Defeat and Triumph: The Story of a Controversial Allied Invasion and French Rebirth (review)

Operation Anvil (later Dragoon), the Allied invasion of southern France in August 1944, is one of the more controversial events of the Second World War's western front. Caught in the vise of Anglo-American politics and the competing resource demands of operations in Normandy and Italy, its execution was doubtful until the first week of July. Like the campaign in northern Italy, the landings on the French Rivera were a side-show to the dramatic events taking place six hundred miles north. Years after the event, the merits and wisdom of this landing remained an element in the differing American and British narratives of the campaign in France. One of the participants in these events was Stephen Sussna, a sailor on one of the landing ships. Sixty years later, now an emeritus professor of law from City University of New York, Sussna wrote Defeat and Triumph to explain the details of this event and elevate its importance.

The author devotes the first half of his narrative to recounting the entire story of the war in the west from June 1940 through the planning of Anvil in 1944. He discusses a wide range of topics in this section, including an overview of French history from 1919 through the German invasion and the arrival in power of the Vichy government, American domestic history, and the campaigns in North Africa and Sicily. The next three chapters take the reader through the completion of the landing plans, the assaults, and the movement north to join with the other forces moving east from the Normandy bridgehead. The final two chapters concern lessons, the French contribution, and remembering those who participated.

Sussna argues that this story "has not received the scrutiny it merits, nor has it been placed in the context it deserves"(p. 2). While that may be true, this book does not rectify this historical omission. The presentation is an awkward mixture of individual accounts and military reports that leave the reader somewhat confused and unsatisfied. The story is at its best when the author describes the actual landings and the operations of the landing craft. Yet, the narrative suffers from a penchant for quoting large sections of after-action reports or personal statements verbatim. Furthermore, the presentation itself is disjointed, leaving the reader generally uninformed about the actual conduct of the landings. I also question if the history community has ignored the Operation Anvil/ Dragoon story. While not receiving attention akin to that accorded to the Normandy invasion or the Battle of the Bulge, most of the standard histories of the war in Western Europe discuss it. Jeffery Clarke and Robert Ross Smith's official Army history, Riviera to the Rhine (1992), provides a detailed account. Without doubt, the story of the landing from the perspective of the sailors who brought the soldiers ashore needs to be told. Unfortunately, this book does not fill that void.