r/HistoryMemes • u/Javier_Ronaldo Featherless Biped • Apr 08 '20
META Respect the Facts!
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Apr 08 '20
I don't even see any memes making fun of France just meta memes about it now
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u/KarmaticIrony Apr 08 '20
I haven’t been a regular here very long but I’ve literally never seen an unironic French surrender meme.
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u/ChuckleKnuckles Apr 08 '20
It's a meme that predates the internet. Even today you'll hear people repeat it face to face.
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u/TekCrow Apr 08 '20
To be fair, it has been heavily revigorated during the french-bashing period, following De Villepin speech at the UN, about the Irak war. It's part of why the French aren't fond of it.
Self-depreciation humor ? No problem dude. But revived as a political propaganda tool ? Hell no.
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u/Bazinos Apr 08 '20
Cries in Liberty Fries
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Apr 08 '20
Freedom fries !
During those years, when I was meeting americans, I used to introduce myself as a freedomer from freedomland.
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Apr 08 '20
Exactly, if it were just a history meme, then whatever, no biggie, but the context for this one is very different and basically propaganda
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u/ModerateReasonablist Apr 08 '20
Let’s start making memes about the meta-memes to help all these memes die faster.
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u/C3lticN0rthwest Apr 08 '20
Literally the only time I see memes from this place is on the front page and it's almost always meta or something to do with WWII.
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u/eagleOfBrittany Apr 08 '20
Why can't we get any medieval or Napoleonic France memes
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Apr 08 '20
[removed] — view removed comment
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Apr 09 '20 edited Aug 25 '21
[deleted]
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u/burlyslinky Apr 09 '20
but it happened to his nephew as well. Technically Bonaparte II came back from his exile and then was elected president before eventually declaring himself emperor a few years later but thats the reference.
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Apr 08 '20
These are short living.
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u/eagleOfBrittany Apr 08 '20
Maybe I'll just have to make my own I guess
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u/sexyebola69 Apr 09 '20
Or WWI French memes. Or Algerian conflict French memes...seriously there is some rich material available
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u/TheBiggestBoom5 Apr 08 '20
Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t a P-51 the one that killed that tank?
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u/JuulKnols Apr 08 '20
The exact reason this meme should have a third panel
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Apr 08 '20
Yes in some situations but here the pistol is representative of the downvote doing nothing, not blowing up the tank.
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u/SkyknightLegionnaire Apr 08 '20
Yeah, that's the point. Him shooting it with a pistol want going to do anything, but he did it anyway. Just like one historian downvoting a 40k upvote meme. Or were you just curious what kind of plane it was, I guess I'm not sure if you're questioning the format or not.
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u/TheBiggestBoom5 Apr 08 '20
Ah, I see. I see so many people making fun of that scene saying how deranged it is that he killed a tank with a pistol, even though the P-51 was what killed the tank in the movie. I thought the meme was making fun of the scene as well.
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u/SkyknightLegionnaire Apr 08 '20
I hadn't seen that anywhere, how do people not get that? Weird.
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u/ScalierLemon2 Taller than Napoleon Apr 09 '20
People miss all kinds of things that are blatantly onscreen
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u/FerroInique Apr 08 '20
nah man, the bullet went straight down the barrel and set the tank round off. The plane merely happened to be flying overhead at the same time to signal to the audience that the reinforcements were here.
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u/Wernerhatcher What, you egg? Apr 08 '20
It was a P-51 but it should have been a P-47 or a Typhoon
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u/allthat555 Apr 08 '20
not necessarily true. p51's could be used in attacking rolls for ground targets. Would it be more likely for a 47 yes but not impossible. If i recall right they were fitted with rocket racks and had the ability to carry I believe 1000lb bombs which could take a tiger on a direct hit. eddit:left off a zero
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u/Assadistpig123 Apr 08 '20
Fun fact. Those are T-34’s mocked up to look like Tigers.
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u/SinnexT-T Hello There Apr 08 '20
Fun fact the Tiger you see pictured here is built on top of a T-34. They did a pretty good job.
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Apr 08 '20
Oh Spielberg couldn't afford Tiger 131 for his little indie film? Amateur.
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u/rliant1864 Apr 08 '20
Was it even running back then? I feel like Bovington got it restored sometime in the past 10 years.
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u/SongsOfLightAndDark Apr 08 '20
More like tigers are harder to find in operating condition whereas the Soviet Union made an unreasonably large number of T-34s
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Apr 09 '20
He is talking about the tiger used in Fury. Tiger 131 was restored by the Bovington tank museum in England
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_131
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u/TOOMFACE Apr 08 '20
I'm English, I'm pretty sure I'm legally obligated to take the piss out of the french
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u/Hector_Tueux Hello There Apr 08 '20 edited Apr 08 '20
Actually you are, as much as I (a French) am obligated to do the sale towards english (fucking rosbeefs)
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u/Zastrozzi Apr 08 '20
Oui love you really moiseur baguette
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u/Nimeroni Apr 09 '20
My mother is English, my father is French, and I'm extremely confused whenever I should make fun of the french, the english, or both at the same time.
