Vichy's Double Bind: French Collaboration between Hitler and Mussolini during the Second World War

by Karine Varley

Overview

Vichy's Double Bind advances a significant new interpretation of French collaboration during the Second World War. Arguing that the path to collaboration involved not merely Nazi Germany but Fascist Italy, it suggests that the Vichy French government was caught in a double bind. On the one hand, many of the threats to France's territory, colonial empire and power came from Rome as well as Berlin. On the other, Vichy was caught between the irreconcilable yet inescapable positions of the two Axis governments. Unable to resolve the conflict, Vichy sought to play the two Axis powers against each other. By exploring French dealings with Italy at diplomatic, military and local levels in France and its colonial empire, this book reveals the multi-dimensional and multi-directional nature of Vichy's policy. It therefore challenges many enduring conceptions of collaboration with reference to Franco-German relations and offers a fresh perspective on debates about Vichy France and collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781009368339
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/03/2025
Series:	New Studies in European History
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.47(d)

About the Author

Karine Varley is Lecturer in French and European History at the University of Strathclyde, having previously lectured at Durham University and the University of Edinburgh. She is a graduate of the Universities of Cambridge, Leeds and Royal Holloway, London. She has published widely on nineteenth- and twentieth-century European history, including Under the Shadow of Defeat: The War of 1870–71 in French Memory (2008) and (ed. with Marco Maria Aterrano), A Fascist Decade of War: 1935–1945 in International Perspective ( 2020). Her research has been supported by grants from the British Academy, Carnegie Trust and Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Table of Contents

Introduction; Part I. Diplomacy and Politics: 1. Sowing the Seeds: From the Abyssinia Crisis to the Armistice; 2. Pivoting Between Alignments: July to December 1940; 3. Playing Rome against Berlin: December 1940 to March 1942; 4. Compliance and Defiance: April 1942 to September 1943; 5. The Absence of Collaborationism; Part II. Local Encounters: 6. The Menace Within: July 1940 to November 1942; 7. Annexation by Stealth: Italian Occupation from June 1940 to November 1942; 8. Confronting Italian Occupation: November 1942 to September 1943; Conclusion; Bibliography.

Editorial Reviews

‘The book is providing an intriguing thesis on a still obscure topic of the Second World War, by underlining the fractious triangular relationship between Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the French collaborationist regime of Vichy. By showing the French willingness to play the Axis countries against each other, it nuances our diplomatic perspective of the Vichy regime in those fateful years.’ Emanuele Sica, author of Mussolini's Army in the French Riviera

‘… illustrates the complex and fluctuating nature of collaboration between Vichy and Rome … Recommended.’ M. L. Scott, Choice

From the Publisher