FRANCE 1940

MAY–JUNE 40, the Invader's Gaze — Unpublished German... MAY–JUNE 40, the Invader's Gaze — Unpublished German... 2
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The present work revisits the German perspective on the Battle of France of May–June 1940. Unprecedented, drawn from a private collection of more than 2,000 photographs, this book presents essentially "private" images, in the sense that they were taken by the soldiers themselves as "souvenirs" to bring home — in which respect they fulfil the same role as...
Rouen 1940–1945: Through the Years of Occupation
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When a passionate local historian meets someone who loves the city where he grew up, it inevitably ends in an exchange of stories and anecdotes. But when both share a passion for historical photographs, it draws them even closer together, and projects begin to take shape. Thierry Chion and Jonathan Sobielga share a love of photographic testimony depicting...
Bitter Victory — Southern Soldiers from June 1919 to June...
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Following "Des soldats méridionaux dans la guerre 1914–1918" published in 2018, here is the second volume, entitled "Amère Victoire. Des soldats méridionaux, juin 1919 à juin 1940." The Treaty of Versailles in June 1919 resolved none of the rivalries between nations still bled dry by the war of 1914–1918. The Midi attempted to rebuild a different world,...
INTELLIGENCE AND ACTION — From the "Phoney War" to...
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This work is a plea for intelligence and a tribute to those who practise it. The analysis of the past, from the "drôle de guerre" of 1940 onwards, allows us to trace the evolution of this discipline leading to the current Direction du renseignement militaire — through multiple experiences on various theatres: the Gulf, Chad, the Balkans, Cambodia and...
1940, THE FRENCH SOLDIER Volume 1 1940, THE FRENCH SOLDIER Volume 1 2
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€28.39
The French Soldier 1940. Volume 1. Uniform, headgear, badges, by Olivier Bellec. The French Army of 1939–40 was in the midst of transformation. The concepts that prevailed at the end of the 19th century regarding uniforms and equipment were giving way to more modern ones, stemming in particular from mechanisation and technical progress. The equipment then...
THEY FOUGHT May-June 1940 - Unpublished Photos and... THEY FOUGHT May-June 1940 - Unpublished Photos and... 2
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The defeat of 1940 remains the greatest political and moral drama to have shaken France in the 20th century. Beaten in six weeks, the French have since retained the impression of an ill-equipped national army and a poorly commanded country, quicker to flee than to resist the enemy. More broadly, the "syndrome of forty" is a deep trauma in the collective...
From Antwerp to Dunkirk - 1940 War Memoirs
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€17.06
This book traces the war of an ordinary soldier. In a sober style, Lucien Richard, a corporal conscripted into the 121st RI, gives a day-by-day account of the episodes of his campaign against Germany in 1940. Setting off like his comrades — confident and determined — to aid Holland, he is forced to face the reality: aircraft and tanks give the Germans an...
France 1940 – Massacred!
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France 1940 – Massacred!

L20200260
€23.70
The tragic fate of African and Indochinese soldiers in Picardy and Normandy No, this book has nothing demagogic about it — the author neither seeks to flatter nor to promote himself. Those put forward are the men themselves: the actors of the bloody fighting on the Somme in June 1940, the massacres of which African soldiers were victims, and those that...
1940 - A Strange Defeat
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1940 - A Strange Defeat

L20200193
€8.53 €17.06
May–June 1940 Disaster, rout, shipwreck, collapse, catastrophe… The defeat of the French army in 1940 was experienced as a genuine shockwave. Its speed and brutality reinforced the ideological victory of the future Vichy government and plunged the country into the darkest hours of its history. Yet nothing seems able to shake the distorted view that...
THE HISTORY OF THE MARINE INFANTRY THROUGH THEIR UNIFORMS THE HISTORY OF THE MARINE INFANTRY THROUGH THEIR UNIFORMS 2
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On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Bazeilles in 1870 — which is also the feast day of the Marine Infantry — the EMSOME (État-major spécialisé pour l'Outre-mer et l'Étranger) publishes with Histoire & Collections this work, which retraces the history of the Marine Infantry, formerly the Colonial Troops, through their uniforms....
THE INEXORABLE DEFEAT – May–June 1940
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€65.40
After forty-five days of fighting in which heroism vied with cowardice and courage with failure, France reached the end of its ordeal. It is the causes of this inexorable defeat — from the most obvious to the most unsuspected — that this book sets out to analyse point by point.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF FRENCH BOMBER AIRCRAFT 1939-1942
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REPRINT IN PROGRESS - AVAILABILITY APRIL 2021 - RESERVE YOUR COPY In keeping with the two reference works "Encyclopédie des avions de chasse français" and "Camouflages et marques de l'Aviation Française", Caraktère editions are pleased to announce the release of a third volume dedicated to French bomber and reconnaissance aircraft.
MAURIENNE 1940
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MAURIENNE 1940

