From Versailles to Mers El-Kébir

Book excerpt: "This book concerns itself with one of the most unlikely relationships in the two decades before World War II: the alliance of the Royal Navy and the French fleet. By the mid 1930s, both fleets had overextended themselves with global defense commitments, owing mainly to the collapse of the world war alliances and to an ominous shift in the balance of world naval power. To maximize their power, England and France combined their assets in a naval alliance. The union was not an altogether happy one, but it survived in one form or another until the British attack upon the French fleet at Mers el-Kaebir in 1940. George E. Melton brings new insights to the diplomacy that led to this often strained cooperation, and reinterprets some of the most important events of early World War II"--