Talk:French–German enmity

who tagged this article
on what grounds is this disputed? why tag it and not say why? 67.176.160.47 (talk) 23:40, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * On first sight the article looked relatively OK to me. On second sight it reports the idea of "hereditary enmity" uncritically. I will try to improve it a bit, and I have also contacted the editor who added the tag but didn't explicitly dispute anything. Hans Adler 20:02, 9 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I did not want to enter this discussion. I am not well read but I came across this article randomly as I was studying European art and history. I have to agree with user Hans Adler. The very choice of the title "Franco-German enmity" is at least in my view an expression of a POV and WP:SYN or WP:POV. A better title would have been "Franco-German relations" or "Franco-German treaties." I am sure not every French or German personality throughout history partaking or spoken off in this article necessarily shared an enmity. Again, I have no educational qualifications one way or other in terms of the article's validity or its history. But just judging from the title, I can probably say much. Both Germany and France are wonderful and historically signifciant nations and I believe a simple name change can ameliorate this article. Cheers! Dr. Persi (talk) 04:08, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

This edit added some information that probably belongs in the article (though maybe not all of it does), but I think it accepts the idea of this "enmity"'s old historical roots too uncritically. After all, not too long before it was claimed to be many centuries old and totally inevitable, nobody hat felt it. This takes some work, but I don't have the time right now. Hans Adler 18:45, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Date format
There needs to be a clearer indication that the "sub-wars" do belong to the series they are under and aren't somehow independent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.49.23.150 (talk) 05:42, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

The Comparison of Hitler and Napoleon in terms of weeks
Comparing unfavorably Hitler's conquest of France in six weeks with Napoleon's conquest of Prussia in two weeks seems unfair and weird to me. Your argument is not directly stated, but it is clear enough, that Napoleon's campaign is more impressive because it took four weeks less to do. This is out of place and ignores the different circumstances. I am not at all convinced, considering France had the assistance of Great Britain. Furthermore, Prussia is not Germany, it was a mostly feudal kingdom at this time, it did not represent a national German state. I would suggest revising this comparison. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.30.111.37 (talk) 17:05, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Charlemagne?
Doesn't this at least go back to the Battle of Teutoburg Forest and the Roman Empire? That's more or less why there were two kingdoms to be divided as such later by Charlemagne with Lotharingia sorta hovering in between. Stormj (talk) 01:42, 14 August 2012 (UTC)


 * No. In the Classical antiquity the borders between Germeny and Rome were completly different, most of them going through todays Germany. The German town of Trier even became capital of a part of the Roman Empire. Besides, there was a Migration Period in between. You get clearly fooled by the english word for todays Germany (Germany). In the french language there are clear distinctations between Germains (antique inhabitants of Germany), Gaules (antique inhabitants of France) and todays people in France (Française) and Germany (Allemagns).
 * Vice versa in the german language (Germanen,Gallier,Franzosen,Deutsche).
 * If you want to go into details, just look for Lombards and you will get an impression of history in between. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.230.245.158 (talk) 03:34, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

The Thirty Years War
The idea that the thirty years war "was mostly a conflict between Protestants and Catholics" (found in the "France and Habsburg" section) is a gross oversimplification and perpetuates enduring misunderstanding of the issue. While a detailed explanation is out of the question, due to the requisite length of such an explanation, a phrase more along the lines of "The thirty years war was a complex conflict with religious, structural, and dynastic causes, which France intervened in both directly and indirectly largely on the side of the protestant powers" might be more appropriate. The actual actions taken by France were significantly more complex, and include both attempts to form the Catholic Liga into a counterweight to the power of the Hapsburg Emperor, as well as repeated attempts at forming alliances in northern Italy (Savoy and Venice against Spain, Spanish Genoa, and Milan etc...), resulting in several undesired interventions there, to say nothing of the papal politics at play. Finally while all of this was going on Spain and France remained in a state of conflict for a number of years after the the Peace of Westphalia. To anyone unfamiliar with this material, I recommend Peter H. Wilson's excellent book on the subject, or C.V Wedgwood's for those who would prefer something under 800 pages. Zimm4973 (talk) 09:03, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

France–Germany relations
This article presents selection of facts from France–Germany relations. Shouldn't the two articles be integrated?Xx236 (talk) 09:21, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Grammar and comprehensibility
Putting aside for a moment questions about the history or the accuracy, this article is poorly written. The grammar deserves some serious copy editing, e.g., “In the recasting of the map of Europe after Napoleon's defeat, most of the German-speaking territories in the Rhineland adjoining France were put under the rule of _____ and remainder of ones were ruled by _____ and _____"; the run-on phrase "and remainder of ones were ruled by _____ and _____" makes no sense. Impossible to figure out what the writer intended, as written. That's one howler; but the article is rife with poor construction, infelicities, redundancies, and bombast. The effect on the meaning (and it is difficult to follow the article's arguments, because they have been so poorly articulated) is cumulative, and deleterious. But even if the grammar were fixed, it still would be hard to follow, since it concedes little or nothing to the non-specialist reader, plunging right into the tall weeds, with only the most cursory introduction to give the reader a sense of the context. Imagine the predicament of a high-school student wanting to get just a little clarity, who stumbles on—and over—this tendentious discourse; which starts off with "revanchism" in the first sentence! However, the work of editing this would require the attention of someone who is acquainted with the subject, not merely English grammar and rhetoric. As it stands, the article ought to be pulled from publication for its lack of clarity—not to mention its lack of consideration for the general reader. Burbridge 02:01, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Gauls vs. Germans
If you state there has been a rivalry between Gaul and Germanic peoples some two thousand years ago, you should also tell how this is connected to the topic. You cannot just reproduce a constructed 19th century national myth as if there was any real historic continuity between the Germanic people during Cesar's days and the nation of Germany. --2.240.3.60 (talk) 14:26, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Massacres of Palatinate
Surprised that there's no reference to the massacres o Palatinate during the France Dutch War: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Dutch_War

Two articles on the topic in French:

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravage_du_Palatinat

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sac_du_Palatinat — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.0.22.5 (talk) 07:17, 28 August 2016 (UTC)