Defeat and Division
France at War, 1939–1942

A definitive new history of the France at war from the war's outbreak to the invasion of North Africa in late 1942.

Douglas Porch (Author)

9781107047464, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 August 2022

742 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 4.5 cm, 1.19 kg

'Douglas Porch has produced an important and much-needed new look at the darkest period in French history. Defeat and Division is a deeply researched, robustly argued and entertainingly written history of a France destroyed by the weaknesses of its own leadership. This is a book that anyone interested in the Second World War or modern French history should read.' Phillips O'Brien, author of How the War was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II

Defeat and Division launches a definitive new account of France in the Second World War. In this first volume, Douglas Porch dissects France's 1940 collapse, the dynamics of occupation, and the rise of Charles de Gaulle's Free France crusade, culminating in the November 1942 Allied invasion of French North Africa. He captures the full sweep of France's wartime experience in Europe, Africa, and beyond, from soldiers and POWs to civilians-in-arms, colonial subjects, and foreign refugees. He recounts France's struggles to reconstruct military power within the context of a global conflict, with its armed forces shattered into warring factions and the country under Axis occupation. Disagreements over the causes of the 1940 debacle and the subsequent requirement for the armistice mirrored long-standing fractures in politics, society, and the French military itself, as efforts to reconstitute French military power crumbled into Vichy collaboration, De Gaulle's exile resistance, Alsace-Moselle occupation struggles, and a scuffle for imperial supremacy.

Introduction
1. 'Missed Opportunity Mythology'
2. From Phoney Peace to Phoney War, 1938–1940
3. Case Yellow
4. 'Stand and Fight...'
5. “The War is Over for Us”
6. “The Wisdom of a Great Leader.”
7. La France libre
8. 'Grandi soldati'
9. France's North African Hinterland
10. TORCH
Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Military history [HBW]