General Gamelin prepared these volumes as a reply to the charges of negligence, and worse, lodged against him at the Riom Trial and by a large segment of world opinion. In Volume II -- "Le Prologue du Drame" -- he renders an account of his stewardship at the General Staff from 1930 to the outbreak of World War II. His documentation is interesting but incomplete, leaving several large gaps. Volume I -- "Les Armées Françaises de 1940" -- describes the strength, organization and strategic conceptions with which that Army entered the war. Volume III -- "La Guerre" -- is the most valuable and vivid, for in it the generalissimo presents, with the aid of hitherto unpublished documents, his version of the conflict up to May 19, 1940. The general impression of the author is of a loyal, diligent but unimaginative military bureaucrat.
Source URL: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/1948-10-01/servir