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by Marcel Vigneras (Author)
Every thoughtful American interested in the history of our present mutual assistance program should find this a profitable and illuminating book. In rearming the French the War Department and the U.S. Army became agents of an Allied policy which not only enabled this country to further a friendship for France that dated from the Revolution, but in addition served the military interests of both nations. It equipped Frenchmen with the means to fight and by so doing increased at minimum cost the forces available to the United Nations. The Army can take pride in the success with which it administered a policy involving both political and military matters. The policy of mutual aid has since been extended throughout the world with the Army again designated as the agency principally responsible for its administration. The present thorough and objective study of an early large-scale American experiment with mutual aid should therefore be highly instructive to all concerned. This volume tells how the French forces were rearmed from the time they re-entered World War II after their temporary eclipse from the battlefields of Europe. The text inescapably focuses attention on the part played by America in the undertaking if for no other reason than that the undertaking itself, while shared between the United States and the United Kingdom, was largely American. The purpose of this volume is twofold. It is a historical account of a sizable and laborious enterprise that enabled a friendly military establishment in dire need of assistance to take its place among the forces aligned against the Axis. It is intended also to serve as a guide for the solution of problems likely to arise out of similar future enterprises. While this volume is not primarily concerned with operational matters, it contains sufficient operational material to establish the extent of the contribution made by the rearmed French forces toward the final victory of the United Nations. The reader is warned that only such French political developments that had a definite influence on the course of rearmament are discussed, and the discussion is limited to that sufficient to place the evolution of French rearmament in its proper perspective.
