William Tyler
Occupied France
William Tyler - Occupied France
- But I’m talking about a very dark period in history, particularly in the history of France. Today, I’m talking about occupied France, that is between the years 1940 and 1944, referred by the French as the dark years. In brief, I’m going to read, just so we start from the same song sheet, as it were, the beginning of a book called France: The Dark Years. It’s on my blog for any of you who wish to read it. France: The Dark Years, 1940-44 by Julian Jackson. And I think this is an excellent book. He begins in this way. “In France, the period between 1940 and 1944 "is known as the Dark Years. "In 1940, after a battle lasting only six weeks, "France suffered a catastrophic military defeat.” It did indeed, but worse was to come. Worse was to come. A catastrophic military defeat followed by the collapse of French democracy. Since 1789, we’ve been talking in terms of the French republic, largely the republic, but the odd kings and the odd empress. But largely we’ve been talking in terms of the republic forged at the time of the French Revolution and in a democratic France, to all intents and purposes. And that goes in the middle of the 20th century. It’s as though none of that had ever happened. And it’s not surprising that the French therefore call this period the Dark Years. And I know it’s not the done thing today to talk about individuals that affect history, but I’ve never really agreed with that. And I think in this case, Charles de Gaulle is a man who really did change history. He began from exile in London as France fell to create a picture of France, not perhaps an accurate historical picture, but a mythological picture of France. And it was very important for a fallen France that he did so because it kept alive the image, the thought of a republican democratic France.
And Julian Jackson writes this. “A desire to erase these years, ‘40 to '44, "from French history was widely shared. "De Gaulle in August, 1944 issued an ordinance "declaring that all Vichy legislation,” the fascist puppet government in France, “that all Vichy legislation was null and void. "History would resume where it had stopped in 1940.” That was the important message that de Gaulle gave. France had always been France, but in exile in London with de Gaulle leading it, the only minister in the last French government to be in exile and to boot, he was minister of defence for a very short period. And then also of course, the general. And de Gaulle symbolised for many French people the France of the past, the France of the revolution, the France of democracy, a free France. When de Gaulle, says Jackson, was asked in liberated Paris in 1944 to announce the restoration of the French republic, he refused on the grounds it had never ceased to exist because he had been the French republic in exile. This legal fiction became the foundation of a heroic reinterpretation of the Dark Years. And without de Gaulle, that might not have happened. Without de Gaulle, it is possible, at least possible that France may have landed up with a extreme left Marxist government. That’s possible. De Gaulle somehow, and we shall go on talking about de Gaulle after the war on Monday, de Gaulle somehow managed to, through his own personality, to be able to represent France and for the majority of French people to accept that. And so I don’t agree that people can’t alter the course of history. Had there not been a de Gaulle, what might have happened?
I’m not sure that very much would’ve happened. Any French military forces in Britain would simply, I think, have been merged into the British Army, as the Poles were. And without a political leadership, I’m not sure what might have happened when France was liberated after D-Day in '44. So de Gaulle created a myth which helped the French to live with the fact that many of them collaborated with the Germans, that there were untold horrors committed by French men and women, particularly during the Holocaust, against Jews, French Jews. So let’s look a little bit at what happened. Now, after I’ve spoken, Trudy is giving the first of her talks and she will talk about the French Holocaust and she’ll also talk about the French resistance amongst which there were many Jews. And I’m trying to lay the foundations for her to talk on. I’m trying to give you a picture of what happened. Now I’ve begun with de Gaulle because I think de Gaulle is important. You may disagree. I also began as I did because I want to emphasise this point, that it was the mythology that mattered and matters still in France. You can live with yourself if you accept the mythology. Don’t ask. Oh, back in the 1970s, my mother and father who were members of a Lions Club here in Britain were guests of a Lions Club in Normandy. And they were staying with a husband and wife. And I don’t know how or why they were talking about the war, in which of course my father had fought and my mother had been on the home front and so on and so forth. And the conversation was very difficult because it turned out that the husband was in the resistance and the woman had collaborated, basically, and they never talked about the war.
