André Beaufre - Combat Writings. 1939–1942

Through the Bitter Days (1938–1942), the testimony of a young officer caught up in the débâcle.

Before becoming one of the most widely recognised military theorists in the world, General André Beaufre lived through the disaster of 1940 as a young officer. The four texts gathered here — "La paix-guerre (1939)", "Guerre éclair (1940–1941)", "Sic Transit (1941–1942)" and "La guerre (1942)" — presented and annotated by his biographer General Hervé Pierre, constitute a unique and previously unpublished testimony to the darkest hours of French history, from the first surrenders before the Führer to the turning point of 1942.

Spontaneous and steeped in the events of the day, they bear the mark of their time more strongly than the later texts published by General Beaufre with more than twenty years of hindsight. A collection of personal reflections that forms the living raw material from which the strategist would subsequently draw his historical narratives — Le Drame de 1940 and then his Memoirs — and from which the most enduring foundations of his strategic model would gradually emerge.

At the roots of the Introduction à la stratégie, this Beaufre before Beaufre offers the keys to understanding the general's seminal work, as well as a first-hand account of the débâcle of 1940.