In Command Of France

"In Command of France" combines a detailed survey of French foreign policy during the Nazi period with a careful examination of France's corresponding military planning and preparation. France was under control, the author argues, and credits the civilian and military command with more vision, more determination, more competence than hitherto recognized.

The reemergence of French national forces in the war against the Axis Powers, and the role of large-scale American aid.

A century ago General Joffre, as Chief of the French General Staff, led the armies that blocked the German invasion at the First Battle of the Marne. He saved Paris from occupation and France from probable defeat. His calm demeanour when faced with a disaster, his ruthless dismissal of incompetent subordinates, and his skilled redeployment of his forces contributed to a historic victory. At the time many saw him as the saviour of the nation, but what should we make of him now? For Joffre contributed to the failures of the French army and its strategy before the war and during the first battles of 1914. Also his conduct of the war after the Marne futile offensives that cost thousands of lives and gained no ground, followed by near defeat at Verdun - undermined his position and led to his dismissal.Although he remained immensely popular in France, his reputation has been under a cloud ever since, and he has been overshadowed by the French generals - Ptain and especially Foch - who commanded the French army at the time of the final victory over Germany.Andr Bourachot, in this lucid and highly readable study of Joffre's career, focuses on his performance during the opening phase of the Great War. He offers a fresh and carefully considered view of the man and the soldier.

In this revisionist account of France’s crushing defeat in 1940, a world authority on French history argues that the nation’s downfall has long been misunderstood. Philip Nord assesses France’s diplomatic and military preparations for war with Germany, its conduct of the war once the fighting began, and the political consequences of defeat on the battlefield. He also tracks attitudes among French leaders once defeat seemed a likelihood, identifying who among them took advantage of the nation’s misfortunes to sabotage democratic institutions and plot an authoritarian way forward. Nord finds that the longstanding view that France’s collapse was due to military unpreparedeness and a decadent national character is unsupported by fact. Instead, he reveals that the Third Republic was no worse prepared and its military failings no less dramatic than those of the United States and other Allies in the early years of the war. What was unique in France was the betrayal by military and political elites who abandoned the Republic and supported the reprehensible Vichy takeover. Why then have historians and politicians ever since interpreted the defeat as a judgment on the nation as a whole? Why has the focus been on the failings of the Third Republic and not on elite betrayal? The author examines these questions in a fascinating conclusion.

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This book gives the reader a straightforward and continuous survey of the history of the French Foreign Legion. By outlining the Legion's vicissitudes, victorious campaigns, epic marches, heroic and sometimes hopeless stands, dirtiest combats and dramatic defeats, but also by briefly placing the Legion back in the historical background of France, and by describing its development, organization, uniforms, equipments and weapons, the author hopes to dispel myths, and try to give a true and accurate picture of what the French Foreign Legion has been from 1831 until today. There are well-researched, detailed line drawings throughout.

A New York Review Books Original During the eighteenth century, from the death of Louis XIV until the Revolution, French culture set the standard for all of Europe. In Sweden, Austria, Italy, Spain, England, Russia, and Germany, among kings and queens, diplomats, military leaders, writers, aristocrats, and artists, French was the universal language of politics and intellectual life. In When the World Spoke French, Marc Fumaroli presents a gallery of portraits of Europeans and Americans who conversed and corresponded in French, along with excerpts from their letters or other writings. These men and women, despite their differences, were all irresistibly attracted to the ideal of human happiness inspired by the Enlightenment, whose capital was Paris and whose king was Voltaire. Whether they were in Paris or far away, speaking French connected them in spirit with all those who desired to emulate Parisian tastes, style of life, and social pleasures. Their stories are testaments to the appeal of that famous “sweetness of life” nourished by France and its language.

In 1951, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, hero of the liberation of Europe, returned to Paris to command NATO forces. The US Army built a huge infrastructure across France to provide logistical support to the US Seventh Army in Germany during the Cold War. The US Air Force also sent aircraft to France to provide a nuclear deterrent to Soviet aggression. By 1962, the US military had 100,000 troops and family members living in France, and employed 22,000 French civilians. This monumental book is built on research in 50 international archives and more than 400 interviews. It is the definitive work on the postwar American military occupation of France and contains authoritative text along with original, professionally made maps, diagrams, and illustrations.