site of Tolbiac (Tulpiacum in Latin - Zülpich in German) is located about 60 km east of the present Belgo-German frontier. The Franks were successful as usual, and established their unrivalled hegemony over the Alamanni (Germans) for the centuries to come. Clovis, the Frankish King, is said to have attributed his success to a vow that he had made: if he won, he would convert to the religion of the Christian God who had aided him. He became a Christian in a ceremony at Rheims (a French city where all French kings were sacred) in 496.

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5. France vs Islam
   
   AD 732: Charles Martel, leader of the French, defeated the Arabs as they attacked the Kingdom of France after they had invaded Northern Africa, Portugal & Spain thus threatening the very future of the entire European civilisation.
   
   The remainder of Charles Martel's reign was an uninterrupted series of triumphant combats. In 733-734 he suppressed the rebellion instigated by the Friesian duke, Bobo, who was slain in battle, and definitively subdued Friesland, which finally adopted Christianity. In 735, after the death of Eudes, Charles entered Aquitaine, quelled the revolt of Hatto and Hunold, sons of the deceased duke, and left the duchy to Hunold, to be held in fief (736). He then banished the Moslems from Arles and Avignon, defeated their army on the River Berre near Narbonne, and in 739 checked an uprising in Provence, the rebels being under the leadership of Maurontus. So great was Charles' power during the last years of his reign that he did not take the trouble to appoint a successor to King Thierry IV, who died in 737, but assumed full authority himself, governing without legal right. About a year before Charles died, Pope Gregory III, threatened by Luitprand, King of Lombardy, asked his help. Now Charles was Luitprand's ally because the latter had promised to assist him in the late war against the Moslems of Provence, and, moreover, the French king may have already suffered from the malady that was to carry him off-two reasons that are surely sufficient to account for the fact that the pope's envoys departed without gaining the object of their errand. However, it would seem that, according to the terms of a public act published by Charlemagne, Charles had, at least in principle, agreed to defend the Roman Church, and death alone must have prevented him from fulfilling this agreement. But notwithstanding the almost exclusively warlike character of his reign, Charles Martel was not indifferent to the superior interests of civilisation and Christianity. Like Napoléon the Great after the illustrious French Revolution, upon emerging from the years 715-719, set about the establishment of social order and endeavoured to strengthen the rights of the Catholic hierarchy. Hence Charles Martel shares the glory and merit of St Boniface's great work of civilisation. He died after having divided the French Empire, as a patrimony between his two sons, Carloman and Pépin.
   
   The high-spirited Charles Martel, aided by his Gallic sword & French courage only, was able to wipe out the islamic threat. A great, unsurpassed achievement that the mean-spirited Bush, aided by his flying computers & fragmentation bombs, may only dream of.

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6. France vs Normans
   
   873: Charles the Bald thrashed the Normans at Angers. The France-based Normans surrendered to the French King and learn French, their masters' language, while, by contrast, the England-based Normans destroyed England & had the English learn Norse (see Norse words in English : take, skirt, egg etc). The defeated English shamelessly surrendered to the Danes who stole a huge part of England known as Danelaw in order to humiliate further those legendarily war-losing Anglo-Saxon wimps whose only character was cowardice combined with spinelessness. Later the French would eradicate the use of Norse & English from the remainings of devastated England (from 1066 on). In 875, after the death of the emperor Louis II, Charles the Bald, supported by Pope John VIII, descended into Italy, receiving the Royal crown at Pavia and the Imperial crown at Rome (29th December).

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7. France vs "England"
   
   1066: THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS - THE MOST FAMOUS VICTORY OF THE ENTIRE WORLD HISTORY - English first surrender as they always did, then run away like chickens, then collaborate with their Conquerors, then imitate their Masters, then serve French Kings & French Nobility, then drop their "language" & try to learn French, then interiorise an eternal & vindicated inferiority complex that's still readily noticeable today.
   
