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Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France
Strange Victory is a riveting book about France and Germany in the years leading up to World War II. Why did Hitler turn against France in the Spring of 1940 and not before? And why were his poor judgement and inadequate intelligence about the Allies nonetheless correct? Why didn't France take the offensive earlier, when it might have led to victory? What explains France's failure to detect and respond to Germany's attack plan?
Skillfully weaving together decisions of the high commands with the confused responses from exhausted and ill-informed, or ill-advised, officers in the field, the distinguished diplomatic historian Ernest R. May offers many new insights into the tragic paradoxes of the battle for France.
Skillfully weaving together decisions of the high commands with the confused responses from exhausted and ill-informed, or ill-advised, officers in the field, the distinguished diplomatic historian Ernest R. May offers many new insights into the tragic paradoxes of the battle for France.
608 pages, Paperback
Published October 3, 2009
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552 people want to read
About the author
Ernest R. May
79 books13 followersErnest Richard May was an American historian of international relations whose 14 published books include analyses of American involvement in World War I and the causes of the fall of France during World War II. His 1997 book The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis became the primary sources of the 2000 film Thirteen Days that viewed the crisis from the perspective of American political leaders. He served on the 9/11 Commission and highlighted the failures of the government intelligence agencies. May taught full time on the faculty of Harvard University for 55 years, until his death.
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October 16, 2021
“Around 1 a.m. on May 10, a duty officer at the Cinquième Bureau at Meaux telephoned his counterpart at Vincennes. He relayed a report from Captain Archen, the [Service des Renseignements] station chief in Luxembourg, that Germans in that country had received word to assemble before dawn, bringing guns; he also relayed reports from other SR posts about much noise on the German side of the Dutch, Belgian, and Luxembourg borders. Awakened, [French commander] General Gamelin said the reports did not justify an alert. He went back to sleep. Colonel Olivier Poydenot, of his staff, informed General Georges’s headquarters at La Ferté, where a call to [General] Billotte’s First Army Group headquarters at Soissons drew the answer ‘So far…nothing unusual.’ Georges was allowed to sleep undisturbed…Shortly before dawn, spotters on the border radioed that formations of German bombers were crossing into France. At 4:45 a.m., sirens blared at Vincennes, and soon afterward in all parts of Paris…”
- Ernest R. May, Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of France
The most famous work about the shocking Fall of France in May 1940 is a slim volume titled Strange Defeat. Written by a French historian named Marc Bloch, a medievalist by training, Strange Defeat features only three chapters. In those chapters, Bloch seeks to explain the collapse of a proud nation with a huge army, elaborate defensive fortifications (the now-infamous Maginot Line), and advanced military technology. “We have just suffered such a defeat as no one would have believed possible,” Bloch writes. “On whom or on what should the blame be laid?”
Bloch mainly blamed French leadership, accusing them – in a familiar refrain – of preparing for the last war, rather than “thinking in terms of a new war.” He was blunt in his conclusion: “the deep-seated causes of the disaster” could be attributed to “the utter incompetence of the High Command.” While the French leadership was most in his crosshairs, he was also skeptical of France’s Allies, especially Great Britain. He also suggested a moral collapse among lower level troop commanders.
Though indelible, Strange Defeat was published under certain glaring handicaps. For one, it was written contemporaneously with events, and published shortly after the conclusion of the Second World War, in 1946. This meant, of course, that its judgments came fast on the heels of the events being judged, which does not allow for the dispassion of time. Secondly, Bloch was living and working in Vichy France, a rump state controlled by Germany. As such, he did not exactly have access to German files and documents that would have provided a fuller picture.
If things had gone another way, Bloch might one day have completed a revised edition of Strange Defeat. Unfortunately, however, he never got that chance. When Germany invaded Vichy in November 1942, Bloch joined the French Resistance. He was arrested in Lyon and placed into the custody of Klaus Barbie. Ten days after the Allies first began landing in Normandy in 1944, he was shot to death in a field near Saint-Didier.
***
The title of Ernest May’s Strange Victory is clearly an homage to Marc Bloch’s posthumous classic. Certainly, May does not quibble with Bloch’s contention of massive command failures. In terms of fighting the last war, the chief war plan of the Allies – in the event of a German invasion – was to move into Belgium and meet the Germans head on, assuming they would essentially replicate the movements of the 1914 Schlieffen Plan. But May’s approach to the topic is much wider than Bloch ever could have hoped, given his circumstances. May covers not only the planning and preparation of the French leadership, but the planning and preparation of the Germans, as well as the failures of French intelligence services. In doing so, May draws on an impressive array of sources from both France and Germany, utilizing them to create a hybrid history that balances a readable narrative with some serious analysis.
***
The chief difference between Strange Victory and its spiritual predecessor is that Strange Victory is expansive, beginning years before the Germans first started pouring into Luxembourg and Belgium. To that end, Strange Victory is divided into five large sections, the first two of which are devoted to a study of both Germany and France in the interwar years. If you have read a lot about World War II, this can sometimes feel like a bit of a rehash. I, for one, did not feel it necessary to give so much space to recounting Adolf Hitler’s annexation of Austria, his precipitation of the Sudetenland crisis, and his occupation of Czechoslovakia. This is a very familiar timeline, after all.
As you get deeper into the book, however, Strange Victory demonstrates its value. May does an excellent job with the German war planning side. Following their success in Poland, the German military high command was adamantly against an invasion of France, rating their chances of victory as nearly zero. This reluctance was so strong it fueled a never-executed plot for a coup d’état. Despite this opposition, Hitler clung fast to his belief that France was a paper tiger. In the most recent biographies of Hitler I’ve read, the Nazi dictator is being increasingly depicted as less an evil genius and more a mad gambler. In Strange Victory, which came out in 2000, May persuasively argues that Hitler’s political judgments were far more accurate than his generals’ military judgments, mainly because the generals could not envision the political responses to a military strike.
Despite Hitler’s impatience, the German military dragged its feet, continually postponing an attack. During this period of inactivity, known as the Sitzkrieg, “Phony War,” or the “Bore War,” May identifies the German officers who devised the ultimate plan for invasion. This plan was, in a way, a reverse Schlieffen maneuver, involving two Wehrmacht Army Groups. The northern element, Army Group B under General Bock, went into Belgium as the Allies expected (and as had occurred in 1914), thereby drawing them north from the French border. Meanwhile, to the south, General Rundstedt’s Army Group A attacked west through the Ardennes. The northern feint allowed Army Group A to go low, eventually cutting behind the Allies, surrounding a huge number of them in a collapsing pocket. This forced the Allies to escape across the English Channel from the beaches of Dunkirk.
In simple terms, the Germans jabbed at the head, then delivered an uppercut to the groin.
On the flip side of German success, May gives equal time to Allied failures. He covers the “incompetence” that Bloch mentioned, but never resorts to such a simple verdict. Instead, he places himself in the shoes of people such as General Gamelin, the overall French commander, and Edouard Daladier, who served as Prime Minister and later as Minister of National Defense. In doing so, he gives a more accurate portrayal of the context in which their decisions were made. While often sympathetic, May certainly finds faults with many in the Allied camp. For instance, he suggests that the Allied decision to do nothing in the west while nearly all Hitler’s divisions were in the east, fighting Poland, was a doomed and foolish attempt to stop the spread of a wider war. At other times, though, bad luck was in play, as in the Ardennes, where the best German troops were lined up against the poorest French ones.
The fault in this book is in its relative indifference to the tactical side of the Fall of France. The overwhelming majority of Strange Victory is devoted to the strategic side of things: German preparations for the invasion, and French preparations to stop it.
Once the fighting start, May resorts to vagaries and broad statements (the maps, which are aesthetically unfortunate, do not help). This is disappointing, since May points out in the beginning that France did not lose because of an unwillingness to shed blood. Indeed, over 120,000 French soldiers were killed in six weeks, a total that exceeded United States military fatalities in both Korea and Vietnam combined, in nearly a decade of combat. For some reason, those sacrifices were not enough. I can’t help but think that May should have trimmed the lengthy prewar sections while adding a lot more to the actual invasion.
