Bill Finnegan's Reviews > Strange Defeat

Years ago I read somewhere that it is beneficial to read books in topical clusters, i.e., that are somehow connected to one another. I just completed my World War 2 cluster with “Strange Defeat”, Marc Bloch’s analysis of why it was so easy for Nazi Germany to conqueror France. Block was an eminent French historian who served in the First World War; volunteered for the second despite being a middle- aged grandfather; and was executed by the Nazis in 1944 for his work with the resistance. He wrote the book when he returned to his University teaching post soon after France surrendered. I think it's an important book, a must read for history buffs. But I expect the average reader will not be interested in the subject matter and everyone will struggle a bit with Bloch's writing style (or the English translation thereof) . Some of his explanations for France’s collapse may ( or may not) offer lessons for us today. Here are the main ones that I recall: The French government was dysfunctional; defense funds were miss- spent on construction of a defensive wall (i.e., the Maginot line which the Nazis circumvented) instead of on tanks and planes; the French Army was commanded by old men (and younger officers trained by them) who thought the new War would be exactly like the last one and adopted their strategy and tactics accordingly, ignoring the blitzkrieg tactics and capabilities Germany displayed in its invasion of Poland.; the horrendous experience of the last war ( 1, 357,800 Frenchmen killed, 4, 803,000 wounded , many left with permanent disabilities) bred pacifism and dilution of patriotism which in turn led to widespread sentiment that surrender and occupation were better than war—although in fairness the pacifists were at that point uniformed as to just how profoundly evil Nazism and its intentions were; the timidity of the nation at large--in the wake of Germany’s blanket bombing of Polish cities business interest worried about damage to the economy and citizens about loss of civilian life and this influenced the government to declare that all cities and towns of 20,000 or were would be “open”, i.e., undefended , so the Nazi’s would have no need to bomb them . (He relates how cadets of Samur were being killed on the Loire while Nazis cut their escape route over bridges in Nantes that were off limits to and undefended by French Army)