Book Review - The French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert

 The French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert

London: Penguin Books, 1982 (1988 reprint, first published 1980)  ISBN 0140049452

While I have read a lot of modern history, the French Revolution is a definite gap in my knowledge. While I knew some of the what, I didn't know much at all of the how or the why. Christopher Hibbert's book has filled in some of the answers I was seeking, but added to my sense that the French Revolution was more confusion than clarity, and that whatever the revolutionists were aiming for in terms of a new society, they missed the mark.

Hibbert has set out his book in a series of chapters named after specific days in the "life" of the Revolution, such as "The Day of the Tennis-Court Oath", "The Days of the Tuileries", "The Days of the Terror" and so on. He uses these events to build the narrative of the Revolution, using apt quotes from observers to fill out a story of violence, confusion, high-hopes, and cruel realities.

The cruel reality that could be said to be the source of the Revolution was that France was broke. Years of unchecked and poorly monitored spending had left the exchequer bare, and a fiscal crisis loomed. So at the beginning, like most Revolutions it was about tax. Louis XVI was indecisive, not too bright, and poorly advised (or rather often took bad advice). His calling of the Estates General was not the best idea, especially given that many of the more radical people were led to believe that the parlement would do much more than approve new taxes. As we have seen throughout history, it's very dangerous to give people with no say a sniff of freedom. The Estates General soon got out of hand, driven by radicals in Paris, as well as the genuine needs of the poorest in society.

The French Revolution seemed to lurch from mob rule to factionalism and back again. The mob burnt down the Bastille, and attacked the Tuileries, while factionalism led to the takeover of government by the Committee of Public Safety, Robespierre, and eventually to Napoleon ("Don't you know he is one of those Corsicans? They are all on the make.").

Overall, the Revolution was a sad and bloody affair - thousands were needlessly killed, the country fell into ruin and war, and the final act of the time was to re-instate a dictatorship which in some ways was worse than the monarchy. One gets the sense reading Hibbert's book, that if Louis was a bit smarter, and had a court with a bit more intelligence, there was a pathway for France to transition to the kind of Constitutional Monarchy that England was beginning to enjoy. Unfortunately Louis could not walk that path, and many of his court held the lower classes in too much contempt to ever deal with them.

If you want a vigorously written account of what happened between 1789 and 1799 (there is not much preliminary scene-setting and the narrative ends with Napoleon's coup), there is a lot to like in this book. Recommended.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - France on Trial: the Case of Marshal Petain by Julian Jackson

 France on Trial: the Case of Marshal Petain by Julian Jackson

[NC]: Penguin Books, 2024 (first published 2023)       ISBN 9780141993096

This is a magnificent book. Lucid, well-written and informative, this blow-by-blow account of the trial of Philippe Petain is also an in-depth look at the pain that armistice, collaboration and Vichy caused the body politic of France from 1940-1944.

Petain's trial, which occurred in the period between VE day and VJ day in 1945, was for treason but the specific charges were rather convoluted. The prosecution tried to suggest that Petain was part of a pre-war conspiracy, which was fairly conclusively disproved. However, the trial struggled with the question of whether Vichy France was the legitimate government of France, and what part of Petain's actions constituted the treason with which he was charged - was it treason to sign the Armistice? was it treason to not move to Africa and continue the struggle from there? Was it treason to encourage French in Syria to fight the Allies? Was it treason to fire on Americans in Tunisia after they landed? Various people, including De Gaulle who would have preferred the trial to have occurred with Petain in absentia, had differing views on this question.

In the end, it seems to this reader, Petain's biggest crimes came to be meeting Hitler, and the encouragement he gave to Nazi power. However, his actual complicity in these words and meetings is in some doubt. In his late eighties, the trial revealed that often it was the  prime minister  Laval who was really pulling the levers, leaving Petain to be a figurehead. Of course the fact is that by remaining as figurehead, Petain gave these actions a legitimacy that came from his fame in World War One, which is possibly hard for a 21st century reader to gauge.

Another surprising aspect of the case is that very little time was spent discussing the mass deportation of hundreds of thousands of French to Germany to work in factories under appalling conditions, and almost no time spent discussing the fate of the Jewish people under Petain's government. These painful facts came out much later, in the long tail of Petainism, which Jackson describes well.

And what of Petain himself? He had returned from Germany (where he was taken when the war was being lost) to face the justice of the court, but famously said practically nothing during the trial. Whether this was due to his advanced age, or whether it was a tactic by the defence, or whether it was simply that the courtroom was so hot that he found it hard to stay awake (he wasn't alone there), it is hard to say.

