I Saw France Fall: Will She Rise Again?

216 pp. Written in 1940 by a French soldier of the Blitzkrieg, René de Chambrun's book is a powerful primary document. Daladier, Blum and Thorez's Liberal campaign slogan in the last election was "high salaries, low hours of work, peace and liberty." Once elected they terminated construction on the Maginot Line as it reached the Belgian border. Their assumption was that it was expensive, Belgium was stable, the Ardennes forest impenetrable, and Germany's newly-emerging power was a bluff. Chambrun wrote: They got the vote but have given the people war defeat and foreign domination. Between the wars, ignored by most of Europe and the United States, Hitler had calmly conquered Austria, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Denmark and Norway. In 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union made a pact to carve up Poland between them. Militarily unprepared and trusting in the magic of the Maginot Line, Great Britain and France declared war in defense of Poland. On May 10, 1940 the Germans simultaneously blasted Luxembourg, Holland, Belgium and France, making an end-run through Belgium and around the Maginot Line into France. The elected officials of the Third Republic evacuated, leaving 84 year old Phillipe Petain, a WW1 war hero, as acting Head of State. Captain René de Chambrun was stationed on the Maginot Line and at Dunkirk where French troops covered the retreat of their British comrades: "On September 3, 1939, the men of Châteldon left their homes...Their leaders had promised that they would achieve victory at a very low cost"..."Today I believe that most of them feel that these leaders were as much responsible for their defeat as the German tanks and planes. For years they had listened complacently to the voices of those who promised prosperity and happiness; today they hear the very grave voice of the leader of the State talking about their miseries, their sorrows, their sufferings."