Download or read book The Fall of France 1940 written by Andrew Shennan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-07-30 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering a fresh critical perspective on this momentous event, Andrew Shennan examines both the continuities and discontinuities that resulted from the events of 1940. The main focus is on the French experience of the war, but this experience is framed within the larger context of France's - and Europe's - protracted mid-twentieth century crisis.

Download or read book France 1940 written by Philip Nord and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-01 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this revisionist account of France’s crushing defeat in 1940, a world authority on French history argues that the nation’s downfall has long been misunderstood. Philip Nord assesses France’s diplomatic and military preparations for war with Germany, its conduct of the war once the fighting began, and the political consequences of defeat on the battlefield. He also tracks attitudes among French leaders once defeat seemed a likelihood, identifying who among them took advantage of the nation’s misfortunes to sabotage democratic institutions and plot an authoritarian way forward. Nord finds that the longstanding view that France’s collapse was due to military unpreparedeness and a decadent national character is unsupported by fact. Instead, he reveals that the Third Republic was no worse prepared and its military failings no less dramatic than those of the United States and other Allies in the early years of the war. What was unique in France was the betrayal by military and political elites who abandoned the Republic and supported the reprehensible Vichy takeover. Why then have historians and politicians ever since interpreted the defeat as a judgment on the nation as a whole? Why has the focus been on the failings of the Third Republic and not on elite betrayal? The author examines these questions in a fascinating conclusion.

Download or read book The Week France Fell written by Noel Barber and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The week France fell gives a vivid and moving picture of a country in defeat. While the refugees leaving Paris struggled to keep one step ahead of the advancing German armies, their political and military leaders were fighting not so much the Germans as among themselves. There is Paul Reynaud, the French premiere -- courageous in his way but hampered by his pro-German mistress, H?l?ne de Portes; the arrogant General Weygand, commander-in-chief of the French army, and the senile Marshal P?tain both committed to an armistice with the Germans. There is the tall figure of de Gaulle who struggled so hard to persuade the government to fight on from North Africa. And of course there is Churchill, at the very heart of the story, whether planning the war in London or flying first to the French army headquarters, and then to the bomb-scarred airfield near Tours, in last-minute efforts to bolster French morale. Against this background of bickering and futility, Noel Barber has arrayed a gallery of ordinary men and women whose lives were caught up in the tragedy. They include Zena Marshall, then a schoolgirl, who had a terrifying journey from Brussels to Bordeaux after her school had been bombed; Drue Tarti?re whom chance placed in a small room in Bordeaux next to P?tain when he made his surrender speech; and Corrine Luchaire, the French actress, who found milk to save just a few of the starving children, among the eight million refugees who clogged the roads"--Jacket.

Download or read book The Fall of Paris written by Herbert R. Lottman and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1992 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Søgeord: Frankrigs Fald; Paris's Fald; Hitler's Indtogsmarch i Paris, 1940; Fransk-Tysk Våbenstilstand, 1940; Fransk Kapitulation, 1940; Fransk Politik, 1940; Petain; Vichy; de Gaulle; Weygand; Gamelin; Roosevelt; Reynaud; Mandel; Murphy; Langeron; Lebrun; Hering; General Georges; Goebbels; Groussard; Dentz; Dupuy; Churchill; Bullitt; Eiffel Tårnet, 1940; Ciano; Blum; Baudouin; Liebling; von Schramm; Studnitz; Küchler; Darlan; Daladier; Villey.

Download or read book Fleeing Hitler written by Hanna Diamond and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Hitler's victorious armies approached Paris, panic gripped the city and the roads heading south filled with millions of French citizens, fleeing for their lives, with scant supplies and often no destination in mind. All hoped, as famed author Simone de Beauvoir wrote in her diary, "not to be taken like a rat in Occupied Paris." In Fleeing Hitler, historian Hanna Diamond paints a gripping picture of the harrowing escape from Paris, highlighting the hardships people suffered in their desperate flight, and underscoring the impact this exodus had on life under Vichy rule. Using eyewitness accounts, memoirs, and diaries, Diamond shows how this ordeal became for civilians and soldiers alike the defining experience of the war. She tells how, in the Paris region alone, close to four million people left their homes and fled south, swelling the numbers of refugees until is was impossible to direct the flow of humanity. The result was total chaos with an enormous price to pay in terms of human misery and suffering. Many lost their lives as this vast caravan of predominantly women, children, and the elderly faced truly harsh conditions, and even starvation. Then, after the German offer of peace, as the traumatized population returned home, preoccupied by the desire for safety and bewildered by the unexpected turn of events, they put their faith in Marshall Petain who was able to establish his collaborative Vichy regime largely unopposed, while the Germans consolidated their occupation. The first time this important story has been told in English, Fleeing Hitler captures in moving detail the devastating flight and early days of occupation after the fall of France.

