Marc Bloch's Strange Defeat

Strange Defeat was written in the summer of 1940, not long after the French defeat at the hands of the Germans in the Battle of France. However, the book was not published until 1946, two years after Marc Bloch's execution by the Gestapo for participating in the French Resistance. Marc Bloch was well experienced in the ways and means of war, having fought in the First World War; therefore it could be said his work is based upon his own personal knowledge and experiences. In Strange Defeat, Bloch questions where the blame should lie for French failure; the government of France, those serving in the military and the officials at the top, or perhaps even the British.
Aerial bombardment was developed by the Germans as a method of spreading material desolation and fear, breaking down the morale of civilians and soldiers alike. Marc Bloch considered air attacks to be far more effective, and more

He argues that there were general feelings of capitulation in France, and compares the lacklustre resistance effort to that of Poland's. One of the final lines written in Strange Defeat does include a sentiment of patriotism; Marc Bloch speaks of a Frenchman as a "civilised man", and speaks of the French Revolution and Montesquieu. Perhaps comparing the spirit of France as it once was, to how it was at the time of writing. Bloch writes, "how I prefer to evoke the image of an English victory. I do not know when the time will come when, with our Allies, we can regain control of our own destinies," now that France has fallen, as the book is being written in the summer of 1940, he argues that the French people have placed their fate in the hands of others; France's survival now depends on the efforts and strength of other nations, namely Britain, and not the French people themselves