This, along with Clare Boothe and Jules Romain (now running in the S.E.P.) will doubtless headline the anschluss of books on France. Maurois speaks from the vantage point of French Official Observer attached to British General Headquarters. He knew the men on top, -- Gamelin, Weygand, Gord, Bonnet, Reynaud, Daladier. He shows a country undermined by propaganda -- a government dictated by Big Business -- eight months wasted in shillyshallying -- individual animus and jealousy. Then he shows the German advance, succeeding because of ill-equipped forces, fleeing refugees. Not as analytical nor as hard-hitting as the Heinz Pol (see below). Is Maurois perhaps too patriotic to strike at the existing French government; is he fearful of the Fascist manipulators? He skirts the truths, is superficial in his probing. It will probably go on his name, but it is not so good a book as the Pol.