In Command of France : French Foreign Policy and Military Planning, 1933-1940 / Robert J. Young.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Young, Robert J., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Außenpolitik.

Buitenlandse politiek.

International relations.

Militaire politiek.

Military readiness.

Militärpolitik.

Politik.

France--Defenses.

France--Foreign relations--1914-1940.

HISTORY / General.

HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century.

POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / Leadership.

Local Subjects:

France--Defenses.

France--Foreign relations--1914-1940.

HISTORY / General.

HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century.

POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / Leadership.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (355 p.): 2 Ktn.

Edition:

Reprint 2014

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Frontmatter

PREFACE

CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Land, Resources, and Strategic Planning

2. Disarmament and the Drift toward Arms Equality, 1933

3. Security First, 1934

4. The Foreign Policy of Pierre Laval, 1934-1935

5. Anglo-French Relations, 1935-1936: Ethiopia and Rhineland

6. The Foreign Policy of the Popular Front, 1936-1937

7. National Defense and the Popular Front, 1936-1937

8. Anglo-French Relations, 1938: The Austrian and Czechoslovakian Crises

9. Preparing for War, 1939

10. Dénouement, 1940

Abbreviations

Notes

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

0-674-43491-9

OCLC:

979743393