The Collapse of the Third Republic - An Inquiry into the fall of France in 1940

The Collapse of the Third Republic – An Inquiry into the fall of France in 1940 – by William Shirer

Let me start this review by saying that, although this book was excellent, it was way too long.  Good Lord was this thing long.  With the word “inquiry” in the subtitle, one wonders if the author forgot that it’s sometimes helpful to be a bit concise when telling a narrative, and it isn’t necessary to cover every single point and every single detail of every single event that is relevant to the subject matter.  Being that I read this on a Kindle (and the Kindle version didn’t have page numbers), the actual page length was never made known to me.  I have a feeling that if I had seen how many pages this thing actually was, or if I would have seen a hardback version in a bookstore, I probably would have freaked out and passed. 

Now – onto the subject matter.  The subject matter is outstanding, and the history that is taught in this book is necessary.  The author’s most famous work was “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”.  In many ways, this book is a companion to that book.  This book is told from the view of the French.

When we think of World War II, what comes to mind when we think of French people, or French leaders?  Really, not that much.  How come?  Weren’t they allies of the United States and Great Britain?  Weren’t they much more in the forefront of the first World War?  How come we never see French soldiers whenever we see movies about World War II?  And what exactly was “Vichy France”?  Was this France part of the allies?  Or the axis?

To understand such questions, as well as the main question as to why the Third Republic (i.e. the government of France) collapsed, the author realizes that one needs to start at the beginning.  The “beginning” in this case is France right after the Prussian-Franco war of 1870.  It’s important that we understand people within a country, and all that they’ve been through before we can access why they elect to proceed in a certain manner.  Shirer gives us a lot of history and psyche of the French people since 1870. By the time we get to World War I, it almost seems a fluke that France prevails and wins the war against Germany.  The “win” though, came at a very heavy price, and the country of France found themselves decimated with so many young men killed or maimed.

Germany, being the loser, actually has it worse, though, and when a Bavarian ex-water colorist plots his rise in Germany to rebuild the Reich, most want to just close their eyes and hope he goes away.  No one wants to fight another war.  So we read about the French constantly looking the other direction every time Hitler makes another conquest.  In hindsight, it seems a bit silly that a country would let this madman walk all over Europe, but the pains from the Great war were just too hideous. (In all fairness, England and the U.S. probably could have stopped Hitler as well, but they didn’t want to step into the conflict for similar reasons).

About half of this book takes place from April to July of 1940.  About three months.  It will probably take you twice that long just to read about it here.  This is where the book really drags.  Not only do we read about some of the battles of the war in meticulous detail, but we also have to hear about the ongoing lengthy day-to-day battles within the French government.  It’s all really too much.  One point that illustrates just as how protracted this narrative is, occurs when the author is describing the withdrawal of the English and French at Dunkirk.  He tells his readers that the Germans could have easily defeated France and England and could have prevented them from escaping across the English Channel, but they made some mistakes that are “too long to go into detail here”.  Well, instead of going into “too long of a detail” he, instead, gives us a summary.  The summary lasts about two pages.  After reading this summary, you come to the conclusion that his “summary” is really all he needs, and he simply doesn’t need to go into all the detail that he was wanting to go into.  One wishes he would have applied this same process to many other areas of the book.

It's so sad to look at many parts of history in hindsight when glaring mistakes are in abundance.  We watch the government of France make blunder after blunder with almost no competent leaders, neither in government nor the military (History tells us Charles De Gaulle was the exception).  The memories of the first World War were so fresh, that excuse after excuse is made when the German army butchers country after country and no one does anything.  When France does get invaded, it almost seems as though the bulk of the citizens simply don’t care.  They’d rather be (peacefully) overtaken by an enemy army than make any effort to fight.

This book finally ends at the surrender and capitulation of France in 1940 (with a brief afterward).  The story, however, goes on much longer, but by then, the Third Republic is gone.  As much as I would have liked to have read about the years following, I was definitely relieved to finally be done with this thing.  I would only recommend this book for those who have an abundance of patience.  A good solid book, but “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” was a much better, more interesting, and more concise narrative than what we have here.