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Rating: 
Summary: WHY FRANCE FELL
Review: Harvard historian Ernest May has written an excellent, detailed account of why France fell, and fell so quickly, in May of 1940. He takes the title of his book, Strange Victory, from Marc Bloch's book, Strange Defeat. Bloch was a French historian and soldier who wrote his account shortly after the French debacle. Bloch stressed the defeatism of the French soldiers and the disorganization of the French Army command, which he saw personally. His book strongly reinforced the idea, common after the shockingly quick defeat, that France was a rotten apple waiting to be plucked from the tree. May disputes Bloch's account. He notes that French aircraft and armor were equal to or sometimes superior to that of the Germans. France held a slight edge in the number of first line troops. Morale was generally good among French soldiers (and not so good among the Germans, including the Generals, who mistrusted Hitler.) May posits that Germany succeeded because Hitler had superior strategic insight, including a better understanding than did his generals of the passivity and ineptitude of the British and French military command. Germany outwitted France on the battlefield by sending its main thrust through the Ardennes, a move that surprised the French and to which they were slow, fatally slow, to react. French troops often fought bravely, but their commanders did not have them in the right position, especially their first line units. Germany had a crucial advantage in military intelligence, particularly in their ability to interpret various bits of evidence and to weave a coherent pattern from it to inform their front-line commanders. The French intelligence service, by contrast, attracted lesser-grade officers who often transmitted undigested information, without analysis, to the French command. In short, May thinks that it was possible for France to defeat Germany. The French Army was considered the best in the world. Far from being defeatist, May cites contemporary sources expressing great confidence in any clash of arms with the Germans. Churchill said, in a House of Commons debate, "Thank God for the French Army." Specifically, May feels France missed a golden opportunity by failing to attack Germany in the Fall of 1939 while German troops were crushing Poland. But at no time did any senior French or British official propose such an operation. May's book devotes its first 380 pages to explaining the state of France and the French Army in the pre-war period. This is the best part of the book. He is especially good in comparing Hitler's bold thinking and decisive strokes with the paralysis that gripped French (and British) politicians. He is perhaps less thorough in describing the "Battle of France" itself, which he does in about 80 pages. If his thesis, that the issue was decided on the battlefield, is to be proved, in my view he needed to develop that thesis more carefully by examining closely the battlefield action. He certainly does remind us that, when well led, some French troops fought bravely. But overall, Marc Bloch is more convincing in showing us dispirited French soldiers, confused, despairing, ready to surrender. This attitude was demonstrated by the French political leadership. Reynaud, the French Premier, telephoned Churchill at night after learning of the Germany breakthrough at Sedan, saying: "We have been defeated!" And May cites Bloch's description of French General Blanchard: "During all that time, he sat in tragic immobility, saying nothing, doing nothing, but just gazing at the map spread on the table between us, as though hoping to find on it the decision which he was incapable of taking." May has given us a fine description of pre-war France, its political tensions, and its inefficient military set up. He does a nice job of drawing morals from the French experience, the most important of which probably is, if you're successful at doing something, you're likely to be blindsided from a completely unexpected direction (read Trade Towers and Anthrax.) But he probably gives too little credence to how sick French society was in the 1930's and how this affected their willingness to fight. Read Eugene Weber's The Hollow Years for more on this. Marc Bloch captures this defeatism in Strange Defeat, which should be read together with Professor May's fine book to get a more balanced view of the French defeat.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Scholarship
Review: I was amazed to find this book so shabbily reviewed! This is a work of brilliant scholarship and well written. One of the reviewers commented that the book is not original and that the fall of France was not strange. Originality exists on different levels. That human failings were behind the fall of France was commented upon almost immediately, beginning virtually on day one with Churchill's "The battle of France is over; the Battle of Britain must now begin" speech. But to document these failings, to detail the mistakes made, to prove that it was human failings at the heights of command in the French Army and polity, rather than equipment failures or unusual brilliance of the German high command, are no mean feat. Moreover, May's research is exhaustive. So many scholars today have a theory and tailor the research to support that theory. To this they add footnotes and a lengthy bibliography to convince the reader that they have been scholarly. This is not what May has done. He has pieced together from thousands of sources a very complex story, which has enabled him to tell that story "the way it really happened." Anybody who does that, especially in this day of jet-set historians, deserves the highest accolades. I doubt that any of the reviews given here are by people with May's expertize on the subject; yet they have the temerity of to dump on him. With a work like this, the only justifiable criticism is to find factual discrepancies, citing source and page. Noticeably, there are none in the reviews submitted.