Of course he was found guilty by the combined jury of parliamentarians and resisters, and was sentenced to death. De Gaulle instead put him in a prison on the Ile D'Yeu, where he died and was buried. The contested history of Petain, Vichy, and the actions of the French during World War Two are still being played out to this day. Petain has been the darling of the French right, but officially his memory is a political football - widely seen as the saviour of the French in the First World War, his actions in the Second are widely seen as shameful. Jackson explains this well.

Petain famously said in 1940 that he would give his body for France. In some ways he did so in the trial as well, as he absorbed the confusion and hatred that the French had about the previous years, and took it all on his head. He allowed De Gaulle to build a narrative of the French as a nation of resisters betrayed by Petain and his clique, a narrative which allowed the French to park the painful past and move forward free of guilt (of course, as always happens, this confected story fell apart in later years). Jackson's choice of title is apt.

From my reading of Alister Horne's book The Price of Glory it's clear that Petain was haunted by the terrible loss of life at Verdun, and it seems simple (too simple?) to posit that he did what he did in 1940 to stop it happening again. France had been traumatised by the First War, and were ready for someone to tell them it wouldn't happen again - they were pleased that Petain did that. They soon realised they had done a deal with a devil, and their regret and rage needed a focus, and Petain became that focus.

The Petain that comes out in Jackson's book is a person who wanted to do the right thing by his country, but beyond the armistice he didn't know what that was. He was hijacked and hoodwinked by those such as Laval who were more than happy to collaborate with the Germans for their ideological needs and, let's face it, for power and cupidity.

The France that comes out in Jackson's book is one that is divided, confused, and self-hating. Yet to come to terms with what had happened during the War, it gave Petain a trial that was divided and confused, with many of the participants hating the fact that they were involved in it.

Jackson has weaved all these threads into a wonderfully readable history, which is illuminating and enjoyable. A deserved winner of the Duff Cooper history prize, I can highly recommend it.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - The Price of Glory by Alistair Horne

 The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 by Alistair Horne

Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964 (abridged)  (first published 1962)

Here in Australia we can often be very parochial; especially when it comes to our knowledge of the wars in which our people have taken part. Ask any Australian what they know about World War One, and you would of course expect to hear about Gallipoli, Villers Bretonneux, Bullecourt, Beersheba, and the final offensives. What you rarely hear is an understanding of where and how Australia's effort fitted in a broader sense with the wider struggle of the war. This parochialism was initiated by Bean, and has continued to this day. But let's step back for a moment...if you asked any German or French person about what they knew about World War One, they would surely mention Verdun, where - over ten months of fighting - more of their troops were lost than in any other battle, and where - while both the German and the French armies were destroyed - the Allies changed the strategic outlook of the war. By resisting the German hammer-blow, the French ensured Germany's eventual defeat in 1918.

As is often the case in histories of World War One, failures of the highest leadership feature prominently in Horne's retelling of the Verdun story. The initial pretence for the German offensive was a plan by Falkenhayn to "bleed white" the French army through an attack on the fortresses surrounding the town of Verdun, assuming that the French could not afford the psychological blow of their loss. However, as Horne points out, Falkenhayn was too cautious, and the very real chance of victory was crueled by his failure to follow up his initial success - bleeding an army white is not a strategic outcome for a battle, taking territory is, and the confusion between the two objectives became a thorn in the side of German planning throughout the battle. 

There was a supreme irony in targeting the forts of which the Germans were unaware: they were not heavily manned or gunned. The French, since the debacle of 1870, had embraced the notion of attack at all costs, and the strategy current in the early 1900s was that forts were just impedimentia. That thinking turned out to be wrong, at least in the case of Verdun, where a few French soldiers stationed in the forts held up German attacks not once, but on multiple occasions. This was only one of the failings of the French higher command, Joffre being too blase, Nivelle too gung-ho, and Petain, after initially halting the onslaught, succumbing to the increasing horror and depression that engulfed him as the casualties mounted.

The one thing the Germans did get right was that the French were going to not only try and hold their ground, but fight very hard for it. This led to the most bitter fighting of the entire war. The shellfire was absolutely horrific and, for the men who had to endure it, their lives were never the same again. Horne - a precursor to Antony Beevor in his vivid descriptions of battle - quotes veterans describing the battle as a living thing, an uncontrollable monster that devoured everything in its path.

The lack of concentration of forces by the Germans did lead to a battle that bled both armies dry: unfortunately for the Germans they were losing men at almost the same rate as the French, which they couldn't afford to do. Over time soldiers on both sides became less-and-less battle-worthy, which led directly to not only the French mutinies in 1917, but to the failure of the German Army when it mattered most in 1918.

