Return to Bibliography ListSelected References at Air University Library
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Alexander, Martin S. The Republic in Danger:
General Maurice Gamelin and the Politics of French Defence, 1933-1940.
New York, Cambridge University Press, 1992. 573 p.
In index, see these terms: Air Force and France--Defence
Policy, Inter-War.
Book call no.: 944.0815 A377r
Cain, Anthony Christopher. Neither
Decadent, nor Traitorous, Nor Stupid: The French Air Force and
Doctrine in the 1930s. Ph.D. Thesis, Ohio State University,
2000. 243 p.
Book call no.: 358.400944 C135n
Calculations: Net Assessment
and the Coming of World War II., edited by Williamson Murray
and Alan R. Millett. New York, Free Press, 1992. 354 p.
French Net Assessment, by Steven
Ross, pp 136-174. See especially The Military Dimension, pages
148-155.
Book call no.: 355.0330043 C144
Chapman, Guy. Why France Fell:
The Defeat of the French Army in 1940. New York, Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 1968. 399 p.
See especially discussion of French
air force before WWII on pages 33-34, 69-72. See also Air
Operations, pages 351-354.
Book call no.: 940.54 C466w
Christienne, Charles and
Lissarague Pierre. A History of French Military Aviation.
Washington, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1986. 531 p.
Book call no.: 358.400944 C555h
Cohen, Eliot A. and Gooch John. Military
Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War. New York, Free
Press, 1990. 296 p.
Catastrophic Failure: The French
Army and Air Force, May-June 1940, pp 197-230.
Book call no.: 355.480904 C678m
The Conduct of the Air War in
the Second World War., edited by Horst Boog. New York, Berg,
1992. 763 p.
The High Command of the French Air
Force and the Problem of Rearmament, 1938-1939: A Technical and
Industrial Approach, by Patrick Facon, pp 148-168.
Cooperation between Air Force and
Army in the French and German Air Forces during the Second World
War, by Michel Forget, pp 415-457.
French Air Policy in the Inter-War
Period and the Conduct of the Air War against Germany from
September 1939 to June 1940, by Lucien Robineau, pp 627-657.
Book call no.: 940.544 I61c
Cot, Pierre. Triumph of Treason.
New York, Ziff Davis, 1944. 432 p.
Chapter 2: The French Defeat, pp 45-80.
Chapter 6: The Military Preparation
of the War, pp 177-212.
Chapter 7: The Role of the Military
in the Defeat, pp 213-273.
Chapter 8: Aviation and the French
Defeat, pp 274-306
Chapter 9: Aviation Policy of the
Popular Front, pp 307-335.
Book call no.: 940.5344 C82t
Doughty, Robert Allan. The
Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France, 1940. Hamden,
CT, Archon Books, 1990. 374 p.
Chapter 1: Strategy and Doctrine,
pages 7-32. Compares French and German defense strategy and
doctrine, without specific discusssion of airpower. See also
index under French Air Force.
Book call no.: 940.5421 D732b
Doughty, Robert Allan. The
Seeds of Disaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine, 1919-1939.
Hamden, CT, Archon Books, 1985. 232 p.
Does not discuss airpower, but
provides a general overview of French doctrine and strategy in
the interwar years. See index under Doctrine, French and Strategy,
French.
Book call no.: 355.00944 D732s
Gunsberg, Jeffery A. Divided
and Conquered: The French High Command and the Defeat of the West,
1940. Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, 1979. 303 p.
See index under French Air Forces.
Book call no.: 940.54 G975d
Haigh, R. H. and Turner P. W. Defence
Policy between the Wars 1919-1938, Culminating in the Munich
Agreement of September 1938. Manhattan, KS, Military Affairs/Aerospace
Historian, 1979. 179 p., in various pagings.
French Defence Policy 1919-1938:
Progress to Impotence? (See volume's third section; each section
has its own page number sequence.)
Book call no.: 940.53112 H149d
Horne, Alistair. To Lose a
Battle: France 1940. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1969.
647 p.
The French Air Force, pages 81-85.
See also comparison of French, German and British air forces on
pages 184-185, and French Air Force in index.
