Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing - Strange Defeat is a Much Better Book
Review: The author argues that the Allies in 1939 the French could have easily driven to the Ruhr and knocked Germany out of the war while the vast bulk of the Wehrmact was tied down in Poland. That scenario is reasonable. However, the autthor's assertion that the Allies in 1940 could have held their own if their best troops met the panzers head on is unconvincing. While he mentions the general lack of radios in Allied tanks, he overlooks other flaws they exhibited - many tanks with one man turrets for one. Imagine being a platoon or company commapnder and trying to control your tanks while also being the loader and gunner of your own vehicle.The two best parts of the book are the sections dealing with the politico-military struglles in Berlin, London & Paris as well as the Allied difficulties with the Belgians; and the Allied (especially French) paranoia about unsecure radion communications and their reliance on messengers and carrier pigeons. A useful, though not great, book which should be read in concert with Marc Bloch's Strange Defeat which still holds up after so many years.
Rating: 
Summary: So close to being a classic...
Review: The author does a superb job of exploring the events leading up to the Battle of France in May 1940, amply supporting his ideas as to why Germany defeated France when it should have been the other way around. Often during my reading, I compared this book's style and content to the classic "Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman. But then he seems to run out of steam. May only devotes three rushed chapters to the battle, itself. While it was a good overview of the battle, I was expecting much greater detail. I felt let down. For the serious student of WWII, this is worth reading for the preview to the battle, just don't expect a solid play by play of the actual fighting.
Rating: 
Summary: Intelligence was key
Review: The reviewers who are debating whether or not France could have won the battle are missing the larger, and more relevant point for today, namely, that poor intelligence, rigid bureaucracies and hubris led to catastrophe. When an FBI agent discovers that a Middle Eastern man wants to learn to fly a jetliner only after takeoff, yet that information doesn't work its way up to his or her superiors, the result is sadly similar. This book was published a year before 9/11. Too bad it was not required reading for all CIA and FBI personnel.
Rating:
Summary: A needed book about an important conflict.
Review: This book elaborates on the difficult conflict between Germany and France in 1940 near the Maginot line. The author gives an argument diametrically opposed to previous writers in his analysis about how France had the military capability to defeat Germany; however, France and Britain's poor intelligence operations undermined their attempts to win World War II. Additionally, the author avers that France's fragmented political organization and military command detracted from its best efforts. Also, Mr. May suggests that Germany had better strategic planning in their military. Not surprisingly, the author deposes that France's hubris contributed to an overconfident attitude in fighting the German high command. The dry prose tends to get tedious at times, but does enlighten the reader with important facts, including the propitious moment when Germany attacked Denmark and Norway. This book contains many superfluous facts that sometimes disrupt the narrative flow in the prose. Although it contains the mentioned flaws, this book clarifies the complex strategy and movements that integrated with the overall plan of action in this Strange Victory.
Rating:
Summary: Neither very original or very interesting
Review: Why strange victory? In 1940 the Germans won the battle of France, they initially invaded the Netherlands and Belgium, forced the evacuation of the British forces and then defeated the weakened French forces. The victory is seen by some as remarkable because not only were the German forces outnumbered but the allies had better weapons. The Germans at this point did not have a heavy tank and their other tanks were generally inferior to the French. In reality this was not so remarkable. The Germans initially did very well in the campaign against the Soviet Union despite being outnumbered by two to one. In the first World War Germans and Austro-Hungarian Armies although outnumbered had been able to defeat the Russians. This book is unusual as only about 40 pages are devoted to the actual military campaign. The bulk of the book looks at the lead up to the War and looks again at the issues of Munich and the phoney war. Other writers such as Len Deighton in Blitzkrieg have covered the same ground. Deighton suggested that the key to the German success was the passive reaction by the French. This book does not suggest anything very different. One interesting argument put forward by the book concerns the phoney war. The Germans concentrated all of their forces in Poland. If the French had attacked at this point the German commander of the West wall conceded that they would have won easily. The Germans had only older poorly trained infantry and very limited supplies of ammunition. The book suggests that the French also believed they would have won but decided to wait for a German offensive as they were confident of resisting it. After the war some books suggested that the reason for the defeat sprang from a malaise in French society. That is the split between the right and the left which had been revealed during the Dreyfus affair. One of the strong points of this book is to suggest that the defeat was purely military which seems to be the case. All in all the book was rather disappointing as it contained so little detail on the actual military campaign and most of it was devoted to diplomatic and political issues. It in reality does not say much more than other books have said.
| 