And that was a problem in France, a problem in marriages, let alone in people that you would meet casually. So what actually happened? Well, France went to war against Germany on the 3rd of September, 1939, the same day as Britain went to war. And why did we go to war? Well, because both countries had given an undertaking to Poland, a guarantee that they would declare war on Germany if Germany invaded Poland. Germany ignored all the petitions, if you like, all the arguments put forward by Britain and France, and it just didn’t take any notice. And on the 1st of September, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. And two days later, Britain and France go to war in the interest of Poland. But neither France or Britain could do anything to save Poland, and Poland falls. And then we have a very odd period in World War II, eight months of the so-called phoney war, a waiting game, if you like, a waiting game for the German armies again to advance west to France. Politically, on the 20th of March, 1940, Daladier’s French government fell and he was replaced by Reynaud. Now the same thing happened in Britain two months later when Neville Chamberlain was replaced by Winston Churchill. Now the replacement of Chamberlain by Churchill was a positive thing for Britain and a positive thing for the world, not just Europe. But that wasn’t the case in France. Reno, for all Churchill’s offer of an alliance of two countries for the course of the war, we would fight as one, they couldn’t accept it. The French cabinet couldn’t accept it. The battle for France, as Churchill called it, began on the 10th of May, 1940, the very day that Churchill became prime minister in Britain. What a responsibility to take power on the very day that the Wehrmacht is marching through Belgium, through Netherlands, and through to France. The battle was not meant to be over as quickly as it was. The French had built the famous Maginot line in the period of the inter-war years, having learned lessons, so they thought, of the First World War.
But if you ever build a line, it’s got to have an end to it. The Romans knew that with Hadrian’s Wall, from sea to sea. But the French, the French left the Maginot line open at one end and the Germans simply bypassed the Maginot line. And the French had never expected it. And the French army crumbled. It said that de Gaulle was the one general in the French army that actually pushed the German advance back. You have to remember that many in the higher command of the French army were either leaning to the right as fascists or were neutral in the sense that Neville Chamberlain was neutral, in the sense they didn’t want a war. And only de Gaulle fought on. The battle for France really ended before it had begun. We see that even by the 28th of May, the advance of the Germans, the 10th of May, the 28th of May is the beginning of the evacuation of French and British troops from the beaches of Dunkirk, which was completed by the 4th of June. Reno’s government, still in being at this point, retreated to Bordeaux. Paris was left undefended. They didn’t want Paris to burn. How different that is from Churchill’s view that London would fight street by street, house by house. You remember, those of you who’ve been to London and to Churchill’s war rooms will know that he kept guns with him in his office and was quite prepared to make a last stand personally. The French had no political leadership like that. The day that the French government moved to Bordeaux on the 10th of June was the same day that Italy declared war on France and invaded the south of France. Four days later, on the 14th of June, the Germans marched into a deliberately undefended Paris. Events then rush headlong towards disaster and national shame for France as military defeat ended in political defeat of democracy as well.
In the rough guide to the history of France, which I’ve been using just to short circuit this, I read the following. “Unable to persuade the cabinet to fight on "from outside France as a government in exile, "Reynaud resigned on the 16th of June. "Marshall Petain, the hero of the First World War, "Marshall Petain became Prime Minister "and on the following day declared an end to hostilities. On the 18th of June, courtesy of the RAF, de Gaulle is in London and broadcast courtesy of the BBC to France, begging France to fight on. But he can’t fight on. There’s no leadership. It’s been defeated. Some French still blame the British for withdrawing the Spitfire squadron from France in the middle of the Battle of France. But the truth is, if Britain was going to hold Germany, it needed those Spitfire squadrons back in Britain. And I’m reminded of the story of a British Spitfire pilot who took off from a French airfield to engage with the enemy. And on returning to the French airfield, found that the French had already surrendered it to the Germans. There was no way. And Churchill tried very hard to keep France in the war. The truth of the matter is that France was politically very divided. France has now fallen in a matter of weeks. The Battle of France, as Churchill was to write, is over and shortly will begin the Battle of Britain. And I read again. "On the 22nd of June, 1940, "an armistice between France and Germany was signed "in the same railway carriage that had been used "for the signature of the armistice "at the end of World War I. And afterwards, Hitler took that railway carriage to Berlin. And France is divided. Let’s be clear how France is divided. There’s a German occupied France, German controlled. Then there is a puppet fascist regime, Vichy France. And the most important of all is the Free French based under de Gaulle in Britain.
