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Title: The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 by Julian Jackson ISBN: 0-19-280300-X Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: June, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Buy this book. It is very very good.
Comment: It is difficult to better the comments in the other five-star reviews of this book, but I'll try: This is how historical accounts should be written: with care, attention to detail, faithfulness to sources, originality of ideas and an exciting writing style. I've read quite a lot about this period and these events but I was delighted by the many new things I learned. All theses are balanced and fair, and the author has a non-intrusive way of dealing with large moral issues.
Rating: 5
Summary: Do the French really surrender regularly?
Comment: Much has been written about various aspects of World War II, but books continue to come out. Some do re-evaluations using new information, some take a different look at old information and try to show it in a new light. Julian Jackson has written a very interesting book on the German invasion of France in 1940, called (simply enough) The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940. In it, Jackson attempts to show his version of why France fell, and whether or not it was inevitable. Were the Germans just too powerful? Was the new Blitzkrieg warfare just too much for the incompetent French soldiers? Jackson uses personal memoirs, eyewitness accounts, and diaries to provide this vivid account of six weeks of hell. Not only that, but he places the fall in historical context. Put all together, and it's a fascinating book.
First, Jackson tells the story of the invasion. He breaks this down into four narrative chapters that explore this from a different angle. The first one contains the military aspects of the defeat. The second looks at the relations between France and its allies, mainly Britain (though it does examine other countries, such as the support pact with Poland). This examines how the British and French looked at each other, along with how they cooperated in war (and how they fought amongst themselves as well). The third chapter looks at the political aspects of the defeat, while the fourth looks at the French people. Then Jackson brings them all together, looking at how they all relate to each other, and shows how each one can be seen as part of the defeat, but yet none of them can be singled out as the main cause. Finally, Jackson looks at the consequences of the defeat, including how it coloured French thinking for years to come, even reaching as far forward as today. Much of French foreign policy has referred back to this time in their history.
I was really impressed with the way Jackson told the story. His writing is very evocative and his use of sources from memoirs of generals and politicians to the common soldier is extremely well done. I have read a few books on this aspect of the war (or that have included it, anyway), but never have I heard from the soldier's point of view. This is becoming the norm in World War II history books recently (see An Army at Dawn), and I like it. I think it gives us a better picture of warfare and how it affects the soldiers who are fighting it, rather than just dry strategy and tactics. That's not the only thing that's good about it, though. Since Jackson is examining the defeat from multiple sides, it wouldn't have been surprising to see him tell the story of the invasion and then look at the other aspects of it, thus having some narrative repetition. Jackson avoids this, seamlessly linking the chapters so that they tell a continuous story, even as he looks at the different points.
The most interesting part of the book is when Jackson is looking at the different causes of the loss. The standard is to blame the horrible French military, calling them cowards and (as the stereotype goes) saying how easily the French surrender. Mosier's The Blitzkrieg Myth places a large portion of the blame on the British. Jackson shows, however, that the main reason was the bad intelligence that the French had, which caused them to send their best troops against a German feint. He takes pains to point out that there was no one specific cause, however. He agrees with Mosier that the British pulling back didn't help, and he mentions the refusal of the Belgians to coordinate defense strategy with the French and the British until after Germany invaded (they had declared neutrality). The coordination between British and French forces was not the best either. Thus, the situation was more complex then many claim. The French soldier fought with élan when he didn't feel abandoned by his superiors.
I also found the historical context fascinating. Jackson doesn't just tell the reader about what happened, but he examines the next 50 years as well, and how the Fall affected France. French historians still don't talk about it much, and when they do discuss it, it's more of a condemnation of the Third Republic government before the war than anything else. Jackson's book does much to alleviate that problem. To many, the Fall of France was an inevitable result based on the "decadence" of France in the pre-war era. Jackson refutes that brilliantly, saying that the war was actually quite winnable if executed properly.
It's hard to find any real faults with this book. While nothing is perfect, any problems I had with the book are so niggling as to be unmentionable. It is a very short book (only 249 pages, not including notes and bibliography), but it feels deep. I could have hoped for even a bit more depth, but Jackson uses the scale marvelously, packing a lot of information and evaluation into these 249 pages. There is no padding, and little extraneous information included. Between The Fall of France and The Blitzkrieg Myth, I've found some fascinating short history books, and as long as they don't read like summaries, I hope that this is a trend.
If you are at all interested in World War II, this is a book that you should pick up.
Rating: 4
Summary: Very good, but
Comment: "The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940" by Julian Jackson is very well written and interesting book. It represents an excellent analysis of the complex of reasons which led to the catastrophe of 1940 and of the consequences of the defeat of France.
It must be noted that this book is virtually free of typographical errors--a very seldom achievement now, even for a university publishing house.
However, few remarks about the Soviet Union in the Professor Jackson's book spoil the owerall good impression. Julian Jackson is a specialist in the history of FRANCE, and, sadly, these remarks are based on a received information instead of recearch.
Professor Jackson writes (pp. 2-3): "The fall of France was an event that resonated throughout the world. [. . .] There was panic in Moscow, where Stalin was only too aware that the defeat of France made it possible for Hitler to turn his attention to the east. As Khrushchev recalled in his memoirs: 'Stalin let fly with some choice Russian curses and said that now Hitler was sure to beat our brains in.' He was right."
Even if Stalin did say that, which, given the source, is highly doubtful (Nikita Sergeevich had his own agenda), it was hardly a panic. Panic is what J. Jackson has all too vividly described in his own book: thick smoke of burning documents above the Quai d'Orsay, weeping French commanders, government fleeing its capital, etc. Had the Peoples Commissariat of Foreign Affairs (NKID) burned in May-June of 1940 a single document BECAUSE of the fall of France? Yes, there was panic in Moscow, but in October 1941, and for a different reason.
P. 74: "Although this seems remarkable in retrospect, one must not underestimate the extent to which Stalin's purges had undermined western confidence in the fighting qualities of the Red Army."
The key word here is 'western.' This underestimation eventually led Germany to unconditional surrender and her Fuehrer to suicide. And it seems remarkable indeed that many of Pr. Jackson's colleagues, including himself, still hold on their old views.
We find the "alarm in Moscow" again on page 237. Stalin's "immediate response" to this "alarm," according to author, was the annexation of the Baltic states, Bessarabia and Bukovina, which, in turn, worried Hitler . . . If Stalin was so panic-striken and alarmed, it would be better to try hard NOT to worry Hitler in any way, right?
A book about the Red Army defeats in 1941, comparable in quality to "The Fall of France," has not been written yet. Let's hope.
. . . And, of course, Germany invaded the USSR on June twenty second (22nd), not on 21st, as J. Jackson states (p. 237). Here again, he shows what his area of expertise is: on June 21st of 1812 started another invasion to Russia, led by Napoleon Bonaparte.
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Title: France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944 by Julian Jackson ISBN: 0199254575 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology, and Atrocity (Modern War Studies) by Alexander B. Rossino ISBN: 0700612343 Publisher: Univ Pr of Kansas Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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