Forgotten Blitzes: France and Italy under Allied Air Attack, 1940-1945

Comparative approach allows examination of relationships between bombed societies, their own regimes and the enemy

Claudia Baldoli is Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at Newcastle University, UK. Andrew Knapp is Professor of French Politics and Contemporary History at the University of Reading, UK.

1 Introduction \ 2 Purpose and politics: the Allies and the bombing of France and Italy \ 3 Preparing for catastrophe, 1930-1940 \ 4 Weak fascists and strong puppets? Governments and bombing, 1940-1945 \ 5 Civilians under the bombs: propaganda, morale, and rumour \ 6 Resistance, bombs and liberation \ 7 Conclusion

A masterly, searching and judicious examination of the British and American bombing of France and Italy, which were occupied by or allied to the Third Reich and harnessed to the German war machine. It explores the ambiguities of civilian losses under "friendly fire" and the relationship of Allied bombing to resistance activity, such as escape lines for downed pilots. Military and strategic questions are dissected alongside the reactions of the Vichy and Italian governments, the effectiveness of civil defence and evacuation plans, propaganda warfare and morale, solidarity with victims, profiteering and plunder. Based on a mass of archival documentation, this is a tour de force in the comparative history of total war.
Few are aware that a third or more of the 2.8 million tons of bombs and missiles that devastated Western Europe in the Second World War fell upon France and Italy. Even less well-known is that this bombing surpassed by an order of magnitude the Luftwaffe's best efforts, and killed almost twice as many civilians as Britain's 60,000 bombing dead. Forgotten Blitzes tells the story in vivid detail: Allied political, strategic, and operational calculations; the propaganda war over bombing; the largely ineffectual civil defence efforts of Vichy France and especially of Fascist Italy; and the desperation of the two societies under sustained bombardment. This impressively researched and highly readable work is a major contribution to our understanding both of air warfare and of the Second World War in western Europe.
This is a really important contribution to the historiography of the war. It is full of detail, but put together to make an enthralling narrative, and the topic is so significant that one wonders why nobody has tackled it before.