Professor May has written an excellent book and he is to be praised and congratulated on his achievement.
Rating: 
Summary: Intellectually Dishonest
Review: In Strange Victory, Harvard professor Ernest R. May delivers a revisionist hypothesis about the German conquest of France in May 1940: the French were not doomed to defeat and the result could have gone the other way. May argues that incredible luck and faulty Allied intelligence were two of the main ingredients of this "strange victory" of the weaker over the stronger. Actually, May presents two related counter-factual hypotheses: first, that if France had launched a serious offensive in September 1939 that Nazi Germany might have "imploded" and second, that with better intelligence the French would have expected the panzer thrust through the Ardennes Forrest and moved to block it. While May has put a great deal of research into building his hypotheses, it is camouflage for a fundamentally dishonest intellectual approach. In order for a hypothesis to be credible, it should be tested against alternative evidence, but May eschews this methodology. In short, May only provides information that supports his hypotheses, but ignores information that does not. The hypothesis that France could have launched an offensive to reach the Ruhr in September 1939 and thereby end the war at the outset is attractive but fanciful. France entered the war without an offensive doctrine or plan. When the French did attempt minor probes in the Saar on 7-11 September, they were stopped dead by the German introduction of deadly anti-personnel mines - which May fails to mention. Even if the French had possessed more offensive spirit in 1939, the odds were distinctly against success. The French armored divisions (DCRs) did not yet exist and the bulk of any offensive would rely on traditional infantry divisions, supported by a few motorized and cavalry units. May suggests that it would have been easy for the French to reach the Ruhr after only a few days of fighting against second-rate German Landwehr units. He fails to mention that it was 230 kilometers to the Ruhr and that the Rhine River would have to be crossed first - no small matter. The French 3rd and 4th Armies could have attacked with 8-13 divisions against 5-8 German divisions in prepared positions, representing odds of only 3:2 and without the benefit of surprise or air superiority. May completely ignores the ability of the Germans to redeploy units from the Polish front to blunt any French breakthrough. Worse still, May completely ignores the possibility that a premature French offensive in 1939 might have caused excessive casualties among the best French units, just as happened with Plan XVII in 1914. Certainly the most critical element of May's hypothesis about May 1940 is his attribution of German surprise to French non-predictive intelligence methods. However, even if French intelligence had anticipated the German main effort at Sedan, May's assertion that the French response would definitely have resulted in a German defeat is absurd. This hypothesis is flawed on many levels. If the French had reinforced Sedan they might have block Guderian, but the French line would have been weakened in Belgium; the German timetable might have been upset, but they would probably have broken through elsewhere. May ignores the fact that German panzer forces outfought the Allies in Greece in North Africa in 1941-2 where luck and surprise were less important. Better intelligence would not have altered the torpid pace of Allied decision-making, their lack of air superiority or their faulty doctrine. Given the author's apparent meticulous research, the number of obvious factual errors is rather disturbing. Since much of this information is available in secondary sources, I suspect that the errors were intentional distortions by the author to twist facts to support his hypotheses. In order to bolster the perception of French tactical prowess, the author exaggerates French tactical success in order to suggest that the French could have won. Actually, the Luftwaffe fighters clearly out-performed French fighters during the Phoney War period and the author's repeated use of a single incident on 6 November 1939 where the Germans lost 4 fighters to 1 French fighter is a fraudulent use of statistics (why not mention the action on 31 March 1940 where the Germans shot down 6 French fighters for no loss). The author's assertion that the tank battle at Gembloux was a "clear-cut French victory" is a flat-out lie, which no other account supports. At Fort Eben Emael, May claims that 55 out of 85 German glider troops were killed in the assault, but the actual number was 6 (a 900% exaggeration). May claims that the British counterattack at Arras "temporarily routed" Rommel's 7th Panzer but this is clearly false; the 7th Panzer was surprised and suffered losses but the attempt to compare a few German anti-tank gunners running away under fire with entire French units surrendering is dishonest. May fails to note that the British lost 30 tanks at Arras - 10 more than the "routed" Germans - and failed to stop the German march to the coast. Finally, the author's description of Erwin Rommel's First World War experience as, "primarily a behind-the-lines commando" is absurd and intended to denigrate his ability to lead armor.
