Abstract
"Modern history records few events as stupefying as the defeat and collapse of the French Republic in June 1940. Never has a great military power been smashed as quickly and as inexorably since the lightning war of Napoleon against Prussia in 1806. In less than six weeks one of the powers leading the world was literally swept away from the international scene." | Popular accounts, newspaper exposes— "word of mouth history" as it were—-has generalized, confused and ignored many facts in describing the actions and theorizing upon the reasons for the defeat of France in June 1940. These solutions cause us to ask ourselves if it is reasonable to assume that an army which had shown the offensive elan of Austerlitz and of Jena, the defensive tenacity of the Marne and of Verdun, whose artillery was considered the finest in Europe, and whose infantry had earned the feared title La Furia Francese, could suddenly disintegrate in the field.