I think something happened in the last few years that has made us a bit more keen to demonstrate that we’re still friends.
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Now renamed Aber-bach since they reformed to do that virtual reality show.
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we have friends who, on occasions, really do drive us to despair… but they are still our friends… can’t really explain why… 
yes, I know it sounds daft… but I suspect many of us do have such friends…
If they need us… we always answer a call for help… 
and they would do likewise
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Apparently the French military doing the Changing of the Guard in London were housed in The Guards Waterloo Barracks
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Well, as everyone knows, or was told recently, the British didn’t win the Battle of Waterloo, it was the Prussians wot done it. 
Yes but they turned up late having been defeated by Napoleon a couple of days before. Bit like the Americans in WW1 and 2.
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Or the conveniently often forgtten Baugé only 6 years after Agincourt. Why, incidentally, do the English find winning battles on foreign soil a source of pride?
Probably because having been in the fortunate position of not having been (successfully) invaded since 1066, battles fought on English soil involve no pride at all, since they took place in periods of civil war.
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It’s also probably a little like winning an away-match, it’s tougher on someone else’s ground without local support. But I’m not sure they are a source of pride any more, British culture being much more embarrassed by success, preferring not to have winners and an awareness of military victories requiring the opposition to have a lot of stiffs.
We do like it when an underdog wins though (which I think was the case at Agincourt, I might be wrong), and also why I like to remind those of my friends who are Tottenham Hotspur fans about the 1987 FA Cup Final when they were beaten by Coventry City 3-2 (thanks to a Spurs own goal).
Yes I think the jingoist celebration of military victories is much less common nowadays.
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But how is a history of tramping over the world with a powerful army a source of pride?
Would you condemn or condone the countries who spent a considerable part of the 20th century doing just that. Germany, Russia/USSR, USA, Britain for example although I accept WWI WWII 1st Gulf War were reactions to aggression.
PS I omitted to say earlier, despite the hype, we were a minor player at Waterloo.
Im sorry but I just don’t see aggression as a source of pride. A military to be proud of is one that stands in defence of its people. Not one that goes abroad to make war on another people.
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Fair comment, it shouldn’t really be a source of pride, the way we look at things nowadays, but it certainly used to be.
Tribalism and “us versus them” is still quite a strong instinct in humans.
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Where to start with the football analogies?
Other than to say its a crazy comparison.
Nobody dies. Or more accurately very rarely does a participant die.
However weak the home team is they’ll come out the encounter better off than they went in.
The away team, if it wins or loses will go home after 90 minutes.
Wars are a wee bit not like that.
England and subsequently Britain has had such a militarised history that people dont stop to think of the wrongness of wars while the most military thing they’ll commit to is buying a poppy.
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I would suggest that has demonstrably changed in the last 50 years, and the proudest military endeavor now celebrated is the battle of Britain. I doubt many could event tell you* who was involved at Agincourt or Trafalgar these days. Statues of previously great men are now being removed as people try to forget/hide the past.
*A few years ago we played that party game where you write a name on a label and stick it to someone’s head - they have to ask questions and establish the name of their character. The lass whom I labelled - in her early 30s, university education, teacher - had never heard of Sir Walter Raleigh.
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Me sir me sir I know, I had one of his bikes. I know it was his because it had his picture on the front.
He sailed up the Trent as well, to stop the Scots at Derby, always fighting in other peoples’ countries those buggers.
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That’s an easy one.
Didn’t he invent the bicycle or did he promote smoking Hamlet cigars after playing bowling? 
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Belgrano and some anecdotal stuff aside retaking the The Falklands was a good show. Just a pity we left the door open in the first place.
A shameful periodin Scottish history 
. Anyway iI was more a fan of his brothers, Paris to Dakar and Monte Carlo.
Shamefully ignorant. Shocking.
The anniversary of the Falklands war was mentioned by the BBC last year, but I don’t think anyone would have remembered. British society doesn’t celebrate or especially remember military victories any more - it’s a leftover and anachronism.
As an aside, I wonder a little if jingoistically celebrating military success abroad (and having some) has been the sign of an energetic and growing society. Not that I think it good for one country to go to war with another, but from industry to government the UK seems stagnant, lost and listless. Some parts have become so afraid of offending that no-one knows if anything is right or wrong anymore, adrift in asea of technology and relativism.