Too Serious a Business: European Armed Forces and the Approach to the Second World War

Too Serious a Business reframes the road to 1939 by shifting the spotlight from cabinet rooms to General Staffs. Donald Cameron Watt argues that, unlike 1914—when belligerent militaries hustled civilians toward war—the late-1930s saw the reverse: senior officers across Britain, France, Germany, and Italy warned of disaster, resigned in protest, or quietly conspired to avert catastrophe while civilians pressed forward. From General Beck’s break with Hitler and Vuillemin’s grim air-power asse...