In Resistance and Liberation, Douglas Porch continues his epic history of France at war. Emerging from the debâcle of 1940, France faced the quandary of how to rebuild military power, protect the empire, and resuscitate its global influence. While Charles de Gaulle rejected the armistice and launched his offshore crusade to reclaim French honor within the Allied camp, defeatists at Vichy embraced cooperation with the victorious Axis. The book charts the emerging dynamics of la France libre and the Alliance, Vichy collaboration, and the swelling resistance to the Axis occupation. From the campaigns in Tunisia and Italy to Liberation, Douglas Porch traces how de Gaulle sought to forge a French army and prevent civil war. He captures the experiences of ordinary French men and women caught up in war and defeat, the choices they made, the trials they endured, and how this has shaped France's memory of those traumatic years.

This book, first published in 1974, analyses the problems and mechanics of the Revolutionary movement in the army during and after the French Revolution. It charts the transition of the French army from the Revolutionary force of 1815 to the counter-revolutionary army which in June 1848 led the suppression of the European Revolutionary movement. By defining the scope of political of political unrest in the army between 1815 and 1848 – its causes, patterns and remedies – the author demonstrates that republican political ideology had only a limited appeal for the military and served more as a rallying point for discontent with the conditions of service.

This book, first published in 1977, traces the origins of the left-wing Portuguese army rebellion of 1974 that overthrew the 50-year-old authoritarian regime of Prime Ministers Salazar and Caetano to the traditional political independence of the armed forces, their increasingly strained relations with the regime, and finally to the colonial wars which brought professional discontent to boiling point. The Portuguese revolution which followed provides a unique laboratory for the study of an army in crisis, the strains which the attempt by officers to direct the political life of the country after April 1974 placed on military organisation; the traditional career patterns and attitudes of soldiers and on discipline. It examines the role of officers in government and the day-to-day problems which political upheaval created in every barracks. This is a study both of the armed forces in politics and politics in the armed forces, placed within the larger context of the revolution.

This book, first published in 1974, analyses the problems and mechanics of the Revolutionary movement in the army during and after the French Revolution. It charts the transition of the French army from the Revolutionary force of 1815 to the counter-revolutionary army which in June 1848 led the suppression of the European Revolutionary movement. By defining the scope of political of political unrest in the army between 1815 and 1848 - its causes, patterns and remedies - the author demonstrates that republican political ideology had only a limited appeal for the military and served more as a rallying point for discontent with the conditions of service.

This book, first published in 1977, traces the origins of the left-wing Portuguese army rebellion of 1974 that overthrew the 50-year-old authoritarian regime of Prime Ministers Salazar and Caetano to the traditional political independence of the armed forces, their increasingly strained relations with the regime, and finally to the colonial wars which brought professional discontent to boiling point. The Portuguese revolution which followed provides a unique laboratory for the study of an army in crisis, the strains which the attempt by officers to direct the political life of the country after April 1974 placed on military organisation; the traditional career patterns and attitudes of soldiers and on discipline. It examines the role of officers in government and the day-to-day problems which political upheaval created in every barracks. This is a study both of the armed forces in politics and politics in the armed forces, placed within the larger context of the revolution.

Defeat and Division launches a definitive new account of France in the Second World War. In this first volume, Douglas Porch dissects France's 1940 collapse, the dynamics of occupation, and the rise of Charles de Gaulle's Free France crusade, culminating in the November 1942 Allied invasion of French North Africa. He captures the full sweep of France's wartime experience in Europe, Africa, and beyond, from soldiers and POWs to civilians-in-arms, colonial subjects, and foreign refugees. He recounts France's struggles to reconstruct military power within the context of a global conflict, with its armed forces shattered into warring factions and the country under Axis occupation. Disagreements over the causes of the 1940 debacle and the subsequent requirement for the armistice mirrored long-standing fractures in politics, society, and the French military itself, as efforts to reconstitute French military power crumbled into Vichy collaboration, De Gaulle's exile resistance, Alsace-Moselle occupation struggles, and a scuffle for imperial supremacy.

Counterinsurgency has staked its claim in the new century as the new American way of war. Yet, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have revived a historical debate about the costs - monetary, political and moral - of operations designed to eliminate insurgents and build nations. Today's counterinsurgency proponents point to 'small wars' past to support their view that the enemy is 'biddable' if the correct tactical formulas are applied. Douglas Porch's sweeping history of counterinsurgency campaigns carried out by the three 'providential nations' of France, Britain and the United States, ranging from nineteenth-century colonial conquests to General Petraeus' 'Surge' in Iraq, challenges the contemporary mythologising of counterinsurgency as a humane way of war. The reality, he reveals, is that 'hearts and minds' has never been a recipe for lasting stability and that past counterinsurgency campaigns have succeeded not through state-building but by shattering and dividing societies while unsettling civil-military relations.