So there’s a German occupied France, in broad terms, northern France, including Paris. A Vichy puppet France, Vichy because that’s the town in which this government was established by Petain in the south of France, loose terms, north and south. Germans in the north, occupied France, Petain in the South, unoccupied France. And in Britain, the Free French of de Gaulle. France has ceased to be on the map. The mythology created by de Gaulle says, no, France is continuous. I was a minister in the last French government. I am the only representative of the government of France, free and independent. And of course, he created Free French forces here in Britain. It wasn’t easy for de Gaulle. You can admire de Gaulle, I admire de Gaulle, but not a person you really want to do business with. He’s difficult, to put it mildly. I had a student a long time ago who was working in one of those condominium islands in the east, half of which was French and half of which was English. And de Gaulle came and visited the English part as well as the French. And she was the translator for de Gaulle and she was frightened stiff because everybody said, the French said, he’s extremely difficult. And worse was he spoke perfect English but refused to use it. And she had to translate everything. And then he found out that she’d lost a child, as he’d lost a child. And she said he was the most charming of men. It’s interesting, isn’t it? Following Petain’s capitulation to Germany and the establishment of the Vichy government, Britain has a problem. The French fleet in the Mediterranean is based at the Port of Mers-el-Kebir in Algeria. The fear of Britain is that it will go over to Vichy France. And that moreover, it will go over to the Germans, thus giving Germans superiority over the Royal Navy, thus threatening an invasion from France to Britain by sea as well as by air.
And this was something that Churchill could not allow to happen. Churchill, remember, was very Francophile, a Francophile all his life, but he had to make this dreadful decision that if the French fleet refused the offers that he put to them, then they would be sunk. This is an excellent book, England’s Last War Against France. These are the wars against Vichy France up to 1940, 1942. And here is what Colin Smith, again, a book on my reading list, this is what Colin Smith says about Churchill. This is Churchill addressing the war cabinet. This is the minutes of that war cabinet. Churchill. "The addition of the French Navy "to the German and Italian fleets "confronts us with mortal dangers. "Who in his senses would trust the word of Hitler "after his shameful record and the facts of the hour. "The armistice could at any time be voided "on any pretext of non-observance. "There was in fact no security for us at all. "At all costs, at all risks in one way or another, "we must make sure that the Navy of France "does not fall into German hands.” Admiral Somerville was ordered to sail from Gibraltar to Mers-el-Kebir. The Royal Navy’s senior officers are very concerned about having to sink an allied or had-been an allied fleet. Somerville sailed under the cloak of darkness for the North African coast from Gibraltar with the words of Churchill ringing in his ears. “You are charged, said Churchill, "with one of the most disagreeable and difficult tasks "that a British admiral has ever been faced with. "But we have complete confidence in you "and rely on you to carry it out relentlessly.” And that meant that if the fleet did not accept some of the conditions laid down by Churchill, Somerville was to sink the French fleet. Somerville’s orders were very straightforward.
