Author: Hugh Ragsdale
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139450255
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
The Munich crisis is everywhere acknowledged as the prelude to World War II. If Hitler had been stopped at Munich then World War II as we know it could not have happened. The subject has been thoroughly studied in British, French and German documents and consequently we know that the weakness in the Western position at Munich consisted in the Anglo-French opinion that the Soviet commitment to its allies - France and Czechoslovakia - was utterly unreliable. What has never been seriously studied in the Western literature is the whole spectrum of East European documentation. This book targets precisely this dimension of the problem. The Romanians were at one time prepared to admit the transfer of the Red Army across their territory. The Red Army, mobilised on a massive scale, was informed that its destination was Czechoslovakia. The Polish consul in Lodavia reported the entrance of the Red Army into the country. In the meantime, Moscow focused especially on the Polish rail network. All of these findings are new, and they contribute to a considerable shift in the conventional wisdom on the subject.
The Soviets, the Munich Crisis, and the Coming of World War II
Author: Hugh Ragsdale
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139450255
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
The Munich crisis is everywhere acknowledged as the prelude to World War II. If Hitler had been stopped at Munich then World War II as we know it could not have happened. The subject has been thoroughly studied in British, French and German documents and consequently we know that the weakness in the Western position at Munich consisted in the Anglo-French opinion that the Soviet commitment to its allies - France and Czechoslovakia - was utterly unreliable. What has never been seriously studied in the Western literature is the whole spectrum of East European documentation. This book targets precisely this dimension of the problem. The Romanians were at one time prepared to admit the transfer of the Red Army across their territory. The Red Army, mobilised on a massive scale, was informed that its destination was Czechoslovakia. The Polish consul in Lodavia reported the entrance of the Red Army into the country. In the meantime, Moscow focused especially on the Polish rail network. All of these findings are new, and they contribute to a considerable shift in the conventional wisdom on the subject.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139450255
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
The Munich crisis is everywhere acknowledged as the prelude to World War II. If Hitler had been stopped at Munich then World War II as we know it could not have happened. The subject has been thoroughly studied in British, French and German documents and consequently we know that the weakness in the Western position at Munich consisted in the Anglo-French opinion that the Soviet commitment to its allies - France and Czechoslovakia - was utterly unreliable. What has never been seriously studied in the Western literature is the whole spectrum of East European documentation. This book targets precisely this dimension of the problem. The Romanians were at one time prepared to admit the transfer of the Red Army across their territory. The Red Army, mobilised on a massive scale, was informed that its destination was Czechoslovakia. The Polish consul in Lodavia reported the entrance of the Red Army into the country. In the meantime, Moscow focused especially on the Polish rail network. All of these findings are new, and they contribute to a considerable shift in the conventional wisdom on the subject.
1939
Author: Michael Jabara Carley
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee
ISBN: 146169938X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
At a crucial point in the twentieth century, as Nazi Germany prepared for war, negotiations between Britain, France, and the Soviet Union became the last chance to halt Hitler’s aggression. Incredibly, the French and British governments dallied, talks failed, and in August 1939 the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact with Germany. Michael Carley’s gripping account of these negotiations is not a pretty story. It is about the failures of appeasement and collective security in Europe. It is about moral depravity and blindness, about villains and cowards, and about heroes who stood against the intellectual and popular tides of their time. Some died for their beliefs, others labored in obscurity and have been nearly forgotten. In 1939 they sought to make the Grand Alliance that never was between France, Britain, and the Soviet Union. This story of their efforts is background to the wartime alliance created in 1941 without France but with the United States in order to defeat a demonic enemy. 1939 is based upon Mr. Carley’s longtime research on the period, including work in French, British, and newly opened Soviet archives. He challenges prevailing interpretations of the origins of World War II by situating 1939 at the end of the early cold war between the Soviet Union, France, and Britain, and by showing how anti-communism was the major cause of the failure to form an alliance against Hitler. 1939 was published on September 1, the sixtieth anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland and the start of the war.
