During a recent re-viewing of “Full Metal Jacket” I chuckled at the joke “Want to buy some ARVN rifles? Never been fired and only dropped once!” I seem to recall that this was recycled from WWII where the Italians were derided identically. Does anyone know if this particular phrase goes further back in history than that?
A quick Googling also has the French in WW2 as the subject of the joke.
“Want Thag rock?. Never thrown, only dropped once”. 
It was in regards to the French, who stereotypically (and falsely) fired once and then when fired at, dropped their rifles and ran like rabbits.
Tell that joke to a Legionnaire, and see who runs.
Tripler
(Pssst, you wouldn’t be running when yer laid out on the floor.)
FFL are not French Line Army soldiers, they are an elite unit.
Notice how many are NOT FFL.
This has piqued my curiosity - where does the French surrender-monkey meme actually come from? Considering they weren’t the only country absolutely steamrolled by Germany, why them? Denmark, for instance, surrendered after two hours. Norway after only two months.
And it’s not like French history is not filled with great big military campaigns. What’s the source of this?
It was actually a joke from The Simpsons.
I assume it’s some sort of American antipathy towards the French. I wonder if it’s a common stereotype outside the US and countries that have similar feelings towards them, like the UK and Germany.
Yeah, I know. I was making a reference to a French military unit that an average reader would understand. And their elite nature would underscore that you would never make a joke like that to a member of such a kickass group.
Tripler
Unless I’m not understanding your point . . . 
They’re also primarily not French (except for the officers).
Stranger
I saw this show recently but instead of trying to give my own version I found this post at Smith & Wesson Forums
I’m pretty sure it’s some republican american antipathy. I use it as a litmus test, frankly. If someone makes a crack about french military strength, I take it that their knowledge of history and possibly learning in general is suspect.
Just my gut feeling but I think the issue is that the US and UK considered France a strong ally. Norway and Denmark - yeah we like them, we’d buy 'em a beer. But France was supposed to be on our team, to have our back in a fight. The US and UK almost felt betrayed when they gave in.
Now I’m just talking about hurt feelings, not facts. I’m sure the argument could be made that the French might have held out a hell of a lot longer if maybe someone would have had thier back a lot sooner.
Aaah, that makes it clear. I was unaware of the Simpsons connection. The antipathy reminds me a lot of my German friends’ antipathy towards Italy, probably for similiar reasons.
It also reminds of that Charles V quote - “I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse.” Probably the best put-down in history. 
Except the US wasn’t a French ally at the commencement of WW II and the UK was only a relatively recent ally ( from 1907 at best ) after centuries of mutual antagonism.
I think it is more the rapidity of the French collapse in 1940, with perhaps the hearkening back to the superficially similar French collapse of 1870 ( both to German opponents ), was so surprising to so many people that it was easy to invent a meme of cowardice to explain it. All the more so as the very independent and assertive foreign policy of de Gaulle after WW II made them into a somewhat antagonistic-seeming ally and thus ripe for caricature.
I have always understood the insult to the French as being about their political will rather than their soldiers per se. The Maginot Line was supposed to be invincible, but it was never fully funded or completed and therefore failed to offer protection. Then, after a rapid surrender, significant portions of the French government started working for the Germans.
It’s WAAAAY older than the Simpsons. They can be credited for the specific “cheese eating surrender monkeys” line that right wing media picked up a few years later when the Iraq War was ramping up. Groundkeeper Willie didn’t pull the surrender-happy idea out of nowhere; the sentiment has been around.
It’s anti-French sentiment + surrendering in two world wars relatively quickly + perhaps creating a problem in Indochina and then leaving it for the US to clean up (in retrospect, they may have had the right idea). It seems that there are other countries that might deserve the rep more, like Italy, but the anti-French sentiment pushes it in their direction. Napoleon conquered most of Europe (oh right, he was Corsican…), and the French Military is arguably one of the most effective these days.
One :). The French bore the brunt of the Western Front in WW I and suffered more military casualties than anyone other than Germany and Russia.
The Maginot line was, as I was taught, a magnificently fortified defensive system designed amazingly well for the LAST war. It was poorly designed for the brand spanking new blitzkrieg style of warfare, and overrun with relative ease after being loudly advertised as invincible.
As for the reputation before that, the French and British Armies of WWI were getting chewed up like dog meat for years, and in 1917 there were lots of desertions and mutinies in the French Army, over 23,000 convicted of mutinous behavior, like not running headlong into German machine gun kill zones and the like. The Brits, as far as I know, did not have nearly the same rate of mutiny and desertion. This would appear to be a likely source of the derision, like Brits need a good reason to ridicule the French anyway.
Oops, sorry for the lapse. Parts of their territory did get swallowed up though. Still, they lost 1.7 million people (1.4m military), and it wasn’t from overindulgence of wine while they cowered in abandoned theatres. They fought hard, even after the surrender in WW2 for many.
I’m still not sure it was originally used to put down the French. Yes, Google is full of examples where it’s been applied to the French, but that tells us nothing about its origin.
FWIW, the first time I remember seeing the expression was shortly after the ‘Six Day War’ in 1967 when it was the caption of a cartoon showing rifles for sale in an Egyptian army surplus store.