Honor, or Something Like It: The French Military Museum

So, Erin has graciously allowed me to handle this blog entry. No parentheses, just straight Gideon. And a journey through France's military history.

The museum is (roughly speaking) 4 different areas: Napoleon's tomb, arms from the 14th to the 16th century, Louis the XV to Napoleon III, and the modern period--- WWI and WWII. Took me about 3 hours to get through... could have taken 4. Lots going on.

First things first: Napoleon's tomb. He was dug up by his nephew, Napoleon III, from the island of St. Helena. Since his entire claim to fame was his uncle, he pulled out all of the stops. The tomb basically deifies Napoleon; the bas reliefs around the ornate sarcophagus show Napoleon as the ultimate man: law giver, leader, carrier of revolutionary ideals, peace maker between Church and State, etc. I suppose that if my uncle's name gifted me the nation of France, I'd be a huge fan too.

The ancient arms were amazing. In short, France has been making quality swords since the bronze age, seeing Ottoman swords from the crusades is a bit odd, and full suits of armor are awesome in person. My favorite moment was a display where they tried to side-step the "vagaries of history" in explaining how France wound up with entire collections of Italian Renaissance weapons.

This was the beginning of some of the "awkward" moments. For example, did you know that Yorktown was "Franco-American" victory? I knew that France played a big role. We couldn't have won without the French blockade, but it was strange for mento realize that the French played a much larger role in Washington's victory (and our independence) than I realized.

However, the awkward moments from there on in were purely French. After some incredibly limited criticism of Napoleon (specifically regarding Spain and Russia), they them go on to practically worship him. No serious discussions of Napoleon's political oppression. No discussion of Napoleon's basically killing the Republic either.

Similarly, the nationalist movement, which arose after France's defeat during the Franco-Prussian war and was virulently anti-Semitic, was discussed as a cause of the harsh post-war treaty imposed on France. But there's no real discussion of the Dreyfus affair.

And the harsh Versailles treaty? Wilson's fault. And the Germans were never serious about complying any way. The latter notion is a stretch; the former was a complete fiction. Clemenceau was no fan of a moderate treaty.

Oh, and WWII? It was a failure of civilian leadership. And the French army fought with honor. Never mind that the French military was considered the best in the world. Never mind that Leo Blum wanted to halt the fascist takeover of Spain, which would have put a cramp in Hitler's step, and was stopped by military leaders. Never mind it was the military leaders wanted the Maginot line. It was a civilian leadership failure.

The museum was silent on the Indochina war; colonialism was generally discussed as "exploration" anyway. Another personal favorite.

In short, the museum was quite good. But it was a trip. Worth a discussion on our own historical memory lapses.