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee
ISBN: 146169938X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
At a crucial point in the twentieth century, as Nazi Germany prepared for war, negotiations between Britain, France, and the Soviet Union became the last chance to halt Hitler’s aggression. Incredibly, the French and British governments dallied, talks failed, and in August 1939 the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact with Germany. Michael Carley’s gripping account of these negotiations is not a pretty story. It is about the failures of appeasement and collective security in Europe. It is about moral depravity and blindness, about villains and cowards, and about heroes who stood against the intellectual and popular tides of their time. Some died for their beliefs, others labored in obscurity and have been nearly forgotten. In 1939 they sought to make the Grand Alliance that never was between France, Britain, and the Soviet Union. This story of their efforts is background to the wartime alliance created in 1941 without France but with the United States in order to defeat a demonic enemy. 1939 is based upon Mr. Carley’s longtime research on the period, including work in French, British, and newly opened Soviet archives. He challenges prevailing interpretations of the origins of World War II by situating 1939 at the end of the early cold war between the Soviet Union, France, and Britain, and by showing how anti-communism was the major cause of the failure to form an alliance against Hitler. 1939 was published on September 1, the sixtieth anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland and the start of the war.
The Devils' Alliance
Author: Roger Moorhouse
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465054927
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 341
Book Description
History remembers the Soviets and the Nazis as bitter enemies and ideological rivals, the two mammoth and opposing totalitarian regimes of World War II whose conflict would be the defining and deciding clash of the war. Yet for nearly a third of the conflict's entire timespan, Hitler and Stalin stood side by side as partners. The Pact that they agreed had a profound -- and bloody -- impact on Europe, and is fundamental to understanding the development and denouement of the war. In The Devils' Alliance, acclaimed historian Roger Moorhouse explores the causes and implications of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, an unholy covenant whose creation and dissolution were crucial turning points in World War II. Forged by the German foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and his Soviet counterpart, Vyacheslav Molotov, the nonaggression treaty briefly united the two powers in a brutally efficient collaboration. Together, the Germans and Soviets quickly conquered and divided central and eastern Europe -- Poland, the Baltic States, Finland, and Bessarabia -- and the human cost was staggering: during the two years of the pact hundreds of thousands of people in central and eastern Europe caught between Hitler and Stalin were expropriated, deported, or killed. Fortunately for the Allies, the partnership ultimately soured, resulting in the surprise June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union. Ironically, however, the powers' exchange of materiel, blueprints, and technological expertise during the period of the Pact made possible a far more bloody and protracted war than would have otherwise been conceivable. Combining comprehensive research with a gripping narrative, The Devils' Alliance is the authoritative history of the Nazi-Soviet Pact -- and a portrait of the people whose lives were irrevocably altered by Hitler and Stalin's nefarious collaboration.
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465054927
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 341
Book Description
History remembers the Soviets and the Nazis as bitter enemies and ideological rivals, the two mammoth and opposing totalitarian regimes of World War II whose conflict would be the defining and deciding clash of the war. Yet for nearly a third of the conflict's entire timespan, Hitler and Stalin stood side by side as partners. The Pact that they agreed had a profound -- and bloody -- impact on Europe, and is fundamental to understanding the development and denouement of the war. In The Devils' Alliance, acclaimed historian Roger Moorhouse explores the causes and implications of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, an unholy covenant whose creation and dissolution were crucial turning points in World War II. Forged by the German foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and his Soviet counterpart, Vyacheslav Molotov, the nonaggression treaty briefly united the two powers in a brutally efficient collaboration. Together, the Germans and Soviets quickly conquered and divided central and eastern Europe -- Poland, the Baltic States, Finland, and Bessarabia -- and the human cost was staggering: during the two years of the pact hundreds of thousands of people in central and eastern Europe caught between Hitler and Stalin were expropriated, deported, or killed. Fortunately for the Allies, the partnership ultimately soured, resulting in the surprise June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union. Ironically, however, the powers' exchange of materiel, blueprints, and technological expertise during the period of the Pact made possible a far more bloody and protracted war than would have otherwise been conceivable. Combining comprehensive research with a gripping narrative, The Devils' Alliance is the authoritative history of the Nazi-Soviet Pact -- and a portrait of the people whose lives were irrevocably altered by Hitler and Stalin's nefarious collaboration.
