This was my first read from this author, and I must say I am impressed by the quality of this work. Touching on areas of the Franco-German conflict of 1939-40 covered by Robert Forczyk in "Case Red", Greg Baughen focuses on the air battles between the French Armee de l'Air and the German Luftwaffe in the early months of World War II. This story has not been covered well (at least in English text), as previous authors have wrapped the French defeat in 1940 in a variegated quilt of causes. This book looks specifically into the air forces and their relative effectivenesses.

The author presents his case in the 15 numbered chapters that follow the Acknowledgement and Introduction pages. The 320 pages are arranged chronologically, but Baughen spends more than half the book setting the stage for the French defeat in the air in 1940. That defeat, ironically, is grounded in the victory of Allied air arms over the Central Powers in November 1918. French air and ground leaders were convinced of their understanding of their defeat of the Germans, and their distillation of the lessons learned lead to some serious mistakes. One that affected the air arm in particular was a fixation on what was termed the "multiplace de combat" aircraft, a large twin-engined multi-role aircraft that could perform light bombing, reconnaissance, and long range bomber escort missions. The French air force and aircraft industry wasted the decade of the 1920's trying to build such an aircraft only to find that this combination of capabilities was simply beyond the state of the art.

The decade of the 1930's saw French military leaders wage the same conflict fought in several other military services around the world--should they invest in bombers on in air defense measures to include fighter/interceptor aircraft? As the 1930's were a particularly volatile period in French politics, the answer to the question depended upon who was in charge at the time. Some leaders believed in the bomber and the deterrent effect it supposedly had, while others believed in fighter aircraft and other anti-bomber measures. This recurring debate handicapped French combat aircraft development that lead to few or no large production efforts and a scattered research and development programs. Meanwhile, a reunified Germany rearmed.

As a result of this programming confusion, the Armee de l'Air did not have the aircraft it truly needed for the war that began on 1 September 1939, the period Baughen covers in Chapter 10. This problem was not apparent in the first months of the war, the period known as "The Phony War", as skirmishes between French and German aircraft revealed no serious shortcomings either in French aircraft design or in Armee de l'Air organization and deployment. However the German offensive that began on 10 May 1940 quickly revealed critical problems in aircraft, command and control, logistics, and tactics. The French quickly lost control of their own airspace, and the Luftwaffe permitted the German ground forces to roam wherever they desired during the ground campaign. So in little more than six weeks, the Germans had overrun an opponent who though the next Franco-German war would extend for years.

This book has been a great learning experience for me as I am one of those military history types who viewed the French defeat in 1940 as a large speed bump on the road to Allied victory over Nazi Germany. Baughen's handling of this lesser-known aspect of World War II was easy to read as well as enlightening.

Highly recommended! ( )

This is a book that I've been wishing would appear for a long time, as this is the best examination I've seen of how the interaction between strategy, doctrine, technology and industrial policy produced the French air arm that was thrown on the scales in the Spring of 1940; and has ever since been found wanting. As to why this was the case Baughen, roughly in order, identifies a political obsession with long-range bombers as a deterrent force, a tendency to underrate the fighter plane (until there was desperate need for more) and a French army that was obsessed with keeping control of battlefield aviation (while at the same time seriously underestimating its potential), as the faults that prevented French military aviation from achieving its potential.

Could things have been different? Baughen thinks that there was a way forward once Paris started their serious rearmament program, particularly after September of 1939. In short, rather than desperately trying to get the LeO 451 bomber and Dewoitine D.520 fighter into mass production, concentrate on delivering an improved generation of the Morane M.S. 406 fighter and the Potez 63 multi-purpose aircraft, which would have provided badly needed bulk to the French air arm. There was a distinct failure to realize that the best is the enemy of good enough.

As for the issues with this book I'm not sure that Baughen quite appreciates the impact of the French doctrinal theory of "methodical battle" (which also seems to have infected the air arm). There is also a tendency for the operational commanders of the French air arm to waft in and out of the narrative with insufficient introduction. That said, this is a major advance forward in our understanding of why May 1940 played out the way it did and I highly recommend this monograph. ( )