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In 1940 the French general staff was led by General Maurice Gamelan, an officer widely respected. A veteran and war hero of the First World War, he was credited developing the strategy that led to the decisive French victory at the Marne in 1914. He had also tried unsuccessfully, to modernize the army. But Gamelin was suffering from a serious illness, whose symptoms included poor concentration levels, memory loss and other cognitive difficulties Gamelin’s own memoirs, published after the war showed symptoms of paranoia and delusions of grandeur . <ref> Jackson, Julian T. The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940. Oxford UP, 2003), p. 234</ref>.. The military leadership below Gamelin was generally poor. They were slow to respond to the Germans and there was a marked reluctance to take the any initiative and go on the attack. The political leadership of France was also very poor. According to one French commentator during the war, they could not inspire the French people, they were more interested in fighting among themselves that the Germans.<ref>Jackson, p 235</ref>.

France was bitterly divided between the left and the right and this meant that there was a . This lack of unity in France was crippling at a critical crucial juncturein the war. Moreover, The division also extended to the relationships between the military and political leadership of France was divided. The French Generals were rights wing and distrusted the left wing politicians and many who ran France. French ministers also did not trust the Generalsjudgement of their generals. Many of the The French officer corps were was more worried about a Communist revolution than the Germansa German invasion. For example, General Weygand was more concerned with maintaining social stability in the wake of the German invasion that than actually fighting the Germans. Many later accused some French Generals of being traitors. Perhaps the greatest weakness in the French leadership was that they did not have a true war leader, as one Frenchman stated in 1942, they ‘had no Churchill’. If France had a leader of the calibre of Clemenceau in 1940, perhaps the outcome of the Battle of France could have been different . <ref> Why Did the French Army Collapse So Quickly? – Omnibooks Magazine, (London July, 1942), p. 6</ref> .