Gérard Araud's essay opens with a dedication to the French dead of May and June 1940, those 100,000 soldiers quickly engulfed in the infamy of defeat and the horrors of the Occupation that followed.
It is to justify their vain courage that the former French ambassador in Washington undertakes to retrace the diplomatic history of France between the two wars.
The title of the book,
We Were Alone
, clearly shows its purpose: as soon as Germany's defeat was recorded and the Treaty of Versailles was signed, national selfishness returned, favoring the economic interests of some (England and the United States) and sparing pride. injured others (Germany);
our Anglo-Saxon allies showing complacency towards the vanquished.
Faced with this situation, the French leaders, whose country has paid a heavy price, seem quite alone.
Thus the years pass: the Treaty of Versailles, reparations, Locarno, the Rhineland, Spain... United Europe in the face of the German revenge that is brewing...
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