Entente Militaire

I was amused to read that Cameron has now followed through with last year's promise to start having closer military ties with the old enemy France.  He and Sarkozy signed a deal last week to develop and deploy military technology together.  I wondered what would happen if we took this through to its logical conclusion.

Entente Militaire

There’s been a bit of a down-turn,

And there’s a new hand on the helm.

For now it’s getting expensive

To pay for the defence of the realm. 

We’re told we’re all in this together,

And that we’ll have to take a new course.

We can’t afford the Army or Navy,

To say nothing of a proper Air Force. 

So they’ve put their heads all together

To dig us right out of this trench.

We can’t go it alone anymore,

And we’ll have to get into bed with the French.

Now this could be easier said than is done:

I don’t think that they’ve thought this quite through.

The misunderstandings could be awful,

Without a bi-lingual crew.

This entente militaire is worrying,

It’s all too easy to see,

For we might have our brave Tommies,

Fighting alongside chaps who eat brie. 

Imagine the atmosphere in the mess-rooms,

With Gaulois & garlic creating a fug.

When asked to stand to attention,

To be met by a simple Gallic shrug.

For the French have their own way of living

I just mention this en passant.

Our guys like their full English breakfast,

But for them it’s just café et croissant. 

But now we’re just going to have to share things,

Which I can see is quite a barrier.

You can just hear it, can’t you?

Apres vous avec that aircraft carrier. 

Can I borrow your helicopters?

I think it’s our turn, sacre bleu!

You really can’t hang on to the air-craft

Come on – give us a go, Mon Dieu.

For the war on terror must continue apace,

And we must fight in every region.

We’ll contribute our SAS,

If you’ll throw in your Foreign Legion. 

We’re not fighting in Europe any more:

We don’t have to face Russkies & Huns.

But we sure can’t work on the basis

Of asking “ou sont les machine-guns”!

You may think that it can’t get that bad,

But it’s not too early to gloat,

That one day our Trident nuclear deterrent,

Could be replaced by two blokes in a boat.

So I think that all of our armed forces

Need to keep our new allies en garde.

Because if we don’t keep our eye on the ball

We could all end up in the merde.

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2012