World War II Database

Published in 1990, the fiftieth anniversary of the 1940 conquest of France, this book by Philip Warner deals with the battle with, which the author thinks and hopes, new information and perhaps a new perspective.

The book divides its contents into three sections titled: The Preliminaries, The Action, and The Results. The Preliminaries deal with the lead-up to the battle and includes the status of the military forces on all sides and the relative preparedness that all had at the beginning of World War II. The Action, which takes up most of the book, deals with the battle from the opening invasion of the Low Countries to the surrender of France. Mixed in with the actual action are retrospectives about the impact of this battle on the future of the war and its influence on Hitler. The Aftermath deals with the results of the battle, its influence on launching the invasion of the Soviet Union, the results leading to a changed world, and what may have happened had the Allies fought better. This also includes a surprising and odd claim that had Germany had been forced into trench warfare once more with Britain and France, it would have left all three and Europe at the mercy of the Soviet Union and its leader Joseph Stalin.

Although an okay book in of itself, it largely pales in comparison to other well-known works (with Alistair Horne's To Lose a Battle being at the top of that particular list).