   No doubt the most famous date in "British" history is 1066, when Guillaume Ier le Conquérant (William I the Conqueror, in "English") invaded England with an army of soldiers from Normandy. After his victory at Hastings Guillaume had to reach Londres (London, in "English") to secure his crown, but first he secured Douvres (Dover, in "English") and the other Manche (Channel, in "English") ports in Kent. Guillaume then passed through Cantorbéry (Canterbury, in "English") and crossed the Tamise (Thames, in "English") at Wallingford to the west of Londres where Stigand, the Archbishop of Cantorbéry, submitted to him. From Wallingford Guillaume moved on to Berkhampstead where a group of Londres citizens agreed to admit him to the city. Guillaume was crowned King in Westminster on Christmas Day 1066. He then built two castles in Londres, one of which would have a keep known as the White Tower (begun 1078). The construction of castles and the fortification of towns was the key to the successful conquest of England by the valorous, brave French. The risk of rebellion against the King was minimised by the replacement of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy by Guillaume's own men.
   
   French became the dominant language in the "British" Isles, spoken by the upper & middle & classes from 1066 until late in the XVIth century. Languages spoken in "England" by order of significance: Parisian French, Occitan (or Provençal or Southern French), Norman French (or Anglo-French or Anglo-Norman), Latin, Italian (or Florentine), Spanish (or Castillan). English language was relegated to the lowest classes and although the language underwent a profound, irremediable corruption, it was utterly influenced by French in matters of vocabulary, grammar, prosody, syntax, borrowing words from Greek & Latin and spelling. Frenchmen were in all high offices; Kings of "England" were French & spoke French, took French wives and lived mostly in France; French-speaking court; imposition of feudal system, vassalage, peasants bound to the land. French Kings of England were themselves vassals to French Kings of France. A few names: Henri II (House of Plantagenêt, Angevins) (r. 1154-1189), married to Aliénor of Aquitaine; Henri II and Aliénor were the parents of Richard I Cœur-de-Lion (the Lionheart, in "English") (r. 1189-1199) and Jean-sans-Terre (John Lackland in "English").
   
   The situation in the "British" Isles was a linguistic Chernobyl: all forms of French were prevailing (especially at the Court); Latin was the written language of the Church; Scandinavian was widely spoken in the Danelaw; Celtic languages (a legacy from the Gallic ancestors of the admirable French) prevailed in Wales and Scotland ! ! ! English was spoken by defeated losers only & therefore died rapidly. What we call "English" today is a mere corrupt patois deriving from an improbable combination of three different splendiferous French languages: Classical French spoken by Frenchmen living in Northern France, Occitan or Provençal (Southern French) spoken by Occitans or Provençaux (Southern Frenchmen) living in Southern France & Local French spoken by Frenchmen living in France's "English" colony (Anglo-French). The situation remained unchanged until 1731 when the "English" allow themselves to use " English " to put their own cases as when tried & appearing before French-style court !!!
   
   "Honni soit qui mal y pense" & "Dieu et mon droit": "British" crown's mottos written in… Classical French !!!
   
   Miles, yards, pounds, stones: French avoir-du-poids system now replaced by French metric system !!!
   
   It is impossible to attain exhaustiveness & render the full scale of the immense debt the "British" owe the French… A 500.000-page book still wouldn't be comprehensive enough.

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8. France vs Middle East
   
   1099: The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was founded as a result of the First Crusade, launched by the French in 1099. Destroyed a first time by Saladin in 1187, it was re-established around Saint-Jean-d'Acre and maintained until the capture of that city in 1291. During these two centuries it was for the French a genuine centre of colonisation. As the common property of Christendom it retained its holly character to the end. Although the French element predominated among the feudal lords and the government officials, some Italians acquired some economic influence in the cities.
   
