Vichy's Double Bind

Karine Varley is Lecturer in French and European History at the University of Strathclyde, having previously lectured at Durham University and the University of Edinburgh. She is a graduate of the Universities of Cambridge, Leeds and Royal Holloway, London. She has published widely on nineteenth- and twentieth-century European history, including Under the Shadow of Defeat: The War of 1870–71 in French Memory (2008) and (ed. with Marco Maria Aterrano), A Fascist Decade of War: 1935–1945 in International Perspective ( 2020). Her research has been supported by grants from the British Academy, Carnegie Trust and Royal Society of Edinburgh.

'The book is providing an intriguing thesis on a still obscure topic of the Second World War, by underlining the fractious triangular relationship between Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the French collaborationist regime of Vichy. By showing the French willingness to play the Axis countries against each other, it nuances our diplomatic perspective of the Vichy regime in those fateful years.' Emanuele Sica, author of Mussolini's Army in the French Riviera

• Introduction; Part I. Diplomacy and Politics: 1. Sowing the Seeds: From the Abyssinia Crisis to the Armistice; 2. Pivoting Between Alignments: July to December 1940; 3. Playing Rome against Berlin: December 1940 to March 1942; 4. Compliance and Defiance: April 1942 to September 1943; 5. The Absence of Collaborationism; Part II. Local Encounters: 6. The Menace Within: July 1940 to November 1942; 7. Annexation by Stealth: Italian Occupation from June 1940 to November 1942; 8. Confronting Italian Occupation: November 1942 to September 1943; Conclusion; Bibliography.