When France Fell

The Vichy Crisis and the Fate of the Anglo-American Alliance

By: Michael S. Neiberg

Narrated by: David de Vries

According to US Secretary of War Henry Stimson, the "most shocking single event" of World War II was not the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but rather the fall of France in spring 1940. Michael Neiberg offers a dramatic history of the American response - a policy marked by panic and moral ineptitude, which placed the United States in league with fascism and nearly ruined the alliance with Britain.

The successful Nazi invasion of France destabilized American planners' strategic assumptions. At home, the result was huge increases in defense spending, the advent of peacetime military conscription, and domestic spying to weed out potential fifth columnists. Abroad, the United States decided to work with Vichy France despite its pro-Nazi tendencies. The US-Vichy partnership, intended to buy time and temper the flames of war in Europe, severely strained Anglo-American relations. After the war, the choice to back Vichy tainted US-French relations for decades.

Our collective memory of World War II as a period of American strength overlooks the desperation and faulty decision making that drove US policy from 1940 to 1943. Tracing the key diplomatic and strategic moves of these formative years, When France Fell gives us a more nuanced and complete understanding of the war and of the global position the United States would occupy afterward.

©2021 Michael S. Neiberg (P)2021 Tantor

Learning a story I hadn’t heard before

While I have been much interested in the European story of World War II, I had never heard much about Vichy France and knew nothing about the American government’s relationship with it and with Charles De Gaulle. Very informative book and very well read.

Good Deep Dive on a Cloudy Topic

The book fills in a lot of interesting known & unknown unknowns on the the topic of the Vichy govt & it's impact during and since the war, and the narration is good imo.

excellent

I think it was thoroughly researched, factual, informative, and entertaining. I look forward to his next book.

A Part of WW II Worth Remembering

A great look at a topic I had never considered. Like most of us, I had always thought of Vichy France as an unfortunate side note that was best left forgotten. Neiberg has re-opened a chapter of conveniently forgotten history that needs re-examining.

very informative

Makes u think about how the world looked in early 1940, and really makes ya wonder what might've happened if we hadn't joined with the British.