Collapse Of France Research Articles

:World Medievalism: The Middle Ages in Modern Textual Culture

:<i>World Medievalism: The Middle Ages in Modern Textual Culture</i>

Stolica Apostolska w polskiej polityce zagranicznej na uchodźstwie (Wrzesień 1939 – czerwiec 1940)

The Holy See In Polish Foreign Policy of the Government on exile (September 1939 — June 1940) The article is devoted to the reexamining of the policy of Polish Government on exile toward the Holy See after Poland’s defeat in September 1939 and the reestablishment of the legal authorities of Poland in France, under President Raczkiewicz and General Sikorski as Prime Minister. Terminus ad quem of the narration is the collapse of France and transfer of the Government of Poland to London in June 1940. Problems of Vatican’s perception of Polish Question is discussed on the basis of Polish archival documents, especially those of Polish Embassy to the Holy See. Vatican-Polish relations at the beginning of the World War II require special attention because the last treatment of this highly debatable problem was made in historiography by Zofia Waszkiewicz more than thirty five years ago in her monograph Polityka Watykanu wobec Polski 1939–1945 [Policy of the Vatican toward Poland 1939—1945] (Warsaw 1980). How much Polish diplomacy achieved fighting for the Holy See’s support against Nazi Germany? Two things must be said. Firstly, the Holy See recognized the legal continuity of Polish State after the German-Soviet occupation of Poland’s territory in September 1939, but did not sent the papal nuncio to Angers, when Polish Government resided. Secondly, Polish thesis on the special significance of Polish Question as the test-case of international justice received the positive response of the Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Summi Pontificatus published on October 20 1939, but the guidelines of Vatican’s policy were based on the doctrine of strict neutrality of the Papacy in the international relations. It did not permit for Papal condemnation ex officio of the Nazi crimes and criminal policy of extermination in Poland.

La Rencontre de deux destins. L'expansion vers le sud du Japon et l'Indochine française en juin 1940

1940, the 29th of June, General Nishihara Issaku, chief of a Japanese observation mission, lands at Hanoi : the process that will lead to the Japanese occupation of French Indochina, takes shape, as Japan realizes that the collapse of France in Europe, might be a godsend regarding to the Japanese aims in Asia. General Georges Catroux, governor-general of the colony, helpless, gives up to Japanese demands in order to keep Indochina to France. He closes the border between China and Indochina, and accepts a Japanese observation mission whose task will be to negotiate the occupation of northern Indochina. The main cause of this new Japanese policy is an half-century old project : the expansion southward. The expansion southward is then considered by the majority of Japanese leaders as the only way to alleviate the isolation of their country without returning to the hated status quo which prevailed before the outburst of war with China in 1937. The position of French Indochina as the first step on the road to South-East Asia, and the defeated and isolated France in June 1940, were the main causes of Japanese decision to execute of the long cherished project.

Military “Culture” and the Fall of France in 1940: A Review Essay

Elizabeth Kier, Imagining War: French and British Military Doctrine between the Wars Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997 On May 10, 1940, Germany’s panzers launched their westward assault on France. Attacking through the thick forests of the Ardennes, German forces rapidly breached French defenses near Sedan, then swept west to envelop the main French and British armies that had advanced to meet what French Commander in Chief Maurice Gamelin had expected to be the main German attack in Belgium. Adolf Hitler’s legions marched into Paris on June 12, 1940. A shattered French government, overwhelmed by the magnitude of its defeat, sued for peace and signed an armistice at Compiegne on June 22, 1940. The British Expeditionary Force oed across the English Channel, abandoning its equipment on the beaches of Dunkirk. Few defeats in military history have been as rapid, decisive, and unexpected. Sixty years later, the sudden collapse of France in May–June 1940, and the French foreign and military policy of the 1930s that contributed to that debâcle, remain a focus of security studies. The era appears to present a cautionary tale of a nation, and an army, that made just about every unfortunate choice possible. The ink was barely dry on the armistice of June 1940 when contemporaries advanced competing versions of the argument that France’s fate had been a sort of divine judgment invited by the inconsistencies and contradictions of its political culture. The most powerful indictment that the Third Republic exhibited all the symptoms of terminal decadence prior to its debâcle was made by Marc Bloch, whose posthumously published Strange Defeat offered a vision of a fearful, selash, and unpatriotic nation psychologically primed for calamity.1 The view that France’s collapse was the product of an

Between the Junes: The French Communists from the Collapse of France to the Invasion of Russia

Between the Junes: The French Communists from the Collapse of France to the Invasion of Russia

Historians in Politics: Carlton J. H. Hayes as American Ambassador to Spain 1942-45