L20200124
€34.12
On 3 September 1939, following Hitler's invasion of Poland, France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany. Italy, an ally of that country, announced its non-belligerence. Autumn and winter passed in reinforcing the defensive dispositions amid a certain torpor. In spring, the snowmelt revived the transalpine threat. From 10 May onwards, with the...
JUNE 1940 THE BATTLE OF ABBEVILLE – From the Rhineland to Caen with the Company of the "List" Regiment
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The chronicle of the journey of the horse-drawn infantry gun company of the famous "List" Regiment, which distinguished itself in 1914 and was also the regiment of one Adolf Hitler. Day by day, we follow this unit from the Rhineland to Normandy, passing through Saint-Quentin, Amiens, Le Havre, Rouen and Giberville, near Caen. Day by day, we share the...
DE GAULLE IN HELMET – A New Approach to the Drama
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A gripping account of a brief but violent period in the life of General de Gaulle who, from 28 May to 5 June 1940, resisted the Germans on the Somme at the head of five hundred tanks.
The Strange Capture, May 1940 – Unpublished Notebooks of...
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"That evening, a coded telegram was received from Grand Headquarters, the content of which was as follows: 'Commander Fauvelle has set out your situation to me and to Mr Paul Reynaud. I do not underestimate your difficulties. I am counting on you to save everything that can possibly be saved, in honour of the colours in your keeping.' For anyone who can...
ALL THE ARMORED VEHICLES OF THE FRENCH ARMY - From... ALL THE ARMORED VEHICLES OF THE FRENCH ARMY - From... 2
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2nd edition of Tous les blindés de l'armée française des origines à 1940, by François Vauvillier. When France entered the war in September 1939, its rearmament effort since the adoption of the first new-model equipment in 1935 had been considerable: more than 2,700 modern combat vehicles — tanks and armoured cars — had been delivered over four years by...
1940 - TRUTHS AND LEGENDS
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1940 - TRUTHS AND LEGENDS

L20200073
€12.32
The defeat of 1940: how did it come to this? On 13 May 1940, three days after the start of the German offensive, the lines of the French army were breached. On 17 June, Pétain called for a cessation of fighting. On 22 June, the armistice was signed in the forest of Compiègne. On 10 July, deputies and senators voted full powers to the Marshal. In two...
THE DRAMA OF 1940 - General André Beaufre
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€18.01
« The wind of History, when it rises, overpowers the will of men, but it is for men to foresee these storms, to contain them, and even, at the limit, to know how to harness them. » A member of the Grand Quartier général at the time of the Wehrmacht's invasion of France, General André Beaufre was the powerless witness to a collapse without precedent in...
THE SOLDIERS OF 1940. A SACRIFICED GENERATION
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€22.75
The history of the « phoney war », which mobilised five million French soldiers from 1939 to the defeat of June 1940, has long been reduced, in our national memory, to the Fernandel of La vache et le prisonnier or the adventures of La Septième compagnie. Eighty years after that « strange defeat », the heroes of Dunkirk or of the Maginot Line — prisoners...
ROMMEL IN NORMANDY - France 1940
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€23.70
Rommel's passage through Normandy in June 1940 is often overshadowed. The author sought to highlight this brief episode, which was far from straightforward for his division, which nonetheless captured three Norman ports. Ancelle, Boos, Elbeuf, Yvetot, Fécamp, Saint-Valery-en-Caux, Le Havre, L'Aigle, La Haye-du-Puits, Marinvast, Cherbourg — Rommel is one...
1940 THE BATTLE OF DUNKIRK ON LAND AND AT SEA
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€18.96
The Battle of Dunkirk of May–June 1940 is in fact little known: most authors, particularly Anglo-Saxon ones, focus on the evacuation that saved the greater part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and more than 120,000 French soldiers, yet a fierce battle was also fought.
My Exodus of June 1940 – Le Havre, Trouville, Saint-Hilaire-du-Harcouët
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Gérard Régnier recounts his exodus of June 1940 as a historian, placing it precisely within a period that, with hindsight, appears as the darkest in our national history: the "dark years." He meticulously describes the international situation during the 1930s, the retreat of the French and British Allies in the face of Hitler's provocations and his "bluff...
THE BATTLE OF DUNKIRK - 26 May – 3 June 1940
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"Where is the RAF?" This question was the leitmotif of the troops encircled in the Dunkirk pocket and awaiting re-embarkation, as they were subjected to the relentless air raids of the Luftwaffe.
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