DAVIS, FORREST, and ERNEST K. LINDLEY. How War Came: An American White Paper From the Fall of France to Pearl Harbor. Pp. viii, 342. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1942. $2.50
| DOI | 10.1177/000271624222400140 |
| Date | 01 November 1942 |
| Author | Samuel Flagg Bemis |
| Published date | 01 November 1942 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
203
parties
to
explore
their
own
respective
sources
in
order
to
make
it
possible
for
the
future
historian
to
present
a
well-
balanced
picture
of
the
Treaty
of
Trianon.
But
that
must
wait
until
the
more
urgent
task,
the
winning
of
this
war,
is
achieved.
JOSEF
HANČ
Fletcher
School
of
Law
and
Diplomacy
CAMERON,
ELIZABETH
R.
Prologue
to
Ap-
peasement.
Pp.
x,
228.
Washington,
D.
C.:
American
Council
on
Public
Af-
fairs,
1942.
Paper
Ed.:
$3.00;
Cloth
Ed.:
$3.50.
In
the
Epilogue
the
author
reminds
her
readers
that
after
the
defeat
of
France
in
1870
Renan
designated
as
the
fundamental
causes
of
the
French
collapse
&dquo;the
mate-
rialism
and
mediocrity
of
the
leaders
and
the
exaggeration
of
the
principle
that
so-
ciety
exists
mainly
for
the
well-being
and
personal
liberty
of
the
individuals
who
compose
it.&dquo;
Applying
Renan’s
analysis
to
the
defeat
and
collapse
of
France
in
1940,
the
author
ventures
the
laconic
com-
ment
that
&dquo;these
causes
hold
good
for
1940
as
for
1870.&dquo;
This
indictment
of
a
callous
and
sophisti-
cated
French
leadership
and
the
implied
criticism
of
cavalier
acceptance
of
democ-
racy
as
the
magic
&dquo;sesame&dquo;
opening
the
gates
to
ease,
comfort,
and
security
for
each
and
every
Frenchman,
high
and
low,
rich
and
poor,
run
as
the
leitmotiv
through
the
length
and
breadth
of
the
book.
France,
the
whole
of
France,
had
been
created
for
the
benefit
of
Frenchmen,
for
the
individual
as
individual
if
he
could
make
the
multi-
tude
serve
his
personal
aims
and
wants;
for
the
individual
as
a
member
of
this
or
that
interest
group
if
such
membership
was
the
most
promising
way
to
personal
stand-
ing,
power,
or
wealth.
It
is
the
ruthlessly
selfish
strife
between
individual
and
indi-
vidual,
between
the
multitude
of
interest
groups,
that
the
author
depicts
in
a
mas-
terly
fashion.
It
is
a
strife
transferred
from
the
social
and
economic
sphere
to
the
battleground
of
ever
changing
ministries,
political
factions,
parties,
blocs,
coalitions,
federations,
leagues,
fronts,
and
what
not.
It
is
a
strife
transferred
from
the
national
arena
to
the
international
terrain
of
ever
changing
balances
of
power,
big
and
little
ententes,
multilateral
and
bilateral
treaties,
pacts,
understandings,
machinations,
de-
feats,
and
disasters.
As
the
title
indicates,
the
scope
of
the
book
is
limited.
The
period
covered
is
that
of
&dquo;the
critical
years&dquo;
between
1933
and
1936,
the
period
which
determined
the
shape
of
events
to
come,
appeasement
which
failed
to
appease,
and
war
which
brought
the
collapse
of
1940.
The
source
material
from
official
foreign
offices
publica-
tions
available
for
the
period
covered
is
&dquo;limited,
first,
to
a
defense
of
French
par-
ticipation
in
the
organized
plan
of
four-
power
collaboration
put
forward
by
Ger-
many
and
Italy
in
1933,
and
secondly,
to
a
justification
of
the
French
rupture
of
disarmament
negotiations
in
1934.&dquo;
The
author
admits
that
&dquo;this
is
meagre
docu-
mentary
evidence,&dquo;
and,
she
adds,
&dquo;it
is
doubly
unlikely
that
the
collaborationists
who
had
a
share
in
bringing
on
the
defeat
will
be
anxious
to
make
public
recent
for-
eign
office
records-if
they
have
not
al-
ready
been
destroyed.&dquo;
She
points
out
that
&dquo;much
valuable
information
on
French
for-
eign
aff airs
may,
of
course,
be
found
in
British
parliamentary
papers
which
treat
the
diplomatic
history
of
these
years
more
fully.&dquo;
But
as
she
is
forced
to
concede,
&dquo;even
here
the
documentation
is
far
from
complete
and
not
always
impartially
chosen.&dquo;
Considering
the
scholar’s
handicap
im-
plied
in
the
scarcity
and
the
nature
of
source
material,
the
book
evidences
a
re-
markable
degree
of
historic
objectivity.
It
is
in
the
choice of
a
number
of
provoca-
tive
caricatures
of
personalities
and
events
that
the
author’s
passionate
liking
for
pre-
Vichy
France
asserts
itself.
JOHANNES
MATTERN
Johns
Hopkins
University
DAVIS,
FORREST,
and
ERNEST
K.
LINDLEY.
How
War
Came:
An
American
White
Paper
From
the
Fall
of
France
to
Pearl
Harbor.
Pp.
viii,
342.
New
York:
Simon
and
Schuster,
1942.
$2.50.
This
is
a
very
important
and
significant
work
in
support
of
President
Roosevelt’s
diplomacy
preceding
war.
It
is
not
a
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