In March 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked the eminent historian Carlton J. H. Hayes to become United States ambassador to Spain.1 Dr Hayes never ascertained who recommended him to the Chief Executive but the Columbia University professor assumed he had been nominated because he was a scholar of European history and a Roman Catholic.2 Hayes was reluctant to accept the ambassadorship but he decided to take the assignment because he viewed it as a patriotic obligation in time of war.3 He also regarded the posting as a challenge, an attitude encouraged by Roosevelt and others. The idea of selecting Hayes may have originated with the President. For at least a year, Roosevelt had been drawing the conduct of American foreign relations more and more into his own hands. A facet of this process was the President's replacement of 'independent' ambassadors with inconspicuous amateurs, a development that presumably would give the Chief Executive a freer hand in diplomacy.4 As Hayes' appointment was non-political and the professor inexperienced in official work, the choice may have seemed an ideal one. Of course Roosevelt realized that the ambassadorship in Spain required a delicate touch. Events since the collapse of France had made Spain and the actions of its government strategically significant. That regime, led by Generalissimo Francisco Franco, had never been warm towards the United States and such amity as had existed had dwindled after the drastic shift in the European balance of power in 1940. Yet the rulers of this 'new Spain' probably had no serious objections to Hayes. It was true that during the Spanish Civil War he had broken with some American Catholics because of their unqualified support of

America's Influence on Its Emigre Composers

IN THE wake of the political turmoil of the early 1930's composers began to emigrate from Europe to the United States. The wave of migration reached its peak when Germany, ruled by the National Socialist Party, set out to absorb neighboring territories; it reached its conclusion with the collapse of France. Even while these events were in process, an interest arose in their bearing on the creative work of the composers affected by them. The question was raised to what extent this work was influenced by their more or less forcible, unplanned departure from customary surroundings and by their new living conditions. It might be worthwhile to take up this question once again, for the answers to it today are likely to be different from those of some thirty or more years ago. The very composers in question have been inclined to consider the influence of these events as insignificant. One might explain this as revealing a defensive attitude on their part, a kind of psychological mechanism that comes into play to protect the self-confidence of the emigre. He seeks shelter, it would seem, in convincing himself that the shock of uprooting did not encroach upon his innermost life substance. Guided by this point of view, the emigrant is likely to maintain that he would have composed whatever he did compose after settling in his new milieu even without this change. He is likely to maintain that all deviations from his earlier modes of writing, in the event that such can be observed, are the result of an inner development that has nothing to do with outer circumstances. As a matter of fact, this view is hard to invalidate, for there is no way of setting up an experiment that would demonstrate what a man would have created had he not emigrated. Yet from the present vantage point, the matter seems to take on a somewhat different appearance. The emigration of a group of renowned composers, and a string of lesserknown men, hit America at a time when the appeal for an autonomous musical production became increasingly louder in its formulation. The generation of seventy-year-old composers of today had reached full maturity, coming forth with the demand to be acknowledged as creators of the first original

Woodrow Wilson: An Interpretation

A traveler to England in 1946 is speedily made aware of the immense admiration of the British people for the late president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt. It is probable that no other American statesman has evoked quite so warm a regard in the British Isles. Roosevelt early understood the issues of the war which Britain was forced to take up in 1939, and quickly responded when the collapse of France put that country in imminent peril. His intimacy with that great Englishman, Winston Churchill, dramatized the close association of the two English-speaking countries in the struggle that came to a close only a year ago. It would have been strange if he had not been appreciated by the British people. There was, however, another great American president who led his country into war, and stood by the side of Britain in critical days. His name was Woodrow Wilson, and he seems in general to have won far less affection and regard in Britain. Yet he, too, was a great man. It is the object of this paper to make him, as the author hopes, a little better understood, and to demonstrate why he deserves a place amongst the most eminent of the presidents of the United States.

François Mauriac and the Classical Tradition

To the pessimistic observer, the collapse of France in 1940 removed her literature from the contemporary to the historic plane. Her authors assumed something of the marble dignity of Greece and Rome—witnesses of what had been and was no longer. Other books would of course be written: something called France still existed. But the shadow of the library lay heavy upon her great writers. They had descended into the stacks, along with Virgil and Aeschylus to be exhumed in after years by the patient scholar, curious of an age the world had forgotten. There was almost a kind of logic in it: French civilization, by its very brilliance, seemed out of place and doomed amidst the ferocious ideologies of the twentieth century; and that the worst fears were not realized is surely an extraordinary proof of the vitality of the French literary tradition. Whatever ignominy the nation may have endured during the dark period of German occupation, her literature emerges from it with added lustre. Despite censorship, persecution, and the hundred miseries of conquest, the writers of France continued throughout to hold the attention of the world. Books by Valéry and Gide were not wanting; Le Crève-Cœur provided the best war poetry our tremendous modern conflicts have thus far occasioned; and François Mauriac published yet another novel.

