French Foreign And Defence Policy 1918 1940

French Foreign and Defence Policy, 1918-1940 outlines France's strategies for protection and appeasement during this period and places interwar relations in a larger European context. This book examines: * relationships with key countries such as Italy and Russia * the significance of interwar France to 20th Century European integration * the historical context of the policies * the setbacks and defeats of the period and how they should be evaluated

Why France, the major European continental victor in 1918, suffered total defeat in six weeks at the hands of the vanquished power of 1918 only two decades later remains moot. Why the stunning reversal of fortunes? In this volume thirteen prominent scholars reexamine the French debacle of 1940 in interwar perspectives, utilizing fresh analysis, original approaches, and new sources. Although the tenor of the volume is critical, the contributors also suggest that French preparations for war knew successes as well as failures, that French defeat was not inevitable, and that the Battle of France might have turned out differently if different choices had been made and other paths been followed.

A study of French policies in Central Europe from Versailles until the fall of France.

Shocked by the fall of France in 1940, panicked US leaders rushed to back the Vichy governmentÑa fateful decision that nearly destroyed the AngloÐAmerican alliance. According to US Secretary of War Henry Stimson, the Òmost shocking single eventÓ of World War II was not the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but rather the fall of France in spring 1940. Michael Neiberg offers a dramatic history of the American responseÑa policy marked by panic and moral ineptitude, which placed the United States in league with fascism and nearly ruined the alliance with Britain. The successful Nazi invasion of France destabilized American plannersÕ strategic assumptions. At home, the result was huge increases in defense spending, the advent of peacetime military conscription, and domestic spying to weed out potential fifth columnists. Abroad, the United States decided to work with Vichy France despite its pro-Nazi tendencies. The USÐVichy partnership, intended to buy time and temper the flames of war in Europe, severely strained AngloÐAmerican relations. American leaders naively believed that they could woo men like Philippe PŽtain, preventing France from becoming a formal German ally. The British, however, understood that Vichy was subservient to Nazi Germany and instead supported resistance figures such as Charles de Gaulle. After the war, the choice to back Vichy tainted USÐFrench relations for decades. Our collective memory of World War II as a period of American strength overlooks the desperation and faulty decision making that drove US policy from 1940 to 1943. Tracing the key diplomatic and strategic moves of these formative years, When France Fell gives us a more nuanced and complete understanding of the war and of the global position the United States would occupy afterward.

Details Italian diplomacy in the interim period between the two world wars.

John Maynard Keynes, then a rising young economist, participated in the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 as chief representative of the British Treasury and advisor to Prime Minister David Lloyd George. He resigned after desperately trying and failing to reduce the huge demands for reparations being made on Germany. The Economic Consequences of the Peace is Keynes' brilliant and prophetic analysis of the effects that the peace treaty would have both on Germany and, even more fatefully, the world.

France's drift into war and subsequent collapse have often been attributed to her level of confidence. Either she had too much, or too little. This work contends that these two moods were not mutually exclusive, that they coexisted throughout the interwar years, sustained by competing visions of the Republic and of the best way to ensure national security. Early chapters describe the tensions within French interwar foreign policy, as well as the ensuing historiographical tensions among scholars intent on interpreting the French experience. Subsequent chapters explore tensions in defence and economic policies, domestic politics and ideological allegiance, public attitudes and opinion.

This is the first detailed, scholarly study of French foreign policy during the relatively brief period at the end of World War II when General de Gaulle was President of the provisional French government. During these years de Gaulle took the vitally important step of returning French foreign policy to the pragmatic, nationalist tradition of Poincaré and Louis Barthou. De Gaulle's efforts on the international scene, although not strikingly successful in themselves, foreshadowed many of the aims and policies which were pursued in various ways by his successors in the Fourth Republic and which he himself has reaffirmed in the years since 1958. In the opening chapter, Mr. DePorte outlines French foreign policy between 1918 and 1940 and at the same time places de Gaulle firmly within that tradition of French diplomacy which rejected the notion that France could afford to be dependent on either Germany or Great Britain. In the second chapter, the author reviews de Gaulle's wartime experience, emphasizing his preoccupation with restoring France to full status as a Great Power and pointing out the extent to which his distrust of alliances preceded the problems he encountered with his allies as leader of the Free French. This discussion also includes a perceptive reevaluation of de Gaulle's difficulties with President Roosevelt. The remaining chapters of the book deal in detail with the working out of diplomatic policies and problems during de Gaulle's term in office. Domestic affairs are discussed when events at home had a bearing on policy abroad. Through the issues and attitudes of these years--the Franco-Soviet pact, the distrust of allies and their blocs, the attempts to organize other groupings around France, the proposals for a Western European entity in which at least part of Germany could find a place--runs the unifying theme of the constant thrust for recognition of France's standing as a major power. During this period de Gaulle suffered many setbacks, but it is noteworthy that his basic objective the acceptance of France's right to participate in the great decisions of peace and war--which he himself did not achieve, was attained by his successors.