May also spends precious little time explaining why, after Dunkirk, France surrendered so quickly, despite still having a huge army and technologically superior tanks. We are left to wonder whether it was the ghosts of 1914-1918 that convinced the French to quit. Maybe the prospect of untold years of once again fighting on their own fields, in their own streets, became too much.
***
The Fall of France is not only a historical mystery, but a fascinating counterfactual. What might have happened if France and Great Britain had surged through the Potemkin-like fortifications of the Siegfried Line while Hitler suppressed Poland? What might have happened if the Allies had not swallowed General Bock’s bait, and moved into Belgium? What might have happened if the French Armies had held at one or two critical points, instead of retreating?
Like most historians, May does not dwell too long on these questions, since attempting to answer even one requires reimagination of thousands of others. More interesting to him is the lessons to be drawn from France’s swift downfall: the perils of relying too heavily on technology; the difficulty in responding to unique challenges from weaker opponents; and the risk inherent in refusing to take risks.
- Ernest R. May, Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of France
The most famous work about the shocking Fall of France in May 1940 is a slim volume titled Strange Defeat. Written by a French historian named Marc Bloch, a medievalist by training, Strange Defeat features only three chapters. In those chapters, Bloch seeks to explain the collapse of a proud nation with a huge army, elaborate defensive fortifications (the now-infamous Maginot Line), and advanced military technology. “We have just suffered such a defeat as no one would have believed possible,” Bloch writes. “On whom or on what should the blame be laid?”
Bloch mainly blamed French leadership, accusing them – in a familiar refrain – of preparing for the last war, rather than “thinking in terms of a new war.” He was blunt in his conclusion: “the deep-seated causes of the disaster” could be attributed to “the utter incompetence of the High Command.” While the French leadership was most in his crosshairs, he was also skeptical of France’s Allies, especially Great Britain. He also suggested a moral collapse among lower level troop commanders.
Though indelible, Strange Defeat was published under certain glaring handicaps. For one, it was written contemporaneously with events, and published shortly after the conclusion of the Second World War, in 1946. This meant, of course, that its judgments came fast on the heels of the events being judged, which does not allow for the dispassion of time. Secondly, Bloch was living and working in Vichy France, a rump state controlled by Germany. As such, he did not exactly have access to German files and documents that would have provided a fuller picture.
If things had gone another way, Bloch might one day have completed a revised edition of Strange Defeat. Unfortunately, however, he never got that chance. When Germany invaded Vichy in November 1942, Bloch joined the French Resistance. He was arrested in Lyon and placed into the custody of Klaus Barbie. Ten days after the Allies first began landing in Normandy in 1944, he was shot to death in a field near Saint-Didier.
***
The title of Ernest May’s Strange Victory is clearly an homage to Marc Bloch’s posthumous classic. Certainly, May does not quibble with Bloch’s contention of massive command failures. In terms of fighting the last war, the chief war plan of the Allies – in the event of a German invasion – was to move into Belgium and meet the Germans head on, assuming they would essentially replicate the movements of the 1914 Schlieffen Plan. But May’s approach to the topic is much wider than Bloch ever could have hoped, given his circumstances. May covers not only the planning and preparation of the French leadership, but the planning and preparation of the Germans, as well as the failures of French intelligence services. In doing so, May draws on an impressive array of sources from both France and Germany, utilizing them to create a hybrid history that balances a readable narrative with some serious analysis.
***
The chief difference between Strange Victory and its spiritual predecessor is that Strange Victory is expansive, beginning years before the Germans first started pouring into Luxembourg and Belgium. To that end, Strange Victory is divided into five large sections, the first two of which are devoted to a study of both Germany and France in the interwar years. If you have read a lot about World War II, this can sometimes feel like a bit of a rehash. I, for one, did not feel it necessary to give so much space to recounting Adolf Hitler’s annexation of Austria, his precipitation of the Sudetenland crisis, and his occupation of Czechoslovakia. This is a very familiar timeline, after all.
As you get deeper into the book, however, Strange Victory demonstrates its value. May does an excellent job with the German war planning side. Following their success in Poland, the German military high command was adamantly against an invasion of France, rating their chances of victory as nearly zero. This reluctance was so strong it fueled a never-executed plot for a coup d’état. Despite this opposition, Hitler clung fast to his belief that France was a paper tiger. In the most recent biographies of Hitler I’ve read, the Nazi dictator is being increasingly depicted as less an evil genius and more a mad gambler. In Strange Victory, which came out in 2000, May persuasively argues that Hitler’s political judgments were far more accurate than his generals’ military judgments, mainly because the generals could not envision the political responses to a military strike.
Despite Hitler’s impatience, the German military dragged its feet, continually postponing an attack. During this period of inactivity, known as the Sitzkrieg, “Phony War,” or the “Bore War,” May identifies the German officers who devised the ultimate plan for invasion. This plan was, in a way, a reverse Schlieffen maneuver, involving two Wehrmacht Army Groups. The northern element, Army Group B under General Bock, went into Belgium as the Allies expected (and as had occurred in 1914), thereby drawing them north from the French border. Meanwhile, to the south, General Rundstedt’s Army Group A attacked west through the Ardennes. The northern feint allowed Army Group A to go low, eventually cutting behind the Allies, surrounding a huge number of them in a collapsing pocket. This forced the Allies to escape across the English Channel from the beaches of Dunkirk.
In simple terms, the Germans jabbed at the head, then delivered an uppercut to the groin.
On the flip side of German success, May gives equal time to Allied failures. He covers the “incompetence” that Bloch mentioned, but never resorts to such a simple verdict. Instead, he places himself in the shoes of people such as General Gamelin, the overall French commander, and Edouard Daladier, who served as Prime Minister and later as Minister of National Defense. In doing so, he gives a more accurate portrayal of the context in which their decisions were made. While often sympathetic, May certainly finds faults with many in the Allied camp. For instance, he suggests that the Allied decision to do nothing in the west while nearly all Hitler’s divisions were in the east, fighting Poland, was a doomed and foolish attempt to stop the spread of a wider war. At other times, though, bad luck was in play, as in the Ardennes, where the best German troops were lined up against the poorest French ones.
The fault in this book is in its relative indifference to the tactical side of the Fall of France. The overwhelming majority of Strange Victory is devoted to the strategic side of things: German preparations for the invasion, and French preparations to stop it.
Once the fighting start, May resorts to vagaries and broad statements (the maps, which are aesthetically unfortunate, do not help). This is disappointing, since May points out in the beginning that France did not lose because of an unwillingness to shed blood. Indeed, over 120,000 French soldiers were killed in six weeks, a total that exceeded United States military fatalities in both Korea and Vietnam combined, in nearly a decade of combat. For some reason, those sacrifices were not enough. I can’t help but think that May should have trimmed the lengthy prewar sections while adding a lot more to the actual invasion.
May also spends precious little time explaining why, after Dunkirk, France surrendered so quickly, despite still having a huge army and technologically superior tanks. We are left to wonder whether it was the ghosts of 1914-1918 that convinced the French to quit. Maybe the prospect of untold years of once again fighting on their own fields, in their own streets, became too much.
***
The Fall of France is not only a historical mystery, but a fascinating counterfactual. What might have happened if France and Great Britain had surged through the Potemkin-like fortifications of the Siegfried Line while Hitler suppressed Poland? What might have happened if the Allies had not swallowed General Bock’s bait, and moved into Belgium? What might have happened if the French Armies had held at one or two critical points, instead of retreating?
Like most historians, May does not dwell too long on these questions, since attempting to answer even one requires reimagination of thousands of others. More interesting to him is the lessons to be drawn from France’s swift downfall: the perils of relying too heavily on technology; the difficulty in responding to unique challenges from weaker opponents; and the risk inherent in refusing to take risks.
July 15, 2022
The author recounts the French defeat by Nazi Germany in May-June of 1940. It should be noted that of the 460 pages of narrative, less than 100 pages are devoted to the battle that occurred in May and June.
The emphasis of this book is on the prelude leading to the war. It goes back to Hitler’s militarization of the Rhine, the annexation of Austria, and the debacle of the Munich Accord. The author analyzes the motivations of the leaders (both political and military) of France, Germany, and England during this time period.