Download or read book The Fall of France written by Julian Jackson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-04-22 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 16 May 1940 an emergency meeting of the French High Command was called at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris. The German army had broken through the French lines on the River Meuse at Sedan and elsewhere, only five days after launching their attack. Churchill, who had been telephoned by Prime Minister Reynaud the previous evening to be told that the French were beaten, rushed to Paris to meet the French leaders. The mood in the meeting was one of panic and despair; there was talk ofevacuating Paris. Churchill asked Gamelin, the French Commander in Chief, 'Where is the strategic reserve?' 'There is none,' replied Gamelin.This exciting book by Julian Jackson, a leading historian of twentieth-century France, charts the breathtakingly rapid events that led to the defeat and surrender of one of the greatest bastions of the Western Allies, and thus to a dramatic new phase of the Second World War. The search for scapegoats for the most humiliating military disaster in French history began almost at once: were miscalculations by military leaders to blame, or was this an indictment of an entire nation?Using eyewitness accounts, memoirs, and diaries, Julian Jackson recreates, in gripping detail, the intense atmosphere and dramatic events of these six weeks in 1940, unravelling the historical evidence to produce a fresh answer to the perennial question of whether the fall of France was inevitable.

Download or read book The Fall of France written by Robert Jackson and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Ides of May written by John Williams and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " The collapse of the French Army before the German onslaught in the spring of 1940 was the most stunning military reversal of the twentieth century. The ides of May is both an authoritative account of events of those incredible weeks and an illuminationg historical analysis of the disaster. John Williams gives full weight to the political and social factors that undermined the French republic, but he fixes primary responsibility for the defeat squarely on the adamant refusal of the High Command to adjust its strategic doctrine- formulated in 1870 and hardened in 1918- to the realities of mechanized warfare. When the German panzers made their crucial breakthrough at the Meuse River on May 15, the French cause was all but lost. The ides of May makes vivid both the bizarre atmosphere and the tragic undercurrents of that spring - Marshal Petain brooding about the shortage of army carrier pigeons while German tanks were driving on Paris, anticlerical politicians praying at Notre Dame, Winston Churchill crossing the Channel three times in a desperate attempt to shore up his faltering ally, and Charles de Gaulle's lonely struggle to alert his countrymen to the hard realities of modern war. It provides a new understanding of how two powerful war machines, apparently equal in men, weapons, and armor, could prove so inequal in combat - how a great nation could so unexpectedly be brought to her knees"- Publisher.

Download or read book Fleeing Hitler written by Hanna Diamond and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2008-09-25 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wednesday 12th June 1940. The Times reported 'thousands upon thousands of Parisians leaving the capital by every possible means, preferring to abandon home and property rather than risk even temporary Nazi domination'. As Hitler's victorious armies approached Paris, the French government abandoned the city and its people, leaving behind them an atmosphere of panic. Roads heading south filled with ordinary people fleeing for their lives with whatever personal possessions they could carry, often with no particular destination in mind. During the long, hard journey, this mass exodus of predominantly women, children, and the elderly, would face constant bombings, machine gun attacks, and even starvation. Using eyewitness accounts, memoirs, and diaries, Hanna Diamond shows how the disruption this exodus brought to the lives of civilians and soldiers alike made it a defining experience of the war for the French people. As traumatized populations returned home, preoccupied by the desire for safety and bewildered by the unexpected turn of events, they put their faith in Marshall Pétain who was able to establish his collaborative Vichy regime largely unopposed, while the Germans consolidated their occupation. Watching events unfold on the other side of the channel, British ministers looked on with increasing horror, terrified that Britain could be next.

Download or read book The Six Weeks War written by Theodore Draper and published by New York : The Viking P. This book was released on 1944 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Søgeord: Somme; Tours; Bordeaux; Corap; 6-ugers-krigen; 5-dags-krigen; Laval, Pierre; Frankrigs Fald, 1940; Frankrigs Kapitulation, 1940; Fransk-Tyske Våbenstilstand, 1940;