Munich, 1938
Author: David Faber
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439149925
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 538
Book Description
On September 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew back to London from his meeting in Munich with German Chancellor Adolf Hitler. As he disembarked from the aircraft, he held aloft a piece of paper, which contained the promise that Britain and Germany would never go to war with one another again. He had returned bringing “Peace with honour—Peace for our time.” Drawing on a wealth of archival material, acclaimed historian David Faber delivers a sweeping reassessment of the extraordinary events of 1938, tracing the key incidents leading up to the Munich Conference and its immediate aftermath: Lord Halifax’s ill-fated meeting with Hitler; Chamberlain’s secret discussions with Mussolini; and the Berlin scandal that rocked Hitler’s regime. He takes us to Vienna, to the Sudentenland, and to Prague. In Berlin, we witness Hitler inexorably preparing for war, even in the face of opposition from his own generals; in London, we watch as Chamberlain makes one supreme effort after another to appease Hitler. Resonating with an insider’s feel for the political infighting Faber uncovers, Munich, 1938 transports us to the war rooms and bunkers, revealing the covert negotiations and scandals upon which the world’s fate would rest. It is modern history writing at its best.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439149925
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 538
Book Description
On September 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew back to London from his meeting in Munich with German Chancellor Adolf Hitler. As he disembarked from the aircraft, he held aloft a piece of paper, which contained the promise that Britain and Germany would never go to war with one another again. He had returned bringing “Peace with honour—Peace for our time.” Drawing on a wealth of archival material, acclaimed historian David Faber delivers a sweeping reassessment of the extraordinary events of 1938, tracing the key incidents leading up to the Munich Conference and its immediate aftermath: Lord Halifax’s ill-fated meeting with Hitler; Chamberlain’s secret discussions with Mussolini; and the Berlin scandal that rocked Hitler’s regime. He takes us to Vienna, to the Sudentenland, and to Prague. In Berlin, we witness Hitler inexorably preparing for war, even in the face of opposition from his own generals; in London, we watch as Chamberlain makes one supreme effort after another to appease Hitler. Resonating with an insider’s feel for the political infighting Faber uncovers, Munich, 1938 transports us to the war rooms and bunkers, revealing the covert negotiations and scandals upon which the world’s fate would rest. It is modern history writing at its best.
1938
Author: Giles MacDonogh
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1459620399
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 574
Book Description
In this masterful narrative, acclaimed historian Giles MacDonogh chronicles Adolf Hitler's consolidation of power over the course of one year. Until 1938, Hitler could be dismissed as a ruthless but efficient dictator, a problem to Germany alone; after 1938 he was clearly a threat to the entire world.
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1459620399
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 574
Book Description
In this masterful narrative, acclaimed historian Giles MacDonogh chronicles Adolf Hitler's consolidation of power over the course of one year. Until 1938, Hitler could be dismissed as a ruthless but efficient dictator, a problem to Germany alone; after 1938 he was clearly a threat to the entire world.