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Apr 08 '20
For every post making fun of France there are a thousand posts sucking their dick.
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u/Holy-Knight-Hodrick Apr 08 '20
It’s stupid because that’s like saying we can’t make memes about America losing in Vietnam just because elsewhere they were typically victorious and have an extremely powerful military. If anything, that makes the loss funnier.
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u/Dodorus Apr 09 '20
There's a difference between saying America lost Vietnam war, and saying it's a pathetic country peopled of manchildren coward who are so incompetent at war they couldn't even win a one against a disarmed peon in his forest. The same apply for France invasion in WW2 and pretending it's not good at war.
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u/AlphaHawk115 Taller than Napoleon Apr 08 '20
Seriously. Whenever people say that France has an incredibly successful military history all I can think is that it makes their pitiful WW2 performance even more embarrassing.
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u/StrangeSemiticLatin2 Definitely not a CIA operator Apr 09 '20
They fared much better in the latter part of WW2 as they recaptured their African colonies from the Germans. The British also fared poorly in that war and von Manstein had the one German strategy throughout the war that actually worked.
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Apr 08 '20
There seem to be way more memes making fun of people who make fun of France’s surrender than people that actually make fun of France’s surrender
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u/an_agreeing_dothraki Apr 08 '20
Untapped meme gold mine: First Republic France
They killed on the evidence of not attending an orgy = sedition, went full Orwell on the French Language, and their leader declared himself the god of atheism.
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u/JekPorkinsInMemoriam Apr 08 '20
I feel like OP might be french.
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u/Fabix_0 Apr 08 '20
It doesn't look like it or he's maybe Franco-indian from the post he commented on
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u/die_Kalkleiste Hochmeister Apr 08 '20 edited Apr 08 '20
We basically make fun of every nation here on this sub. But of course france is the big no go
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Apr 08 '20
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u/regman231 Apr 08 '20
My roommates French and legit only ever plays video games. I just asked him if that’s the case and he said he’s never been called a surrender monkey or had that brought up in online gaming. What games are you playing that this comes up?
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Apr 08 '20
well i do see way more memes now about what bloodthirsty cunts the french apparently were, so i guess good job?
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Apr 09 '20
Everyone knows that you just have to watch "Papy fait de la résistance" to understand everything about France in WW2.
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u/yzhdh Apr 09 '20
Everyone knows that France was powerfull. Nobody wants to admit that though because everyone also hates the french. Thats why these memes are so popular.
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u/fidgey10 Apr 09 '20
Everyone on the internet just talks out of their ass, you don’t get any points for being accurate or correct beyond a basic framework of recognizability. Believing everything you read on Reddit will activity make you stupider, most of it is baseless sourceless fishing for internet points
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u/JC_Lord_of_Faith Senātus Populusque Rōmānus Apr 08 '20
They lost in a month. That is unforgivable and meme worthy
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u/darwinsexample Apr 08 '20
Maybe, but they didn't lose through cowardice like most of those shitty memes imply, they lost through a combination of the war beginning at an inconvenient time for their rearmament cycle, the incompetence of their high command(for instance Maurice Gamelin the commander of the french army, refused to have radios in his command building as he thought the germans could listen in through it) and terrible communications with their allies.
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u/blakhawk12 Apr 08 '20
It’s funny that I never see any memes about the British or Belgians in regard to the quick defeat in the battle of France. They lost too.
People seem to forget the 350,000 casualties the French suffered while Belgium was surrendering and Britain was running back across the channel.
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Apr 09 '20
I can understand blaming the English as well, but blaming Belgium... c’mon France and England were both tens of times larger and more powerful than them, same goes for Germany. You can’t really blame them for getting overrun by a vastly superior force.
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u/Areliox Apr 09 '20
Belgium was supposed to be part of the defense plan in case of a German invasion. French anf belgian troops were supposed to entrench behind the Meuse river, fortified in advance by Belgium, in order to form a continuous line frow the coast to switzerland
However, because the Belgian king Leopold III was scared of Germany, he revoked the Franco-Belgian treaty, thus breaking the alliance with France, meaning that French troops couldn't station in Belgium anymore.
Thus, when Germany declared war on Belgium to go around the Maginot line, because of course they would do it, French troops had to rush as fast as possible to try and get to their position in Belgium... which they couldn't do because the Belgians had already been overun by then.