While the author's comments on the French failure to use predictive intelligence are interesting, there is no evidence that this failure was unique. Certainly, if the Americans had anticipated the Pearl Harbor or World Trade Center attacks, history would have turned out differently, but we don't need a Harvard professor to tell us the obvious. Predictive intelligence is necessary but far more difficult than the author implies and it is a common failing of many intelligence agencies. It is also very odd that the author makes no attempt to compare the May 1940 Campaign with Desert Storm in 1991, which had many similarities. Might Iraq have done better if it had launched a hasty attack into Saudi Arabia in 1990? Might Iraq have defeated the American "left hook" with predictive intelligence? The omission appears deliberate. May's hypotheses are not substantiated and his methods are deceptive.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Analysis of The Opening Phases of WWII
Review: In this interesting book, Prof. May is concerned with determining why the Germans conquered France at the outset of WWII. He takes pains to rebut common misconceptions about the fall of France. The most important misconception is that the Germans were destined to win because of overwhelming technological and military superiority. While other authors have commented on this point, May shows well that the French and British Armies had superior manpower, were at least equivalent in the air, and had real advantages in armor capabilities and artillery. The Allies would also enjoy the tactical advantage of defending. May concentrates on how decisions were made and why decision making in Germany, France, and Britain was structured as it was. This results in an overlapping series of sections devoted to the crucial Allied and German decisions. The first section is devoted to why the Allies failed to confront Germany over the acquisitions of Austria and Czechoslovakia. Key issues here were the limitations imposed by domestic democratic politics and the inability of Allied leaders to understand that Hitler actually wanted war. This is an understandable failure. Chamberlain and Daladier, the latter a decorated veteran of the Western Front in WWI, thought that war would be catastrophic (they were correct,)and combat inconclusive (they were wrong), and couldn't imagine that any political leader with a shred of sense would choose war. Looking back over the 20th century, individuals like Hitler are depressingly familiar - Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, Saddam Hussein - the list is easy to compile. Prior to the 30s, however, there had been no one on the European scene like Hitler since the time of Napoleon. As May points out, moreover, the position of the Western leaders was not based on a perception of French and British weakness but rather on the understanding, shared by the German military, that France and Britain enjoyed superiority. The next set of decisions examined by May are the failure of the French and British to attack Germany during the invasion of Poland. Here, May excoriates the French in particular for the their timidity and lack of imagination. Finally, there is a sustained and excellent series of chapters on German and Allied, particularly French, planning for the anticipated invasion of France. May details the numerous crucial differences between the behavior of decision makers on both sides. Particularly important to May is the comparison of decision making procedures between the two sides, a comparison which exposes the inferiority of Allied command. Poor intelligence gathering, poorer intelligence interpretation, lack of coordination between intelligence services and operational planning, mediocre leadership within the French Officer Corps, lack of interservice cooperation, and poor relations between political and military leaders were all features of the Allied effort. The Germans, in contrast, clearly made the most of their comparatively limited resources. May is careful also to stress that while the Germans were good, they were also incredibly lucky. A huge series of contingencies had to break their way and this is what happened. For example, if the Germans had attacked in the winter of 1939-1940, as Hitler wanted originally, their existing attack plan would probably have resulted in a stalemate in Belgium. A variety of fortunate events led them to postpone the invasion and reformulate their attack plan into the successful assault through the poorly defended Ardennes region. This book has some deficiencies. It is well written and very well researched. May succeeds in avoiding anachronistic judgements and gives a good sense of the perspectives of key decision makers uncontaminated by knowledge of what would follow. By covering a whole series of decisions, however, May dilutes the impact of the book. A good comparison is Richard Frank's Downfall, a book about the decision to use nuclear weapons to end WWII. Frank's concentration on a single decision gave his book dramatic focus without sacrificing the import of the book. May is very interested in the nature of executive decision making in the arena of international affairs. He would like readers to draw conclusions from this book. He does point out some similarities between France in the 30s and contemporary America; a military nervous of engagement without huge political support, a reluctance to risk casualties, and reliance on technology. But, he is careful to avoid facile historical generalizations. Indeed, one of his points is that historical generalization can be profoundly misleading. His final conclusion is that decision makers should be smart, critical, and embrace procedures that test their assumptions. Sensible, but I don't think you need a 400 page plus book to prove this point.