The main thesis is that the French were confident they were going to defeat Germany once war broke out in September of 1939. They had better tanks, and with the English BEF (British Expeditionary Forces) in France along with the Belgian army, they had more troops.
Only after the spring of 1940, did many begin to say that defeat was inevitable, given the alleged political and military decay in France. Still, it was unavoidable there would be an extensive investigation and scrutiny into what went wrong. Indeed, it goes on to this day.
The author does point out both the strengths and weaknesses of the French during this era.
Politically and militarily, they (along with the English) were fixated on going to the aid of Belgium and the Netherlands if they were attacked by Germany. This meant moving the bulk of their forces into Belgium to engage the German invaders.
However, French intelligence services had provided data that the Germans were also massing armour and troops in the Ardennes on the Belgium/Luxembourg border. Once the war began, these armies would move into France, cutting off the French and British troops that had moved north into Belgium. In other words, the German attack on the Netherlands and Belgium were a feint, to draw the bulk of French and British troops away from where the main battle for France was to take place.
The French never reacted to the information of masses of troops in the Ardennes area. Their air-force, after the battle began, could have bombed and created havoc on the long line-up of tanks stretched out on the small forest roads of the Ardennes forests. But they were determined that the main battle was to be in Northern Belgium. As the author says (page 457) – “it was an article of faith not to be re-examined”.
English and French intelligence services were inferior to those of the Germans. The political leaders (Daladier, Chamberlain, and many others) could not get inside the head of Hitler and realize that his goal was domination. Hitler looked at them and saw their quest for appeasement would allow him to continue on his path. He, however, also misjudged. After the complete Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia in March/1939, which destroyed any myth of the peaceful intent of the Munich accords; France and England had had enough – and declared war on Hitler in September 1939 when he invaded Poland.
Page 454 my book
Decision makers in France and Britain were consistently reticent.
Page 456 Hitler
“to operate and to act quickly… does not come easily to the systematic French or to the ponderous English.”
In a very real sense, the Germans were lucky in the spring of 1940. The very best French troops met the weakest German troops in Northern Belgium, and the best German troops defeated the weakest French troops in the Ardennes (at Sedan) – allowing them to quickly advance to the English Channel, cutting off the masses of Allied forces in Northern Belgium. They were also fortunate that the Belgium government, up until the German invasion, had prohibited any cooperation and coordination with French and British forces in a vain attempt to remain neutral. The Belgians felt that neutrality could fend off Hitler – all paid a disastrous price for this.
As the author stipulates, it was not inevitable that France was to be defeated in 1940. But, he gives us plenty of reasons for why this happened.
The emphasis of this book is on the prelude leading to the war. It goes back to Hitler’s militarization of the Rhine, the annexation of Austria, and the debacle of the Munich Accord. The author analyzes the motivations of the leaders (both political and military) of France, Germany, and England during this time period.
The main thesis is that the French were confident they were going to defeat Germany once war broke out in September of 1939. They had better tanks, and with the English BEF (British Expeditionary Forces) in France along with the Belgian army, they had more troops.
Only after the spring of 1940, did many begin to say that defeat was inevitable, given the alleged political and military decay in France. Still, it was unavoidable there would be an extensive investigation and scrutiny into what went wrong. Indeed, it goes on to this day.
The author does point out both the strengths and weaknesses of the French during this era.
Politically and militarily, they (along with the English) were fixated on going to the aid of Belgium and the Netherlands if they were attacked by Germany. This meant moving the bulk of their forces into Belgium to engage the German invaders.
However, French intelligence services had provided data that the Germans were also massing armour and troops in the Ardennes on the Belgium/Luxembourg border. Once the war began, these armies would move into France, cutting off the French and British troops that had moved north into Belgium. In other words, the German attack on the Netherlands and Belgium were a feint, to draw the bulk of French and British troops away from where the main battle for France was to take place.
The French never reacted to the information of masses of troops in the Ardennes area. Their air-force, after the battle began, could have bombed and created havoc on the long line-up of tanks stretched out on the small forest roads of the Ardennes forests. But they were determined that the main battle was to be in Northern Belgium. As the author says (page 457) – “it was an article of faith not to be re-examined”.
English and French intelligence services were inferior to those of the Germans. The political leaders (Daladier, Chamberlain, and many others) could not get inside the head of Hitler and realize that his goal was domination. Hitler looked at them and saw their quest for appeasement would allow him to continue on his path. He, however, also misjudged. After the complete Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia in March/1939, which destroyed any myth of the peaceful intent of the Munich accords; France and England had had enough – and declared war on Hitler in September 1939 when he invaded Poland.
Page 454 my book
Decision makers in France and Britain were consistently reticent.
Page 456 Hitler
“to operate and to act quickly… does not come easily to the systematic French or to the ponderous English.”
In a very real sense, the Germans were lucky in the spring of 1940. The very best French troops met the weakest German troops in Northern Belgium, and the best German troops defeated the weakest French troops in the Ardennes (at Sedan) – allowing them to quickly advance to the English Channel, cutting off the masses of Allied forces in Northern Belgium. They were also fortunate that the Belgium government, up until the German invasion, had prohibited any cooperation and coordination with French and British forces in a vain attempt to remain neutral. The Belgians felt that neutrality could fend off Hitler – all paid a disastrous price for this.
As the author stipulates, it was not inevitable that France was to be defeated in 1940. But, he gives us plenty of reasons for why this happened.
November 9, 2020
Extremely detailed and with convincing analysis. It is overwhelmingly about the pre-invasion plans involving Hitler's thinking, intelligence, strategy, pre-war content than actual war waging (which is understandable seeing as Nazi Germany effectively won in 10 days.)
March 2, 2010
4 stars for important insights, but 2 stars for being about 150 pages too long.
The book essentially overthrows most of my previous conceptions about why France lost so quickly. All of the old ideas of a defeatist France, an irresistible Germany, etc. are swept away. This is really too bad, as it will alter my lesson plans, and I guess I will have to scrap showing my students Vol. 3 of the video series, 'The World at War.' This is also a sad casualty of this book, as it was always fun to have L. Olivier talk in a droll and snobbish way about the French.
Another problem I have with the book is that it's best insights are not highlighted enough by the author - and they are very good ones about the relationship between political cultures and the military, and the political influence of intelligence. Too often they are buried in the midst of names, numbers, and chronologies that I can't follow.
Still, an important book for those interested in the subject.
The book essentially overthrows most of my previous conceptions about why France lost so quickly. All of the old ideas of a defeatist France, an irresistible Germany, etc. are swept away. This is really too bad, as it will alter my lesson plans, and I guess I will have to scrap showing my students Vol. 3 of the video series, 'The World at War.' This is also a sad casualty of this book, as it was always fun to have L. Olivier talk in a droll and snobbish way about the French.
Another problem I have with the book is that it's best insights are not highlighted enough by the author - and they are very good ones about the relationship between political cultures and the military, and the political influence of intelligence. Too often they are buried in the midst of names, numbers, and chronologies that I can't follow.
Still, an important book for those interested in the subject.
January 22, 2020
Not particularly insightful. Rather than mainly addressing the title, the whys of France defeat in 1940, it is a broad recap of the fateful disaster on the Western front. It does reinforces the views that the French command was supremely incompetent, that the French and Allies organization was not up to the task (especially with regard to intelligence collection and distribution), etc. And it does point on the last page that all this may have something to do with "democratic" character of the countries of the losing party (indeed, it suggests that the English performed better since forth because Churchill was able to act rather autocratically).
July 26, 2018
This book really is an epic. It was sold to me as the bible for the Fall of France.
I can only agree. The research of this work is amazing. The style is very detailed but very reader-friendly and the layout is perfectly logical.
For all those who want to know the Army/Hitler relationship pre-war or the political reasons behind the era.
This really is the book for you. I just can't praise this work enough.
The tables at the back are also useful for comparative data if you are more into technology and comparing tank numbers.
I can only agree. The research of this work is amazing. The style is very detailed but very reader-friendly and the layout is perfectly logical.
