In just a few years, Julian Jackson has become the British historian who is helping the French rediscover their history. He believes that what happened in 1940 in France was seen only through defeat.
The French leaders made the foolish gamble of winning a short war knowing that they were in fact in a state of inferiority, and it worked. When they realized that this was not the case, it was too late, replies Julian Jackson.
Julian Jackson, who was the leader of a new way of making History and rethinking it, also wants to be optimistic while the general climate in France is marked by crises and strong instability. We must not despair of the present.
The author also specifies that the quality of French tanks was even rather superior to that of the Germans.
To illustrate the climate of the time, Julian Jackson cites a British MP who arrived in Paris in November 1939 during the phoney war to see his French counterparts. The observer notes that they are much less defeatist than us and much more warlike.
The historian insists that the commonly accepted view of these events is not entirely true. According to him, it is above all a defeat which has military reasons and which is essentially a defeat of the general staff.