Rating: 
Summary: Intelligence was key
Review: It was only a matter of time before someone wrote an apologia for the pitiful performance of the French armed forces during the so-called "Battle of France" during 1940. (I put "Battle of France" in quotes because this phrase itself, which has worked its way into historical writings, is nonsense...France did not lost a battle, France lost the war, and ended it by surrendering, regardless of what De Gaulle might have said from his comfy London exile...when your government captitulates and you are occupied and divided after signing a surrender document, that is called LOSING A WAR not a battle, and if that is not the case, then Germany was not defeated in WWII, it just "lost a battle" and is taking its sweet time getting to the rubber match) Anyhoo, the author's thesis is that the accepted version of events (superior German tactics and weapons, internal rot on the French side) is bogus and that the war was winnable for France as early as 1939, is not as radical or revisionist as it sounds, I must admit. The French army (without the BEF or the armed forces of the Low Countries) was by itself bigger and more concentrated than the German, had more tanks, a large number of combat aircraft, and possessed a formiddable defensive weapon in the Maginot Line. Furthermore, it possessed a strategic opportunity in 1939 which it would never have again: with most of Hitler's army in Poland, the rear of Germany was weak and denuded of troops. Maybe a large scale offensive in Germany's rear by British and French forces, regardless of its success or failure, would have caused the jittery anti-Hitler movement to assissinate the Fuhrer and sue for peace; Adolf's grip on the military in 1940 was nowhere near as strong as it was just a year or two later. Furthermore, it was by no means settled that Germany's ultimately successful 'Guderian/Manstein' plan of conquest (Case Yellow) was the version that was going to be used; many German generals as late as 1940 still favored the same hidebound ideas regarding mobile warfare that the French did. Additionally, the author is spot-on when he harps on the weakness of the democractic leadership versus the bold, aggressive leadership of Hitler. Daladier and Chamberlian were as weak and indecisive as kittens next to the Fuhrer, and the man on the street in Paris, London and Berlin knew it. As that anonymous French cab driver was famed to have said back in 1939: "Germany has a man, Italy has a man, Russia has a man...if only we had a man!" Believe me, the perception that your leaders are weak is just as important as whether or not they really are. These suppositions are what makes this book an interesting read even if you disagree with its conclusions. However... The thesis of "Strange Victory" is still a device to make France's Third Republic look less a house of cards waiting to be kicked over than it really was. Where the author goes wrong is (in my opinion) his suppositions about what an offensive French strategy in 1940 could have accomplished and the liklihood of it occurring. On paper, the French had an advantage, but their army was simply not designed for offensive warfare and their mentaility did not suit it. They had trained to fight the last war, not the next one, and it is difficult to imagine them behaving any other way even if history could be repeated. As for the author's opinions on Hitler, I'm not sure his victory in France caused him to assume the military megalomania and penchant for micro-managing his generals that later destroyed him; the fact is, he was displaying it in the Norwegian campaign prior to Case Yellow; it was simply that in 1940, as opposed to later years, his control over the army had not yet achieved master-and-slave levels (he had not fired the C-in-C of the army and taken that job for himself) and he was still compelled to give some deference to the senior staff generals and field commanders. The bottom line is, in 1940 the French collapsed with a switfness that has seldom if ever been seen in a Western power; weak leadership, lack of strategic vision and bad tactics were only part of the problem. By comparison, the Germans did not quit until after six years of war when their country had been not only bombed flat but physically overrun. The character of the civilian population and the soldiers was a big factor, and the fact is the French lacked the character for an uphill fight. The German/Prussian maxim that 'the man is the most important weapon' was, more than any other military theory, what was proven in the "Battle of France."