For all those who want to know the Army/Hitler relationship pre-war or the political reasons behind the era.
This really is the book for you. I just can't praise this work enough.
The tables at the back are also useful for comparative data if you are more into technology and comparing tank numbers.
August 6, 2020
I came to this via a reference from The Allure Battle, which implied that this and its spiritual predecessor, Strange Defeat were "revisionist" takes on the fall of France in WW2. A lot of the more negative reviews seem to be responding to it as such but I don't think that's really what the book is setting out to do.
Instead, I read this more as a book showing us all the messy complexity & contingency of the real world, all of which added up to making Germany's defeat of France the cake walk that it turned out to be. A lot of things could have changed that wouldn't necessarily have guaranteed French victory but almost certainly would have made German victory slower & bloodier.
As one small example from the book: the head of the French Army, Gamelin, was fired shortly after the invasion. His replacement, Weygard, stepped into the scene but a series of unfortunate events meant that any possibility for a counterattack was quickly lost. A counterattack at that point almost certainly wouldn't have saved France but the complete lack of action contributed to the overwhelming Germany victory.
This is primarily a very detailed account of the military (and political) planning in the weeks & months leading up to the invasion. If you are not interested in that kind of thing, you will likely find this quite tiresome. The actual battle itself, as other reviewers have noted, is given short shrift.
In the end, I didn't find this especially controversial or "revisionist" -- though he does argue that the fall of France was more an intelligence failure than anything else, which I suppose is not aligned with the conventional wisdom about French cowardice or German military supremacy. The author makes 8 or so key points throughout the book:
1. We must be careful to separate out what people believed or did at the time, versus what they claimed to believe in their post-war memoirs. May has many instances where he points out that so-and-so's letters & diaries make no mention of X, Y, or Z .... even though in their post-war memoir they claim they foresaw X or believed Y or were instrumental in making Z happen. With an event as charged as WW2 -- where people were trying to salvage reputations in the aftermath -- I found this approach particularly interesting.
The biggest example of this is French intelligence claiming, post-war, that they had warned the army of a potential German attack through the Ardennes but were ignored. May makes a pretty good case that any such warnings were not emphasized at the time and were simply one among hundreds of other "we heard this rumor" kind of intelligence reports.
2. In the pre-war years, May points out that French claims of German superiority need to be understood in the context they were made: budget planning. That is, the French military didn't quite believe it but found it useful to try to convince politicians to increase their budgets substantially. Anyone who has ever been involved in organizational budget exercises can understand this point: written claims and projections can't be taken as gospel because of this.
3. The Germans initially planned to invade with a battle plan that quite likely would have seen them defeated in a repeat of WW1. Hitler continually delayed the invasion -- because of bad weather or simply because he was getting cold feet. It was only during those many weeks of delays that a new plan was developed and a consensus built around it. Without those delays, the invasion would have turned out quite differently.
4. Hitler comes across as, at this point in history, vastly more insightful than nearly anyone else in Europe. We know that French & British leaders misread the situation. But even among the German military, Hitler alone seemed to understand that complex interactions between a country's military and a country's political establishment. The German army wasn't just fighting the French army. It was fighting the French army plus the French political establishment.
5. May makes a good case that, at this point in history at least, Hitler and the German military (including the German intelligence services), worked reasonably well together in a collaborative way to build a plan that no single person was likely to have built on their own. By contrast, the French planning seems much more autocratic with it largely being "whatever Gamelin" decided.
6. The French spent massive amounts of time & energy managing internal politics. Gamelin & Daladier seem to repeatedly withhold information & plans from colleagues in order to maintain power. By contrast, the undemocratic Germans seemed to have much more open & frank communications.
7. The French need to deal with allies (especially the UK but also Belgium and others) turned out to be a severe handicap. Belgium's desire to be neutral (and hopefully avoid being invaded) meant that there was no concerted planning with Belgium until it was too late. France never really knew what they could & couldn't rely on.
Similarly, France often had to make suboptimal plans to cater to British fears. One particularly damaging example was that Britain was terrified that Germany's goal was to drive to the coast of Belgium & the Netherlands and establish airbases that would threaten the UK. To alleviate this fear, France's war plans involved them extending far into those countries -- which ironically pulled them further away from where the actual invasion occurred. If they hadn't catered to those fears, the bulk of the army would have been closer to the actual axis of advance.
8. Finally, and most importantly, May counts the entire episode as a tremendous intelligence failure that was inexcusable. He writes an entire chapter, 24 "Intelligence Failure", to making his case for this.
May gives us a few explanations for this monumental failure -- some are more convincing than others -- but the thing to keep in mind is that he's not saying "the French should have obviously foreseen this". But rather it is to marvel at their complete inability to consider any alternative or make any contingency plans.
It was a curious accident of history that this book was published only a year before the massive intelligence failure of 9/11 -- and May's argument is that a large part of the France's spectacular fall was about the fractured & uncoordinated Allied intelligence efforts that were disconnected from the military & political leadership.
Instead, I read this more as a book showing us all the messy complexity & contingency of the real world, all of which added up to making Germany's defeat of France the cake walk that it turned out to be. A lot of things could have changed that wouldn't necessarily have guaranteed French victory but almost certainly would have made German victory slower & bloodier.
As one small example from the book: the head of the French Army, Gamelin, was fired shortly after the invasion. His replacement, Weygard, stepped into the scene but a series of unfortunate events meant that any possibility for a counterattack was quickly lost. A counterattack at that point almost certainly wouldn't have saved France but the complete lack of action contributed to the overwhelming Germany victory.
This is primarily a very detailed account of the military (and political) planning in the weeks & months leading up to the invasion. If you are not interested in that kind of thing, you will likely find this quite tiresome. The actual battle itself, as other reviewers have noted, is given short shrift.
In the end, I didn't find this especially controversial or "revisionist" -- though he does argue that the fall of France was more an intelligence failure than anything else, which I suppose is not aligned with the conventional wisdom about French cowardice or German military supremacy. The author makes 8 or so key points throughout the book:
1. We must be careful to separate out what people believed or did at the time, versus what they claimed to believe in their post-war memoirs. May has many instances where he points out that so-and-so's letters & diaries make no mention of X, Y, or Z .... even though in their post-war memoir they claim they foresaw X or believed Y or were instrumental in making Z happen. With an event as charged as WW2 -- where people were trying to salvage reputations in the aftermath -- I found this approach particularly interesting.
The biggest example of this is French intelligence claiming, post-war, that they had warned the army of a potential German attack through the Ardennes but were ignored. May makes a pretty good case that any such warnings were not emphasized at the time and were simply one among hundreds of other "we heard this rumor" kind of intelligence reports.
2. In the pre-war years, May points out that French claims of German superiority need to be understood in the context they were made: budget planning. That is, the French military didn't quite believe it but found it useful to try to convince politicians to increase their budgets substantially. Anyone who has ever been involved in organizational budget exercises can understand this point: written claims and projections can't be taken as gospel because of this.
3. The Germans initially planned to invade with a battle plan that quite likely would have seen them defeated in a repeat of WW1. Hitler continually delayed the invasion -- because of bad weather or simply because he was getting cold feet. It was only during those many weeks of delays that a new plan was developed and a consensus built around it. Without those delays, the invasion would have turned out quite differently.
4. Hitler comes across as, at this point in history, vastly more insightful than nearly anyone else in Europe. We know that French & British leaders misread the situation. But even among the German military, Hitler alone seemed to understand that complex interactions between a country's military and a country's political establishment. The German army wasn't just fighting the French army. It was fighting the French army plus the French political establishment.
5. May makes a good case that, at this point in history at least, Hitler and the German military (including the German intelligence services), worked reasonably well together in a collaborative way to build a plan that no single person was likely to have built on their own. By contrast, the French planning seems much more autocratic with it largely being "whatever Gamelin" decided.
6. The French spent massive amounts of time & energy managing internal politics. Gamelin & Daladier seem to repeatedly withhold information & plans from colleagues in order to maintain power. By contrast, the undemocratic Germans seemed to have much more open & frank communications.
