Defeat and Division: France at War, 1939-1942

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

Author: Douglas Porch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 08/25/2022
Pages: 742
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 2.60lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.20w x 1.80d
ISBN: 9781107047464


Review Citation(s):
Choice 09/01/2023

About the Author
Porch, Douglas: - Douglas Porch is Distinguished Professor Emeritus and former Chair of the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. His previous books include Counterinsurgency. The origins, Development and Myths of the New Way of War (2013), The Path to Victory. The Mediterranean Theatre in World War II (2004) [Published in Britain as Hitler's Mediterranean Gamble], The French Secret Services: From the Dreyfus Affair to Desert Storm (1995), The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force (1991), The Conquest of the Sahara (1984), The Conquest of Morocco (1982), The March to the Marne: The French Army 1871-1914 (1981), The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution (1977), and Army and Revolution. France 1815-1844 (1974).