The Franco-Lebanese Dispute and the Crisis of November, 1943

Upon the collapse of France and the signing of the Franco-German Armistice on June 22, 1940, there were rumors that military and naval bases in Syria and the Lebanon might be used by Germany against France’s former ally, Great Britain. In a broadcast from Beirut the French High Commissioner and the Commander-in-Chief of the French Forces in the Levant, General Mittelhauser, thereupon declared, that hostilities had ceased in Syria and the Lebanon and denied any thought of handing over bases to the Axis Powers.

About the Collapse of the Third French Republic

Author's summary.— The collapse of France should teach Americans a lesson; the future will see the birth of a new France with which Americans can cooperate.

The Influence of Domestic Policy on Foreign Affairs in France, 1898-1905

T TIE recent collapse of France has made us aware, as never before, of the close relationship between domestic affairs and foreign policy. To weigh fairly the extent of the influence exercised by internal factors upon national foreign policy is an exceedingly difficult task. It is, however, the purpose of this article to attempt to throw some light on this problem in France for the years prior to the war of 1914. Between 1898 and 1914 the control of the government by the Radical-Socialist party is the dominant fact in the domestic history of France. In foreign affairs the volte-face, which, in opposition to the tradition of centuries, resulted in the formation of the entente with England and the subsequent unsatisfactory relations with Germany, was the cardinal development-one which cannot be overestimated. The outburst of nationalism, which followed in the wake of the Entente Cordiale and which was one of the contributing factors to the war of 1914, impresses one as being paradoxical in view of the fact that the government was controlled by a political party which professed pacifism. An analysis of the history of these years shows, however, that the seeming incongruity was more apparent than real. From the point of view of French foreign policy the years between 1898 and 1914 fall into two clearly defined periods: the first is that from 1898 to 1905; the second, that from 1905 to 1914. Owing to the limits of space, it will be possible in this article to examine only the first of these periods. During these years the portfolio of foreign affairs was in the hands of one minister, Theophile Delcasse, who, in the opinion of this writer, had his ear closer to the ground and was more sensitive to the currents of popular sentiment than has generally been conceded; he was, however, autocratic and secretive and carried out his

The collapse of France in 1419-20

Judging from repetitious appearances of her marital arms in the painted line-endings, the Psalter-Hours John Rylands Library Latin MS 117 probably belonged to Jeanne of Flanders (c.1272–1333), daughter of Count Robert III of Flanders and in 1288 second wife to Enguerrand IV of Coucy. Yet the line-endings also contain some 1,800 diminutive painted escutcheons, many of which refer to other members of the local nobility active during the 1280s. This study, based on an exhaustive survey of the total heraldic and codicological evidence, suggests that the majority of the extant Psalter predated the Hours and that the two parts were combined after the 1288 marriage. The ‘completed’ manuscript bears witness to major events that unfolded in and around the Coucy barony over the course of the decade. It suggests a complex relationship between Jeanne of Flanders and a lesser member of the local nobility, a certain Marien of Moÿ, who may have served as her attendant.

New Fleet Air Arm Types

The Curtiss 77 (SBC‐4) Hclkliver is one of the types which were inherited as a result of the collapse of France. The present aeroplane is the last of a line of biplane dive bombers, going back to the XF8C‐2 of 1928, which have borne the name Helldivcr. Each type was developed from the previous one, but the confusion of having four or five aeroplanes with the same name is considerable. The XBC‐4s were released to France by the U.S. Navy; a number were in the aircraft carrier Báarn, which is still lying at Martinique, while about forty were delivered to Great Britain, where it has been re‐named Cleveland.

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF SURGERY

To the Editor:— The opportunity for gathering together a number of the fellows of the International Society of Surgery was presented by their attendance at the recent clinical congress of the American College of Surgeons in Boston, November 3-7. The minutes of the meeting of certain American, Canadian and South American fellows of the International Society of Surgery at the Harvard Club of Boston, November 6, are as follows (forty-six fellows attended): A report was given of the inaccessibility of the executive staff of the society following the collapse of France and Belgium. It was pointed out that the president, Dr. Mayer, the secretary general, Dr. Dejardin, and the treasurer, Dr. Lorthioir, were all Belgians and that we had not been able to get in touch with them since the occupation of Belgium. It was pointed out that the National Committee for the United States and Canada, though it had

Prof. Edmond Leplae

NEWS has just reached Great Britain of the death of Prof. Edmond Leplae, professor of agriculture in the University of Louvain, and director-general at the Belgian Ministry for the Colonies, which took place at Louvain on February 2. He had been staying with his daughter and son-in-law in England not long before the War, but unfortunately returned to Belgium and, when the German invasion occurred, he and his wife fled to France, without being able to reach Great Britain; after the collapse of France they returned to Lou vain. It was the second time ha had been made homeless by the Germans, but in the War of 1914-18 he had been able to get to Britain and continue his work.