7. The French need to deal with allies (especially the UK but also Belgium and others) turned out to be a severe handicap. Belgium's desire to be neutral (and hopefully avoid being invaded) meant that there was no concerted planning with Belgium until it was too late. France never really knew what they could & couldn't rely on.
Similarly, France often had to make suboptimal plans to cater to British fears. One particularly damaging example was that Britain was terrified that Germany's goal was to drive to the coast of Belgium & the Netherlands and establish airbases that would threaten the UK. To alleviate this fear, France's war plans involved them extending far into those countries -- which ironically pulled them further away from where the actual invasion occurred. If they hadn't catered to those fears, the bulk of the army would have been closer to the actual axis of advance.
8. Finally, and most importantly, May counts the entire episode as a tremendous intelligence failure that was inexcusable. He writes an entire chapter, 24 "Intelligence Failure", to making his case for this.
Though there was a great deal of noise, there were many clear signals of Germany’s plans. This is not to say that the French and British governments should have anticipated exactly what was to happen or when; there is nothing extraordinary in their having failed to perceive that the Germans shifted the main line of attack from the Low Countries to the Ardennes or turned its axis east to west instead of north to south. But the signals that this might be the case were abundant and distinct; it is simply astonishing that Allied leaders continued to discount such a contingency and made relatively few preparations for it.
May gives us a few explanations for this monumental failure -- some are more convincing than others -- but the thing to keep in mind is that he's not saying "the French should have obviously foreseen this". But rather it is to marvel at their complete inability to consider any alternative or make any contingency plans.
Intelligence on German deployments and intelligence targets did not establish unquestionably that the Germans intended an attack across Luxembourg, through the Ardennes, and thence west by north through Sedan and Charleville-Mézières. But it seems almost incredible that General Gamelin and others in the Allied high command were not concerned that the Ardennes area—essentially the border of Belgian Luxembourg, running from Longwy at the northern terminus of the Maginot Line to Sedan, on the Meuse—had the thinnest coverage of any portion of the front.
It was a curious accident of history that this book was published only a year before the massive intelligence failure of 9/11 -- and May's argument is that a large part of the France's spectacular fall was about the fractured & uncoordinated Allied intelligence efforts that were disconnected from the military & political leadership.
January 25, 2021
En todas las simulaciones de la Batalla de Francia en que la computadora controla a los aliados los aliados ganan (la realidad fue otra: una contundente victoria alemana).
Esto es extraño porque para el consenso de los historiadores el resultado de esta batalla estaba prácticamente cantado. De un lado, la poderosa maquinaria de guerra alemana, un pueblo que creía en su Führer y en la victoria y algunos de los mejores generales de la historia comandados por un brillante amateur que entonces todavía los escuchaba. De otro lado, un pueblo agotado moralmente, políticos tímidos y generales incompetentes.
Ernest May, el autor de este libro, piensa distinto. Piensa que las simulaciones no son erróneas: los aliados deberían haber ganado la batalla. Contra el consenso de los historiadores demuestra que los líderes aliados estaban dispuestos a pelear, que sus pueblos también y que sus Fuerzas Armadas, en particular las francesas, estaban bien entrenadas, capacitadas, equipadas y con ganas de combatir.
El libro es una larga explicación de porqué, contra cualquier simulación, los aliados perdieron y los alemanes ganaron una de las victorias más formidables de todos los tiempos.
El autor cita a otra historiadora, Roberta Wohlstetter, que en un estudio sobre Pearl Harbor usó dos términos que utilizan los estudiosos de las comunicaciones: "señales" (signals) y "ruidos" (noise). Las señales serían indicaciones o pistas reales sobre cosas que van a suceder y los ruidos serían solo aparente señales que de hecho llevan a conclusiones equivocadas. En este estudio, Wohlstetter concluye que, en el caso de Pearl Harbour hubo señales, sí, pero sumergidas en un mar de ruidos que imposibilitó a los líderes americanos llegar a las conclusiones adecuadas. Pero en el caso de la Batalla de Francia, dice Ernest May, las señales estaban: fueron ignoradas.
La toma de decisiones implica, según los estudiosos del tema, responder tres preguntas: 1) “Qué está pasando?”; 2) “Qué cambia eso las cosas?”; y 3) “Cómo debemos responder?”.
Para poder responder "Qué está pasando?" se debe poder distinguir entre lo que se sabe y lo que no se sabe. Se tiene que poder separar las señales de los ruidos y operar en consecuencia.
Los líderes aliados no pudieron nunca responder la primera pregunta. Cómo casi todos los seres humanos en casi todos los momentos, no supieron realizar esa pregunta porque sus prejuicios ya les habían dado la respuesta. Y su aparato de inteligencia (diplomáticos, inteligencia militar, etc) no supo separar las señales de los ruidos y darles información que pudiera hacerles cambiar de opinión.
Los alemanes invadieron el 10 de mayo de 1940. Su plan de batalla era completamente audaz y era el único que aseguraba una victoria total (pero con la contrapartida de que su fracaso exponía a los alemanes a un gran riesgo).
Para que su plan triunfe todo tenía que salir a la perfección para los alemanes (milagrosamente esto sucedió) y no solo todo tenía que salirles todo mal a los franceses sino que, además y críticamente, no debían reaccionar adecuadamente durante los primeros días de la invasión. Tenían que responder a los ruidos y no a las señales (el libro tiene una larga exposición sobre los dos planes de batalla).
La invasión sucedió el 10 de mayo. Hasta el día 13 o 15 de mayo los aliados no entendieron el peligro que representaba el plan alemán. Esos días comenzaron a comprenderlo y para entonces solo un genio con todas las luces encima y un poder de decisión enorme podía cambiar el resultado de las cosas.
Este libro, claro, es de interés para cualquiera al que le interese la historia militar. Pero también tiene lecciones para que políticos, empresarios y todos nosotros en nuestra vida diaria nos preguntemos si eso que creemos saber con certeza es una señal o tan solo otro ruido.
Esto es extraño porque para el consenso de los historiadores el resultado de esta batalla estaba prácticamente cantado. De un lado, la poderosa maquinaria de guerra alemana, un pueblo que creía en su Führer y en la victoria y algunos de los mejores generales de la historia comandados por un brillante amateur que entonces todavía los escuchaba. De otro lado, un pueblo agotado moralmente, políticos tímidos y generales incompetentes.
Ernest May, el autor de este libro, piensa distinto. Piensa que las simulaciones no son erróneas: los aliados deberían haber ganado la batalla. Contra el consenso de los historiadores demuestra que los líderes aliados estaban dispuestos a pelear, que sus pueblos también y que sus Fuerzas Armadas, en particular las francesas, estaban bien entrenadas, capacitadas, equipadas y con ganas de combatir.
El libro es una larga explicación de porqué, contra cualquier simulación, los aliados perdieron y los alemanes ganaron una de las victorias más formidables de todos los tiempos.
El autor cita a otra historiadora, Roberta Wohlstetter, que en un estudio sobre Pearl Harbor usó dos términos que utilizan los estudiosos de las comunicaciones: "señales" (signals) y "ruidos" (noise). Las señales serían indicaciones o pistas reales sobre cosas que van a suceder y los ruidos serían solo aparente señales que de hecho llevan a conclusiones equivocadas. En este estudio, Wohlstetter concluye que, en el caso de Pearl Harbour hubo señales, sí, pero sumergidas en un mar de ruidos que imposibilitó a los líderes americanos llegar a las conclusiones adecuadas. Pero en el caso de la Batalla de Francia, dice Ernest May, las señales estaban: fueron ignoradas.
La toma de decisiones implica, según los estudiosos del tema, responder tres preguntas: 1) “Qué está pasando?”; 2) “Qué cambia eso las cosas?”; y 3) “Cómo debemos responder?”.
Para poder responder "Qué está pasando?" se debe poder distinguir entre lo que se sabe y lo que no se sabe. Se tiene que poder separar las señales de los ruidos y operar en consecuencia.
Los líderes aliados no pudieron nunca responder la primera pregunta. Cómo casi todos los seres humanos en casi todos los momentos, no supieron realizar esa pregunta porque sus prejuicios ya les habían dado la respuesta. Y su aparato de inteligencia (diplomáticos, inteligencia militar, etc) no supo separar las señales de los ruidos y darles información que pudiera hacerles cambiar de opinión.
