British Establishment Perspectives on France, 1936-40

This work analyses British perceptions of, and foreign and strategic policies towards, France from 1936 to 1940, from the perspectives of British officials, politicians and senior military, naval and air officers. Faced with the potentially hostile combination of Germany, Italy and Japan, with the United States having retreated into isolation, and while British politicians were deeply suspicious of the Soviet Union, France was Britain's only dependable ally. Yet the British did nothing to sustain its morale, refusing to promise to send the British army to France in the event of German aggression or to engage in meaningful staff talks. Indeed, elite British opinion-formers reviled France for its supposed political instability, decadence and economic decline.