fall of France in exceptional detail. Horne's one main point that arises

uncharacteristically near the end of the final chapter is that "This book

has tried to show more than any one individual or set of individuals was to

blame."[i] He later goes on to say that "Two doctrines were involved."[ii]

Horne opens with the political, social and military background and

concludes the book with the onset of World War II and France's defeat. He

ties both a narrative introduction and a narrative conclusion together well

with the body of the book that hold the core information. He tells the

story of the French/German conflict day by day using incredible detail.

In the initial stages of the book we read how the tragedy of World War I

was the foundation for France's failure in World War II. France had been

left critically divided politically for generations, a factor which greatly

contributed to the disaster of 1940. The astronomical massacre that was

World War I was followed all to closely by a depression and a quickly

decreasing birthrate. These all left France with a much smaller therefore

much weaker manpower reserve then had existed in 1914 prior

Another aspect of Horne's writing that I found peculiar was his use of

of history and is not meant as a mainstream reading, but should be read by

quite a few French slang phrases. He does so through out the book without

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