Los alemanes invadieron el 10 de mayo de 1940. Su plan de batalla era completamente audaz y era el único que aseguraba una victoria total (pero con la contrapartida de que su fracaso exponía a los alemanes a un gran riesgo).
Para que su plan triunfe todo tenía que salir a la perfección para los alemanes (milagrosamente esto sucedió) y no solo todo tenía que salirles todo mal a los franceses sino que, además y críticamente, no debían reaccionar adecuadamente durante los primeros días de la invasión. Tenían que responder a los ruidos y no a las señales (el libro tiene una larga exposición sobre los dos planes de batalla).
La invasión sucedió el 10 de mayo. Hasta el día 13 o 15 de mayo los aliados no entendieron el peligro que representaba el plan alemán. Esos días comenzaron a comprenderlo y para entonces solo un genio con todas las luces encima y un poder de decisión enorme podía cambiar el resultado de las cosas.
Este libro, claro, es de interés para cualquiera al que le interese la historia militar. Pero también tiene lecciones para que políticos, empresarios y todos nosotros en nuestra vida diaria nos preguntemos si eso que creemos saber con certeza es una señal o tan solo otro ruido.
January 3, 2023
A deep analysis of the at-the-time unexpected defeat of the French and Allied forces at the beginning of the Second World War. May debunks several misconceptions in the historical record. The French army in 1939, contrary to later historical revision, was considered to be the most formidable in Europe, not only in terms of manpower but also in modern equipment like tanks and air support, not counting the additional forces of the British. While the Third Republic was riven with political differences between conservatives and communists and socialists, morale and support for the war was quite strong and universal after the Nazi invasion of Poland. Besides, Germany itself was beset with factionalism and Hitler was very near to being coup-ed in 1939 by his own generals who wanted to avoid a catastrophic war. In later computer simulations of the war of 1940 in American war colleges, if the computer takes control, the Allies win. So what happened?
● A lack of decisive leadership. The French War Cabinet and the military leadership were so loathe to spill french blood that they missed a historical chance to end the Nazi regime by simply marching into the undefended Rhineland when German forces were occupied, first in Czechoslovakia and later in Poland.
● The Maginot Line did not commit them to a purely defensive strategy and in fact gave them wide leeway to maneuver in Belgium and the Netherlands. "Paradoxically and ironically, the French government may have forgone a chance to win, not lose, the war of 1939–40 not because of lack of confidence but because of overconfidence." Slow responses, compounded by unnecessary secrecy in communications(using pigeons and couriers instead of radio) doomed them in a lightning war.
● Almost criminal stupidity on the part of their Belgian allies and their insane belief that Nazi Germany would respect their neutrality when the Kaiser's army in WW1 did not. They constantly frustrated Allied plans to shore up defensive lines in the Belgian plain, only inviting them once the invasion had already begun. The imbecile King Leopold required in-person assurances from the supreme allied commanders once the Battle began when every hour was precious, frustrating the agility of the French response.
● French command structure did not provide adequate autonomy to battlefield commanders whereas the Germans did. The Germans seemed to have a proto-OODA loop in place for overall strategy whereas the French repeatedly made decisions based on expedience.
● The Germans ultimately took chances and *acted* and bent Fate in their favor by creating new chances and contingencies.
The French were playing careful chess whereas the Germans were betting it all playing vabanque and they just happaned to win.
● A lack of decisive leadership. The French War Cabinet and the military leadership were so loathe to spill french blood that they missed a historical chance to end the Nazi regime by simply marching into the undefended Rhineland when German forces were occupied, first in Czechoslovakia and later in Poland.
● The Maginot Line did not commit them to a purely defensive strategy and in fact gave them wide leeway to maneuver in Belgium and the Netherlands. "Paradoxically and ironically, the French government may have forgone a chance to win, not lose, the war of 1939–40 not because of lack of confidence but because of overconfidence." Slow responses, compounded by unnecessary secrecy in communications(using pigeons and couriers instead of radio) doomed them in a lightning war.
● Almost criminal stupidity on the part of their Belgian allies and their insane belief that Nazi Germany would respect their neutrality when the Kaiser's army in WW1 did not. They constantly frustrated Allied plans to shore up defensive lines in the Belgian plain, only inviting them once the invasion had already begun. The imbecile King Leopold required in-person assurances from the supreme allied commanders once the Battle began when every hour was precious, frustrating the agility of the French response.
● French command structure did not provide adequate autonomy to battlefield commanders whereas the Germans did. The Germans seemed to have a proto-OODA loop in place for overall strategy whereas the French repeatedly made decisions based on expedience.
● The Germans ultimately took chances and *acted* and bent Fate in their favor by creating new chances and contingencies.
The French were playing careful chess whereas the Germans were betting it all playing vabanque and they just happaned to win.
It was France’s fate to be the center of his interest at a time when his megalomania was tempered by operational common sense. It was the good fortune of Britain, the Soviet Union, the United States, and the world that his success in the contest with France caused him to abandon the decision-making procedures that had contributed to that success
Want to read
September 28, 2009I'm just at the very beginning but it is so awesome. Until now, in my mind, the fall of France at the beginning of WWII deserved one sentence. "France surrendered". But, as with most subjects, drilling down into the details yields big complexities.
August 6, 2023
I apologise profusely this review is almost as long as the Battle for France itself but hey ho....A very interesting and extremely well argued and written take on the catastrophic collapse of the French and British forces in 1940. But was it as clean cut a collapse as it seems for as the author argues convincingly that at certain points the Allies with more decisive leadership could just as easily have emerged victorious -- and as for the French lacking the gumption to fight the figures he cites of 124,000 French dead and 200,000 wounded presents a different image entirely.
Indeed as May illustrates if the French leadership had been bolder in 1939 and devoted their full force in penetrating the Saarland when the Wehrmacht's elite forces were focussed on Poland then things might have taken a very different turn. It was not for lack of intelligence on what faced the French either "He (General Maurice Gamelin the head of the French Army) noted that, for the moment, the French had an advantage of between three to four to one..." and yet he held off launching a full-blooded offensive. As May notes: "Paradoxically and ironically, the French government may have foregone a chance to win, not lose, the war of 1939-40 not because of a lack of confidence but because of over confidence."
This allied to dire intelligence -- the Germans outshone the French in every facet of the pivotal gathering and analysis of intelligence which proved as decisive in the final victory -- and unimaginative leadership from Gamelin -- he was indeed a Maurice Minor -- though he was far from the only French general to lack the required qualities was the perfect storm for the abject defeat -- General Prioux being the exception to the rule and whose troops bested the Germans in Belgium at Hannut.
It was not as if the French intelligence services lacked inside informants. Hans-Thilo Schmidt, who paved the way for the Poles to crack the Enigma code, and avowed anti-Nazi Colonel Hans Oster, who was the highest placed informant as he was deputy to the phoenix-like Admiral Wilhelm Canaris head of German intelligence agency the Abwehr. Schmidt -- whose brother was a general in the Wehrmacht -- was paid for his information and seemed unaffected by the risks he ran as exemplified when he met with a French intelligence agent in the bar in the Adlon Hotel..:"While the two were together, a big blond man came in accompanied by a woman. They sat down at a nearby table. Identifying the man as Reinhard Heydrich, head of Himmler's special security service, Schmidt continued pouring out sensitive information without lowering his voice." He did not last out the war unsurprisingly...
Despite all this the French remained fixated that the main thrust would come through Belgium not the Ardennes and it was the tardy realisation it was the opposite and slow reaction -- plus failing to devote enough air power to bomb the German columns which were caught in a traffic jam -- to switch forces there that sealed the Allies fate. As several senior generals lost their bottle and started sobbing Gamelin at least kept his sangfroid and commented saving the situation "it was all a question of hours"...he only had minutes as he was fired by Premier Paul Reynaud and replaced by Maxime Weygand. The two days it took Weygand to settle in were fatal for any chance of a fightback not helped that the weakest and most cautious of the Generals Huntziger was in charge of the 2nd Army who would have been charged with the task.
