Summary of Ronald C. Rosbottom's When Paris Went Dark

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 When Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, feverish diplomatic efforts were engaged to obviate the treaty obligations that would force Britain and France to come to her defense. The French had increased their already large army to about 2. 5 million men. They pushed past their own Maginot Line in eastern France and moved cautiously a few kilometers into Germany, where they met little resistance.
#2 The French government, headed by Philippe Pétain, confirmed an armistice with Germany in 1939. The decision was not welcomed by everyone, but most French were confident that this political arrangement with Germany would only be necessary for a limited period.
#3 As Parisians awaited the results of their defense pact with Poland, they experienced anxiety, but not yet dread, and they were alienated from their familiar environment. They felt like they were living in the infinite, and they wanted to mitigate their impatience at having to live in the present.
#4 The waiting was one of the most enervating aspects of the Paris during the war, especially after the Germans arrived. It would not end until Allied tanks were seen on the outskirts of Paris in late August of 1944.

Sujets

• Histoire
• History
• France
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 08 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822504363
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Ronald C. Rosbottom's When Paris Went Dark
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10 Insights from Chapter 11
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

When Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, feverish diplomatic efforts were engaged to obviate the treaty obligations that would force Britain and France to come to her defense. The French had increased their already large army to about 2. 5 million men. They pushed past their own Maginot Line in eastern France and moved cautiously a few kilometers into Germany, where they met little resistance.

#2

The French government, headed by Philippe Pétain, confirmed an armistice with Germany in 1939. The decision was not welcomed by everyone, but most French were confident that this political arrangement with Germany would only be necessary for a limited period.

#3

As Parisians awaited the results of their defense pact with Poland, they experienced anxiety, but not yet dread, and they were alienated from their familiar environment. They felt like they were living in the infinite, and they wanted to mitigate their impatience at having to live in the present.

#4

The waiting was one of the most enervating aspects of the Paris during the war, especially after the Germans arrived. It would not end until Allied tanks were seen on the outskirts of Paris in late August of 1944.

#5

The Battle of France in 1940 was the first Blitzkrieg incursion into the Low Countries, and it thoroughly demoralized France. The French army and the British Expeditionary Force were thrown on their heels so quickly that a stunned world could barely keep up with the news reports of German advances.

#6

As the capital of France slipped into imminent danger of being surrounded, the confusion that settled in at French army headquarters at Vincennes, on the eastern edge of Paris, was startling. The absence of a radio connection with their armies compounded the cluelessness of France’s general staff.

#7

Churchill, who had become prime minister on May 10, had flown several times to Paris and then to the Loire Valley, where the government had retreated on June 10 and June 13. He pleaded with Prime Minister Reynaud to keep the French fighting, even defending Paris.

#8

The Battle of France was won, and the French capital, Paris, was left in jeopardy of being captured by the Germans. The French government wanted to defend Paris, while some generals argued that it was time the world saw how relentlessly uncivilized the Third Reich was.

#9

The French army was able to fight courageously, with high casualties, during the Battle of France in 1940. But the conscripts’ individual courage and sacrifice could not compensate for a paucity of planning and a lumbering, unimaginative battlefield response to the Blitzkrieg.

#10

The French capital was left bereft of political leadership after the departure of the central government. It took residents a while to realize that they had been comforted with misinformation and patriotic bombast for weeks.

#11

The Battle of France was the largest defeat of France’s vaunted armed forces. Hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Netherlands, Belgium, and northern France plodded relentlessly southward toward hoped-for sanctuary. The Parisians began to panic and join the exodus.

#12

The news of the French army’s collapse spread to the middle-class and working-class neighborhoods, and people began to panic. They thought the Germans were at their gates, and they wanted to leave before it was too late.

#13

The largest civilian exodus in modern history was the result of the German invasion of France, which Némirovsky described in her novel. She wrote that the fear of strafing planes, marauding French soldiers, and other looters dominated life minute by minute.

#14

A few Jewish families tried to escape France before the Nazis could implement their racial policies. One was a diamond merchant who hid his family’s diamonds in a tall, clear jar, and dribbled the stones into a lardlike unguent. The mixture congealed, and the diamonds were invisible from the outside.

#15

The majority of those fleeing before the Blitzkrieg were women and children, as most men had been drafted. Those who had obtained leave from conscription because of important civilian jobs were advised to flee rather than be sent off to work in Germany.

#16

The French police chief, Roger Langeron, and the American ambassador to France, William Bullitt, were in charge of Paris during the few hectic days between the government’s retreat to the Loire Valley and the arrival of the Wehrmacht. They tried to keep peace in a city full of leaderless and retreating French soldiers, Jewish citizens, eastern European refugees, and looters.

#17

The police prefect of Paris, Langeron, was tasked with making sure the city was prepared for the thousands of refugees heading southward. He was also responsible for maintaining order, and he was nervous about how to prepare.

#18

After the open-city declaration, Paris was left to its own defenses, which meant that it could institute another Commune-type government, and thus be even more vulnerable to German intervention.

#19

The French government watched as events unfolded almost surrealistically. The first stunner was Churchill and his cabinet offering, if France would not sign an armistice with the Germans, to form a political union between Great Britain and France. The next day, the Maréchal announced on national radio that an armistice was already in effect and ordered French troops to lay down their arms.

#20

The Armistice, as we have seen, divided France into several occupied and unoccupied regions. It was unique in Nazi Germany’s relations with other occupied nations. No other conquered nation was permitted to have its own sovereign territory after a Nazi victory.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

The Battle of France was won by the German army in less than a month, and they were able to occupy Paris very quickly. The French had no plan for how to defend their capital, so it was easy for the Germans to take it.

#2

The first morning after the invasion, the German army went through the streets of Paris without firing a single shot. They were polite and well-behaved, and the French were amazed and relieved at their appearance.

#3

The city was invaded by the German army, but the police maintained order. The French police were protecting the city from the whims of a nervous occupier.

#4

As the refugees began returning to Paris in late June and early July, they were surprised to see a city that was more relaxed than the one they had left behind. The swastika was flying from the Eiffel Tower, and the German language was everywhere.

#5

Langeron had to juggle three important responsibilities during the first four months of the German occupation: maintaining distance between his police and the Occupation authorities, keeping the newly instituted Vichy government at arm’s length, and establishing a sort of secular order in a bewildered city.

#6

Pablo Picasso was a famous Spanish artist who had escaped France before the arrival of the Germans. He returned to Paris in August of 1940, where he remained for the duration. He was world famous, which might provide a degree of protection, but he was also an outspoken supporter of those who opposed Franco.

#7

Picasso remained in Paris during the war, and he was protected by the Germans because of his fame. He used his notoriety to protect himself from those who did not wish him well.

#8

The French capital, Paris, was not just any city for the Germans, but an idea, a myth. It represented tolerance, liberty, and a crucible for the imagination.

#9

Baker was a famous dancer who traveled to various European cities in the 1920s and 1930s. She was popular in Paris, but the Nazis hated her because she represented what they believed was the degeneration of racial and moral standards.

#10