Abstract

Abstract
The Shadow of the Bomber: Maurice Gamelin, Air Power and the Fall of France

Robert Parker, Ph.D.
Concordia University, 2022
This study aims to clarify the various means by which air power determined the course of the Battle of France from May 10 to June 25, 1940. The influence of aircraft is shown to have played a dual role in the conflict, exerting both material and psychological effects upon both strategists and combatants. The material business of war in the skies is explored with particular attention to the grievously neglected historical fact that in the spring of 1940, France had achieved numerical equality with the German Luftwaffe. Pilot shortage, rather than insufficient production of aircraft, ensured that French aircraft were greatly outnumbered throughout the battle. Materially, France was prepared to wage a defensive war with reasonable chances for success. Chapter two outlines how France passed the industrial test of war. Chapter three explores the financial resiliency of the French economy after mid-1939 and the strength of the national war chest. However, the central concern of this study is the means by which the threat of modern air power exerted a decisive and overall deleterious psychological influence upon those tasked with defending the Republic. Commander-in-Chief Maurice Gamelin, in particular, is shown to have devised a radical and unprecedented strategy based on minimizing the impact of German air power over the battlefield. All else became subordinate to this overarching priority, resulting in the sacrifice of the entire French strategic reserve in a failed bid to neutralise the power of the German air force.
The absence of a strategic reserve force was instrumental to the collapse which took place on the Meuse River between May 12-15, 1940. This study’s novel contribution lies in its exploration of the reasons behind the lack of reserves in the French order of battle, an omission which has been often noticed but never investigated. The concluding chapter also expands our understanding of the man at the apex of the French military, Maurice Gamelin. New insights into the state of his physical and cognitive health during the leadup to war provide deeper understanding of the causes behind the General’s ineffective leadership and strategy.