Abstract
This chapter concludes that the modern academic emphasis on the military and contingent factors leading to the defeat of France and the collapse of the Third Republic remains contested. While the notion of decadence as an explanation of the collapse is not dead, it is on its last legs. The two other explanations, failure and constraint, remain part of the story. In history, failure and its counterpart success are perennial factors. So is constraint. No actor, whether individual or collective, is entirely free from constraints. The challenge facing historians who emphasise contingency in the Fall of France is to balance the relative weights of failure and success, of constraint and freedom, in order to present a well-rounded picture.
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Notes
- 1.
Julian Jackson (2003) The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
- 2.
Joel Blatt (1998) ‘Introduction’, in Joel Blatt (ed.), The French Defeat of 1940: Reassessments (Providence and Oxford: Berghahn), 8–10.
- 3.
Pertinax (1944) The Gravediggers of France (New York: Doubleday Doran).
- 4.
Charles de Gaulle (1954) Mémoires de guerre: L’appel 1940–1942 (Paris: Plon), 84–85.
- 5.
Jacques Bourdu (2007) L’armistice de 1940: Histoire d’une faute tragique (Paris: François-Xavier de Guibert); Eric Roussel (2009) Le naufrage 16 juin 1940 (Paris: Gallimard); and Claude Quétel (2010) L’impardonnable défaite 1918–1940 (Paris: JC Lattès).
- 6.
Patrick Finney (2011) Remembering the Road to World War Two: International History, National Identity, Collective Memory (London: Routledge), 179.
- 7.
Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac (1990) Les Français de l’An 40 II: Ouvriers et Soldats (Paris: Gallimard).
- 8.
Henry de Wailly (2000) 1940 L’Effondrement (Paris: Perrin), 8.
- 9.
Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac (1990) Les Français de l’An I: La Guerre Oui ou Non? (Paris: Gallimard).
- 10.
Annie Lacroix-Riz (2008) De Munich à Vichy: L’assassinat de la Troisième République 1938–1940 (Paris: Armand Colin); Annie Lacroix-Riz (2010) Le Choix de la Défaite: Les élites françaises dans les années 1930 (Paris: Armand Colin).
- 11.
Finney , Remembering the Road, 178.
- 12.
Talbot C. Imlay (2003) Facing the Second World War: Strategy, Politics and Economics in Britain and France 1938–1940 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 16, 355.
Bibliography
Blatt J. (ed.) (1998) The French Defeat of 1940: Reassessments (Providence and Oxford: Berghahn).
Bourdu J. (2007) L’armistice de 1940: Histoire d’une faute tragique (Paris: François-Xavier de Guibert).
Crémieux-Brilhac J.-L. (1990) Les Français de l’An 40 (2 vols.) (Paris: Gallimard).
De Gaulle C. (1954) Mémoires de guerre: L’appel 1940–1942 (Paris: Plon).
De Wailly H. (2000) 1940 L’Effondrement (Paris: Perrin).
Finney P. (2011) Remembering the Road to World War Two: International History, National Identity, Collective Memory (London: Routledge).
Imlay T. (2003) Facing the Second World War: Strategy, Politics and Economics in Britain and France 1938–1940 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Jackson J. (2003) The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Lacroix-Riz A. (2008) De Munich à Vichy: L’assassinat de la Troisième République 1938–1940 (Paris: Armand Colin).
Lacroix-Rix A. (2010) Le Choix de la Défaite: Les élites françaises dans les années 1930 (Paris: Armand Colin).
Pertinax (1944) The Gravediggers of France (New York: Doubleday Doran).
Quétel C. (2010) L’impardonnable défaite 1918–1940 (Paris: JC Lattès).
Roussel E. (2009) Le naufrage 16 juin 1940 (Paris: Gallimard).
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Carswell, R. (2019). Conclusions. In: The Fall of France in the Second World War. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03955-4_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03955-4_9
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