In the course of 1943, London and Algiers gradually became aware of the scope of the STO crisis, and of the proliferation of mountain redoubts formed spontaneously by STO refugees known collectively as le maquis. While the Allied camp was keen to operationalize this maquis, everyone had different motives for doing so, both operational and political. These considerations caused Allied planners to minimize the military limitations of the maquis, that included the inviolability of “maquis redoubts” and the willingness and ability of Anglo-American conventional forces rapidly to reinforce them with arms drops and paratroops. The fate of the maquis at Glières should have served as a wake-up call. But too many players had too much vested in the maquis concept to submit their expectations to a reality check. One result was that the myth of an alleged “betrayal” of the maquis by the Gaullists and the Allies became the focus of a polemical debate in the post-war years pursued principally by the communists, but also a theme in films and novels.

This chapter revisits the arguments of the book concerning France’s experience of the Second World War – the debate over the Fall of France in 1940 that swings between “Decadence” and revisionist “Contingency,” and systemic collapse or “military misfortune.” The period after 1940 saw France struggle to recover its power and influence through two opposing strategies – Vichy through collaboration with Germany, whereas de Gaulle sided with the Allies. While de Gaulle proved the more strategically insightful, his struggle was, unfortunately, inhibited by diminutive numbers, which, to Eisenhower’s ire, contributed to a faltering French military performance in 1944–1945, emphasizing the fact that 1940 had reduced France to the status of a courtesy power in Allied eyes. Furthermore, like many leaders of France’s internal resistance, Franklin Roosevelt remained deeply skeptical of de Gaulle’s democratic intentions. Upon Liberation, de Gaulle maneuvered to restore the French state not only against the Americans, who refused to recognize the Gouvernement provisoire de la République française, but also against the chaos caused by resistance “feudals” with their own political agendas. Nor did l’amalgame of 1944 repair severely damaged French civil–military relations. The “resistance myth” underpinned France’s liberation narrative, one embraced by multiple actors led by de Gaulle, whose purpose was to minimize the pivotal role of the Allies and Africans in France’s liberation, exclude 1940, POWs, and Vichy collaboration from France’s wartime memory, and mask the fact that the “post-war” era found France in a weak position to reassert power over an empire where wartime mobilization had transformed mentalities, as the aftershock of wars of imperial independence was to prove. The mild punishments and blanket amnesties issued for wartime collaboration, the onset of the Cold War, which allowed former Vichy supporters to evoke a “lost cause” anti-communist “shield of France” alibi for their murderous conduct, and refusal to accept France’s role in the Shoah combined to undermine Gaullist promises of “renewal.” In fact, the post-war Fourth Republic resembled in essentials its pre-war predecessor.

Anfa had set French rearmament at eleven army divisions on a US model, as well as a French air force, and a refurbished French navy, all of which would prove difficult to accomplish with purely imperial manpower, so that a growing resistance on the French mainland might fill the manpower gap and bolster French clout in the alliance. This concept received a trial run with the September 1943 liberation of Corsica, a campaign which allowed de Gaulle to oust Giraud from the CFLN, while revealing both the military ineffectiveness of the resistance and the political agenda of the communists. As a consequence, de Gaulle began to put a structure in place to control events upon liberation of the hexagon, while beginning a purge of former Vichy elements in AFN, a task that would prove divisive in the middle of a war. The benefits of the Italian campaign for the French were two. First, the removal of much of l’armée d’Afrique from AFN allowed de Gaulle’s consolidation of power there. Second, the Juin-orchestrated May 1944 breakthrough at Monte Cassino allowed l’armée d’Afrique to recover its combat laurels in a very tough military environment. Unfortunately, the rapes carried out by some members of the CEF following the breakthrough on the Garigliano called into question the command climate and tacit complicity of the CEF hierarchy, while the fallout momentarily poisoned relations between the French and Italian governments.

