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Failures and Constraints

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Book cover The Fall of France in the Second World War

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Abstract

This chapter reviews how commentators and historians have treated the failures of the principal protagonists involved in the Fall of France within the larger context of the collective failures of the Third Republic’s institutions and policies. The chapter examines the interactions between the failures and constraints—economic, political, military and diplomatic—identified by historians as inhibiting French policy-makers in the interwar period and during the Battle of France.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    John C. Cairns (1959) ‘Along the Road Back to France 1940’, American Historical Review, 64:3, 583–603.

  2. 2.

    Pierre Grosser (1999) Pourquoi la 2e Guerre mondiale? (Brussels: Editions Complexe), 194; Patrick Finney (2011) Remembering the Road to World War Two: International History, National Identity, Collective Memory (London: Routledge), 174.

  3. 3.

    Raymond Recouly (1941) Les Causes de Notre Effondrement (Paris: Editions de France), 64–65.

  4. 4.

    Henri Michel (1979) Le Procès de Riom (Paris: Albin Michel); Frédéric Pottecher (1989) Le Procès de la Défaite: Riom février-avril 1942 (Paris: Fayard); Julia Bracher (2012) Riom 1942: Le Procès (Paris: Omnibus); and Jean-Denis Bredin (2012) L’Infamie: le procès de Riom février-avril 1942 (Paris: Grasset).

  5. 5.

    Eberhard Jäckel (1966) Frankreich in Hitlers Europa: Die Deutsche Frankreichpolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt), 219.

  6. 6.

    Pierre Tissier (1942) The Riom Trial (London: Harrap), 5.

  7. 7.

    Jacques Benoist-Méchin (1989) A l’épreuve du temps Tome 1 1905–1940 (Paris: Julliard), 301–306.

  8. 8.

    Pertinax (1944) The Gravediggers of France: Gamelin , Daladier , Reynaud , Pétain and Laval : Military Defeat, Armistice and Counterrevolution (New York: Doubleday), 11–84.

  9. 9.

    Paul Allard (1941) Les Responsables du Désastre (Paris: Editions de France), 181–187, 223.

  10. 10.

    John C. Cairns (1974) ‘Some Recent Historians and the “Strange Defeat” of 1940’, Journal of Modern History, 46:1, 81.

  11. 11.

    Robert A. Doughty (1985) The Seeds of Disaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine 1919–1939 (Hamden: Archon Books), 188–189.

  12. 12.

    Martin S. Alexander (1992) The Republic in Danger: General Maurice Gamelin and the Politics of French Defence 1933–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 397–402. See also Alexander’s portrait of Gamelin (1991) in Brian Bond (ed.) Fallen Stars: Eleven Studies of Twentieth Century Military Disasters (London: Brassey).

  13. 13.

    Lloyd Clark (2016) Blitzkrieg: Myth, Reality and Hitler’s Lightning War—France 1940 (London: Atlantic Books), 381–389.

  14. 14.

    Pertinax , The Gravediggers of France, 85–163.

  15. 15.

    Peter Jackson (1996) ‘Recent Journeys Along the Road Back to France 1940’, The Historical Journal, 39:2, 505.

  16. 16.

    Allard , Les Responsables du Désastre, 82–97, 122–129, 137–141, 150, 167–168.

  17. 17.

    Elisabeth du Réau (1993) Edouard Daladier 1884–1970 (Paris: Fayard). See also René Rémond and Janine Bourdin (eds.) (1977) Edouard Daladier chef de gouvernement avril 1938-septembre 1939 (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques); René Rémond and Janine Bourdin (eds.) (1978) La France et les français en 1938–39 (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques).

  18. 18.

    Allard , Les Responsables du Désastre, 227–228, 234–237, 241, 245–246.

  19. 19.

    Pertinax , The Gravediggers of France, 177–185, 282–283, 311–312.

  20. 20.

    Elie J. Bois (1940) Truth on the Tragedy of France (London: Hodder & Stoughton), 408.

  21. 21.

    Charles de Gaulle (1954) Mémoires de guerre: L’appel 1940–1942 (Paris: Plon), 84–85.

  22. 22.

    See, for example, Edward Spears (1954) Assignment to Catastrophe (2 vols.) (London: Heinemann); Paul de Villelume (1976) Journal d’une défaite 23 août 1939-16 juin 1940 (Paris: Fayard); Dominique Leca (1978) La Rupture de 1940 (Paris: Fayard); and Roland de Margerie (2010) Journal 1939–1940 (Paris: Grasset).