Download or read book A Certain Idea of France written by Julian Jackson and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2018-06-18 with total page 866 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A SUNDAY TIMES, THE TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN, SPECTATOR, FINANCIAL TIMES, TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Masterly ... awesome reading ... an outstanding biography' Max Hastings, Sunday Times The definitive biography of the greatest French statesman of modern times In six weeks in the early summer of 1940, France was over-run by German troops and quickly surrendered. The French government of Marshal Pétain sued for peace and signed an armistice. One little-known junior French general, refusing to accept defeat, made his way to England. On 18 June he spoke to his compatriots over the BBC, urging them to rally to him in London. 'Whatever happens, the flame of French resistance must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished.' At that moment, Charles de Gaulle entered into history. For the rest of the war, de Gaulle frequently bit the hand that fed him. He insisted on being treated as the true embodiment of France, and quarrelled violently with Churchill and Roosevelt. He was prickly, stubborn, aloof and self-contained. But through sheer force of personality and bloody-mindedness he managed to have France recognised as one of the victorious Allies, occupying its own zone in defeated Germany. For ten years after 1958 he was President of France's Fifth Republic, which he created and which endures to this day. His pursuit of 'a certain idea of France' challenged American hegemony, took France out of NATO and twice vetoed British entry into the European Community. His controversial decolonization of Algeria brought France to the brink of civil war and provoked several assassination attempts. Julian Jackson's magnificent biography reveals this the life of this titanic figure as never before. It draws on a vast range of published and unpublished memoirs and documents - including the recently opened de Gaulle archives - to show how de Gaulle achieved so much during the War when his resources were so astonishingly few, and how, as President, he put a medium-rank power at the centre of world affairs. No previous biography has depicted his paradoxes so vividly. Much of French politics since his death has been about his legacy, and he remains by far the greatest French leader since Napoleon.

Download or read book War in the West The Battle of France May June 1940 written by Daniel Vilfroy and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2016-07-26 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published at the height of World War II, this book provides an in-depth analysis of how and why France was beaten by Germany in May and June of 1940. Author Daniel Vilfroy closely examines both the French and German tactics and strategies employed during this period, and also explores the pre-war “Crisis of Art of War in France,” the life of French soldiers in 1940, and discusses in detail the nature of modern warfare.

Download or read book Vichy France Old Guard and New Order 1940 1944 written by Robert O. Paxton and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncompromising, often startling, meticulously documented'this book is an account of the government, and the governed, of colaborationist France. Basing his work on captured German archives and contemporary materials rather than on self-serving postwar memoirs or war-trial testimony, Professor Paxton maps out the complex nature of the ill-famed Vichy government, showing that it in fact enjoyed mass participation. The majority of the Frenchmen in 1940 feared social disorder as the worse imaginable evil and rallied to support the State, thereby bringing about the betrayal of the Nation as a whole.

Download or read book Deposition 1940 1944 written by Léon Werth and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians agree: the diary of Léon Werth (1878-1955) is one of the most precious--and readable--pieces of testimony ever written about life in France under Nazi occupation and the Vichy regime. Werth was a free-spirited and unclassifiable writer. He is the author of eleven novels, art and dance criticism, acerbic political reporting, and memorable personal essays. He was Jewish, and left Paris in June 1940 to hide out in his wife's country house in Saint-Amour, a small village in the Jura Mountains. His short memoir 33 Days recounts his struggle to get there. Deposition tells of daily life in the village, on nearby farms and towns, and finally back in Paris, where he draws the portrait of a Resistance network in his apartment and writes an eyewitness report of the insurrection that freed the city in August, 1944. From Saint-Amour, we see both the Resistance in the countryside, derailing troop trains, punishing notorious collaborators--and growing repression: arrests, torture, deportation, and executions. Above all, we see how Vichy and the Occupation affect the lives of farmers and villagers and how their often contradictory attitudes evolve from 1940-1944. Werth's ear for dialogue and novelist's gift for creating characters animate the diary: in the markets and in town, we meet real French peasants and shopkeepers, railroad men and the patronne of the café at the station, schoolteachers and gendarmes. They come off the page alive, and the countryside and villages come alive with them. With biting irony, Werth records, almost daily, what Vichy-German propaganda was saying on the radio and in the press. We follow the progress of the war as people did then, day by day. These entries make interesting, often amusing reading, a stark contrast with his gripping entries on the persecution and deportation of the Jews. Deposition is a varied and complex piece of living history, and a pleasure to read.

Download or read book The Survival of the Jews in France 1940 44 written by Jacques Semelin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-01 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the French defeat in 1940 and liberation in 1944, the Nazis killed almost 80,000 of France's Jews, both French and foreign. Since that time, this tragedy has been well-documented. But there are other stories hidden within it-ones neglected by historians. In fact, 75% of France's Jews escaped the extermination, while 45% of the Jews of Belgium perished, and in the Netherlands only 20% survived. The Nazis were determined to destroy the Jews across Europe, and the Vichy regime collaborated in their deportation from France. So what is the meaning of this French exception? Jacques Semelin sheds light on this 'French enigma', painting a radically unfamiliar view of occupied France. His is a rich, even-handed portrait of a complex and changing society, one where helping and informing on one's neighbours went hand in hand; and where small gestures of solidarity sat comfortably with anti-Semitism. Without shying away from the horror of the Holocaust's crimes, this seminal work adds a fresh perspective to our history of the Second World War.

Download or read book The fall of France June 1940 written by Sir Edward Spears and published by . This book was released on 1955 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The French Resistance 1940 to 1944 written by Frida Knight and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: