My Amazon Review of Michael Neiberg's "When France Fell…"

 Vichy Water

 

Army War College professor Michael Neiberg has authored an important book on American policy towards Vichy France during World War II, a topic that is usually skimmed over in history books on World War II. He goes into great detail about the failed policies of Secretary of State Cordell Hull who bent over backwards to maintain relations with Vichy and to prevent the recognition of Charles de Gaulle as the true leader of France.

 

The fall of France in May 1940 was a shock to U.S. security. Of a sudden the U.S. appeared vulnerable to Hitler’s armies as the balance of power in Europe collapsed. Immediately the U.S. instituted the draft, began a major arms build-up, and started to search for fifth columnists. Hull wanted to maintain relations with the rump Vichy government to keep the French fleet out German control and to limit German influence in France’s Africa and North American colonies. The problem was that as time passed Vichy became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Reich.

 

Neiberg is particularly good at portraying the rolls of such larger-than-life Americans as OSS Director William Donavan, diplomats William Leahy and Robert Murphy and General Mark Clark. On the Vichy side see the aged World War I hero of Verdun, Henri Petain as president and the crypto Nazi Pierre Laval as prime minister along with Admiral Jean Darland who ran the French Navy and then switched sides, before he was assassinated, by working for the Allies.

 

In essence the Vichy government was a right-wing counter to communism. After the French collapse the French right feared a civil war with the communists as the possibility of a rising similar to the Paris Commune in 1870 loomed. However, because the French Communist party like its counterparts everywhere followed the Soviet line of maintaining friendly relations with Germany until the June 1941 invasion of Russia no uprising took place. Vichy hated the British, especially after Churchill ordered the sinking of several French vessels at Mers-el-Keber.

Through it all U.S. policy until late 1943 could be described as a theme park for policy incoherence. Ultimately the U.S. sided with de Gaulle as plans for the invasion of Europe intensified. To me one of the highlights of the book is that Neiberg uses lines from the movie Casablanca as chapter headings. My main quibble is that the book is way too detailed and too long for the lay reader.

For the full Amazon url see: Vichy Water (amazon.com)