The Dragoon landings succeeded at relatively little cost largely because Hitler ordered German forces in the south of France to retreat. Controversy over the seizure of Toulon and Marseille revealed command tensions at the summit of l’Armée B that would simmer for the remainder of the war. Despite considerable efforts to arm resistance in France, its military contribution to liberation disappointed expectations. Nevertheless, various personalities and political factions in France, beginning with de Gaulle, attempted to exploit resistance as a source of political legitimacy and/or to further personal ambition. While the BBC kept captive populations informed, and propaganda helped to discredit collaboration, inspire hope for liberation, and encourage certain forms of resistance, it succeeded neither in transforming resistance into a mass movement nor in triggering a national insurrection. In the end, the Germans were defeated by military force, not propaganda. Nevertheless, the image of popular resistance helped to rehabilitate France’s image tarnished by 1940 followed by Vichy collaboration, as well as to legitimize de Gaulle, all of which smoothed the transition of power from Vichy to the GPRF while dodging civil war. France’s popular mobilization also testified to republican renewal, which helped to rehabilitate France’s status as a minor ally. Beyond its negligible operational impact, historians struggle to calculate the influence of resistance activity, in part because intangible psychological and morale factors are impossible to quantify. France would have been liberated in any case without the resistance, but perhaps not on the same terms. Despite the momentary disorder, even anarchy, of the Liberation, ultimately the resistance helped to smooth the transition from Vichy to the GPRF. But its memorial image was conflicted by political infighting and violent acts that brought down retribution on the French population. Furthermore, the post-war mythification of national “resistance” not only distorted its nature and contribution to victory. It also exiled from France’s wartime memory other victims of war and occupation to include POWs, STO, Jews, and even les forces françaises libres.

One of de Gaulle’s great successes in the Second World War was to allow France to punch above its weight in the Alliance. However, the French army struggled to match in military proficiency de Gaulle’s lofty aspirations for French power and influence. The Vosges campaign proved yet another punishing trial for the French army. Its professional cadres seriously attrited in Tunisia, in Italy, and in the march from the Mediterranean coast, distant from its North African base, utterly dependent on the Americans for supplies, the command echelon riven by rivalries of a political, doctrinal, and personal nature, the poorly equipped First French Army was forced to endure a bitter campaign in the harshest of winter conditions, while simultaneously “amalgamating” clusters of poorly trained and disciplined FFI and volunteers. While the reconquest of Alsace and that of the “Atlantic pockets” were symbolically important to de Gaulle and the French, they were low priorities for the SHAEF commander, whose mission for Sixth Army Group was to “hold the flank” while advances were to be made further north. Eisenhower’s personal rivalry with Jacob Devers, combined with a lack of confidence in the volatile de Lattre and a rebuilding French army, possibly caused him to “miss opportunities” for an early crossing of the Rhine in late November 1944, and the disruption of the German Ardennes offensive, which caught him by surprise on 16 December. While Eisenhower blamed Devers and de Lattre’s timorousness and lack of mastery of armored warfare for the persistence of the Colmar Pocket, and pressured Sixth Army Group to eliminate it, he constantly diverted resources which might have allowed them to do so to Patton. Tensions between de Gaulle’s political agenda and Eisenhower’s operational focus, apparent since Algiers in 1942, exploded with the Strasbourg crisis of January 1945, which was successfully resolved only after Churchill’s intervention. However, the Allied failure to clarify the French role in the post-war occupation of Germany created conditions for further clashes between Eisenhower and the French during the culminating invasion of Germany.

The Allied bet that they could reach Tunis ahead of Axis forces fell victim to hesitancy, delay, and confusion at the top of the French command, that communicated downward to subordinates. In a situation that combined uncertainty with pusillanimity in the French leadership, Axis forces flowed into Tunisia. The Allies viewed the resulting campaign as both costly and unnecessary. That said, the decision by the Axis leaders to defend Europe from Tunisia arguably made “Tunisgrad” more consequential than Stalingrad. It also marked an ambiguous entry of the hitherto Vichy French forces into an Allied coalition, that, in the view of French commander in chief Alphonse Juin, “erased the memory of Dunkirk.” Nevertheless, quickly exasperated by infighting between Gaullists and “Giraudists,” the Allies continued to suspect both the loyalty and the military potential of poorly armed French forces.

The Tunis victory parade, followed by the “fusion” of the Free French and l’armée d’Afrique, symbolized a transition between the old and new French army, rearmed as the result of the Anfa conference, so that French troops might take part in the liberation of their country. For France to assume its “place among the democratic nations of the world,” the French exile movements of de Gaulle and Giraud needed to cooperate, while a third resistance army was mobilizing within the hexagon. How to coordinate, “fuse,” and “amalgamate” these three forces would preoccupy French and Allied leaders for the remainder of the war. Resurrecting French military power in an impoverished and fractious French North Africa would prove problematic. De Gaulle’s 30 May 1943 appearance in Algiers launched his struggle with Giraud for control of the CFLN. The two factions competed to recruit the trickle of évadés de France to Casablanca via Spain, as well as women to fill non-combatant roles, a rivalry, tinged with rancor, that would linger until the war’s end, and become even more complex when the internal resistance was added to the mix. These minor “crises” highlighted just how diminutive French forces actually were in the larger context of the war. They also signaled that French and Allied goals would diverge, as the French leader prioritized the preservation of empire; the restoration of order and the State upon liberation; and securing France’s post-war interests in Germany.