Smith writes, “He was to deliver to Admiral Gensoul,” the French admiral, “a note from his Majesty government, "which after a brief preamble "concerning Britain’s determination to fight to the end,” that’s Churchill, “and its need to ensure the best ships "of the French Navy are not used against us "by our common foe.” They had three options given to the French fleet. One, and this is direct quotes, “One, sail with us and continue to fight for victory "against the Germans and Italians. "Two, sail with reduced crews under our control "to a British port. "The reduced crews will be repatriated "at the earliest moment. "If either of these courses is opted by you, "we will restore your ships to France "at the conclusion of the war "or pay full compensation if they are damaged.” So join us or sail to a British port and deliver the ships to Britain and you can go home. “Three. Alternatively, if you feel bound to stipulate "that your ship should not be used "against the Germans or Italians, "unless these break the armistice, "then set sail with us with reduced crews "to some French port in the West Indies, "Martinique, for example, "where they can be demilitarised to our satisfaction "or perhaps be entrusted to the United States "and remain safe until the end of the war, "the crews being repatriated. Churchill ends, "If you refuse these fair offers, "I must, with profound regret, "require you to sink your ships within six hours. "Finally, failing the above,” and this is now the British Admiral speaking, “Failing the above, I have the orders "of his Majesty’s government to use "whatever force may be necessary "to prevent your ships falling into "German or Italian hands.” The French refused. They didn’t believe the British were serious.
They didn’t believe the British would open fire. The British opened fire, an episode that can still generate anti-British feeling in France today. In Rod Kedward’s book, La Vie en Bleu, which is in English with a French title, Kedward writes in this way. “A rapid bombardment from the Royal Navy "sank or immobilised most of the ships "in the harbour and killed 1,297 French sailors. "It was described in the French press "as an unprovoked massacre. "The ensuing anglophobia which gripped the country "was a bonus to the occupying Germans. "At Vichy it provided the ideal context "for the government of Marshall Petain "to elevate the isolation of France "into yet another rationale for sweeping emergency powers "of his new regime.” It was, from a French point of view, an unbelievable act of terror by the British. For the British, and for Churchill in particular, it was done with an extremely heavy heart. But at this point, fighting alone without Russia or America in the war, and with Britain now exposed to a great possibility and probability of an invasion, then the French fleet had to be sunk. It just had to be. But I don’t like to argue that with anybody who is French, who regards this as a terrible act of betrayal. Shortly afterwards, de Gaulle’s Free French forces sought to take French West Africa and attacked at Dakar. And this was a blow to de Gaulle. He hoped that the French forces in Dakar would declare for de Gaulle and the Free French. Instead of which they declared for Vichy France, Petain’s France, and pushed de Gaulle’s forces back into the sea. De Gaulle’s myth is a difficult one to maintain in the light that not all the French colonists, by any means, were prepared simply to go over to de Gaulle.
They remained with what they thought was still the core of France, which is Vichy France. So back in France, Vichy France, which they now called Etat France, the state of France. It’s not the Republic France, they changed words to Etat France, the state, the French state. It’s significant. It immediately began a denunciation of Jews in the newspapers in Vichy France. The regime had strong Catholic roots, anti-Semitic, anti-Freemasons, anti-foreigners. It adopted a new slogan for this Etat France. No longer, no longer legalite, egalite, and fraternite. Now travail, famille, patrie. Work, family, and fatherland. Work, family, and fatherland replaced liberty, egality, and fraternity. They purge secular education. Remember from earlier talks, we have a secular education in France. They purged it. They put it back under the control of the church. Abortion was punishment by death. This isn’t the 17th century, this is 1940 in Europe in a so-called advanced civilization like France, abortion is punished by death. Divorce is made almost impossible. Petain was 84. Now lots of arguments about Petain. He was the hero in World War I. And that’s what carried him through with a lot of French people who still saw him as the hero of the First World war, the Saviour of France at Verdun. But the truth of the matter was that he is, how fascist was he or is he a fellow traveller? I’m sorry because many of us are around his own age now. But I think he was an old man that had lost the plot.
He was strongly religiously Catholic, therefore deeply conservative. And that conservatism and that moral conservatism against abortion and that appalling conservatism of the Catholic Church against Jews, for example, all came to the fore. But the man behind the scenes that was pulling the strings was Pierre Laval. Now Laval had been a socialist prime minister in the interwar years, but he’s one of these people that flipped from one position to a quite different position. Laval believed that the future of France lay in dealing with Germany. This is the extreme end of anything we might describe as appeasement. He believed he could deal with Hitler. And indeed he is in negotiation with Berlin, which is found out by Petain and Petain sacks him in December of 1940. 1941 for Vichy is no better than 1940 had been. And I read this in terms of 1941. “Rationing of all the central goods gives rise to "a black market in Vichy France. "The process of collaboration "sees the birth of organisations as they reassemble "Nationale Popular. "And Joseph Darnard’s Service d'Ordre Legionnaire.” Darnard’s group will become the dreaded political police known as the Milice in France. Their political argument is that the threat to France is not Germany, but Russia. The threat is not fascism, but communism. And that is one of the things that draws people whom you would not necessarily expect to go along to Vichy within it. Communism is of course the antithesis of Catholicism, for a start. And this is the south of France. This is a deeply Catholic area who sees when the priest preaches every Sunday about the evils of Marxism. They understand that.