Book call no.: 940.542 H815t
Kiesling, Eugenia C. Arming
Against Hitler: France and the Limits of Military Planning.
Lawrence, KS, University Press of Kansas, 1996. 260 p.
The Sources of French Military
Doctrine, pp 116-135. See also these terms in index: Aircraft,
Air Force, Doctrine.
Book call no.: 940.5344 K47a
Krauskopf, Robert W. French Air
Power Policy, 1919-1939. 452 p. Ph.D. Dissertation,
Georgetown University. Reproduced from microfilm by University
Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI.
Book call no.: 355.033044 K916f
Military Effectiveness. Volume
II: The Interwar Period, edited by Allan R. Millett and
Williamson Murray. Boston, Allen & Unwin, 1988. 281 p.
The French Armed Forces, 1918-40,
pages 39-69.
Book call no.: 355.00904 M644 v.2
Military Planning and the Origins of the
Second World War in Europe, edited by B. J. C. McKercher and Roch Legault.
Westport, CT, Praeger, 2001. 212 p.
Weaknesses in
French Military Planning on the Eve of the Second World War, by Henry Dutailly,
pp 89-101.
Book call no.: 940.53 M644
Morrow, John H. Jr. The Great
War in the Air: Military Aviation from 1909 to 1921.
Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993. 458 p.
Examines the rise and decline of
military aviation from 1909-1921 in the major combatant powers.
See index under France.
Book call no.: 940.44 M883g
Overy, Richard and Wheatcroft
Andrew. The Road to War. London, Macmillan, 1989. 364 p.
"...each of the nations
eventually involved [in WWII] had complex motives for their
policy in the years between the wars...The aim of this book is to
retell the story of the twenty years between the wars without
benefit of hindsight." Chapter 3 discusses France, pp 105-142.
Book call no.: 940.5311 O92r
The Paths of Heaven: The
Evolution of Airpower Theory, School of Advanced Airpower
Studies and edited by Philip S. Meilinger. Maxwell Air Force Base,
AL, Air University Press, 1997. 650 p,
Chapter 5: Airpower Thought in
Continental Europe between the Wars, by James S. Corum, pp 151-181.
France, pp 151-159.
Book call no.: 358.4 P297
Peterson, Edward N. An
Analytical History of World War II, Volume 1. New York, Peter
Lang, 1995. 470 p.
A year-by-year examination of the
nations involved in World War II, including the military power of
each, from 1931-1945.
Book call no.: 940.54 P485a v. 1
Posen, Barry R. The Sources of
Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany between the World
Wars. Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1984. 283 p.
Chapter 4: France, pp 105-140.
Book call no.: 355.02 P855s
Shirer, William L. The Collapse
of the Third Republic: An Inquiry into the Fall of France in 1940.
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1969. 1082 p.
Decline, II: The Erosion of
Military Power 1925-1934, pages 172-187. See also French Air
Force in index.
Book call no.: 944.08 S558c
Watt, Donald Cameron. Too
Serious a Business: European Armed Forces and the Approach to the
Second World War. Berkeley, University of California Press,
1975. 200 p.
See index under France and Italy.
Book call no.: 940.5311 W344t
Weber, Eugen. The Hollow Years: France
in the 1930s. New York, W.W. Norton, 1994. 352 p.
See index
under Army, French--air power and, pp 253-255; also defensive doctrine
of, pp 245-248.
See also Appendix 2: Military Attache Report on
General Disposition of French Air Army in May 1940, pp 283-287.
Book call no.: 944.081 W373h
Young, Robert J. In Command of
France: French Foreign Policy and Military Planning, 1933-1940.
Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1978. 346 p.
See index under France--Air Force.
Book call no.: 327.44 Y75i
Condray, Patrick Albert. The
Battle of France: Crisis in the Theory and Practice of Airpower.
M.A. Thesis, University of Maryland, 1971. 179 p.
Failure of the French and British
Air Forces to contribute effectively to the Battle of France in
May and June 1940 was a primary cause of Allied defeat. This
failure rose from a dispersion of effort dictated by prewar
doctrines concerning the use of airpower.