  23. 23.

    Emmanuel Berl (1968) La Fin de la IIIe République (Paris: Gallimard), 81–89.

  24. 24.

    Thibault Tellier (2005) Paul Reynaud : Un indépendant en politique 1878–1966 (Paris: Fayard), 641–657.

  25. 25.

    Jean-Pierre Guichard (2008) Paul Reynaud : Un homme d’Etat dans la tourmente Septembre 1939–Juin 1940 (Paris: L’Harmattan), 393–399.

  26. 26.

    Stefan Grüner (2001) Paul Reynaud (1878–1966): Biographische Studien zum Liberalismus in Frankreich (Munich: Oldenbourg).

  27. 27.

    Paul Reynaud (1947) La France a sauvé l’Europe (Paris: Flammarion).

  28. 28.

    Bois , Truth on the Tragedy, 20, 414; Pertinax , The Gravediggers of France, 411–434.

  29. 29.

    On Pétain in general, see Marc Ferro (1987) Pétain (Paris: Fayard); Nicholas Atkin (1998) Pétain (London: Longman); and Bénédicte Vergez-Chaignon (2014) Pétain (Paris: Perrin).

  30. 30.

    Pertinax , The Gravediggers of France, 216–225.

  31. 31.

    Paul Allard (1941) Les Journées Pathétiques de la Guerre (Paris: Editions de France), 94–95.

  32. 32.

    De Gaulle , Mémoires de guerre: L’appel, 54–55.

  33. 33.

    Berl, La Fin de la IIIe République, 94–109.

  34. 34.

    Maxime Weygand (1952) Recalled to Service: The Memoirs of General Maxime Weygand (London: Heinemann), 176–177. See also Philip Bankwitz (1967) Maxime Weygand and Civil-Military Relations in Modern France (Cambridge: Harvard University Press); Bernard Destremau (1989) Weygand (Paris: Perrin).

  35. 35.

    Max Schiavon (2017) Corap: Bouc émissaire de la défaite de 1940 (Paris: Perrin), 246. For Corap’s efforts during the Phoney War, see pages 219–255.

  36. 36.

    Schiavon , Corap: Bouc émissaire, 292–293.

  37. 37.

    Colonel (Michel) Alerme (1941) Les Causes Militaires de notre Défaite (Paris: Centre d’Etudes de l’Agence Inter-France), 13–32.

  38. 38.

    Léon Blum (1945) For All Mankind (A l’échelle humaine) (London: Gollancz), 37.

  39. 39.

    Henri de Kerillis (1942) Français, voici la vérité! (New York: Editions de la Maison Française), 300–301.

  40. 40.

    Bois , Truth on the Tragedy, 20.

  41. 41.

    Jacques Maritain (1941) France My Country: Through the Disaster (New York: Longmans Green), 3, 10–12.

  42. 42.

    Marc Bloch (1968) Strange Defeat: A Statement of Evidence Written in 1940 (New York: W. W. Norton), 24–25, 36–41, 47–48, 135, 138–143, 156–157.

  43. 43.

    Theodore Draper (1946) The Six Weeks’ War: France May 10–June 25, 1940 (London: Methuen), 295.

  44. 44.

    André Maurois (1940) Why France Fell (London: John Lane The Bodley Head), 32–33, 51–63, 67–68, 82, 85–87, 99–105, 150–162.

  45. 45.

    Alexander Werth (1940) The Last Days of Paris: A Journalist’s Diary (London: Hamish Hamilton), 217, 223, 261–264.

  46. 46.

    Walter Picht (1941?) La Fin des Illusions (Paris: Dompol), 7–13.

  47. 47.

    Barbara Lambauer (2011) ‘The French Entry into the War in September 1939: Between Reluctance and Resignation’, in Lothar Kettenacker and Torsten Riotte (eds.), The Legacies of Two World Wars: European Societies in the Twentieth Century (New York: Berghahn), 150–164.

  48. 48.

    Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac (1990) Les Français de l’An 40 II: Ouvriers et Soldats (Paris: Gallimard), 350–359.

  49. 49.

    Jean-Pierre Azéma (1993) ‘Le choc armé et les débandades’, in Jean-Pierre Azéma and François Bédarida (eds.), La France des Années Noires 1: De la Défaite à Vichy (Paris: Seuil), 97–109.

  50. 50.

