Search results for ""author jean-yves mary""

11 novembre 1918. La victoire inachevée… La France croit avoir gagné la guerre, elle n’a gagné qu’une paix précaire. Ce constat dramatique est le point de départ d’un long chemin de croix qui va mener inexorablement le pays, vers le dénouement de juin 1940. Au fil des stations de ce chemin de croix, la France, en totale contradiction entre sa politique étrangère et sa politique de défense, va aller de désillusions en démissions, sans jamais prendre conscience qu’elle n’avait pas ou ne s’est pas donné les moyens de ses ambitions. La déception du Traité de Versailles, l’arrogance des années d’occupation en Rhénanie, l’illusion du pacte de Locarno, le choix de la défensive alors qu’elle a accordé sa garantie à de nombreux pays avec lesquels elle n’a aucune frontière commune, la passivité face à la montée en puissance allemande, le manque de réaction suite à la neutralité belge, la démission de Munich, tout cela ne pouvait que conduire à une entrée en guerre mal préparée et mal gérée. Lorsque le 10 mai 1940, l’Allemagne donne le coup d’envoi des opérations à l’ouest, l’armée française va accumuler les maladresses, amplifiant malgré elle les succès allemands. Pris dans le tourbillon de la fulgurante percée allemande, le commandement n’aura à aucun moment la possibilité d’inverser le cours des événements et les nouvelles calamiteuses vont s’enchaîner telle une tragédie grecque. Après quarante-cinq jours de combat au cours desquels l’héroïsme le dispute à la lâcheté, le courage aux défaillances, la France arrive au terme de son calvaire. Ce sont les causes de cette inexorable défaite, des plus évidentes aux plus insoupçonnées, que ce livre se propose d’analyser point par point.

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In the evening of June 12, Weygand ordered all the troops who were still struggling to make a brutal drop across the front and to retreat as far as possible towards the south in order to avoid what remained of the French army to undergo a total annihilation. The Germans did not take long to realise that the French were slipping away, and thus immediately threw all their units onto the path of the retreating troops in order to thwart what remained of their plans. What resulted was a chase in which on one side, men would sacrifice themselves for a cause already lost while the other men would fall for a cause already won. Contrary to what one might think, the fighting during the second half of June would be as hard as the previous weeks, and bloody clashes would occur on both sides, as much for the conquest of Cherbourg as for Champagne in Burgundy, or in the Alps or along the Swiss border as units of the Gruppe Guderian would lock in a gigantic trap all the armies of the East. Recounted here is the story of these battles often misunderstood or unknown. This book retraces the history in over four hundred pages, and more than a thousand pictures, mostly unpublished. History has, it seems, only wanted to retain the last days of the campaign in defence of Saumur or the fighting of Voreppe, which, however, offers very little justice for men who fell on the Marne, on Saulx, at Montplonne, Saulieu, Saint-Seine-Abbey, at Maîche in Saint Hippolyte on the slopes of the Vosges or in the valley of the Moselle, to mention only a few places where the French soldier has paid honour to his flag all the way to the end.

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In May 1940, during the Battle of France, the British Expeditionary Force in France aiding the French, was cut off from the rest of the French Army by the German advance. Encircled by the Germans they retreated to the area around the port of Dunkirk. The German land forces could have easily destroyed the British Expeditionary Force, especially when many of the British troops, in their haste to withdraw, had left behind their heavy equipment. This lull in the action gave the British a few days to evacuate by sea. Winston Churchill ordered any ship or boat available, large or small, to pick up the stranded soldiers, and 338,226 men (including 123,000 French soldiers) were evacuated– the miracle of Dunkirk, as Churchill called it. It took over 900 vessels to evacuate the Allied forces. More than 40,000 vehicles as well as massive amounts of other military equipment and supplies were left behind; their value being less than that of trained fighting men. After the success of Corridor des Panzers and Zur Kuste, this new volume takes us directly into the Dunkirk arena, and concludes the suite of works on this dramatic period of history. Jean-Yves Mary has also provided modern photos of the battlefields, in comparison with the original images, allowing us to locate the areas where the events took place.

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On 17th June 1940, the French army, having followed the order given by Weygrand on June 13th, was in full retreat towards the South West with the Germans in pursuit and under orders from Hitler’s directive of 14th June to destroy the French Army. The new head of government. Marshal Petain, announced over the radio the sad pronouncement that the fighting must stop. The Germans aimed to exploit this command to encourage French troupes to surrender themselves. Despite this, numbers of French soldiers, named by Roger Bruge ‘The Fighters of June 18th, courageously continued fighting along the Loire, along the canal of the Marne to the Rhine, and the Maginot Line. Fighting also continued along the Alps in an attempt to win back from the Italians the territories ceded as part of the Armistice. This book recreates these last tragic eight days of the campaign.

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After the success of Jean-Yves Mary’s previous works, in particular Les Corridor des Panzers and Zur Küste, it was quite clear that there was still a huge demand for similar high-quality, detailed books on tanks and their important role in World War II. This first volume contains many fantastic colour photographs of the German tanks, their units and their leaders, along with a detailed history of their engagement. Any avid modeller, keen tank enthusiast or general historian will find this an invaluable resource. French Language

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