That is the nub of it but the book is filled with interesting anecdotes and information from both sides -- Reynaud's predecessor Edouard Daladier wanting to launch a front against the Soviets in aiding Finland but then felt betrayed as Chamberlain refused to provide the personnel. Norway instead became the battleground which ultimately brought down the ineffective British PM.
It is also sprinkled with dry humour such as Earl of Halifax's meeting with Hitler ...who he confused with a servant and was about to hand him his coat but the then German Foreign Minister Baron Konstantin von Neurath intervened. Or May's description of von Neurath's successor the sycophantic Joachim (von) Ribbentrop ..'aged 44...he had the puffy handsomeness of an overage gigolo.....and an interesting assessment of Canaris...'Five feet four he detested tall men and, above all, tall men with small ears....' this leads May to observe of Canaris's complex relationship with Heydrich that though the two couples dined together: 'Heydrich was thought repulsive by men who had no such reaction to Himmler or Bormann. Also, he was very tall and had small ears.'
The German High Command were far from confident their Plan Yellow would work but May neatly sums up how the success of it was all but assured due to the intransigence of their opponents in their over-weening confidence as to where the main attack would come from.
He cites the unlikely person of Oliver Cromwell in his address to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1650: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may have been mistaken."
Indeed as May illustrates if the French leadership had been bolder in 1939 and devoted their full force in penetrating the Saarland when the Wehrmacht's elite forces were focussed on Poland then things might have taken a very different turn. It was not for lack of intelligence on what faced the French either "He (General Maurice Gamelin the head of the French Army) noted that, for the moment, the French had an advantage of between three to four to one..." and yet he held off launching a full-blooded offensive. As May notes: "Paradoxically and ironically, the French government may have foregone a chance to win, not lose, the war of 1939-40 not because of a lack of confidence but because of over confidence."
This allied to dire intelligence -- the Germans outshone the French in every facet of the pivotal gathering and analysis of intelligence which proved as decisive in the final victory -- and unimaginative leadership from Gamelin -- he was indeed a Maurice Minor -- though he was far from the only French general to lack the required qualities was the perfect storm for the abject defeat -- General Prioux being the exception to the rule and whose troops bested the Germans in Belgium at Hannut.
It was not as if the French intelligence services lacked inside informants. Hans-Thilo Schmidt, who paved the way for the Poles to crack the Enigma code, and avowed anti-Nazi Colonel Hans Oster, who was the highest placed informant as he was deputy to the phoenix-like Admiral Wilhelm Canaris head of German intelligence agency the Abwehr. Schmidt -- whose brother was a general in the Wehrmacht -- was paid for his information and seemed unaffected by the risks he ran as exemplified when he met with a French intelligence agent in the bar in the Adlon Hotel..:"While the two were together, a big blond man came in accompanied by a woman. They sat down at a nearby table. Identifying the man as Reinhard Heydrich, head of Himmler's special security service, Schmidt continued pouring out sensitive information without lowering his voice." He did not last out the war unsurprisingly...
Despite all this the French remained fixated that the main thrust would come through Belgium not the Ardennes and it was the tardy realisation it was the opposite and slow reaction -- plus failing to devote enough air power to bomb the German columns which were caught in a traffic jam -- to switch forces there that sealed the Allies fate. As several senior generals lost their bottle and started sobbing Gamelin at least kept his sangfroid and commented saving the situation "it was all a question of hours"...he only had minutes as he was fired by Premier Paul Reynaud and replaced by Maxime Weygand. The two days it took Weygand to settle in were fatal for any chance of a fightback not helped that the weakest and most cautious of the Generals Huntziger was in charge of the 2nd Army who would have been charged with the task.
That is the nub of it but the book is filled with interesting anecdotes and information from both sides -- Reynaud's predecessor Edouard Daladier wanting to launch a front against the Soviets in aiding Finland but then felt betrayed as Chamberlain refused to provide the personnel. Norway instead became the battleground which ultimately brought down the ineffective British PM.
It is also sprinkled with dry humour such as Earl of Halifax's meeting with Hitler ...who he confused with a servant and was about to hand him his coat but the then German Foreign Minister Baron Konstantin von Neurath intervened. Or May's description of von Neurath's successor the sycophantic Joachim (von) Ribbentrop ..'aged 44...he had the puffy handsomeness of an overage gigolo.....and an interesting assessment of Canaris...'Five feet four he detested tall men and, above all, tall men with small ears....' this leads May to observe of Canaris's complex relationship with Heydrich that though the two couples dined together: 'Heydrich was thought repulsive by men who had no such reaction to Himmler or Bormann. Also, he was very tall and had small ears.'
The German High Command were far from confident their Plan Yellow would work but May neatly sums up how the success of it was all but assured due to the intransigence of their opponents in their over-weening confidence as to where the main attack would come from.
He cites the unlikely person of Oliver Cromwell in his address to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1650: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may have been mistaken."
April 30, 2022
The typical view of the Fall of France in 1940—which lives on in the popular imagination as French troops waving the white flag at the first sight of an enemy Panzer—was stated by historian Marc Bloch in his influential study Strange Defeat, written in 1941. Bloch, who was executed by the Gestapo in 1944 for aiding the Resistance, argued that the Third Republic suffered from a moral and creative sclerosis that rendered it helpless before the German war machine.
The American historian Ernest May takes a different view in his Strange Victory. Noting that more French troops died in May and June 1940 than U.S. troops over the entire Vietnam War, May argues that the defeat was a product of intelligence and decision-making failures in Paris and London. (It was this work, together with his analysis of the Kennedy Administration in the Cuban Missile Crisis, which led to May's appointment to the 9/11 Commission.)
The book is really a history of the whole period from Hitler's rise to power to the French surrender and, with a sprawling cast of characters, is probably too detailed for the casual reader. May compares at length the decision-making structures of the British, French, and German governments. During this period, he argues, Hitler was not the unfettered autocrat that he would later become, but was constrained by his senior military commanders. Many of these came from the pre-World War One aristocracy and contemplated deposing Hitler as they had done to Kaiser Wilhelm in 1918. Indeed, May writes, had the British and French gone on the offensive before 1940, it probably would have been the Germans who underwent a "moral collapse."
May adds another, unexpected, item to the typical list of reasons for appeasement: Allied overconfidence. Even after the declaration of war on Germany in September 1939, while the bulk of German forces were tied up in Poland, May writes that the British and French governments were so confident of their financial and industrial superiority that they saw no need to risk a pre-emptive invasion that would threaten their domestic political stability.
In the winter of 1939, the Allies adopted a disastrous plan to push their best and most heavily armoured forces as deep into Belgium as possible after a German invasion of the Netherlands. This maneuver was calculated to repel a German assault thought to be modelled after the Schleiffen Plan of 1914. The Germans, through careful planning and numerous war games, initially favoured a Schleiffen Plan redux but realized that the Allies were likely to respond as they did, and would defeat them. Instead, they adopted a bold strategy to feint an invasion across the Belgian plain but attack instead through the Ardennes Forest and cut off the British and French armies.
German commanders viewed this strategy as a last-ditch effort to ward off defeat, and May notes that if even a few more events had turned in France's favour, the invasion may well have foundered. For example, its success depended on the rapid deployment of tanks along single-file roads through the Ardennes, which could easily have been bottled up by Allied aerial bombardment. But none occurred, and the best French and British troops were surrounded and forced to evacuate from Dunkirk.
In the end, May writes, "however much more civilized their judgments of values and objectives, leaders in France and Britain exhibited much less common sense in appraising their circumstances and deciding what to do" than Hitler and the Germans. May remarks on the tendency of decision-making in democracies to ossify, as bureaucratic players try to justify their own goals by bending the facts. May's statement that the West of 2000 (when Strange Victory was published) had "many of the same characteristics" as pre-war Britain and France, including "arrogance, a strong disinclination to risk lives in battle, heavy reliance on technology as a substitute, and governmental procedures poorly designed for anticipating or coping with ingenious challenges from the comparatively weak" has been proven many times since.
