An interesting exploration of early WW2 but you need to read Churchill’s history to understand it

An enjoyable and interesting book, very well read, especially as the narrator manages to keep energy and coherence going while listing numerous divisional and regimental numbers.
As regards the writing, it is at times a little unsympathetic to the British. Notably the author criticises a perceived British abandonment of France but also describes the French collapse as entirely inevitable.

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Fascinating and very detailed

Filled in a gap in my knowledge about an interesting few months during WW2, with a lot of interesting details. I hadn't realised how unprepared Britain, France and Germany all were for war in 1939 and 1940. The extent of brave fighting by French forces even after the first and second BEF withdrew deserves more recognition.

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Heartening review of France's military in 1940

France's military performance was dismissed for many years on the basis of well-informed, eye-witnesses e.g. William Shirer who attributed its rapid defeat to two 5th Columns: (a) bourgeois officers who backed the Nazis as bulwark vs USSR; (b) PCF activists who also wanted Germany to win after the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact in 8.1940.
Forczyk has a PhD in international relations and has written a large number of books specializing in e.g. tank warfare in WW2. His text is far from broad-brush i.e. RF has a very detailed knowledge of the topics. He depicts France as putting up a much better fight than they have been given credit for. There were a number of reasons why they lost e.g. failure of its leadership (General Weygand), lack of communication between the UK and France, (e.g. failure of RAF to assist French) German's superior fire-power etc.

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excellent

as with all the authors books, very well researched and illuminating. A must read for anyone wishing to know more about a much neglected part of history.

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Excellent history

An excellent book. Sometimes hard to follow without maps but well researched and unafraid to challenge conventional wisdom. Lots of new information (to me) here. Excellent performance which is well suited to the story and great French pronunciation.

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Very, very detailed.

Interesting, not hugely entertaining but very, very detailed. One for a war gamer perhaps. Might be useful to have access to a map at points.

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Old and very Discovery channel-esque

It has its strengths but over all it reads as a BBC/Discovery opinion piece.

Narrated well enough and perfectly fine as a commute listen.

Several urban legend type of facts regarding the German rearmament so I think that allied “facts” has several like faults but that I do not know.

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Boring lists of units

While very detailed, the book ends up being a series of lists of units called by their abbreviation in geographical location. As an audiobook this is a problem. The details of the encounter and the actions of individuals involved seems to be given short shrift.and the movement of units becomes the sole story. I love military history but I found this quite boring. Extensive use of abbreviations makes it very confusing especially in the audio book format. It’s very easy to lose track of things. There also seem to be a rather arbitrary choice of when to use French or German pronunciation of an English word. I also find Forczyk to be anti-British in his tone and attitude. He makes unwarranted criticism of the UK 'abandoning' France - when in reality staying and throwing the lives of more men into an already failed cause would have been pointless. His attitiude to the UK was very simialr in his book about Poland. I find this criticism pretty galling from an American whose nation refused to join the fight against Nazism and only took up arms when Nazis declared war against them.

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2 people found this helpful

Unlistenable

This book starts out to prove a theory, there are a lot of what if’s and justifications for spending and projects. Which may of made a decent book, but the Author spends the equivalent of page after page torpedoing other authors and historians. I mean, it’s brutal. If you’re well read/“listened” on WW2 then you will have already heard many takes on battles and decisions, so a lot of the big reveals are not new.
The UK had a small army and a big Navy you say? Mind blowing.

To enjoy the book you probably need to disbelieve everything you think you know and completely trust the author and like the take downs.
The other strange thing is the style of the book, it’s like a series of starting chapters that never get going.

Then there’s the elephant in the room, France lost. No matter how much you try to blame external factors, it was their country, their forces, their battle. Many other countries sent tens of thousands of men to fight against tyranny, not the French, they really were the few until the Americans and Commonwealth freed their country.

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