THE FALL OF FRANCE: THE NAZI INVASION OF 1940 PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Julian Jackson | 296 pages | 27 May 2004 | Oxford University Press | 9780192805508 | English | Oxford, United Kingdom The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 PDF Book The 4th Army captured bridgeheads over the Somme but the Germans struggled to get over the Aisne. De Waal, Frans A day later the German spearhead was through the French defences and far behind the Allied front line. Germany : divisions 7, guns [3] 2, tanks [3] 5, aircraft [4] [c] 3,, troops Italians in the Alps 22 divisions 3, guns , Italians. He doesn't have a thesis in this section, and instead it tends to ramble on as we follow the changes from Blum to Daladier to Reynaud. Even by then most of the infantry had not crossed, much of the success being due to the actions of just six platoons, mainly assault engineers. To ask other readers questions about The Fall of France , please sign up. Refugees leave their ruined town in Belgium, after it had been bombed by the Germans, carrying what little of their personal belongings they managed to salvage, on May 19, Frieser, Karl-Heinz To Churchill at that time, France's army seemed a powerful bulwark against possible Nazi aggression towards other European nations. The southernmost army involved in the move forward into Belgium was the French Ninth Army , which had to cover the Meuse sector between Namur to the north of Sedan. Traffic jams in Luxembourg presented a massive opportunity for the Allies to inflict a crippling blow, but fortunately for the Germans, the Allies never capitalised. The results of the war games persuaded Halder that the Ardennes scheme could work, even though he and many other commanders still expected it to fail. All-in-all, this book provides a much better understanding of how French resistance collapsed so quickly. For example, on French pacifism, he concludes: "France in was still a pacifist society, but one which had accepted, reluctantly, the necessity of war. Military: Jackson shows that the strategic plan and response of the French High Command were deeply flawed, but that many units gave good account of themselves. Some private vessels joined dozens of military craft to ferry the men across the channel. Having a trained individual for each task allowed a logical division of labour. It involved three armies the 4th , 12th and 16th and had three Panzer corps. Clarendon Press, Oxford ed. The war would take place outside French territory, avoiding the destruction of the First World War. London: Penguin. France, Blitzkrieg in the West. A small number of the best-equipped and "elite divisions were offset by many second and third rate divisions". The 2nd and 3rd Army Groups defended the Maginot Line to the east; the 1st Army Group under Gaston Billotte was situated in the west and would execute the movement forward into the Low Countries. The combined Allied total was 2, aircraft, about half the size of the Luftwaffe. Showing It was also an unfortified part of the Allied line. In , as World War Two loomed, the British and French planned to fight an updated version of what happened in during World War One, but with some essential differences. Only Britain stood in the way. Find out more on Wikipedia's Sister projects. None of the contingencies anticipated the German attack through the Ardennes but after the loss of the Luftwaffe plans, the Germans assumed that the Allied appreciation of German intentions would have been reinforced. But as the narrative is hard to follow going back and forth in time , and the analysis not that strong or probing, the book doesn't provide a straightforward chronology or any meaningful takeaways for the reader. At on 14 May, Rundstedt confirmed this order, which implied that the tank units should now start to dig in. Atkin, Ronald Doughty's analysis in The Seeds of Disaster , which is good for the most part but wrong I think in its final conclusions. Table Of Contents. That same day, the 2nd Panzer Division had assaulted Boulogne. It's something of a cliche' to argue that French commanders were preparing to re-fight the First World War, but that is not exactly correct. Churchill, who had been telephoned by Prime Minister Reynaud the previous evening to be told that the French were beaten, rushed to Paris to meet the French leaders. Sporadic attempts to re-establish contact with the rest of the French Army failed, leaving evacuation the only alternative. The Battle of Hannut 12—13 May was the largest tank battle yet fought, with about 1, armoured fighting vehicles involved. In little over a month, the German troops had achieved what Germany could not in four years in WW1. The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 Writer Retrieved 6 May French troops stood guarding the Maginot Line achieved little while German troops bypassed them with speed. Victims of hidebound defence strategy, or German brilliance. Until the Mechelen incident