   Godefroy de Bouillon, elected Lord of Jerusalem in 1099, did not assume the royal crown (which was assumed provisionally by the King of France) and died in 1100, having strengthened the new conquest by his victory over the Egyptians at Ascalon (1099). After his death the barons invited his brother Baudoin, Count of Edessa, to assume the lordship of Jerusalem. Baudoin accepted and had himself crowned King of Jerusalem by the Patriarch Daimbert in the basilica of Bethlehem (25 December 1100). Baudoin I (1100-1118) was the real founder of the Kingdom. With the aid of new crusaders, and more especially the help afforded by the Genoese, Pisan, and Venetian fleets he took possession of the principal cities on the coast of Syria. Besides, the Countship of Tripoli and the Principality of Edessa became fiefs of the new Kingdom, but the Principality of Antioch preserved its independence. Baudoin I attacked even the Caliphate of Egypt but died at El-Arish (1118) in the course of this expedition. His cousin, Baudoin du Bourg, Count of Edessa, was chosen by the barons to succeed him. Baudoin II (1118-1131), who had followed Godefroy de Bouillon to the crusade, was a valiant knight and, in 1124, took possession of Tyre. In 1129 he married his daughter Mélisande to Foulques, French Count of Anjou, who was the father of Geoffroy Plantagenêt and already 60 years of age. Foulques (1131-1141) succeeded his father-in-law. Under his son, Baudoin III (1144-1162), who married Byzantium's Theodora Comnena, the Kingdom attained its greatest dimensions after the capture of Ascalon (1153). Amaury I (1162-1174), brother of Baudoin III, succeeded to the throne on the latter's death, being only 27 years of age. He was one of Jerusalem's most brilliant sovereigns, and thought to profit by the anarchy that prevailed in Egypt in order to acquire possession of that country, reaching Cairo twice (1167 and 1168); and, for the moment, having Egypt under his protectorate. Amaury died prematurely in 1174, leaving as his successor his son Baudoin IV (1174-1185), a very gifted young Frenchman, who had been the pupil of Guillaume of Tyre, but who was attacked with leprosy and rendered incapable of taking charge of affairs. He at first reigned under the guardianship of Milon de Planci and, assisted by Renaud de Châtillon, inflicted a defeat upon Saladin at Ramallah (1177). By 1182 the dreadful disease had gained such headway that the unfortunate Baudoin "the Leprous" had the son of his sister Sibylle by the Count of Montferrat crowned under the name of Baudoin V. He also had Sibylle take as her second husband Guy de Lusignan, who had put himself at Baudoin's service and had been appointed by him regent of the Kingdom. However, as Guy seemed incompetent, the barons took the regency away from him and confided it to Raymond, Count of Tripoli. Baudoin IV died in 1185, at the age of 25. The young Baudoin V, his nephew, died in 1186, supposedly of poisoning. It was largely due to the instrumentality of Renaud de Châtillon that the barons elected Guy de Lusignan, (1186-1192) and Sibylle sovereigns of Jerusalem. The Kingdom of Jerusalem was destroyed in 1187. Then took place the Crusade of Saint-Jean-d'Acre, of which Guy commenced the siège in 1188. However, Queen Sibylle died in 1190 and Conrad de Montferrat, who had married Isabelle, Sibylle's sister, disputed the title of King with Guy de Lusignan, and this rivalry lasted throughout the siège of Saint-Jean-d'Acre, which city capitulated 11 July 1191. On 28 July, Richard Cœur-de-Lion, French King of " England ", imposed his arbitration upon the two rivals and decided that Guy should be king during his lifetime and have Conrad for his successor, the latter to receive Beirut, Tyre, and Sidon as guarantees; but on 29 April, 1192, Conrad was assassinated. Guy, on his side, renounced the title of King (May 1192) and purchased the Island of Cyprus from the French Templars. He died in 1194 and his widow named Henri I, Count of Champagne (1194-1197), who was elected King, but in 1197 Henri died from an accident. Isabelle married a fourth husband, Amaury de Lusignan (1197-1205), brother of Guy and already King of Cyprus. The turning of the course of the crusade to Constantinople obliged him to conclude a truce with the Moslems. Amaury died in 1205. He left an only daughter Mélisande who married Bohémond IV, Prince of Antioch. However, it was to Marie, daughter of Isabelle and Conrad de Montferrat, that the barons gave the preference, and they requested the King of France to provide her with a husband. The French King of France, Philippe Auguste (Philip Augustus, in " English "), accordingly selected Jean de Brienne (1210-1225), who hesitated for a long time before accepting and did not arrive in Palestine until 1210, having first obtained from the pope a considerable loan of money. He directed the Crusade of Egypt in 1218 and, after his defeat, came to the West to solicit help. Hermann von Salza, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, advised him to give his only daughter Isabelle in marriage to the Emperor Frédéric