Dave Hinz wrote in
:

On Thu, 21 Jul 2005 20:13:47 +0000 (UTC), John McCoy
wrote:
"Dave" wrote in
news:UrPDe.170606$_o.155947@attbi_s71:

In all of history has France ever won a war by themselves?

Napolean did quite well, for most of the 20-odd years he was
in charge.

From Wikipedia, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napolean
Early life - Family and Childhood

He was born Napoleone Buonaparte (in Corsican, Nabolione or Nabulione)
in the city of Ajaccio on Corsica. He later adopted the more
French-sounding Napoléon Bonaparte, the first known instance of which
appears in an official report dated 28 March 1796.

I would suggest that a foreign leader running the army doesn't qualify
as France "winning a war by themselves".

Corsica was a part of France at the time (and, aside from a brief
period of British rule, it's remained part of France since then),
and Napolean's family actually had some claim to a minor title in
the French nobility.

So it's somewhat silly to suggest Napolean wasn't French. You
could make a stronger arguement that the army, at least in it's
later years, was not French, since Napolean recruited/conscripted
soldiers from Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, various
parts of what's now Germany, etc.

John