The American historian Ernest May takes a different view in his Strange Victory. Noting that more French troops died in May and June 1940 than U.S. troops over the entire Vietnam War, May argues that the defeat was a product of intelligence and decision-making failures in Paris and London. (It was this work, together with his analysis of the Kennedy Administration in the Cuban Missile Crisis, which led to May's appointment to the 9/11 Commission.)
The book is really a history of the whole period from Hitler's rise to power to the French surrender and, with a sprawling cast of characters, is probably too detailed for the casual reader. May compares at length the decision-making structures of the British, French, and German governments. During this period, he argues, Hitler was not the unfettered autocrat that he would later become, but was constrained by his senior military commanders. Many of these came from the pre-World War One aristocracy and contemplated deposing Hitler as they had done to Kaiser Wilhelm in 1918. Indeed, May writes, had the British and French gone on the offensive before 1940, it probably would have been the Germans who underwent a "moral collapse."
May adds another, unexpected, item to the typical list of reasons for appeasement: Allied overconfidence. Even after the declaration of war on Germany in September 1939, while the bulk of German forces were tied up in Poland, May writes that the British and French governments were so confident of their financial and industrial superiority that they saw no need to risk a pre-emptive invasion that would threaten their domestic political stability.
In the winter of 1939, the Allies adopted a disastrous plan to push their best and most heavily armoured forces as deep into Belgium as possible after a German invasion of the Netherlands. This maneuver was calculated to repel a German assault thought to be modelled after the Schleiffen Plan of 1914. The Germans, through careful planning and numerous war games, initially favoured a Schleiffen Plan redux but realized that the Allies were likely to respond as they did, and would defeat them. Instead, they adopted a bold strategy to feint an invasion across the Belgian plain but attack instead through the Ardennes Forest and cut off the British and French armies.
German commanders viewed this strategy as a last-ditch effort to ward off defeat, and May notes that if even a few more events had turned in France's favour, the invasion may well have foundered. For example, its success depended on the rapid deployment of tanks along single-file roads through the Ardennes, which could easily have been bottled up by Allied aerial bombardment. But none occurred, and the best French and British troops were surrounded and forced to evacuate from Dunkirk.
In the end, May writes, "however much more civilized their judgments of values and objectives, leaders in France and Britain exhibited much less common sense in appraising their circumstances and deciding what to do" than Hitler and the Germans. May remarks on the tendency of decision-making in democracies to ossify, as bureaucratic players try to justify their own goals by bending the facts. May's statement that the West of 2000 (when Strange Victory was published) had "many of the same characteristics" as pre-war Britain and France, including "arrogance, a strong disinclination to risk lives in battle, heavy reliance on technology as a substitute, and governmental procedures poorly designed for anticipating or coping with ingenious challenges from the comparatively weak" has been proven many times since.
January 9, 2021
An intriguing book detailing how an inferior force (Germany) defeated the allies in a month. The Allies had more men, more tanks and better tanks, more planes and better planes, more artillery and more ammunition. He attributes this failure on the Allies as a failure to ever ask the question: "What are the Germans up to?". The Allies failed to apply intelligence information to operational planning because the Intelligence agencies failed to even try and interpret the information. That's right. Intelligence Agencies didn't even try to interpret the intelligence they just handed it to Generals and political leaders for them to draw their own conclusions.
Once the allies decided to move into Belgium at the onset of German aggression the allies never looked back at this plan and instead turned their focus elsewhere. Meanwhile the Germans, after having their original plans captured by the allies began looking for an alternative. They collected data, analyzed the operational thinking of their opponents, ran war games and tested theories.
I find it crazy that Allied leaders, after capturing the operational plan of the Germans never even asked: "Well if they know that I know what they are doing, will they change what they are doing?" Because they did and it worked.
This book takes a serious turn when he says the Intelligence of the US more resembles that of the Allies then the Germans and they you realize it was published in 2000.
Once the allies decided to move into Belgium at the onset of German aggression the allies never looked back at this plan and instead turned their focus elsewhere. Meanwhile the Germans, after having their original plans captured by the allies began looking for an alternative. They collected data, analyzed the operational thinking of their opponents, ran war games and tested theories.
I find it crazy that Allied leaders, after capturing the operational plan of the Germans never even asked: "Well if they know that I know what they are doing, will they change what they are doing?" Because they did and it worked.
This book takes a serious turn when he says the Intelligence of the US more resembles that of the Allies then the Germans and they you realize it was published in 2000.
July 9, 2021
Long but worthy read. The Allies ie Britain & France fully expected to win despite a lag in re-militarizing in response to Germany's mid 1930's remilitarisation. However, a lack of imagination as to possible range of German attack plans, failure to use spy/military information at all, and slowness to realise that the Belgian/Dutch attack was a feint doomed the French.
Several lessons - Germany was the underdog and yet won. If US of America is the Brits/French, and the PRC is Germany, what lessons does this book hold ?
1 Know the political actors, Xi may have a different word view - do not impose a Western political worldview when trying to interpret what's going in China ? HK/ Taiwan.
2. The Brits / French let Czechslovakia down very badly ......Taiwan ???
3. French and British PMs influenced by Domestic opinion
Several lessons - Germany was the underdog and yet won. If US of America is the Brits/French, and the PRC is Germany, what lessons does this book hold ?
1 Know the political actors, Xi may have a different word view - do not impose a Western political worldview when trying to interpret what's going in China ? HK/ Taiwan.
2. The Brits / French let Czechslovakia down very badly ......Taiwan ???
3. French and British PMs influenced by Domestic opinion
July 23, 2020
80 years ago, the Western Allies had every advantage on the battlefield. According to May, their loss is about a failure of intelligence gathering, not the immaterial "loss of nerve" or some material "failure to rearm properly." This is a re-read for me, since its been 80 years since France's Strange Defeat (May specifically adapts Marc Bloch's famous title...) and this book held up well a second time.
February 16, 2022
Thesis: French defeat in 1940 was surprising and not inevitable as many believe. This book is a direct challenge to Bloch's "internal, social rot" thesis and highlights the myriad factors that lead to the fall of France.
Thoughts:
Strange Victory fits neatly into the genre of Kennedy School applied history, particularly the conclusion focused on lessons learned.
It is the only, or one of the few, account(s) based on research in French, German, and British archives.
Thoughts:
Strange Victory fits neatly into the genre of Kennedy School applied history, particularly the conclusion focused on lessons learned.
It is the only, or one of the few, account(s) based on research in French, German, and British archives.
August 30, 2017
After watching "Dunkirk" I wanted to rad more on the Fall of France in 1940. May's "Strange Vicvtory" looked to be the best and most recent.
July 12, 2020
A very good overall analysis of the campaign.
December 4, 2020
For me seemed super slow until it got to May 1940, and "back story " felt like it could have been shortened. Maps could have been much better,
February 20, 2016
"Strange Victory" offers a fresh look at the fall of France in World War II. Ernest May delivers a detailed exploration of both the Allied and German sides, underscoring the many missteps both sides made as they approached the final confrontation in the spring of 1940. He does an excellent job of recasting the position of the French, revealing a nation that was not by any means defeatist or unprepared, but of a militarily strong country that was doomed by poor intelligence services and an inability to adjust to quickly-changing situations. This is not a military history (although the opening stages of the battle are covered in detail), but instead a deep diplomatic and espionage tale, so for actual battle sequences you will have to look elsewhere. But if you want to see the story behind the battle of France, and why it happened the way it did, "Strange Victory" is an absolute must-read.
December 12, 2013
Good little revisionist WWII history. May argues that from a military standpoint, Germany should have been defeated by the Allies in 1940, and then lays out the reasons that it did not come to pass. Focuses surprisingly little on the Battle for France, and more on the political and military preparations by Germany that led up to the war and the invasion itself.
April 16, 2022
I found this to be an excellent book about the surprising and earth-shattering defeat of France and Britain in May of 1940. Allied misjudgements, excellent German planning, and a lot of luck were the culprits of France's defeat. Even so it was a very close thing and this book reveals just how close a victory for the Germans it was.
September 20, 2024
Very good. Interesting thesis, well argued. Could have used more and better maps.
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