Hi,
A few points :
- About the Hundred Year War : there were several phases, but worth of note is that by the end of the 1380's, France had reversed nearly all the previous English gains, and was in a victorious position. Then, there was the second English phase of ascendency, and while it is true that Johan of Arc did much to contain them, she didn't win the war : it was superior French military organisation (created in great part by the Bureau brothers), weaponry (probably the best artillery in Christian Europe by the end of the war) and numbers that by 1453 had all but expelled the English from the continent, leaving the later bankrupt and divided, which led to bloody civil war. Look up the battles of Patay, Formigny or Castillon, they were crushing French victories on the scale of Azincourt or Crécy.
- About the Italian wars : year pretty much a strategic failure, although to it's credit France actually managed to survive and gain land, despite suffering attacks on both sides.
- Thirty Years War : France's intervention proved decisive, initially less by actual combat (that went catastrophically in the first few years, especially in 1636 with the fall of Corbie) than by financing Sweden (my own sources, Peter Wilson and his book about the war, give France financing half of the Swedish intervention) and by diverting Spanish and Austrian forces from the Empire. In the end, France crippled the Empire, and ended not only Spanish supremacy over Europe, but replaced it as major military power in 1659 at the end of the war.
- Several wars under Louis XIV : the main objective was 1/ to crush the Netherlands, which succeed in the end but only replaced them with the British, and 2/ to gain defensible borders, which he also attained by the end of his reign, and considerably enlarged his domain. Don't get me wrong : he was an intolerant warmonger. But not an expansionist one. And about the War of the Spanish Succession : France, versus the whole of Europe, managed not only to not lose territory, but also to have previous conquests recognized, and succeeded in it's main military objective to place a Bourbon on the Spanish throne, effectively removing a threat on it's southern border and making Spain an ally until 1808 (except for a brief period). On the other hand, while Britain and Austria who previously would accept nothing less than an Austrian candidate on the throne of Spain, had to relent but both got territorial compensations, in Belgium for Austria and in the colonies for Britain. The main losers of the war were the Netherlands, that came out of it exhausted, and Spain that was used as a bargaining chip for everybody involved.
- The 18th century was France's greatest military period : beyond the Seven Years War that was mentioned, she won : the war of the Quadruple alliance (fun fact : France and Britain never lost a war when on the same side.. at least until Afghanistan), the War of the Polish Succession, the War of the Austrian Succession (famous in France for the missed opportunity of keeping Belgium, which the king stupidly relinquished in favour of appearing as an "arbiter of Europe"), failed in the Seven Years War, won the American War of Independence and massively succeeded in the first two Coalitions in the revolutionary war, that ended in 1800 by leaving France as Europe's superpower, dominating Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium, allied with a basically vassal Spain and controlling much of Germany and Switzerland.
=> So yeah. The BBB makes sense.. but I agree that the HRE should be able, at least in some games, to contain it. And I hope to see other countries, ie Austria, Spain and especially Poland and Russia to Blob.