And if their country is led by Petain who was the hero of Verdun, surely this is right. Many people say or many people don’t question. By the end of 1941, the war is changing. In the middle of 1941, Russia comes in on the side of Britain, and by the end of the war, America is bombed into the war by the Japanese and America has come into the war. And thus in 1942 for Vichy France, things are tough. I’ve written on my notes here. In 1942, Vichy France descended into hell. The first convoy of Jews is sent north. The extermination counts. Laval returns to government because the Germans insist he will. And Petain is in no position to resist, well, basically German orders. The Jews remaining in Vichy France are required to wear the yellow star. That was in May. In July, 13,000 Jews were rounded up and deported. And in total, 75,000 deported from France to extermination camps in Germany, of which only 3% returned. I want to make no defence of Vichy France. It was a vicious, nasty, fascist regime. It can call itself France, and did. The Etat France. A France libra, Free France is here in Britain led by de Gaulle. But de Gaulle, incidentally, is also a religious man. His father had been the headmaster of a Jesuit school in Leon in northern France. So he isn’t, by any means, is he a socialist, but he is not a fascist. He’s a Democrat.
And may sometimes act in undemocratic ways and so did Churchill. But both of them realised that democracy was the glue that kept their countries together. And I often think that when de Gaulle came back in 1944, he would’ve liked to have been Napoleon. I think he would’ve liked to have been hailed as Emperor of the French or maybe King of France. His family had been and remained royalist. But I think he would not do that because deep down what he really was was a Democrat in the same way that Churchill went every week to face the House of Commons and criticism of the way he conducted the war. He didn’t have to, but he did, because he felt that we were fighting for democracy and we should do so in democratic ways. Both men are very similar, I think, in their thought processes. And then it all comes to an end in that same year of 1942. And I read this. “On the 8th of November after an Anglo-American landing "in Algeria, Admiral Darlan, the commander of Vichy’s Army, "signs an armistice with the allies and three days later, "the Germans move in to Vichy France.” So from that point on until 1944, all of France is ruled and governed by Germans. Now there’s often conversations about what would’ve happened if Britain had fallen to Germany and there’s the likelihood that a pro-German government would be set in place. And that might’ve been quite easy. There was a king in exile, Edward VII, who would’ve gone along with that. And there was probably Halifax, the former foreign secretary who might’ve gone along with it.
And if he hadn’t, well, there was always Mosley who would’ve gone along with it. But most people feel that in the end, that the Germans would simply have taken over anyhow. And the example of France emphasises that. They used Vichy France as a cover for two years and then they got rid of it. They got rid of it not in 1944 when France falls, but in 1942, when the war is still at its height. Now I’m looking at the clock. I want to do two things before I finish. I want to talk about a dreadful event that happened on the 10th of June, 1944 in France near the city of Limoges at a village called Oradour-sur-Glane. Just a little village. A little village of no more than about 350 inhabitants, it’s thought. And if you go to the village today, it’s there but not rebuilt. And no one lives there. It’s a ruin kept, as the French call it, a martyred village. And you can walk around it and contemplate on the horror of Marxism, because out of the 350 inhabitants of this village of Oradour-Sur-Glane, only six men and one woman survived. What did they survive? A massacre. Why there was a massacre and why this village was identified for the massacre is still a matter of huge argument amongst French historians. And it doesn’t really concern me. What concerns me is the horror of what the Germans were doing to remind us of the horror of Nazi Germany in general and of the sufferings of the French. The SS came into the village and they brought everyone into the main square. They simply forced people out of their houses at gunpoint. And they were gathered in the main square. They then divided the men from the women and children and the men were taken to barns.
