The worst armies in history

Hardly, French army was excellent during the later half of the 19th century, had  a bad time in the middle of wwi but remember Verdun and Marne. Was crap admitedly during wwii but for the last 20 years or so arguably the finest army in the world. It's Rapid Reaction force , the most elite fighting force on earth and it's mobile capabilities not just the envy of NATO but beyond the capabilities of any other country in the world to organise.

My suggestion is the Scottish Army 73,000 BC to present day.

Who loses almost three wars to the Germans in the space of 50 years?

What? There has been no Scottish army since 1707.  The Scottish regiments have a proud and victorious history, Scotland has always given more than its fair share of men to colonial and world wars.

The French have a regiment of paras each stationed in a handful of African capitals within shouting distance of the presidential residence so they can intervene if their loans are overdue or someone threatens their capital investments.  Come on, here.....

The last military success the French had was in Morocco in the 1920s, against 18th century Moors and Berbers.  The littany of French military disasters goes back 135 years to the Franco-Prussian War.

World War I turnred out reasonably well,  except that the enemy was not defeated......The Peace in 1919 was "an armistice for twenty years."

World War II....well, I ask you!

Indo-China?

The Suez canal debacle in 1956?

Algeria?

Tchad?  (who cares?)

A French mechanized division held the jock straps of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Div. in the gulf in 1991 on the left flank, but that was about it.

Not to say that the French do not have good soldiers or a great military tradition, but the French army is indicative of the physical and moral exhaustion of Europe in the last eight decades or so.   

My vote goes to the 19th century Qing army. Representative of a major power of the day, their armies were outdated and yet ultra conservative. Their leadership disdained emerging military traditions and was corrupt. Their performance in the field against European enemies was a comic tragedy for the army of so powerful and economically strong a nation. For the army of so major a power their army performed terribly.