The Bell of Treason
Author: P. E. Caquet
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 1590510526
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
Drawing on a wealth of previously unexamined material, this staggering account sheds new light on the Allies’ responsibility for a landmark agreement that had dire consequences. On returning from Germany on September 30, 1938, after signing an agreement with Hitler on the carve-up of Czechoslovakia, Neville Chamberlain addressed the British crowds: “My good friends…I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.” Winston Churchill rejoined: “You have chosen dishonor and you will have war.” P. E. Caquet’s history of the events leading to the Munich Agreement and its aftermath is told for the first time from the point of view of the peoples of Czechoslovakia. Basing his work on previously unexamined sources, including press, memoirs, private journals, army plans, cabinet records, and radio, Caquet presents one of the most shameful episodes in modern European history. Among his most explosive revelations is the strength of the French and Czechoslovak forces before Munich; Germany’s dominance turns out to have been an illusion. The case for appeasement never existed. The result is a nail-biting story of diplomatic intrigue, perhaps the nearest thing to a morality play that history ever furnishes. The Czechoslovak authorities were Cassandras in their own country, the only ones who could see Hitler’s threat for what it was, and appeasement as the disaster it proved to be. In Caquet’s devastating account, their doomed struggle against extinction and the complacency of their notional allies finally gets the memorial it deserves.
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 1590510526
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
Drawing on a wealth of previously unexamined material, this staggering account sheds new light on the Allies’ responsibility for a landmark agreement that had dire consequences. On returning from Germany on September 30, 1938, after signing an agreement with Hitler on the carve-up of Czechoslovakia, Neville Chamberlain addressed the British crowds: “My good friends…I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.” Winston Churchill rejoined: “You have chosen dishonor and you will have war.” P. E. Caquet’s history of the events leading to the Munich Agreement and its aftermath is told for the first time from the point of view of the peoples of Czechoslovakia. Basing his work on previously unexamined sources, including press, memoirs, private journals, army plans, cabinet records, and radio, Caquet presents one of the most shameful episodes in modern European history. Among his most explosive revelations is the strength of the French and Czechoslovak forces before Munich; Germany’s dominance turns out to have been an illusion. The case for appeasement never existed. The result is a nail-biting story of diplomatic intrigue, perhaps the nearest thing to a morality play that history ever furnishes. The Czechoslovak authorities were Cassandras in their own country, the only ones who could see Hitler’s threat for what it was, and appeasement as the disaster it proved to be. In Caquet’s devastating account, their doomed struggle against extinction and the complacency of their notional allies finally gets the memorial it deserves.
The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War
Author: Geoffrey C. Roberts
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1349241245
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
Historians have heatedly debated the Soviet role in the origins of the Second World War for more than 50 years. At the centre of these controversies stands the question of Soviet relations with Nazi Germany and the Stalin-Hitler pact of 1939. Drawing on a wealth of new material from the Soviet Archives, this detailed and original study analyses Moscow's response to the rise of Hitler, explains the origins of the Nazi-Soviet pact, and charts the road to Operation Barbarossa and the disaster of the surprise German attack on the USSR in June 1941.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1349241245
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
Historians have heatedly debated the Soviet role in the origins of the Second World War for more than 50 years. At the centre of these controversies stands the question of Soviet relations with Nazi Germany and the Stalin-Hitler pact of 1939. Drawing on a wealth of new material from the Soviet Archives, this detailed and original study analyses Moscow's response to the rise of Hitler, explains the origins of the Nazi-Soviet pact, and charts the road to Operation Barbarossa and the disaster of the surprise German attack on the USSR in June 1941.
Hitler's War
Author: Harry Turtledove
Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN: 034551565X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 513
Book Description
A stroke of the pen and history is changed. In 1938, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, determined to avoid war, signed the Munich Accord, ceding part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. But the following spring, Hitler snatched the rest of that country, and England, after a fatal act of appeasement, was fighting a war for which it was not prepared. Now, in this thrilling alternate history, another scenario is played out: What if Chamberlain had not signed the accord? In this action-packed chronicle of the war that might have been, Harry Turtledove uses dozens of points of view to tell the story: from American marines serving in Japanese-occupied China and ragtag volunteers fighting in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in Spain to an American woman desperately trying to escape Nazi-occupied territory—and witnessing the war from within the belly of the beast. A tale of powerful leaders and ordinary people, at once brilliantly imaginative and hugely entertaining, Hitler’s War captures the beginning of a very different World War II—with a very different fate for our world today. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Harry Turtledove's The War that Came Early: West and East.
Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN: 034551565X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 513
Book Description
A stroke of the pen and history is changed. In 1938, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, determined to avoid war, signed the Munich Accord, ceding part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. But the following spring, Hitler snatched the rest of that country, and England, after a fatal act of appeasement, was fighting a war for which it was not prepared. Now, in this thrilling alternate history, another scenario is played out: What if Chamberlain had not signed the accord? In this action-packed chronicle of the war that might have been, Harry Turtledove uses dozens of points of view to tell the story: from American marines serving in Japanese-occupied China and ragtag volunteers fighting in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in Spain to an American woman desperately trying to escape Nazi-occupied territory—and witnessing the war from within the belly of the beast. A tale of powerful leaders and ordinary people, at once brilliantly imaginative and hugely entertaining, Hitler’s War captures the beginning of a very different World War II—with a very different fate for our world today. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Harry Turtledove's The War that Came Early: West and East.
Failure of a Mission
Author: Nevile Henderson
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1789127858
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 397
Book Description
THIS UNIQUE PERSONAL NARRATIVE REVEALS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN DRAMATIC DETAILS THE ENTIRE STORY OF THE COMING OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR The thousands of Americans who read the spirited account of Sir Nevile Henderson’s conversation with Ribbentrop in the fateful hours before the German invasion of Poland will realize the importance and guess at the interest of this book. Henderson, a British diplomat of long experience and proven character, was ambassador for his country in Berlin from 1937 to 1939. This is the story of his attempt, and his failure, to avert the calamity of European war... “Sir Nevile Henderson’s book is the first personal memoir we have had of the beginnings of the second world war. This would in itself ensure its importance. But quite aside from this it is a book of exceptional quality. It tells things that very few other people in the world could tell with such detachment. Henderson describes in detail his allegedly ‘pro-German’ course at the beginning, and then his swiftly rising disillusion, until—step by excruciating step—the grisly business was complete. It is not an indiscreet book—no one of the type of Sir Nevile Henderson could ever be more than mildly indiscreet—but there are sidelights on the Nazi leaders of the utmost value. I read these pages with complete fascination. They are indispensable to the student of the contemporary world tragedy.”—JOHN GUNTHER, Authority on World Affairs “Upon his recollections of those last stirring days of peace historians will base much.”—THE NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE “Failure of a Mission reveals the failure of diplomacy when faced by brute force....Here is history itself recorded by one of its helpless human instruments. It is not often that a diplomat records his failure with such engaging frankness. This is the first source book on the second World War. It will remain one of the most important.”—H. V. KALTENBORN, Radio News Commentator
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1789127858
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 397
Book Description
THIS UNIQUE PERSONAL NARRATIVE REVEALS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN DRAMATIC DETAILS THE ENTIRE STORY OF THE COMING OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR The thousands of Americans who read the spirited account of Sir Nevile Henderson’s conversation with Ribbentrop in the fateful hours before the German invasion of Poland will realize the importance and guess at the interest of this book. Henderson, a British diplomat of long experience and proven character, was ambassador for his country in Berlin from 1937 to 1939. This is the story of his attempt, and his failure, to avert the calamity of European war... “Sir Nevile Henderson’s book is the first personal memoir we have had of the beginnings of the second world war. This would in itself ensure its importance. But quite aside from this it is a book of exceptional quality. It tells things that very few other people in the world could tell with such detachment. Henderson describes in detail his allegedly ‘pro-German’ course at the beginning, and then his swiftly rising disillusion, until—step by excruciating step—the grisly business was complete. It is not an indiscreet book—no one of the type of Sir Nevile Henderson could ever be more than mildly indiscreet—but there are sidelights on the Nazi leaders of the utmost value. I read these pages with complete fascination. They are indispensable to the student of the contemporary world tragedy.”—JOHN GUNTHER, Authority on World Affairs “Upon his recollections of those last stirring days of peace historians will base much.”—THE NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE “Failure of a Mission reveals the failure of diplomacy when faced by brute force....Here is history itself recorded by one of its helpless human instruments. It is not often that a diplomat records his failure with such engaging frankness. This is the first source book on the second World War. It will remain one of the most important.”—H. V. KALTENBORN, Radio News Commentator