This is a farming area. Taken to barns on the outskirts of the village. And the barns were set on fire with the men inside. And any who escaped were shot. The women and children went to the church. There were 197 men of only six, as I said before, survived. There were 240 women of only whom 1 survived, and 225 children of whom none survived. The women and children went to the village church. And what happened there was horrifying. They were shot from outside, the bullets going in at random. And then the Germans finished it off by setting fire to the church with the people still in it, burning to death. And having done all of that, the Germans then burnt all the houses in the village, which is what you see today if you go there. There were some Jewish refugees, actually, in the town, in the village, because it appears in various of Jewish records of the war. But I use this specifically because it wasn’t a Jewish-specific example. Tonight, later, Trudy will talk about the Holocaust and the horror of that. I wanted to give an example that was not necessarily anti-Semitic. Well, it wasn’t anti-Semitic as such. It was just anti-French. It was trying to give a message to people that if you don’t tow the line, this is what happens. Now this is the 10th of June, 1944. This is just after D-Day. So that’s what they’re doing. They’re giving a message to the French. If you step out of line, this is what will happen.
No one had particularly stepped out of line. It’s a horrible, dreadful story. But by June, 1944, the end is in sight. The D-day landings having happened on the 6th of June, 1944. Then it presents an opportunity and a problem for de Gaulle. There are Free French forces with the allies. The allies are under the command of the American General Eisenhower. They fight separately, the British, the French, the Germans, Canadians, and so on, all with their own commanders. But the overall Commander in Chief is Eisenhower. Now Eisenhower is in charge of the military but he is getting political messages from Roosevelt in Washington. So as the senior commander, he has two problems. One is the military problem of defeating the Germans and advancing across the Rhine into Germany to take Berlin. And then he has the problem that back in Washington, they don’t entirely understand the French situation. De Gaulle is clear. De Gaulle wants to liberate Paris and he wants French troops to liberate Paris because that plays into his myth. France is going to free itself by its own forces. Forget the Americans, the British, and everybody else. It’s the French. And he wants to liberate Paris with Frenchmen marching through the streets. But also he’s desperate to get to Paris. Why? Because there are many Marxists in the resistance, and especially in Paris. And he’s got in his mind the Paris Commune of 1871. You remember at the end of the Franco-Prussian war, when it looked as though Paris would set up an extreme left wing government?
Well now, he’s frightened that Paris will go Marxist. In fact, over in Moscow, Stalin believes there’s a real chance that France will be Marxist, a real chance. And it was a real chance. You know from modern French politics, the extreme left, Marxists, the extreme right, Fascists, often have been only a sniff away from power since 1945. This was a moment of crisis for de Gaulle. He could not allow something like the Paris Commune to happen again. But as the allies advance, Eisenhower has no intention of taking Paris. It’s not on the Route of advance, on the map as it were, that everyone else is glued to. But he’s aware, he’s aware of what de Gaulle’s about. But he’s also aware that Washington thinks that he should deal with the remnants of the Vichy government, which they see as the French state and not de Gaulle. To Washington, de Gaulle has nothing other than an army. He’s a general. De Gaulle sees himself as the political leader of a Free France. And Eisenhower has somehow to manoeuvre between all of this. In a book called The Liberation of Paris, which is again on my book list, we have some interesting thought. This is General Bradley, the American General, and he says this. Bradley was opposed to the taking of Paris, you see. And was arguing to Eisenhower that they should not go to Paris. “Everybody that is except me in a tactical sense, "Paris was meaningless. "We were in pursuit of the fleeing German army, "which was leaving Paris behind.
"It had always been our plan to bypass Paris, "isolating whatever garrison troops it might contain, "and deal with it after we destroyed the German army, "or at least reach the Siegfried line on the Rhine. "Pausing to liberate Paris would not only needlessly "slow our eastward drive, but also require "that our version of transport and gasoline "to provide for 4 million Parisians a plan "4,000 tonnes of food and supplies per day.” Bradley is the voice of military reason, but Eisenhower is the Commander in Chief. Bradley is expressing what FDR would want him to express, but Eisenhower realises that that is fraught with difficulty. And Eisenhower thought as a politician, which he is, of course, to become, and not as a soldier. And we owe a great deal to Eisenhower in terms of the settlement of post-war Europe. When Eisenhower rejects the advice of Bradley and deals with the situation in his own way, Eisenhower’s political skill, like that of General Grant in the American Civil War, set him apart from most military commanders. It was longstanding and had been carefully developed. Eisenhower on his own authority changed the plans and set about the liberation of Paris. It was clear to Eisenhower what had to be done. It was also clear that he had to cast this as a military issue, not a political or humanitarian one. And that he must maintain a low profile, leave it up to the French. Otherwise, Roosevelt might have relieved him of his command. Eisenhower’s decision to liberate Paris, says Smith, was one of the great decisions of World War II and it was not without cost.
By diverting supplies and fuel to the French capital, Eisenhower undoubtedly prolonged the war, but he avoided another Paris Commune in return. Wars are difficult things in which political decisions have to be made. Churchill had some very difficult political decisions to making the war, for example, that we’ve seen tonight in the sinking of the French fleet at Mers-El-Kebir. And Eisenhower had this difficult political decision to make and he isn’t even the politician. And as Smith rightly has to dress it up for Roosevelt. We need to take Paris for military reasons. And Bradley was very clear and Bradley was right. We shouldn’t have been going towards Paris at all. But Eisenhower knew, as de Gaulle knew, that if they did not take Paris, then the modern equivalent to the Paris Commune of 1871 will be formed and we will be left post-war with a Marxist government of Paris, which might well have become a Marxist government of France with backing, financial and otherwise, from Russia. And we would’ve been unable to stop it. Eisenhower was extraordinarily clever. He avoided any blame because he allowed to de Gaulle to order the Free French army commanded by General Leclerc to advance on Paris against the published orders of Eisenhower. It was a daring thing that Eisenhower was doing. But Smith has one up further thing. In North Africa where Eisenhower was fighting, Eisenhower not only brought the American and British military forces together, but also carefully overturned the American State Department and FDRs attempt to manage liberated French territory through Vichy agents. His ties to de Gaulle traced back to that.
And Eisenhower understood the need to play this situation close to his chest, which he did. And Leclerc is ordered by de Gaulle to advance on Paris, not only to advance on Paris, but to advance on Paris on the same road that Napoleon advanced on Paris after he escaped from Elba in 1815. And so the symbolism of that would’ve been obvious to every Parisian. The Route du Napoleon. And there’s the Free French marching to the liberation of Paris. General Leclerc, obeying the orders of de Gaulle and not Eisenhower, rapidly advanced ahead of the other allied forces. And he entered Paris, as I say, along Napoleon’s route with all that that meant. It was thus Leclerc who took the German surrender of the French capital on the 25th of August, 1944. That’s the myth. That’s part of the truth in the myth that de Gaulle was creating. Paris was liberated. He went further. Paris was liberated by French forces, Leclerc’s Free French, and it was liberated by the French resistance in Paris itself, despite the fact that many of them were Marxist. That was not, as it were, publicised by de Gaulle. But he said that France itself had liberated Paris. And that was such an important thing for him to do. It wasn’t American GI’s or British soldiers marching down the Champs Elysee for the first time. It was French soldiers. What a difference, what an image that is and an image that was to play well for de Gaulle in the post-war years.