in January forced a fundamental revision of Fall Gelb , the main effort schwerpunkt of the German army in Belgium would have been confronted by first-rate French and British forces, equipped with more and better tanks and with a great advantage in artillery. One of the few highlighted was Charles De Gaulle. Jackson, Julian The French High Command, already comparatively ponderous and sluggish from its firm espousal of the broad strategy of "methodological warfare", was reeling from the shock of the sudden offensive and was now stung by a sense of defeatism. London: Brockhampton Press. Apr 22, Chris Oler rated it really liked it. The division had a superiority in artillery to the German units present. The defeat immediately became very much politicised under Vichy and remained so after the war, serving different interests in the postwar revival. In , Ernest May wrote that Hitler had better insight into the French and British governments than vice versa and knew that they would not go to war over Austria and Czechoslovakia, because he concentrated on politics rather than the state and national interest. This exciting new book by Julian Jackson, a leading historian of twentieth-century France, charts the breathtakingly rapid events that led to the defeat and surrender of one of the greatest bastions of the Western Allies. The French Army consisted of three army groups. German commanders wrote during the campaign and after, that often only a small difference had separated success from failure. Fliegerkorps VIII covered the dash to the channel coast. In early September , France began the limited Saar Offensive. Several ships were badly damaged, one sunk, and 1, French sailors were killed in the attack. Main article: Invasion of Poland. The French had suffered massive casualties in frontal attacks in The French reserve divisions barely slowed the German thrust, and by 15 May the Germans had a large bridgehead across the river. A 9,gun Flak component with the field army would have involved more troops than the British Expeditionary Force. Of these, were earmarked for the offensive, including 42 reserve divisions. Or maybe he strikes a viewpoint so finely balanced that it could just as well be argued one way or the other. A high level of detail about the various "causes" of the French defeat. Journal of Contemporary History. The British contributed 13 divisions in the BEF, three of which were untrained and poorly-armed labour divisions. A chapter on the mindset on the populace is somewhat better, because Jackson attempts to offer conclusions, though these are undercut by his confusion and ambiguity. Various opportunities presented themselves to halt the Germans dead in their tracks, but whether through lethargy, reluctance, or poor communications, France failed to capitalise. Such a risky independent use of armour had been widely discussed in Germany before the war but Oberkommando des Heeres OKH , the German General Staff doubted such an operation could work. Gamelin had said "It is all a question of hours. The first German troops entered the French capital on 14 June, little more than a month after the campaign began. Other Editions 5. Between 27 May and 4 June the Royal Navy evacuated , British troops and , Belgian and French troops from Dunkirk, leaving 30, French behind holding the beachhead to the end. See also: Operation Cycle and Operation Aerial. The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 Reviews Prisoners of war and deportee totals were around 1,, The following day the French accepted the terms, but they were required to conclude a separate armistice with the Italians before the German armistice became effective. General Weygand replaced General Gamelin as French commander-in-chief, but it made no difference. Germany : 27, dead [e] , wounded 18, missing [6] [7] [8] 1, aircrew killed [9] 1, aircraft lost [6] [10] — [11] tanks lost [f] , total casualties Italy : 6,—6, [g] Total: , casualties. While British and French commitments to Poland were met politically, the Allies could not provide direct military support to Poland. German troops walk down a deserted street in Luxembourg, on May 21, , with rifles, pistols and grenades ready to protect themselves. It seems that he attempted to write a history of the fall of France for a general audience; his haphazard footnoting and general bibliography are hallmarks of such a less-than-thoroughly-academic approach. The fragility of French defenses is underscored by their leaders' own mental collapse which Jackson frequently notes as the Germans crossed the Meuse. Total Allied evacuation stood at , on 31 May. In six weeks from 10 May , German forces defeated Allied forces by mobile operations, conquering France, Belgium , Luxembourg and the Netherlands , ending land operations on the Western Front until the Normandy landings on 6 June In it he avoided mentioning Guderian and played down the strategic part of the armoured units, to avoid unnecessary resistance.