In 1940, after an intense six-week battle, the most formidable army in Europe was defeated by a much more flexible and aggressive German military. For almost 80 years, France has lived with its memory ...

France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain; By Julian Jackson; Belknap Press; 480 pp., $35.00 In October 1940, following a sharp and painful defeat to the Nazi Wehrmacht over the summer, Pétain shook ...

Unless the whole world was deceived, the Vichy Government last week squarely and publicly placed its bet on Germany to win World War II. Not only did it yield to Germany, which men in France today ...

Few chapters in World War II history are as contentious as Vichy France. After the 1940 defeat, Marshal Philippe Pétain’s regime ruled the unoccupied south while cooperating with Nazi ...

The leafless little parks of Vichy seemed even more forlorn than before. The name Pétain might keep for many a touch of magic—a legendary gleam that shone out of the mud of Verdun. But the man Pétain, ...

Last Friday, I received a message from Jim Ryan, the president of the University of Virginia. At first, I thought it was like countless others I have received over the years, since I defended my PhD ...