In Command of France

Robert J. Young

Published by Harvard University Press 2013

In Command of France

French Foreign Policy and Military Planning, 1933-1940

Robert J. Young

https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674434912

Overview
Contents

About this book

No other attempt to explain French civil and military leadership during the 1930s has been so gracefully written, so firmly based on archival material, or so sensitive to French conditions and purposes as In Command of France. It 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.

Young introduces the reader to some of the leading personalities of the day--Laval, Bonnet, Weygand, Pétain, Gamelin, Delbos, Cot, Daladier--soldiers and statesmen whose names have come close to fading from our view. He outlines the problems and alternatives that confronted them in the Nazi years--strikes, lockouts, unemployment, inflating prices, devalued currency--and finds that they failed not because of an absence of policy or incompetence but because the problems they faced were insuperable.

Frontmatter Accessible Download PDF	i
PREFACE Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	vii
CONTENTS Accessible Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	1
1. Land, Resources, and Strategic Planning Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	13
2. Disarmament and the Drift toward Arms Equality, 1933 Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	33
3. Security First, 1934 Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	52
4. The Foreign Policy of Pierre Laval, 1934–1935 Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	76
5. Anglo-French Relations, 1935-1936: Ethiopia and Rhineland Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	99
6. The Foreign Policy of the Popular Front, 1936-1937 Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	130
7. National Defense and the Popular Front, 1936-1937 Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	160
8. Anglo-French Relations, 1938: The Austrian and Czechoslovakian Crises Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	192
9. Preparing for War, 1939 Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	221
10. Dénouement, 1940 Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	246
Abbreviations Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	261
Notes Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	263
Index Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	341

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Edition: Reprint 2014
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Front matter: 9
- Main content: 346
Illustrations
- Other: 2 Ktn.
Keywords: France -- Defenses.; France -- Foreign relations -- 1914-1940.; HISTORY / General; POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / Leadership; HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century

eBook

Published: October 1, 2013
ISBN: 9780674434912

Hardcover

Published: February 5, 1978
ISBN: 9780674434905