Nobody knows the identity or background of the Roman author Q. Curtius Rufus, or when he wrote his History of Alexander the Great. This text along with Arrian’s Anabasis, Plutarch’s Life of Alexander, Diodorus Siculus Book 17 and Justin’s Epitome of Trogus Books 11–12 and the Metz Epitome is one of the main ancient sources on the reign and campaigns of the Macedonian conqueror. This chapter surveys current thinking on Curtius’ history, including issues like the historian’s probable sources, his literary structure, intertexuality and his characterization of Alexander. In particular the chapter explores the historian’s excursuses – in which he appears to be speaking in propria persona on Alexander’s personality as well as his portrayal of Alexander’s relationships with women, including the Athenian courtesan, Thais ,and the Amazon queen, Thalestris, and especially, the Persian queen, Sisygambis, the mother of Darius III.

As the principal sources of Arrian, Ptolemy and Aristobulus occupy a privileged position in the historiographical tradition on Alexander, although their histories survive only in fragments. Both wrote eyewitness accounts of Alexander’s expedition, and offer valuable insight as to how Alexander spun some of the more controversial aspects to his contemporaries. Ptolemy was a high-ranking officer, and so his history focused on the military events, in which he exaggerated his own contributions in order to portray himself as a worthy successor to Alexander. He also emphasized his close association with Alexander (reconfigured as a Ptolemaic predecessor) in order to legitimate the foundation of his future dynasty in Egypt. Aristobulus’ role on the expedition, on the other hand, appears not to have been a military one. His generally eulogistic treatment of Alexander focuses upon his clemency, although occasionally overt criticisms of his ruthless imperialism and increasing megalomania can be discerned. Because Aristobulus is largely unknown apart from the authorship of his history, it is difficult to ascertain in whose interest he manipulated the figure of Alexander, whose memory had become hotly contested in the turbulent years after his premature death.

The chapter considers the motivation for Alexander the Great’s expedition to India, which took him beyond the limits of the Persian Empire he had set out to conquer. Ambition (pothos) is seen as more probable than either strategic necessity or scientific curiosity. The course of the campaign from November 326 to July 325 BC is outlined, and the reasons for the savagery of the fighting during the journey down the Indus are considered. The chapter also reviews the impact of Alexander’s encounter with the ‘naked philosophers’ of Taxila. One of them, Calanus, travelled with Alexander until his death, and it is suggested that his conversation made an impression on another of Alexander’s companions, the philosopher Pyrrho, who became known as the founder of scepticism. The paper also reviews the legacy of Alexander in India. Foremost is the detailed account of India written by Megasthenes, a former member of Alexander’s army and ambassador from Seleucus to Candragupta. Indo-Greek dynasties persisted in north-west India for two centuries after Alexander’s death, but to narrate this history would go beyond the subject. The chapter looks briefly at the evidence for other Greeks who left records of their residence in India.

An epilogue explores several topics regarding the future of modern air warfare. The first section offers recommendations for how the United States can better prepare for modern air warfare. The second considers air power in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations. The third anticipates the role of air power in extending deterrence to allies. The fourth demonstrates how TAP theory can assess the potential effectiveness of air power by analyzing the Russian Air Force in the Battle of Kyiv. The final section considers additional challenges facing the United States during an emerging era of great power competition.

Alexander’s treaties and dealings with the Greek poleis mainly followed the path set by his father’s military success and diplomatic skills. The League of Corinth, an alliance between the states of the Common Peace with the aim of revenge against the Persian invasion of 480–79 BC was renewed by Alexander just after he became king. But the destruction of Thebes in 335 BC soon showed the Greeks that Alexander was ruthless in his authority, and it left a deep impression on them, for the only rebellion against Macedon with was the monor one of Agis III of Sparta, who failed to subdue Antipater’s armies. In Asia Minor, Alexander treated the Greek poleis as it suited him, with rewards for friends and punishments and for foes. During the conquest of the Achaemenid Empire, Alexander settled Greek populations in the new spear-won landscapes, spreading the Greek culture as he travelled, surrounded in his court by artists, philosophers and many other Greek intellectuals.