Horne also points out the other lingering effects of Verdun - the investment of the French in the value of forts, leading directly to the Maginot line; and the investment of the Germans in the idea of concentration of forces to overcome such fortifications, leading directly to Blitzkrieg. These were the lessons learned by both sides, and put into place by those who had fought in the battle, which includes most German and French military - and many civilian - leaders of World War Two.

The horror that was Verdun saw the first use of phosgene gas (by the Germans) and the creeping barrage (by the French), and endless stories of heroic efforts by both French and German units, which are well described by Horne, who not only had access to the (great amount of) written material about the battle, but also to live interviews with veterans.

At the end of ten months of horrific fighting, casualties across both sides were slightly over three-quarters of a million men - the ground literally heaved with corpses when under fire...at the end of 1916 the front line was not much moved from the start of the year. Such was the type of warfare in 1914-18. 

It is actually impossible for the human mind to comprehend what the men who fought at Verdun went through - war is a different country, and those that never go there can only grasp at the fog and mist of what it is like by reading books such as this. Alistair Horne is a skilful writer, and The Price of Glory is a well thought-out history of what is the most horrific battle in a horrific war, with a fine balance drawn between the grand strategy of the leaders and the experience of the humble soldier. Although written over 50 years ago, this is still good reading today.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Klaus Barbie: Butcher of Lyons by Tom Bower

Klaus Barbie: Butcher of Lyons by Tom Bower

London: Michael Joseph, 1984            ISBN 0718123271

As a young boy growing up in the 1970s, surrounded by relatives that had fought in World War II, I was fascinated by the conflict. Being a child, I thought of the War in childish ways, building model kits of aircraft, and re-enacting battles with my friends in the local neighbourhood. It wasn't until the early 1980s, when the trial of Klaus Barbie made the headlines, that I began to realise that war truly is terrible. Tom Bower's book, written after Barbie was arraigned but before the trial started, is a well researched and thorough investigation of Barbie's career, crimes, work for the Americans post-war, flight to South America and final return to France to face justice.

It's clear from the evidence Bower presents to the reader that Barbie was cruel and sadistic. Despite his own view of himself as an expert in interrogation, he resorted to brutal treatment at the earliest opportunity in most of the interrogations he undertook. As head of the Gestapo in Lyons, Barbie was responsible for neutralizing resistance to the Nazi regime in both Lyons and the surrounding areas and there is no doubt he used the most brutal measures to try and quell rebellion, including destroying whole villages, and shooting many innocent civilians in the process. He was also deeply involved in rounding up the Jews of Lyons for transport to the East, and to their deaths.

When the War was over, Barbie managed to find his way into the arms of American Intelligence, who used him to keep tabs on the Bavarian Communist Party. This section of the book shows in a very detailed way how ambivalence and incompetence allowed a war criminal to not only work for American Intelligence, but be interviewed by the French to provide evidence in a trial, while the Americans denied to the French that they even knew where he was. The various American handlers of Barbie had differing feelings about using him as an informer, from disgust to indifference. The shambolic and shameful handling of war crimes investigations (which Bower wrote about in Blind Eye to Murder), meant that Barbie not only could live for five years in Germany, but then travel to Bolivia under an assumed name, all organised by the American secret services.

Barbie, under the name Klaus Altmann, lived in Bolivia for many years as an open Nazi sympathiser, and friend of Presidents and coup-plotters alike. It seemed that he had cheated justice, especially as the West German Government lost interest in tracking him down. It was down to the Klarsfeld family, who refused to accept that Nazis should get away with their crimes, to push, cajole, grandstand, and finally embarrass the German, French and Bolivian Governments into sending him back to France for trial.

History records that Barbie was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 1991.

Klaus Barbie: Butcher of Lyons is a well researched, well written and eye-opening book.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Paris under Siege

Paris Under Siege : a journal of the events of 1870-1871  kept by contemporaries and translated and presented by Joanna Richardson

London: The Folio Society, 1982

This has been my ten-minute read for the last little while: the type of book you can pick up, read for ten minutes, put down again, and pick up an hour or a day later and read another ten minutes. A collection of diary entries, letters, and other documents, it covers the Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, and then goes on to the short-lived Paris Commune. It is a quirky book.

It's quirkiness I think comes down to the Publisher - The Folio Society. The choices made are quintessentially English (in fact quite a few of the letters and diaries belong to English or American writers). Paris, and the French, are inevitably portrayed as over-emotional and ineffective, in opposition to the ruthless and cruel Prussians, and both decidedly inferior to the British.

The reader is best to bring to the book the broad outlines of the history of the events it covers, but what the reader does get is a feel for what living through that time in Paris was like: at least, what it was like if you were middle-class. The book completely lacks any documents from the rulers of the Commune, or any reference to the peasant class, apart from the disparaging remarks of the correspondents who are quoted within the book. This once-again comes down to the publisher and the audience for which they are catering.

