Historians like to write long reports on why a battle or war was won or lost. They don't always tell the truth.

Napoleon told his men at Waterloo not to fire until, "you see the whites of their eyes." Yea, he stole the line. At this point the French hadn't won a war in two hundred years. The French soldier liked to start shooting as soon as he saw the enemy, whether the enemy was in range or not. Waiting until he saw the whites of anyone's eyes was asking a lot. A lot more than he was going to do.

Lord Wellington, hearing this, ordered his men to march backwards towards the French lines. He sat on his horse directing his men a little to the right, no , not that much. Yes, that's perfect. His men marched right past the French. Then shot them in the back.

Napoleon was heard to yell, "Merde! That's eet. I queet as Emperor."

Fortunately, the French knew the German word for surrender.

Count Vladimir has gotten a rap for cruelty for impaling his victims on a pole, pouring tar on them, and using them as torches. That wasn't cruelty, that was stupidity. Humans just don't burn that long and don't really throw off a lot of light.

Take Attila the Hun. Ugly man who did ugly things. His invasion was stopped at the Prussian border. That's true as far as it goes. He was defeated there. Not by the Prussians though. He went into the Black Forest, got lost and was never heard from again. Might still be there. Who knows?

The British were a great power until 1943. That's when they stopped issuing a daily rum ration. At that point the British soldier was sober enough to realize was he was doing. He responded by saying, "Why, I'm a horse's arse."

The Germans thought they were invincible despite all the evidence that they weren't. They were good but never could get it quite right.

Later, after WWI, the French built the Maginot Line. That'll stop the Germans. The Germans, seeing the Maginot Line, and not being stupid, looked at a map. "Vell, ve juz murch trew Belgium. Ha!"

The Spanish did fine against people armed with bows and arrows. It was when they ran into guns that they cried out, "No mas! No mas!" Their Navy stunk too.