    Talbot C. Imlay (2003) Facing the Second World War: Strategy, Politics and Economics in Britain and France 1938–1940 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 54–75, 154–158.

  51. 51.

    Bloch , Strange Defeat, 25, 47, 53, 125.

  52. 52.

    Ladislas Mysyrowicz (1973) Autopsie d’une défaite: Origines de l’effondrement militaire français de 1940 (Lausanne: L’Age Homme), 58.

  53. 53.

    Doughty , The Seeds of Disaster, 178–190.

  54. 54.

    See, for example, Robert Young (1978) In Command of France: French Foreign Policy and Military Planning 1933–1940 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press); Jeffery A. Gunsburg (1979) Divided and Conquered: The French High Command and the Defeat of the West 1940 (London: Greenwood); Henry Dutailly (1980) Les problèmes de l’armée de terre française (1935–1939) (Paris: Imprimerie nationale); Eugenia Kiesling (1996) Arming Against Hitler: France and the Limits of Military Planning (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press); and Elizabeth Kier (1997) Imagining War: French and British Military Doctrine Between the Wars (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

  55. 55.

    Azéma , ‘Le choc armé et les débandades’, in Azéma, Bédarida , La France des Années Noires, 97–109.

  56. 56.

    Bloch , Strange Defeat, 25, 125.

  57. 57.

    De Kerillis , Français, Voici la Vérité!, 231–240, 269–275, 300.

  58. 58.

    Pierre Cot (1944) Triumph of Treason (Chicago and New York: Ziff-Davis), 79–80.

  59. 59.

    Recouly , Les Causes de notre Effondrement, 23–29.

  60. 60.

    Alfred Fabre-Luce (1940) Journal de la France: mars 1939–juillet 1940 (Paris: Imprimerie J.E.P.), 303–306, 322–323, 328–329.

  61. 61.

    Robert O. Paxton (1972) Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order 1940–1944 (New York: Columbia University Press), 4–5.

  62. 62.

    Azéma ‘Le choc armé et les débandades’, in Azéma and Bédarida (eds.), La France des Années Noires 1, 103–109.

  63. 63.

    Pierre Rocolle (1990) La guerre de 1940: La défaite (Paris: Armand Colin), 347–348.

  64. 64.

    Jacques Bourdu (2007) L’armistice de 1940: Histoire d’une faute tragique: d’une guerre mal conduite à une soumission déshonorante (Paris: F.-X. de Guibert), 123–124.

  65. 65.

    Jean-Baptiste Duroselle (1979) Politique étrangère de la France: La décadence 1932–1939 (Paris: Imprimerie nationale).

  66. 66.

    Anthony Adamthwaite (1995) Grandeur and Misery: France’s Bid for Power in Europe 1914–1940 (London: Arnold), 230–231.

  67. 67.

    Henri de Wailly (2000) 1940 L’effondrement (Paris: Perrin), 8.

  68. 68.

    Alerme , Les Causes Militaires de notre Défaite, 13–32.

  69. 69.

    Recouly , Les Causes de notre Effondrement, 15–20, 73–77, 103–104.

  70. 70.

    Ernest R. May (2000) Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of France (London and New York: I.B. Tauris), 347–361.

  71. 71.

    Alerme , Les Causes Militaires de notre Défaite, 63–66.

  72. 72.

    Paul Allard (1941) L’Enigme de la Meuse: la Vérité sur l’affaire Corap (Paris: Editions de France), I–II, 47–48, 51–55. The Swedish journalist Victor Vinde claimed that Allard had been asked by Corap to write the book, in order to rebut the accusations made against him by Reynaud on radio. See Victor Vinde (1942) La Fin d’une Grande Puissance? (Lausanne: Marguerat), 81. Curiously, Schiavon mentions Allard’s book only in passing. Schiavon , Corap: Bouc émissaire, 312, 381, note 15.

  73. 73.

    Jackson, ‘Recent Journeys Along the Road Back to France 1940’, 497–498.

  74. 74.

    Peter Jackson (2000) France and the Nazi Menace: Intelligence and Policy-Making 1933–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 45–82.

  75. 75.

    Jean-Paul Cointet (1996) Histoire de Vichy (Paris: Perrin), 54.

  76. 76.

    Philip Nord (2015) France 1940: Defending the Republic (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), 3–4.

  77. 77.

    Yves Durand (2001) La France dans la Deuxième Guerrre mondiale 1939–1945 (Paris: Armand Colin), 6.

