French perspective on WW2

[HistoryGeek2019]

Are there any books or accounts giving an alternative French perspective on WW2? In almost everything you read, the French are maligned as indecisive, cowardly, weak and every other pejorative you can think of, while the British were heroic and fought valiantly, etc.

There has to be some French author or personality who (1) says that the French didn't fight as poorly as English-written narratives portray and (2) takes the British to task for fleeing across the Channel, never deploying the RAF to France, attacking Mers el Kebir and Dakar, blockading the country, causing uprisings in their colonies, conquering Syria, Madagascar, etc., and then bombing France for 4 years (together with the USA).

[Carl Schwamberger]

Best look at French language publications. 'Strange Defeat' was a popular one back in its day. I have a couple magazine articles on my shelf, but those concern specific battles.

[wm]

The Republic in Danger by Martin S. Alexander

[phaze]

Not French but Robert Forczyk's Case Red is in many ways that though limited to the campaign of 1940. As someone never convinced by the usual simplifications or even Doughty it was a refreshing read.

[yantaylor]

I don't think the British acted cowardly at all, they left nearly 70.000 men on French soil and took around 100.000 French with them at Dunkirk.

The bottom line is that the allies were facing the best war machine on the planet, which ended with the French siding with the worst regime on the planet in the Nazi's, which left Britain looking over their should at Vichy enclaves all over the world and having to divert troops to fight our ex-so called friends when we were at our lowests.

You wouldn't think that we left the cream of our manhood in France only 20 odd years earlier.

Yan

[OpanaPointer]

Are there any books or accounts giving an alternative French perspective on WW2? In almost everything you read, the French are maligned as indecisive, cowardly, weak and every other pejorative you can think of, while the British were heroic and fought valiantly, etc.

There has to be some French author or personality who (1) says that the French didn't fight as poorly as English-written narratives portray and (2) takes the British to task for fleeing across the Channel, never deploying the RAF to France, attacking Mers el Kebir and Dakar, blockading the country, causing uprisings in their colonies, conquering Syria, Madagascar, etc., and then bombing France for 4 years (together with the USA).

Have you checked with Heavily Biased Publishing Co.?

[Kelvin]

Are there any books or accounts giving an alternative French perspective on WW2? In almost everything you read, the French are maligned as indecisive, cowardly, weak and every other pejorative you can think of, while the British were heroic and fought valiantly, etc.

There has to be some French author or personality who (1) says that the French didn't fight as poorly as English-written narratives portray and (2) takes the British to task for fleeing across the Channel, never deploying the RAF to France, attacking Mers el Kebir and Dakar, blockading the country, causing uprisings in their colonies, conquering Syria, Madagascar, etc., and then bombing France for 4 years (together with the USA).

Have you checked with Heavily Biased Publishing Co.?

Some Point from French author maybe right, the British are always thinking go back to channel ports then go home when thing went worse. They don't think to stand up to fight. Book : " Five days from defeat " mentioned Haig nearly brought his BEF back home from Channel ports when German Kaiser battle offensive went extremely well in initial period. Hitler also bet on that Prior to Ardennes offensive. Once Antrewep was captured, both British Second Army and Canadian First Army 's LOC were cut off and they would be forced to retreat or surrender. British Always put an eye on Channel port.

And they did betray her French ally as she refused to bolster up allied air power in French Battlefield. She had 19 x Spitefire squadrons, 25 x Hurriance Squadrons and 2 x Defiant Squadron on Hand plus some a lot of bomber squadrons to counter German Luftwaffe. The Luftwaffe had lost a large quantity of Aircraft in initial period.

Raid on Mers el Kebir on July 3 1940 resulted in killing of 1,297 French sailors was terrible too, No one can deny this.

[yantaylor]

Over the nine days of Operation Dynamo, the RAF flew 2,739 fighter sorties, 651 bombing raids and 171 reconnaissance flights. Fighter Command claimed 262 enemy aircraft.
The RAF lost 436 between May and June including the 106 lost during operation dynamo, the British reckoned that they need 60 squadrons of fighters to defend Britain, alas we had only 39.

Mers el Kabir was down to the fact that the French had been given options and they ignored them, trouble was that we couldn’t be sure what would happen in the future, we just didn’t have the ships to blockade all the French ports.
1.297 deaths were a tragedy that could have been avoided, but don’t forget 9000 British, Commonwealth and Free French Troops who either died, wounded, sick and POWs fighting against the Vichy French in the middle east and Madagascar not mentioning the casualties Britain suffered during operation Torch.

Bottom line is that the Germans beat the allies in 1940 and the French looked for a scapegoat, we were on a hiding to nothing and don’t forget we are British not French and they threw in towel too you know on their own soil then started to play nice with the Nazi’s. We had to look after number one and that is why we were the only country to stay the course from 1939 to 1945. At the end of the day the French probably wouldn’t have given us any credit if we lost our whole army and air force in France.

[Sheldrake]

There is an excellent book called The Battle of France and Flanders 1940: Sixty Years on, edited by
Brian Bond. It is a selection of papers by military historians including a very good discussion about the French historiography.