Strange Defeat

Description

By (author) Bloch, Marc

Short /annotation:
A renowned historian and Resistance fighter—later executed by the Nazis—gives his firsthand perspective on why France fell in 1940.

:

Marc Bloch wrote Strange Defeat during the three months following the fall of France, after he returned home from military service. In the midst of his anguish, he nevertheless “brought to his study of the crisis all the critical faculty and all the penetrating analysis of a first-rate historian” (Christian Science Monitor).

Bloch takes a close look at the military failures he witnessed, examining why France was unable to respond to attack quickly and effectively. He gives a personal account of the battle of France, followed by a biting analysis of the generation between the wars. His harsh conclusion is that the immediate cause of the disaster was the utter incompetence of the High Command, but his analysis ranges broadly, appraising all the factors, social as well as military, which since 1870 had undermined French national solidarity.

Review quote:
“Much has been, and will be, written in explanation of the defeat of France in 1940, but it seems unlikely that the truth of the matter will ever be more accurately and more vividly presented than in this statement of evidence.”

Review quote:
“The most wisdom-packed commentary on the problem set [before] all intelligent and patriotic Frenchmen by the events of 1940.”

Biographical note:
Marc Bloch was a French historian who cofounded the Annales School of French social history. He was captured and shot by the Gestapo in 1944 for his work with the French Resistance.