Counterinsurgency has staked its claim in the new century as the new American way of war. Yet, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have revived a historical debate about the costs - monetary, political and moral - of operations designed to eliminate insurgents and build nations. Today's counterinsurgency proponents point to 'small wars' past to support their view that the enemy is 'biddable' if the correct tactical formulas are applied. Douglas Porch's sweeping history of counterinsurgency campaigns carried out by the three 'providential nations' of France, Britain and the United States, ranging from nineteenth-century colonial conquests to General Petraeus' 'Surge' in Iraq, challenges the contemporary mythologising of counterinsurgency as a humane way of war. The reality, he reveals, is that 'hearts and minds' has never been a recipe for lasting stability and that past counterinsurgency campaigns have succeeded not through state-building but by shattering and dividing societies while unsettling civil-military relations.

The relationship between the French army and the regime provides one of the central themes in the history of the Third Republic. From its foundation in 1870, the republic sought to integrate the army of Louis-Napoleon into a left-leaning, democratic political system. This experiment failed, historians have argued, because the social origins, political attitudes and professional values of the officer corps sabotaged cooperation with the republic. The nation paid a bloody price for this failure on the battlefields of the Great War. Dr Porch's book challenges many standard assumptions about the place of the army in French political life between 1871 and 1914. The events of the 'Dreyfus years' are examined from the army's standpoint. Dr Porch examines the impact of the Dreyfus affair on the crucial tactical and armaments debates of the immediate pre-war years, tracing the origins of the costly 'spirit of the offensive' while providing the answer to the French army's near disastrous failure to the development of the colonial army and its place within the military structure is also assessed for the first time.

Originally published in 1896, "Small Wars" is an ambitious attempt to analyze and draw lessons from Western experience in fighting campaigns of imperial conquest. The quality of C. E. Callwell's analysis, the sweep of his knowledge, and his ability to integrate information from an impressive variety of experiences resulted in Small War's reputation as a minor classic.

For the historian, "Small Wars" remains a useful and vital analysis of irregular warfare experiences ranging from Hoche's suppression of the Vendee revolt during the French Revolution, to the British wars against semi-organized armies of Marathas and Sikhs in mid-nineteenth-century India, to the Boer War of 1899-1902.

The military specialist discovers in Callwell lessons applicable to what today is called "low-intensity conflict." his message is clear, and it is relevant to current debates about conflicts as diverse as those in Bosnia, Somalia, and Vietnam. Technological superiority is an important, but seldom critical, ingredient in the success of low-intensity operations. An ability to adapt to terrain and climate, to match the enemy in mobility and inventiveness, to collect intelligence, and above all the capacity to "seize what the enemy prizes most," will determine success or failure. This reprint adds vital historical dimension to the growing literature on unconventional conflict.

The Mediterranean theater in World War II has long been overlooked by historians who believe it was little more than a string of small-scale battles--sideshows that were of minor importance in a war whose outcome was decided in the clashes of mammoth tank armies in northern Europe. But in this ground-breaking new book, one of our finest military historians argues that the Mediterranean was World War II's pivotal theater.
Douglas Porch examines the Mediterranean as an integrated arena, one in which events in Syria and Suez influenced the survival of Gibraltar. Without a Mediterranean alternative, the Western Allies would probably have committed to a premature cross-Channel invasion in 1943 that might well have cost them the war.
Brilliantly argued, with vivid portraits of Churchill, Montgomery, FDR, Rommel, and Mussolini, this original, accessible, and compelling account of a little-known theater emphasizes the importance of the Mediterranean in the ultimate Allied victory in Europe in World War II.

In "The Conquest of the Sahara," Douglas Porch tells the story of France's struggle to explore and dominate the great African desert at the turn of the century. Focusing on the conquest of the Ahaggar Tuareg, a Berber people living in a mountain area in central Sahara, he goes on to describe the bizarre exploits of the desert's explorers and conquerors and the incompetence of the French military establishment. Porch summons up a world of oases, desert forts and cafes where customers paid the dancer by licking a one-franc piece and sticking it on her forehead.
"The Conquest of the Sahara" reveals the dark side of France's "civilizing mission" into this vast terrain, and at the same time, weaves a rich tale of extravagant hopes, genius and foolhardiness.

"The Conquest of Morocco" tells the story of France's last great colonial adventure. At the turn of the twentieth century, Morocco was a nation yet to emerge from the Middle Ages, ruled by local warlords and riven by religious fanaticism. But in the mad scramble for African colonies, Morocco had one great attraction for the Europeans: it was available. In 1903, France undertook to conquer the exotic and backward country. By the time World War I broke out the conquest was virtually complete.
Based on extensive original research, "The Conquest of Morocco" is a splendid work of popular history.

A groundbreaking work of research, The French Secret Service tells the dramatic, untold story of the transition of France's spy networks and "black chambers" of the ancien regime and Napolean into modern intelligence services. Ranging from diplomatic and military intelligence to covert operations and industrial espionage, Porch's book explains the sometimes bizzare operations of French intelligence in the context of France's divided political culture and of her self-image as a world power.