  78. 78.

    See, for example, Martin S. Alexander (1998) ‘In Defence of the Maginot Line: Security Policy, Domestic Politics and the Economic Depression in France’, in Robert Boyce (ed.), French Foreign and Defence Policy 1918–1940: The Decline and Fall of a Great Power (London: Routledge), 164–194.

  79. 79.

    Bradford E. Lee (1985) ‘Strategy, Arms and the Collapse of France 1930–40’, in Richard Langhorne (ed.), Diplomacy and Intelligence in the Second World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 63–67.

  80. 80.

    René Girault ‘The Impact of the Economic Situation on the Foreign Policy of France 1936–9’, in Wolfgang J. Mommsen and Lothar Kettenacker (eds.), (1983) The Fascist Challenge and the Policy of Appeasement (London: Allen & Unwin), 222–223.

  81. 81.

    Recouly , Les Causes de notre Effondrement, 39–41.

  82. 82.

    Nicole Jordan (1992) The Popular Front and Central Europe: the Dilemmas of French Impotence 1918–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

  83. 83.

    Robert A, Doughty (1994) ‘The Illusion of Security: France 1919–1940’, in Williamson Murray , MacGregor Knox and Alvin Bernstein (eds.), The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States and Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 495.

  84. 84.

    Robert Forczyk (2017) Case Red: The Collapse of France (Oxford: Osprey), 25–26.

  85. 85.

    Peter Jackson (2006) ‘Post-war Politics and the Historiography of French Strategy and Diplomacy Before the Second World War’, History Compass 4:5, 886.

  86. 86.

    Cot , Triumph of Treason, 46–48, 50–53.

  87. 87.

    Michael Jabara Carley (1998) ‘Prelude to Defeat: Franco-Soviet Relations 1919–1939’, in Joel Blatt (ed.), The French Defeat of 1940: Reassessments (Providence and Oxford: Berghahn), 202–203.

  88. 88.

    Paul Allard (1942) Comment l’Angleterre fait la guerre (Paris: Editions de France), 47–51, 53–65.

  89. 89.

    Recouly , Les Causes de notre Effondrement, 44–50.

  90. 90.

    Fabre-Luce , Journal de la France, 349–351.

  91. 91.

    Jean Luchaire (1941) Les Anglais et nous: l’action britannique contre la France jusqu’au 13 décembre 1940 (Paris: Editions du Livre Moderne), 60–61.

  92. 92.

    Talbot Imlay (2002) ‘Retreat or Resistance: Strategic Reappraisal and the Crisis of French Power in Eastern Europe, September 1938 to August 1939’, in Kenneth Mouré and Martin S. Alexander (eds.), Crisis and Renewal in France 1918–1962 (New York and Oxford: Berghahn), 105–131.

  93. 93.

    Arnold Wolfers (1940) Britain and France Between Two Wars: Conflicting Strategies of Peace from Versailles (New York: Harcourt Brace). For an interesting gloss on Wolfers’ argument, see Peter Jackson (2010) ‘British Power and French Security 1919–1939’, in Keith Neilson and Greg Kennedy (eds.), The British Way in Warfare: Power and the International System 1856–1956 (Farnham: Ashgate), 101–134.

  94. 94.

    John C. Cairns (1955) ‘Great Britain and the Fall of France: A Study in Allied Disunity’, Journal of Modern History, 27:4, 365–409; P. M. H. Bell (2002) ‘John Cairns and the Historiography of Great Britain and the Fall of France: Il n’y a que le premier pas qui coûte’, in Mouré, Alexander, Crisis and Renewal in France, 15–27; and Gunsburg, Divided and Conquered, 110–113, 127, 211, 266–277.

  95. 95.

    Forczyk , Case Red, 26.

  96. 96.

    Charles Rist (2016) Season of Infamy: A Diary of War and Occupation 1939–1945 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), 81–82.

  97. 97.

    Jacques Benoist-Méchin (1941) La Moissonde Quarante: Journal d’un Prisonnier de Guerre  (Paris: Albin Michel), 31 July 1940, 306–308.

  98. 98.

    Robert J. Young (1996) France and the Origins of the Second World War (Basingstoke: Macmillan), 7–36.

  99. 99.

    Carole Fink (1989) Marc Bloch : A Life in History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 238–240.

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    Richard Carswell

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Carswell, R. (2019). Failures and Constraints. In: The Fall of France in the Second World War. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03955-4_6

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