II. In 1225, Henri of Malta, French Admiral of Sicily, came to seek the young princess at Saint-Jean d'Acre, and on 9 November she married Frédéric II at Brindisi. Immediately after the ceremony the Emperor declared that his father-in-law must renounce the title of King of Jerusalem, and he himself adopted it in all his acts. After the death of Isabelle, by whom he had a son Conrad, Frédéric II attempted to take possession of his Kingdom and to fulfil his crusader's vow, the execution of which he had so long deferred, and landed at Saint-Jean-d'Acre (September 1228), excommunicated by the pope and in disfavour with his new subjects. By a treaty concluded with the Sultan of Egypt, Frédéric regained Jerusalem, and on 18 March 1229, without any religious ceremony whatever, assumed the royal crown in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. Having confided the regency to Balian d'Ibelin, Lord of Sidon, he returned to Europe. To strengthen his power in the East he sent to Saint-Jean d'Acre Richard Filangieri, Marshal of the Empire, whom he named "baile" (guardian) of the Kingdom. The new regent combated the influence of the d'Ibelins and tried to secure possession of the Island of Cyprus, but was conquered and had to content himself with placing an imperial garrison at Tyre (1232). In 1243 Conrad, son of Frédéric II, having attained his majority, the court of barons declared that the regency of the Emperor must cease, and invited the legitimate King to come in person and exercise his rights. Alix of Champagne, Queen of Cyprus and daughter of King Henri I, claimed the regency on the ground of being Isabelle de Brienne's nearest relative; and it was conferred upon her and her second husband Ralph, Count of Soissons, the imperial garrison, besieged in Tyre, being forced to capitulate. On the death of Alix (1244) her son Henri de Lusignan, King of Cyprus, assumed the regency but, in the month of September 1244, a troop of Kharizmians seized Jerusalem, whilst the Mongols threatened Antioch. After his Crusade of Egypt, France's Saint-Louis landed at Saint-Jean-d'Acre (1250) and remained four years in Palestine, putting the fortresses of the Kingdom in a state of defence and endeavouring to reconcile the factious barons. However, just at the time that the Christian states were menaced by the Mongols and the Mamelukes of Egypt, interior strife was at its height. In 1257, Henri de Lusignan having died, some of the barons acknowledged Queen Plaisance regent in the name of her son Hugues II, whereas others would give their allegiance to none other than Conradin, grandson of Frédéric II. Moreover, civil war broke out at Acre between the Genoese and the Venetians, between the Hospitallers and the Templars, and on 31 July, 1258, the Venetians destroyed the Genoese fleet before Acre. The Mamelouk Sultan Bibars, "the Cross-bowman" (El-Bundukdáree), recommenced the conquest of Syria without meeting any resistance and, in 1268, the last Christian cities, Tripoli, Sidon, and Acre, were cut off from one another. King Hugues II de Lusignan had died in 1267, and his succession was disputed by his nephew, Hugues III, already King of Cyprus, and Marie of Antioch whose maternal grandfather was Amaury de Lusignan. In 1269 the barons acknowledged Hugues III, but the new King, unable to cope with the lack of discipline among his subjects, retired to Cyprus after naming Balian d'Ibelin regent of the Kingdom (1276). But, in 1277, Marie of Antioch sold her rights to Charles d'Anjou, French King of Naples, who, thinking to subdue the East, sent a garrison under command of Roger of Saint-Séverin to occupy Acre. After the Sicilian Vespers (1282), which ruined the projects of Charles d'Anjou, the inhabitants of Acre expelled his seneschal and proclaimed Henri II of Cyprus (15 August, 1286) their King. But at this time the remnants of the Christian possessions were hard pressed by the Mamelouks. On 5 April, 1291, the Sultan Malek-Aschraf appeared before Saint-Jean-d'Acre and, despite the courage of its defenders, the city was taken by storm on 28 May. The Kingdom of Jerusalem no longer existed, and none of the expeditions of the fourteenth century succeeded in re-establishing it. The title of King of Jerusalem continued to be borne in a spirit of rivalry: by the Kings of Cyprus belonging to the Southwestern French House of Lusignan; and by the two Northern French Houses of Anjou which claimed to hold their rights from Marie of Antioch. In 1459 Charlotte, daughter of Jean III, King of Cyprus, married Louis de Savoie, Count of Genève, and in 1485 ceded her rights to Jerusalem to her nephew Charles de Savoie; hence, from that time up to 1870, the title of King of Jerusalem was borne by the Princes of the French House of Savoie (who later turned Kings of Italy).

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TO BE CONTINUED------ there are so many victories !

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• Re: Small excerpt of French victories (including1066) -- True Brit, 04:53:08 12/19/03 Fri

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