I recently revisited an excellent lecture series on ITunes U, France since 1871, by John Merriman, an acclaimed Yale historian. One of the primary readings for this survey course is Strange Defeat: A Statement of Evidence Written in
I recently revisited an excellent lecture series on ITunes U, France since 1871, by John Merriman, an acclaimed Yale historian. One of the primary readings for this survey course is Strange Defeat: A Statement of Evidence Written in 1940, by Marc Bloch.
Bloch’s name was familiar to me. In a history course for the Cours de Civilisation Francaise at the Sorbonne, my Professor, M. Pantet, referenced his work. In addition, many of the works of French history I have read reference Bloch as he brought something new to historical research: his experience as a native Frenchman and a Resistance fighter in World War II (at the age of 50). Therefore, I bought Strange Defeat to accompany this lecture series.
Bloch was a writer and teacher of French history. He fought in both World Wars and later taught at the Sorbonne in Paris. Bloch wrote Strange Defeat to explain why in 1940, France fell so rapidly. Merriman claims that Bloch “taught us [historians] how to think about the past” (France Since 1871, Yale Courses).
“Those who teach history should be continually concerned with the task of seeking the solid and the concrete behind the empty and the abstract…it is on MEN rather than FUNCTIONS that they should concentrate their attention” (Bloch, 27).”
Bloch was asked to give a lecture in Oslo in 1929 which would lead to two of his finest books, Les Caractères originaux de l’histoire rural francaise and Annales d’histoire économique et sociale.
“I was born in France. I have drunk of the waters of her culture. I have made her past my own. I breathe freely only in her clime, and I have done my best, with others, to defend her interests…(xiii, Statement).”
His patriotism came innately. He was a third-generation soldier; his great-grandfather served in 1793; his father was one of the defenders of Strasbourg in 1870 (thus, of my ancestors); and his entire family left their native Alsatian roots during the annexation of the Second Reich.
Unfortunately, Bloch’s life and career would be cut short. He was captured by the Nazis in Lyon for his work in the Resistance, beaten, tortured and shot in Trévoux on the 16th of June, 1944.
In Georges Altman’s Foreword to Strange Defeat, he writes of Bloch, “he loved danger…he had ‘the soul of the fighter that rules the body of its possessor’ (xv).” Bloch used to tell his fellow Resistors, “If I get out of this alive, I shall go back to teaching.” Bloch could no longer teach in a French classroom, but he continues to teach the world through his writings.
Bloch begins Strange Defeat with a Presentation of the Witness. HE is the witness: to the horrors of two world wars; to the inadequacies of leadership; to the heartbreak of loss in warfare; to daily fear and trepidation of an unknown enemy.
In Chapter one Bloch recounts his personal experiences in combat. He takes us day by day through battles, destruction, discouragement, fear; every adjective associated with combat could be inserted here. At one point Bloch has to make a split decision at a crossroads: 1) to go west to Brest and escape to England; 2) to go east to “continue to serve his country and family by escaping a trap that was to be sprung” or 3) to go south and be captured by the Germans at the Loire (he later discovered the Germans were not there). He chose east, to Rennes.
The purpose of Bloch’s documentation is in hopes that, “…a day will come…when this old and sacred soil of France, so many harvests have been lifted—harvests of free thought and of judgement unrestrained—will once more burgeon into ripeness (1).”
Bloch’s book is an amalgamation of his thirty-four years of writing and teaching history in his professional career, the great many documents of past history he has read, with the tragic events of which he played a part. He writes with the same habits of criticism, observation and integrity of which the exigencies of his work as an historian are judged.
Dunkirk: In 1940, Bloch’s unit went through Dunkirk following a heavy bombardment by the Germans. Bloch has a vivid memory