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by: Ernest R. May
List Price: $20.00Amazon.com's Price: $18.00 You Save: $2.00 (10%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.54214
EAN: 9780809088546
ISBN: 0809088541
Label: Hill and Wang
Manufacturer: Hill and Wang
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 608
Publication Date: October 03, 2001
Publisher: Hill and Wang
Sales Rank: 362130
Studio: Hill and Wang
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Strange Victory is a riveting book about France and Germany in the years leading up to World War II. Why did Hitler turn against France in the Spring of 1940 and not before? And why were his poor judgement and inadequate intelligence about the Allies nonetheless correct? Why didn't France take the offensive earlier, when it might have led to victory? What explains France's failure to detect and respond to Germany's attack plan?
Skillfully weaving together decisions of the high commands with the confused responses from exhausted and ill-informed, or ill-advised, officers in the field, the distinguished diplomatic historian Ernest R. May offers many new insights into the tragic paradoxes of the battle for France.
Amazon.com Review:
The collapse of France before the German onslaught of 1940 was not, as many historians have argued, the result of the Wehrmacht's absolute superiority or the terrible fury of blitzkrieg. Indeed, writes Ernest May in Strange Victory, France had more soldiers in the field than did Germany, their arms were evenly matched in many categories and superior in many others, and the German army was far from fearless. What carried the day for the Nazi invaders was a greater imaginativeness in planning. France and its allies 'made no effort to understand how or why German thinking might differ from theirs,' did not allow for surprise, believed that their defenses would shield them, and in any event paid little attention to the intelligence that their spies brought them, including irrefutable evidence that German forces were massing along the little-defended border with Lorraine, avoiding the heavily fortified (and, May allows, highly effective) Maginot Line.
The Allies soon overcame their lack of common sense, May continues in this penetrating study, while in the wake of his French victory, Adolf Hitler 'became so sure of his own genius that he ceased to test his judgments against those of others, and his generals virtually ceased to challenge him.' The outcome is well known. Still, May suggests, Hitler's comeuppance does not diminish the lessons to be learned from the fall of France--notably, that bureaucratic arrogance, a reluctance to risk life, and a reliance on technology over tactics will quickly lose a battle. Students of realpolitik, no less than history buffs, will find much to engage them in May's book. --Gregory McNamee
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Interesting, But Not the Last Word
When I bought this book, I was expecting it to be mostly about the battles which led to the conquest of France by the Germans in 1940. What I found out is that there is precious little of that. What is here is what I consider to be a scholarly analysis of the social, political, cultural, and economic factors that allowed the Germans to beat the French when it should have been the other way around.
I like May's analysis of key political figures on both sides. His assertions about them and how ... Read More
Rating: - Couldn't Put it Down.
I do share sincere disappointment one of the reviewers below about this work's dramatic and sudden discontinuation and abbreviation in regards to the actual battle for France, but the principal reason for my regret is that May's narrative is so interesting and riveting I wanted it to last forever. He is an excellent writer who knows the value of primary source materials. The quotations from Daladier, Churchill, Gamelin, Hitler, etc. enliven the work and give it a flow of which other writers would be ... Read More
Rating:  - A fair and scholastic review of Plan Yellow.
Strange Victory is an analysis of Germany and France from the early 1930s on, centered on the what, why, and how Plan Yellow of May 1940 unfolded. Unlike many post-WWII versions of history, this book is balanced in its treatment of France and Germany as they faced each other. The book expends extra energy to the issue of intelligence - its gathering, processing, presentation, and how it can be used to affect military operations.
The author delves into the major leaders of the crisis, their ... Read More
Rating: - Brilliant Scholarship
I was amazed to find this book so shabbily reviewed! This is a work of brilliant scholarship and well written. One of the reviewers commented that the book is not original and that the fall of France was not strange. Originality exists on different levels. That human failings were behind the fall of France was commented upon almost immediately, beginning virtually on day one with Churchill's "The battle of France is over; the Battle of Britain must now begin" speech. But to document these failings, to detail ... Read More
Rating: - Intelligence was key
The reviewers who are debating whether or not France could have won the battle are missing the larger, and more relevant point for today, namely, that poor intelligence, rigid bureaucracies and hubris led to catastrophe. When an FBI agent discovers that a Middle Eastern man wants to learn to fly a jetliner only after takeoff, yet that information doesn't work its way up to his or her superiors, the result is sadly similar. This book was published a year before 9/11. Too bad it was not required reading for all ... Read More
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