Major-General Sir edward Spears was liaison officer to the French in both world wars. In 1917 he reported the development of the French mutinies to the British military authorities, and it was to him that, after the war, General Pétain gave his personal account of the crisis. In 1940, as the accredited Personal Representative to Paul Reynaud, the French prime minister, he flew General de Gaulle out of Bordeaux in his own aeroplane.

[...] In the first part of this book he gives a vivid, personal account that includes descriptions of visits to the front; there is also a description of an interview with lloyd George in Downing Street during the height of the crisis which throws much light on the relations between generals and politicians at that stage of World War I.

The central section of the book consists of Pétain's own account of the mutinies, written in 1926 and now translated and published for the first time. [...]

In the final section of the book General Spears tells the story of how General de Gaulle handled an even more disastrous situation after the fall of France. The author was appointed the British Government Head of the Mission to General de Gaulle and was an eye-witness of the obstacles he met with in starting the Free French movement. [...]