The Fall of France 1940: How it Influenced the US
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 12.9K Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2022
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Shocked by the fall of France in 1940, panicked U.S. leaders rushed to back the Vichy government despite their Nazi sympathies. This policy caused instability at home whilst also driving a wedge between the allied nations.
In this episode, Dan is joined by war historian Michael S. Neiberg to discuss this fateful decision that nearly destroyed the Anglo–American alliance.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, really welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. One of the things I've always found fascinating |
| 0:06.6 | about the fall of France in 1940 is how the French state run by Peita, based in Vichy, |
| 0:13.8 | has been branded as Vichy France by subsequent history, but of course to many people at |
| 0:17.5 | the time it was simply France. It was the French who then aligned themselves with the Axis |
| 0:23.6 | powers, allowed Japan, for example, to use French Indochina for their assault into Southeast Asia |
| 0:30.6 | at the end of 1941. Now France presented a problem to nuclear nations, non-combatant nations. |
| 0:37.5 | What should relations with this front? Is it Vichy France, France? How should they conduct |
| 0:41.6 | relations with France? And few nations rest of that question more than the United States of America. |
| 0:47.6 | After France fell in 1940, the US government recognized the Vichy government, despite their |
| 0:54.6 | Nazi sympathies. This was sort of political discrimination in the US and also drove a big wedge |
| 1:00.7 | between the US and its potential ally Britain. So in this episode I'm joined by |
| 1:05.6 | friend of the podcast Michael Nyberg. He is a very brilliant historian. We're lucky to have him on |
| 1:09.7 | the podcast. He's been on before talking about US military history. He's the chair of war studies |
| 1:15.0 | and the Department of National Security and Strategy at the United States Army War College. He's an |
| 1:20.6 | absolute legend when it comes to US strategic and military history. And so it's great to him |
| 1:26.9 | talking about how the US approached the problem of France. And particularly for this |
| 1:33.2 | breadth it was a useful corrective to the kind of Anglo-centric view of France following its fall |
| 1:39.2 | in 1940. If you wish to listen to more podcasts with Michael you can do so at History Hit TV. It's |
| 1:45.2 | like our digital history channel. It's like Netflix history. We've got TV shows on there, |
| 1:48.6 | hundreds of TV shows on there, thousands of podcasts without the ads. So you can head over there and |
| 1:53.1 | have your fill of history. You can drink deep from the bottomless chalice of history over history |
| 1:58.7 | hit TV. And if you sign up today by following the link in the description of this podcast, |
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