Strange Defeat: A Statement of Evidence Written in 1940

Strange Defeat: A Statement of Evidence Written in 1940 by Marc Leopold Benjamin Bloch. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780393003710.

Marc Bloch was a world-renowned medieval historian who was read and valued by scholars far beyond the Sorbonne, of which he was a distinguished member. He fought in both World Wars, and in 1942, when fifty, became active in the French Resistance. Two years later he was caught by the Germans, tortured, and executed. This book, left in draft, is a moving document and a penetrating analysis of the disaster he witnessed at first hand. Though written early in the Occupation, it is free from bitterness and recrimination, and its detailed criticism of the French disaster is conducted throughout with detachment and intellectual integrity. As a study throwing light on one of the great crises of Western civilization, it is a classic, for it brings in evidence not gossip and personal malice but a considered appraisal of all the factors, social as well as military, which since 1870 had undermined French national solidarity. Bloch takes a close look at the military failures he witnessed, examining why France was unable to respond to attack quickly and effectively. He gives a personal account of the battle of France, followed by a biting analysis of the generation between the wars. His conclusion is that the immediate cause of the disaster was the utter incompetence of the High Command, but his analysis ranges broadly. Written with the clarity and logic which distinguish the best French prose, Strange Defeat is a fitting memorial to a man of noble ideas, heroic purpose, and searching intellect.