There are some great descriptions of the burning of the Tuileries, and of the destruction of the Vendome Column, and most of the letters and diary entries are fascinating, but this is a light-weight book. Perfect for ten minute pockets of reading.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell

Book Review - The Battle of Dienbienphu by Jules Roy

The Battle of Dienbienphu - by Jules Roy, translated from the French by Robert Baldick, introduction by Neil Sheehan

London: Faber and Faber, 1965

If you want a dry factual account of the battle of Dienbienphu, this is not the book to read. If you want a heart-felt paean to both the French and Vietminh soldier, on the stupidity and wastefulness of the whole French effort in Indochina, this book is a must-read. The Battle of Dienbienphu is a very French book about a very French military catastrophe. It is a story of pride, hatred, and incompetence on the French side, and of determination and ruthlessness on the side of the Vietminh.

Jules Roy was a former member of the French Air Force, who had resigned his commission in response to French policy in Indochina. His initial idea was to write a book about the battle and the heroism of the French troops, but as he researched more he realised that that the true story of Dienbienphu was one of the generals and government, the pettiness of the former and the cynicism of the latter, who didn't want to remain in Vietnam, but couldn't bear to loss of face a withdrawal would require.

It pays, as a reader, to have a basic idea of the course of the battle before you come to this book. Written about ten years after the battle, by a Frenchman in France, there is an assumption that some knowledge of events will be brought to the book by the reader. Written in a diary format, Roy begins his book with the appointment of Navarre as commander in Vietnam, and with his idea to provoke Giap by investing Dienbienphu to cut the Vietminh off from Laos and to draw them into pitched battle, while also providing a base from which to patrol and attack. This was a lot to accomplish, but Navarre was very sure of himself despite his inexperience in Indochinese warfare and refused to listen to the doubts his juniors cast on his scheme when they voiced them, which they perhaps didn't do aggressively enough.

That they didn't push their doubts may have been partly down to the contempt in which most French officers held the Vietminh troops. There was little doubt from the French that they could not only hold Dienbienphu, but also destroy any attack the Vietminh might like to launch. Navarre envisaged that Dienbienphu would draw the Vietminh in and allow him, while the bulk of the enemy were fighting there, to clear the Delta of enemy combatants.

This underestimation was fatal for the French. Not only could Giap get an army to Dienbienphu, he could also feed them and keep them in ammunition. More importantly, and to the complete surprise of the French, he could get heavy artillery into the hills surrounding the French base and dig them in well enough to survive any bombardment.

The geographical position of Dienbienphu was an appalling one in which to survive a siege: the bottom of a basin ("the Chamber Pot"), surrounded by jungle-covered hills, far from air support (fighters could only spend ten minutes over the base before they had to return), it was impossible for the French to effectively deny the hills to the Vietminh, and thus protect themselves.

The ambivalence of the French Government - unwilling to expand their commitment to Indochina - led to the French forces being short of the equipment they needed. Most of the Air Force consisted of war surplus US equipment, and Navarre stinted on ramping up Dienbienphu, insisting that it was the decoy for his larger Delta campaign long after it was obvious that Dienbienphu was in fact becoming the decisive battle for control of Vietnam.

Roy is quite naturally angry about this aspect of the debacle: men were being sent to die in the weeks before the final surrender in the full knowledge that it was pointless, with the Generals knowing that Dienbienphu was lost. This makes the many heroic actions of the troops on the ground poignant and tragic.

Roy does not ignore the Vietminh story, with respectful (too respectful?) interludes describing the herculean efforts of the Viets to undertake the logistical effort as well as the fighting to win a historic victory.

The diary-like structure that Roy has chosen does much to add to the drama of his telling of this story: each day brings the inevitable end closer, and the horrors suffered by the French are well conveyed. Roy pulls no punches in his views of the French leadership - Navarre the cynic, Cogny the schemer, Castries, hopelessly out of his depth, Langlais keeping it all together on the ground, Bigeard the hero. Roy builds his story around these personalities, and others such as Grauwin the chief medic.

Roy's conclusion is that Dienbienphu didn't have to happen, or that it could have turned out differently. But, the particular combination of both military and civilian leaders that were on the spot at the time led to the inevitability of the final disaster.

Dienbienphu was not the end in Vietnam: there was another twenty years of warfare ahead of it. One outcome of the French defeat was that the United States was drawn in to the quagmire, only in the end to fail just as the French did.

For a powerful, if partisan and opinionated, description of Dienbienphu, I recommend this book.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell