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British Strategy and Politics during the Phony War Before the Balloon Went Up
Nick Smart
Book Code: C7296
ISBN: 0-275-97296-8
ISBN-13: 978-0-275-97296-7
280 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 2/28/2003
List Price: $102.95 (UK Sterling Price: £59.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects: Awards:
  • Academia Academic Essentials - 20th Century History
Reviews:
  • [T]he extensive notes at the end of chapters and the bibliography make this a useful book for wary readers. Recommended. Graduate students and faculty.
    —Choice     November 2003
  • [A] valuable book for specialists.
    —The Historian     Spring 2005
  • [A]dds usefully to the existing literature.
    —The International History Review     September 2004
  • [P]aints a vivid and authentic canvas....Smart affords us a penetrating analysis of an overlooked period in World War II.
    —WWII History     March 2004
Description: The so-called Phony War from September 1939 to May 1940 occupies a peculiar yet distinct place in popular memory. All the sensations of war, except the fighting, were present; yet, instead of massed air attacks and great land battles, very little happened. The British government was said to be complacent, and the people downright bored. Then, France fell to German attack, and the small British army was evacuated (minus its equipment) from Dunkirk. Reaction to this major strategic catastrophe was naturally to blame the men deemed guilty for bringing the nation to the verge of humiliating defeat. In sharp contrast to previous studies, Smart argues that there was more to the phony war than governmental complacency, that the period was more than a foolish or frivolous ante-chamber to a later more heroic phase. The extent to which the guilty men verdict on the first nine months of Britain's Second World War has stuck remains surprising. The notion that the phony war was a necessary, indeed over-determined, prelude to catastrophe has become cemented over time. Examining the workings of the Anglo-French leadership during this period, Smart picks this thesis apart and argues that disaster was not necessarily, still less inevitably, just around the corner. He concludes that Anglo-French decision-making during this time was basically sound, that the soldiers were well equipped and in good-heart, and that there was no malaise eating away at the entente. This study offers a challenging reappraisal of the phony war from a British perspective.
Table of Contents:
  • Introduction
  • September 1939
  • Orders of Battle
  • Politics and Strategy
  • From Pill-Boxes to the Lure of the North
  • On the Eve
  • Norway
  • L'Angleterre s'ennuie
  • Select Bibliography
  • Index
LC Card Number: 2002029870
LCC Class: D759
Dewey Class: 940
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