A Masterful Look at France’s Rise from Defeat and Disunion to Victory

Douglas Porch’s Resistance and Liberation: France at War, 1942-1945 continues what he started in his first volume Defeat and Division: France at War, 1939-1942, resuming his narrative in the wake of the Operation Torch landings in late 1942 and on until war’s end. This continued masterwork covers vast political, military, economic, and social developments, as France creeps from defeat and disunity towards eventual triumph as one of the victors over Nazi Germany. This poignant victory came at such a staggering price in terms of lives and utter destruction. Two competing French governments (Vichy and Free France) quarreled with each other in a death struggle over the future of the nation and its far-flung empire. Ultimately, this struggle may have been won by de Gaulle but not without weakening the country badly and foreshadowing imperial dissolution.

As this is the second volume of Porch’s immersive study, many of the same idiosyncratic aspects resurface in the 804 pages of this tome. For example, Porch uses acronyms and expressions like sans souci (“without a care”) often stringing multiple ones in a sentence or paragraph, that are listed in the glossary but only with the French definitions provided. For an average English reader, the book becomes quickly a minefield of phrases, expressions and quotes that warrant further exploration. An example is that of the division d’infanterie coloniale which is abbreviated as “DIC” but translates into “colonial infantry division” in English. (p. xxiii) Therefore, a working grasp of French or at least a willingness to learn some along the way makes much better sense of what he is arguing and helps to reveal the book’s value.

Select topics provide a glimpse of the book’s detailed and sprawling content. First, the wartime French Resistance is one of the many topics that Porch addresses, which many observers mistakenly think was a unified threat to the German occupiers. Instead, Porch points out that the Resistance was deeply divided (communists and non-communists, etc.) and it represented political and propaganda value rather than real military threat, contrary to popular belief. (pp. 415, 423) The German reaction to the short-lived Vercors “redoubt,” for example, showed Berlin could still strike back quickly and brutally even when imagined as a weakened foe. (p. 280) As Porch described it, “political insecurity and eagerness overwhelmed military prudence” and the French maquis and civilians paid the price. (p. 281) The Resistance played an important role in liberating Paris, however, but that was only possible given the relative weakness of the German garrison and General der Infanterie Dietrich von Choltitz’s unwillingness to destroy the city, as what later happened to Manila. (pp. 360-361)

The Vichy forces that fought against the Allied invasion in late 1942, known as the l’armee d’Afrique “Army of Africa” (p. 44), soon transformed into a new force rebranded as the corps expéditionnaire français (CEF) / French Expeditionary Corps. (p. 128) They went on to fight the Germans in Italy, making a “vital contribution” to the overall Allied effort at a time when they were stalled and struggling in Field Marshal Albert Kesselring’s defender’s paradise. (pp. 180-181) This sort of complicated past is exactly what the reader needs to know about, often lost in the postwar Allied victors’ narrative which smoothed over the punchy reality of former enemies fighting alongside Allied formations. The fact that ex-Vichy units gained American equipment via the Arsenal of Democracy’s largesse, such as the “3e DIA” or Third Algerian Infantry Division, is easy to see in period photographs as another important reminder of Lend-Lease’s ubiquitous contribution to overall success. (p. 78)

Charles de Gaulle is an easy last topic, given his steady impact on events. Disliked, distrusted, even hated at times by his own allies, de Gaulle needed all his political savvy to simultaneously maintain his agenda that the Free French were the true patriots, and squash internal intrigue by communists and other rivals that might drift into civil war. (pp. 345-346) Further, he expected lavish American aid while demanding French troops liberate Paris even when Eisenhower demurred. (pp. 355-356) He decried French collaborationists and Waffen-SS volunteers, while expounding the rebuilt French army “as a symbol of national unity” and rightful victors deserving recognition in postwar Germany. (p. 439) His handling of the Alsatian problem punished men who were forcibly conscripted against their will (the so-called Malgré-nous) in favor of the popular myth that all Frenchmen resisted the invaders. Moreover, he did this while puffing his self-aggrandizing ego and maxing his propaganda opportunities in a bewildering multi-faceted arena filled with suspicion, fecklessness, espionage, revenge, skullduggery and enemies abounding.

Douglas Porch’s Resistance and Liberation is first-rate scholarship that requires devotion to properly enjoy. He again offers a rich story about the battle for the wartime soul of a country torn asunder by internal and external pressures, in-fighting, political strife, desperation, triumph and every sort of nasty permutation that comes from an unexpected defeat in 1940 overshadowing attempts at renewal. Porch’s work has few peers, admittedly, but the way he goes about it creates a quick separation between casual readers and scholars who are not afraid to wade into the murk while they unravel the ongoing war for the French soul which he chronicles in this volume.

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Our Reviewer: Professor Schultz (Luzerne CC) has taught history and political science to community college undergraduates for over 20 years. Specializing in military history, particularly World War II and the Cold War-era, he has presented papers at the McMullen Naval History Symposium, the Society for Military History Annual Meetings, the Midwestern History Conference, and other venues. He contributed Chapter 12, “The Reich Strikes Back: German Victory in the Dodecanese, October-November 1943,” to On Contested Shores: The Evolving Role of Amphibious Operations in the History of Warfare, edited by Timothy Heck and B.A. Friedman (2020). His previous reviews for us include Warrior Spirit: The Story of Native American Patriotism and Heroism, Home Run: Allied Escape and Evasion in World War II, The Spanish Blue Division on the Eastern Front, 1941-1945, The ‘Blue Squadrons’: The Spanish in the Luftwaffe, Malta’s Savior: Operation Pedestal, Flawed Commanders and Strategy in the Battles for Italy, Lawrence of Arabia on War, Dogwood: A National Guard Unit's War in Iraq, German Breakthrough in Greece: The 1941 Battle of the Pineios Gorge, The Armed Forces of North Korea, Volume 1 - Korean People's Army Ground Forces Organisation, Strategy and Infantry, Storm Proofing: Preparing Armies for a Future War, Leros and the Aegean, A Brief History of a Long War, Misfire: British Empire Special Forces and Defeat in Malaya in World War II, and Hitler’s Fallschirmjäger’s Daring Attack on the Italian Army Headquarters in 1943.

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Note: Resistance and Liberation is also available in e-editions.

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