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Continuing on from Arthur Marder’s previous book,From the Dardanelles to Oran: Studies of the Royal Navy in Peace 1915–1940 this next volume investigates the Allied expedition of September that year, with De Gaulle present, which unsuccessfully attempted to break the French at Dakar away from the Vichy Government.

A pet operation of Prime Minister Churchill, the operation was undertaken against all advice, and it turned out to be a fiasco. In the author’s words, “Menace exemplified, in its genesis, planning, and execution, all that can go wrong in warfare; an operation fouled up by unforeseen contingencies, the accidents of war, and human error, and against a background of undue political interference, inadequate planning, and half-baked co-operation between Allies.”

Using Admiralty and Cabinet papers, as well as private sources of information, Marder weaves a skilled course through all the complex material to produce a masterly case-study of how an operation is mounted and how it can go disastrously wrong. It is a classic, tragicomic illustration of the fog of war.