Forgotten Blitzes
France and Italy under Allied Air Attack, 1940-1945
Claudia Baldoli author Professor Andrew Knapp author
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Continuum Publishing Corporation
Published:26th Apr '12
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Forgotten Blitzes analyses how states and civil society in Vichy France and Fascist Italy reacted to the experience of Allied bombing between 1940 and 1945.
Analyses how states and civil society in Vichy France and Fascist Italy reacted to the experience of Allied bombing between 1940 and 1945. This work uses political, social and cultural approaches to highlight both the similarities between the challenges faced by states and peoples in each country, and the differences in the ways they reacted."Forgotten Blitzes" analyses how states and civil society in Vichy France and Fascist Italy reacted to the experience of Allied bombing between 1940 and 1945. Between 1940 and 1945, the Allies dropped some 370,000 tons of bombs on Italy - nearly five times the total dropped on Britain by the Luftwaffe. France received nearly 590,000 tons, eight times the British figure. In each country, over 50,000 civilians died. How did the central and local authorities in Vichy France and Fascist Italy cope with a scale of attack beyond anything expected before 1940? How did ordinary French and Italian people respond? Was there a 'Blitz spirit' in either country, or did morale and solidarity collapse? How far were the Allies' claims to be liberators accepted by their bombed-out victims? This comparative work uses political, social and cultural approaches to highlight both the similarities between the challenges faced by states and people in each country, and the differences in the ways they reacted. Extensive research in a variety of local and national archives, complemented by diaries and personal memoirs, has allowed the authors to build up a fine-grained picture of the impact of bombing as it affected states, local authorities and individuals.
A masterly, searching and judicious examination of the British and American bombing of France and Italy, which were occupied by or allied to the Third Reich and harnessed to the German war machine. It explores the ambiguities of civilian losses under "friendly fire" and the relationship of Allied bombing to resistance activity, such as escape lines for downed pilots. Military and strategic questions are dissected alongside the reactions of the Vichy and Italian governments, the effectiveness of civil defence and evacuation plans, propaganda warfare and morale, solidarity with victims, profiteering and plunder. Based on a mass of archival documentation, this is a tour de force in the comparative history of total war. -- Robert Gildea, Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford
Few are aware that a third or more of the 2.8 million tons of bombs and missiles that devastated Western Europe in the Second World War fell upon France and Italy. Even less well-known is that this bombing surpassed by an order of magnitude the Luftwaffe's best efforts, and killed almost twice as many civilians as Britain's 60,000 bombing dead. Forgotten Blitzes tells the story in vivid detail: Allied political, strategic, and operational calculations; the propaganda war over bombing; the largely ineffectual civil defence efforts of Vichy France and especially of Fascist Italy; and the desperation of the two societies under sustained bombardment. This impressively researched and highly readable work is a major contribution to our understanding both of air warfare and of the Second World War in western Europe. -- MacGregor Knox, Stevenson Professor of International History emeritus, The London School of Economics and Political Science
This is a really important contribution to the historiography of the war. It is full of detail, but put together to make an enthralling narrative, and the topic is so significant that one wonders why nobody has tackled it before. -- Sir Michael Howard, Emeritus Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford, UK
ISBN: 9781441185815
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 530g
312 pages