Doc. call no.: M-U 43567-854
Kirkland, Faris R. The French
Officer Corps and the Fall of France, 1920-1940. Ph.D.Thesis,
University of Pennsylvania, 1982. 2 vols.
See especially Aviation, pages 436-458.
Doc. call no.: M-U 43567-107
Cot, Pierre. The Defeat of the
French Air Force. Foreign Affairs 19:790-805 July 1941.
Argues that many of the reasons for
the World War II defeat of France's air force stemmed from French
military leaders' underrating the importance of aviation in
modern warfare.
Cot, Pierre. The French Air Force
Never Fought! Flying 34:21-23+ April 1944.
The author, French Minister of
Aviation, 1933 and 1936-38, contends that "the French did
not lose the air battle; the bad organization of their aviation
did not even let them fight it."
Gunsberg, Jeffery A. Armee de l'Air vs. the Luftwaffe--1940. Defence Update International No. 45:44-53 1984.
Harvey, A. D. The French Armee de
l'Air in May-June 1940: A Failure of Conception. Journal of
Contemporary History 25:447-465 October 1990.
Author argues that "the
failure of the Armee de l'Air is symptomatic of the deficiencies
in organization, doctrine and leadership which also characterized
the ground forces."
Kier, Elizabeth. Culture and
Military Doctrine: France between the Wars. International
Security 19:65-93. Spring 1995.
Outlines the roles both of domestic
politics and of the military's organizational culture in the
origins of military doctrine, and explains doctrinal developments
in the French army during the 1920s and 1930s. Does not include
discussion of airpower specifically. (A critical review of this
book is in the Spring 2000 issue of International Security,
pages 157-180.)
Kirkland, Faris R. The French Air Force in 1940: Was it Defeated by the Luftwaffe or by Politics? Air University Review 36: 101-118 September-October 1985.
Kirkland, Faris R. French Air
Strength in May 1940. Air Power History 40:22-34 Spring
1993.
This article's purpose is "to
offer an alternative to the interpretation by official historians
that the air force was denied a chance to fight on even terms
because industry and government could not produce enough planes
of modern design." The author argues that the organizational
and personnel policies implemented by the senior officers of the
air force were among the primary causes of French aerial weakness.
Murray, Williamson. Comparative Approaches
to Interwar Innovation. Joint Force Quarterly No. 25:83-80
Summer 2000.
Traces
experimentation and innovation in the German, French and British militaries.
Porch, Douglas. Military "Culture"
and the Fall of France in 1940. International Security 24:157-180
Spring 2000.
Reviews the book Imagining War:
French and British Military Doctrine between the Wars, by
Elizabeth Kier. The author argues that Kier's book rests on the
flawed premise that offensive doctrines offered a better, more
modern option for France in 1940, and that she overstates the
role of organizational culture in explaining military doctrine.
Vennesson, Pascal. Institution and
Airpower: The Making of the French Air Force. Journal of
Strategic Studies 18:36-67 March 1995.
Analyzes the decision "to
promote multi-purpose aircraft instead of a clearly focused
aircraft like a long-range bomber, the creation of a catch-all
military organization, instead of a sharply defined professional
jurisdiction, and the definition a low-key, unclear military
doctrine emphasizing cooperation, instead of an ambitious,
articulated, explicit set of guidelines defining the new service's
legitimacy and symbolizing its strength."
Young, Robert J. The Strategic Dream: French Air Doctrine in the Inter-War Period. Journal of Contemporary History:57-76 October 1974.
Young, Robert J. The Use and Abuse
of Fear: France and the Air Menace in the 1930s. Intelligence
and National Security 2:88-109 October 1987.
Examines the idea that the French government's response to Munich
"was shaped partly by the concrete circumstances of 1938--as
they concerned the air imbalance, the new air mobilisation system,
and the condition of the nation's passive defences--and partly by
a climate of fear...by 1938...authors, for diverse reasons, had
succeeded in publicising the spectre of air warfare for nearly
two decades, exploiting through exaggeration popular fears of
German air attack, and thus firmly seating that idea in the
public consciousness. In the end...they may have contributed
unwittingly to the immobilisation of the national will to resist
in 1938 and thus presented Hitler...with an already well-turned
bludgeon."