Frenchmen?

This is coolbert:

Yet once more from the List Verse web site with extracts and commentary:

"10 Blunderful Moments In French Military History"

The invasion of England during the Napoleonic Era. An amphibious assault the results almost comical in nature.

Mercenary "soldiers" better referred to as guttersnipes, men of low repute, an invasion force doing the biding of the French, but not successful, rather the opposite.

This was:
 
# 7 Fishguard, 1797.

"William Tate, who had fought against the British during the American Revolution. Tate’s army was a motley assortment of slaves, convicts, and prisoners of war. Still, there were 1,800 of them and they were well-armed. But, as this was Fishguard, there was no one to fight. Tate took a position outside the town and set his men to foraging, but Tate’s brigade instead took the opportunity to gulp down plundered wine. Drunk and disorderly Frenchmen [?] traipsed through Fishguard, and at least a dozen were captured by a single Welsh woman with a pitchfork."

This an instance reminiscent of the Ottoman Empire and the use in combat of the bashi bazooks?

Criminal elements released from prison strictly for the purpose of waging war, wages of the participants understood in that amount of PLUNDER that could be obtained.

Slaves, convicts, prisoners of war even when organized into military or quasi-military units NEVER able to perform in a RELIABLE manner, undisciplined and quite often a greater danger to their own officers than to the enemy. Persons the character and mental attitude deplorable in the extreme, the effort of such "units" counter-productive in most instances.

coolbert.