Recent journeys along the road back to France, 1940

Abstract

Understanding the swift collapse of the Third Republic continues to present an irresistible challenge for students of French history. Explanations for the 'Strange Defeat' have evolved considerably over the past 55 years. From the aftermath of the Battle of France through to the early I 970S most attempts to explain the fall of France identified a profound malaise in French society which rendered the leadership and institutions of the Third Republic incapable of rising to the challenge posed by a resurgent Germany. The predominant view was that the Republic had been rotten at its core. The civilian and military leadership of pre-war France, along with the deeply flawed security policies that they pursued, were products of this endemic moral decay. Consequently, the military disaster and subsequent political collapse were the inevitable culmination of a long process of decline. Theories of decline and decay are nothing new in French political culture. Indeed the concept of decadence has been a constant in French political rhetoric at least since France's defeat at the hands of Prussia in I 870. In the highly charged atmosphere which prevailed in France after the liberation of I944-45, the image of a decadent Third Republic was seized upon by Gaullists as a useful foil with which to juxtapose 'France Reborn'.' Examples of this characterization abound. Raymond Aron, perhaps the most lastingly influential political philosopher of post-war France, recalled that he had 'lived through the I 930S in the despair of French decline'.2 For Andre Beaufre, France's foremost military thinker, I940 was 'but the last step in an inevitable decline'.3 This view, which interprets French strategy and diplomacy of the I930S in light of the defeat and collaboration which followed, went largely unchallenged for nearly 20 years.4 Two of the earliest historians to question this interpretation and to argue for a more balanced assessment of French policy during the I930S were Anglo-Saxon scholars John Cairns and Geoffrey Warner.5 In a thoughtful and stimulating essay Cairns suggested that the fall of France should be interpreted as a European, rather than a strictly French, military defeat. In a judicious reconsideration of the role of Pierre Laval Warner stressed that France's decline during the inter-war period forced French