New Zealand's First Year of War

\A7HERE Britain goes, we go. Where she stands, we stand, said the late Prime Minister of New Zealand, Mr. M. J. Savage, on September 6, I939. The same point was made by the late Mr. Savage's successor, Mr. Peter Fraser, on June I9, I940, when he said: Whatever decision the British Government took in the difficult circumstances in which it found itself, it would be understood, accepted and supported by New Zealand to the very end. These statements of successive Labor Prime Ministers sum up the attitude of a majority of New Zealanders. New Zealand's open crusading for collective security had ceased a year before the war broke out, and it was no surprise when New Zealand promptly allied herself with the United Kingdom in September i939. Without previously consulting Parliament, which however was wholeheartedly behind the decision, the Labor Cabinet swiftly declared war. The New Zealand Government placed its entire manpower and economic resources at Britain's disposal and took immediate statutory authority to organize this manpower and these resources and to suppress any dissenting minority. After the invasion of the Netherlands and the collapse of France, New Zealand in June extended this authority and gave the Government power to call up every man and to take any property for war purposes. This followed the Churchill Government's similar enactment. In the same month a War Council widely representative of political and economic interests was formed, and the following month a War Cabinet composed of three members of the Labor Party and two members of the conservative Opposition took charge of New Zealand's war effort. New Zealand is cooperating in the Empire Air Force scheme and is aiming to contribute annually 3,700 airmen trained or partly trained. The New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy automatically passed under Admiralty control at the outbreak of the war. There has been little publicity on the disposition of the Naval

New Caledonia: Orphan of the South Pacific

LURING the present world upheaval the South Sea islands have so far remained in the happy obscurity which has been their lot since the eighties and nineties of the last century when the Great Powers, after years of wrangling, settled for the time being the distribution of sovereignty in the South Pacific. Even the removal of Germany from the Pacific scene during the first World War was accomplished without much ado. But the collapse of France has raised new problems of territorial ownership and control in this area which may well bring some of the South Pacific islands out of their obscurity before very long. The orphaned Dutch and French territories of Southeast Asia have already become bones of contention among the Powers; and their unhappy fate may soon be shared by other orphans farther south. The most important of these by far is the French colony of New Caledonia. Apart from New Caledonia the French holdings in the South Pacific are small and relatively insignificant. The Society Islands and the Marquesas, clustered around Tahiti and known for administrative purposes as French Oceania are too remote and of too little economic value to be worth fighting over. The same is true, more or less, of the New Hebrides, although their location gives them greater strategic importance. Here France since 1906 has shared authority with Great Britain in a Condominium, and since the French collapse the New Hebrides have become for all practical purposes a British colony. The case of New Caledonia, however, is very different and the island is decidedly worth fighting for. Its position alone gives it great strategic importance since it lies only a little over 7oo miles from the Australian coast and barely iioo miles from New Zealand. From its sheltered harbors and airports warships and planes of a hostile power could menace the principal cities and shipping lanes of both dominions. Its value as an air base has been emphasized by

Colonial Policy during and after the War

LORD LLOYD'S statement on recent developments in colonial policy in reply to Lord Faringdon in the House of Lords on December 17 is of the greatest moment, not only as being in the nature of an interim report on the steps which have been taken to implement previous declarations of policy in colonial affairs, but also as affording an indication of the line along which it is at present the aim of the allied powers responsible for colonial dependencies to direct future and post-war policy in inter-State relations. The British Government, earlier in the present year, pledged itself to a policy of colonial development so far as conditions might allow during the continuance of hostilities; while, in administration, liaison arrangements with the French Colonial Empire had already been brought into operation before the collapse of France. This co-operation between Colonial Governments, Lord Lloyd stated, has not only begun but is also being deepened every day during the War, and will be continued afterward when all the Colonial Governments will be free from the daily fear of Nazi aggression.

The Collapse of France

France has suffered defeat before but never before in her history has her defeat spelled such unqualified disaster. To speak only of the nineteenth century, after Waterloo in 1815 and after Sedan in 1870, in spite of the devastation of wide areas of her territory and in spite of an army of occupation, it may be said that her soil remained inviolate and her spirit undismayed. For her present abasement and servitude no parallel in her past can be found unless we revert to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and then the parallel weakens in favour of those distant times and by the fact that then the English were her masters. The hopelessness, the apathy, the mental misery, the unrest and disorder which caused the collapse of France in the Hundred Years War can be matched through the two thousand years of her history only by the state of her mind in the present generation.