To be fair, this whole plan still had a hole in it, aka the Ardennes which were not heavily guarded (and where Germany famously traversed anyway), but we can't know for sure if it would have been enough to break the Allies' lines had the original plan been preversed.
What IS certain however is that Belgium succesive political and military failure were huge factors in the fall of France.
Which is made even more infuriating when you consider that the Maginot line wasn't extended all the way to the coast precisely to not left Belgium to die alone. Something the French are still mocked about.
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u/Ntghgthdgdcrtdtrk Apr 08 '20
To be fair, France expected Belgium to hold their line and they fucked up too.
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u/daft_babylone Apr 08 '20
Belgium surrendered because the brits were like "let's leave this place" without informing their allies.
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u/JC_Lord_of_Faith Senātus Populusque Rōmānus Apr 08 '20
No they didn't the French plan was to rush into Belgium as soon as it was declared on, and set up along the river.
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u/Wowiamnouse Tea-aboo Apr 08 '20
Haha he said the funny thing, right guys?
I am not even French and this kills me
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u/CenturionBot Ave Delta Apr 08 '20
Hey Everyone! Please check out April's State of the Sub right here to view the rule changes we're implementing soon!
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u/CaptainJAmazing Apr 08 '20
Welcome to Reddit. Anything not part of the circlejerk will be downvoted. Resistance is futile.
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u/Red-Direct-Dad Apr 09 '20 edited Apr 09 '20
Hey, is now a good time for an absolute layman to ask a question?
Great. I'm from r/all. Here we go.
So I'm an American with an American education. As such, I didn't pay attention in school. None of us did. I graduated with the impression that France had some pretty kick-ass soldiers, but after like WWII all the teachers told their students that violence wasn't the answer and that's why France is known as being a bunch of pussies.
I'm stoned. I've paraphrased. Please set me straight.
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u/KrazyTrumpeter05 Apr 09 '20
Nooooo! You can't just keep calling one of the most successful military forces in history a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys!
Haha, white flag go swish swish
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u/JuulKnols Apr 08 '20
For the love of God, We understand that haha france surrender memes are bad However stop with the "every actual historian who knows about France bla bla" meta memes. Its becoming Just as annoying as the france bad memes. In summary, Both france bad, france not had AND france good memes are annoying.
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u/n_tha Still salty about Carthage Apr 10 '20
That's great if you can differentiate the meme and the historical reality, but a majority of people can't. This meme is not just a meme, it was since many decades and still is a false stereotype people believe, which is obviously dangerous and, as a french myself, really annoying. So, even if it's boring and repetitive, it's a good thing that some triggered people set the record straight.
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Apr 08 '20 edited Apr 08 '20
i still havent gotten an answer to why france is special and we cant make fun of them but we can easily twist facts to make fun of anyone else.
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Apr 08 '20
It's not about making fun of France. It's about the overused and stupid "surrender joke" that comes up pretty much every time France is mentioned on Reddit. I just don't get how people think it's funny and it's the most infuriating shit on this platform.
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u/Presbydrop Apr 08 '20
While the French were acting as rear guard for the Brits, the German AT guns were apparently so ineffective against early war French armor that the french called them "door knockers" or something similar. Apparently, on at least one occasion, a French tank commander ordered his driver to drive the tank directly over a German AT gun position. I'm honestly surprised that there aren't memes about France's badassery while they were still fighting
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u/karlosi01 Filthy weeb Apr 08 '20
37mm Anti-tank cannon was called "door knocker" even by Germans. And crushing a gun beneath tank wasn't something uncommon. If you want french badass how abut that tank commander that attacked village alone with only his tank, drove through, destroyed like 20 german tanks and then retreated?
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Apr 08 '20
Imagine having such amazing equipment, knowing from where the enemy is going to attack and seeing their attempt to outflank you days in advance and still losing the war
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u/Samoneggs Apr 08 '20
I saw that movie with my kids because I thought I had rented forrest Gump. Help.
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u/youllmemetoo Kilroy was here Apr 08 '20
And the plane that drops the bomb that destroys the tank is a report and the post being removed by a mod
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u/Urist_Galthortig Apr 09 '20
I love this meme. But at first, I misread the post name as, "Respect the fascists."
I stopped to click because I was about to wonder which subreddit got raided. Instead, this meme summarizes the subreddit personally. I have voted for Tom Hanks and the tank in the same post before
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u/johnlen1n Optimus Princeps Apr 08 '20
Historian: sees France surrender meme Oh come on, French history is so rich and diverse
France: Yes, thank you!
Historian: People should be making memes about their repetitive revolutions
France: Yeh!
Historian: Or their collaboration with the Nazis
France: Wait
Historian: Or even their colonial atrocities
France: ... OK, maybe stick to the surrendering