Rating:
Summary: Masterful
Review: Since I had read Ernest May's great The World War and American Isolation, 1914-1917, I decided to read this book, tho the subject is one I have read about before: The Ides of May: The Defeat of France May-June 1940, by John Williams, and The Collapse of the Third Republic: An Inquiry Into the Fall of France in 1940, by William L. Shirer. Neither of those books can hold a candle to this well-researched and well-written study. May brings new insights into the momentous events of 1938 to 1940, and they provide thought-provoking and well-reasoned answers to questions which have been the subject of study ever since the fall of France. I think May supports well his thesis that with a few different happenings Hitler could have been defeated in 1939 and even in 1940, with a result changing our whole subsequent history. (Incidentally, I question the indication that the book has 384 pages. It has 484 pages of text, 48 pages of footnotes, and a 50 page bibliography.) This is a book you will find well worth reading if the events of the time are of interest to you, and especially if you lived thru them as did I.
Rating:
Summary: Notably abbreviated ending...
Review: Something potential readers of this book should be aware of is that May devotes much of his work to analysis and description of the lead-up to the Battle of France, and his treatment of the battle gets more and more condensed as we approach its end: Dunkirk gets all of half of one page, and the period after Dunkirk which saw some of the best fighting by the French against long odds get a mere half-paragraph. In fact, the author himself writes that after the Ardennes breakthrough, "the rest of the story of the Battle of France can be abbreviated." (pg. 434) I found the hasty ending to the book to be quite disappointing, and those looking for any in-depth writing on that half of the battle should look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: THE VICTORY WAS NOT STRANGE.
Review: STRANGE VICTORY has generated a very nice discussion about the condition of France in 1939-40, its armed forces, French Politics, German Intentions, and counter-factual history. I offer my 2 cents because I have spent decades studying the German WW2 experience. Up until the recent Iraq "police action" by the US Army, the German strategy against France in 1940 stood out as the single most successful major campaign using "blitzkreig warfare." They study that campaign at all the major military schools today. There is still a very strong consensus that the German Army was the finest army in the World in 1940. To see an example, read Van Crevelt's book "Fighting Power" where VC shows why German soldiering was far superior to American or British, man for man. Or, look at the generalship on the German side, Guderian, Hoth, Rommel, Kleist, Reinhardt, Von Rundstedt, etc. The French generals did not want to fight. Instead they played budgetary and career politics with slimy politicians. Gamelin was truly slippery. Lastly, consider the breath-taking nerve of Hitler and his generals in launching Plan Yellow. Long exposed flanks! I see an intriguing point about politics and democracy in the story. The only clear-headed politician, the only risk-taker, the only politician who took proper measure of his enemies, was HITLER. Reading about Reynaud, Darlan, Daladier, Chamberlain and the rest of them was depressing. Democratic politicians lacked nerve, they tried to avoid commitments, they weaseled out of commitments they already made. A sorry record for the democracy. To sum up, it is an interesting book to read, but May has not presented new evidence that could make a serious dent in the pervious consensus about the French v Germans in 1940.
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: 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.
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