Sir Alistair Horne - To Lose a Battle: France 1940

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First published in Great Britain by Macmillan London Ltd 1969
First published in the United States of America by Little Brown and Company 1969
This revised edition published by Macmillan London Ltd 1990
Published with a foreword by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr in Penguin Books 1990
Reissued in Penguin Books 2007

Copyright Alistair Horne, 1969, 1990
Foreword copyright Arthur Schlesinger, Jr, 1990
All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject
to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
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978-0-14-193772-4

Part One (191940)

Part Two

FOR
ALEXANDRA

Tables

Maps

A. ALLIED ORDER OF BATTLE 10 May 1940
With names of commanders principally concerned Units reading from north (left) to south (right)

B. GERMAN ORDER OF BATTLE 10 May 1940
Units reading from north (left) to south (right)

1. Western Front showing directions of Schlieffen Plan (1914) and Sichelschnitt (1940)

2. The opposing forces (10 May 1940)

3. The Meuse crossings (1213 May)

4A. The Dinant crossing (1314 May)

4B. The Sedan crossing (1314 May)

5. The Panzer breakthrough (1517 May)

6. The Panzer corridor (1821 May)

7. Counter-attack at Arras (2123 May)

8. Encirclement of the northern armies (2131 May)

9. The last phase (522 June)

General Maurice Gamelin, Time told its readers in a cover story on 14 August 1939, is head of what, by almost unanimous acclaim, is today the worlds finest military machine. Yet the worlds finest military machine, the great incomparable, disintegrated in six short weeks before Hitlers onslaught in the lovely spring of 1940. To Lose a Battle , Alistair Hornes fine book on the fall of France, so effectively joins a masterful account of the fighting with incisive political analysis and brilliant portraiture that in twenty years it has achieved the status of a classic.

For Americans old enough to recall the fall of France, To Lose a Battle will bring back many memories. The war of 19141918 the Great War, as we called it then had left the United States in a mood of disillusion, and the Great Depression, by turning America inward, reinforced ancient instincts of isolationism. When a new European war broke out in September 1939, most Americans hoped that the Western Allies would win, but still regarded the conflict in Europe as from a great, almost impassable, distance. For centuries, as ex-President Herbert Hoover put it, there had surged through the twenty-six nations of Europe the forces of nationalism, of imperialism, of religious conflict, memories of deep wrongs, of age-old hates, and bitter fears. With a vicious rhythm these malign forces seem to drive nations like the Gadarene swine over the precipice of war.