Since I started a new HRE campaign recently, I've been reading up on famous medieval battles. I was startled to discover the number of KEY battles and wars the Germans lost from the 1100s through the 1500s.
Legnano 1176 - One of Germany's most venerated military leaders, Frederick Barbarossa, leading a crack German professional army is defeated by Italian militia
Lake Peipus - Teutonic knights utterly defeated by Novgorod militia
Bouvines 1214 - The French rout German Emperor Otto IV and his allies
Leignitz 1241 -Vanguard of German knights leading an East European coalition massacred by Mongol "scouting" force
Tannenburg 1410 - Tuetonic Order destroyed by Polish/Lithuanian army
In each of these cases, the Germans lost an incredibly important battle - ie, Legnano kept Northern Italy out of the hands of the emperor; Tannenburg marked an end to the Teutonic Knight's military power.
I'll admit that right now I'm just looking at things from a medieval standpoint. But it does seem that the medieval ancestors of modern Germans ( I know, I know, Germany didn't exist in medivieval times) lost far more key battles than the medieval French - who can claim to have conquered England and large swathes of the Middle East before hitting a losing streak in the later crusades/100-Years War. Then there's the little fact that the French eventually won the 100-Years War while the HRE had a bad habit of winning lots of minor battles but losing when it mattered most.
So here's what I don't get - why do the Germans get such a free pass as conquering masterminds in terms of military history and the French are always denigrated as being abject serial losers. Yes, one could argue that the German "military" (whether you look at the Teutonic Knights or Frederick The Great's Prussians) was one of the most professional of medieval-early modern Europe. But that fact only highlights battles in which crack German troops were defeated by troops with inferior equipment and experience (Legnano, Peipus, Tannenburg). Fast forward a few hundred years and you'll see Napoleon crush the Prussians (who will only make a comeback once England and Russia have the French on the ropes) and a united Germany lose two World Wars.
So, and keep in mind this is coming from an HRE faction fan and German American, does anyone else find it strange that people will start "Has France ever won a major war" but never "Has Germany ever not stepped on its own weinershnitzel during a major war"? Surely Germany either deserves the same amount of razzing for past losses, or France deserves a little more respect for at least winning wars even in the face of such horrible defeats as Crecy and Agincourt.