June 1940, Great Britain and the First Attempt to Build a European Union
Author: Andrea Bosco
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443896381
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 390
Book Description
June 2016 represents a significant moment in British history. The decision to leave the European Union at the most critical period since its existence could bring unpredictable and far-reaching consequences both for the United Kingdom and the Union itself. June 1940 was also a turning point in British history. On the afternoon of 16 June, a few hours before the French Government opted for the capitulation, Churchill made, on behalf of the British Government, an offer of “indissoluble union.” When a sceptical Churchill put forward to the British Cabinet the text of the declaration drafted by Jean Monnet, Sir Arthur Salter, and Robert Vansittart, he was surprised at the amount of support it received. The Cabinet adopted the document with some minor amendments, and de Gaulle, who saw it as a means of keeping France in the war, telephoned Reynaud with the proposal for an “indissoluble union” with “joint organs of defence, foreign, financial and economic policies,” a common citizenship and a single War Cabinet. The proposal, however, never reached the table of the French Government. The spirit of capitulation, embodied in Weygand and Pétain prevailed, and France submitted herself to the German will, for the second time in seventy years. After the Munich crisis, Great Britain had to face the danger of another European war, with the inevitable loss of the Empire, and it was at this point that the country first began to favour the application of the federalist principle to Anglo-French relations. In this conversion to federalism, a fundamental role was played by the Federal Union, the first federalist movement organised on a popular basis. The contribution of Federal Union to the development of the federal idea in Great Britain and Europe was to express and organise the beginning of a new political militancy, and it represented the first step of a historical process: the overcoming of the nation State, the modern political formula which institutionalises the political division of mankind. This study principally examines the first eighteen months of the Federal Union, during which time it was able to raise itself to the attention of the general public, and the political class, as the heir of the League of Nations Union. The research is based on extensive unpublished archival material, found across the globe, from London, Oxford, Brighton, and Edinburgh to Washington, Paris, and Geneva.
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443896381
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 390
Book Description
June 2016 represents a significant moment in British history. The decision to leave the European Union at the most critical period since its existence could bring unpredictable and far-reaching consequences both for the United Kingdom and the Union itself. June 1940 was also a turning point in British history. On the afternoon of 16 June, a few hours before the French Government opted for the capitulation, Churchill made, on behalf of the British Government, an offer of “indissoluble union.” When a sceptical Churchill put forward to the British Cabinet the text of the declaration drafted by Jean Monnet, Sir Arthur Salter, and Robert Vansittart, he was surprised at the amount of support it received. The Cabinet adopted the document with some minor amendments, and de Gaulle, who saw it as a means of keeping France in the war, telephoned Reynaud with the proposal for an “indissoluble union” with “joint organs of defence, foreign, financial and economic policies,” a common citizenship and a single War Cabinet. The proposal, however, never reached the table of the French Government. The spirit of capitulation, embodied in Weygand and Pétain prevailed, and France submitted herself to the German will, for the second time in seventy years. After the Munich crisis, Great Britain had to face the danger of another European war, with the inevitable loss of the Empire, and it was at this point that the country first began to favour the application of the federalist principle to Anglo-French relations. In this conversion to federalism, a fundamental role was played by the Federal Union, the first federalist movement organised on a popular basis. The contribution of Federal Union to the development of the federal idea in Great Britain and Europe was to express and organise the beginning of a new political militancy, and it represented the first step of a historical process: the overcoming of the nation State, the modern political formula which institutionalises the political division of mankind. This study principally examines the first eighteen months of the Federal Union, during which time it was able to raise itself to the attention of the general public, and the political class, as the heir of the League of Nations Union. The research is based on extensive unpublished archival material, found across the globe, from London, Oxford, Brighton, and Edinburgh to Washington, Paris, and Geneva.