Smith goes on to say this. “When he was interviewed by the BBC, de Gaulle said, ”'The enemy has surrendered to General Leclerc “'and the French forces of the interior’.” French forces of the interior simply mean the resistance. Many of whom are Marxist, as I’ve said. And in the evening of that never to be forgotten day for the French, de Gaulle went on foot from the Ministry of Defence where he’d set up his headquarters to the Hotel Deauville. And there were still German troops in Paris. He could have been shot at. He is totally, totally unconcerned. He was triumphant. And he spoke to the crowd that assembled in the City Hall of Paris. And I can do no better than to use part of de Gaulle’s speech. You don’t have to be French to feel the hairs on the back of your head rising. “Paris, Paris outraged, Paris broken, Paris martyred, "but Paris liberated”, he screamed. “Liberated by itself, liberated by its people, "with the help of the French Army, "with the support and the help of all France, "of the France that fights, of the only France, "of the real France, of the eternal France.” Wow. This is Napoleonic. No mention of the allied forces under Eisenhower which had made D-Day possible. The eternal France, the France of 1939, early ‘40, the France of the Revolution, the France of Napoleon, the France of Louis XIV, the France we’ve been studying, eternal France. And then he finishes on this huge high note. “This duty of war, all the men who are here "and all those who hear us in France "know that it demands national unity. "We who lived through the greatest hours of our history.” The greatest hours of our history. The myth is unbreachable now. “We have nothing else to wish than to show ourselves up "to the end worthy of France, viva la France!”
It’s an extraordinary and magnificent address. No suggestion that France was not united. No mention of the allies, no mention of Vichy, no mention of the Marxists. He, symbolised in his own presence, France. The following day he went to a service in Notre Dame and he walked to Notre Dame. He’s so tall, any German sniper still around, and there were some, might have shot him. He doesn’t care. He walks in a methodical way to Notre Dame. And as he enters and begins to walk down the nave, a bomb goes off nearby. Everyone screams and throws themselves under the pews. What does he do? He marches on at the same pace towards the priests at the altar. Nothing, nothing deters de Gaulle. This is his moment. You might say he milks it, but I think he milks it for France. I think he is a man who truly, truly made the path of history between 1940 and 1944. Without him, I don’t know what might have happened to France. The Americans were prepared to deal with Vichy France’s representatives. And the British would’ve been in no position to object to Roosevelt’s dealing with them. And by the time the Americans were aware of what they were dealing with, it would’ve been too late. And if they hadn’t dealt with Vichy, we might have been dealing with a Marxist government.
And the Cold War may have become a hot war, as Churchill actually wanted it, at one point, and the Americans certainly didn’t. So I hope you, enjoyed is the wrong word, I hope you found this story tonight an interesting one. And for those of us who aren’t French, it’s a story of the Second World War that we don’t perhaps know as well as we should know. I’ve given a list of books and if you are interested, please read them. Next time, on Monday, I’ll take the story from 1945. And there’s a lot more of de Gaulle to come. The French will say that de Gaulle saved France three times. This is only the first time. There’s two more times to come and we’ll look at those and all the current situations afterwards. But for my money, no one since de Gaulle has matched him. And don’t talk to me about Macron or any of the presidents, really. Not even Mitterrand. But that’s the story for next week. I’ll stop now. I’m sure there’s lots of questions. Oh gosh, yes there are. And I mustn’t go on too long because I’ve got Trudy snapping at my heels.
Q&A and Comments:
Oh, thank you, Mayra. That’s nice. Happy New Year. And how nice is that? To start off with a question like that. Thanks very much.
No, no Glenda. The position with Edward VIII is he was living in Paris and he did a deal with the Germans that they would put men on the door in Paris of his residence so that it wouldn’t be subject to looting. He ended up down in Spain and Portugal, and it was in Portugal that he was ordered home by Churchill and he refused to come. And Churchill sent a telegram saying, may I remind you, sir, that you are still a serving officer in the British army. This is an order. Winston Churchill, Prime Minister. And he did come, and you’re right, he did send information to the Germans. He actually stayed with a pro-German in Portugal. He was sending information. He was brought back to Britain and Churchill got rid of him as soon as he could, making him governor of The Bahamas. And there was real problems there because he was in cahoots with a Swede who was a fascist. Sweden wasn’t in the war, and there were real concerns. The FBI never stopped monitoring him. In fact, every time that Wallis came to New York to shop before the Americans came into the war, she was followed by the FBI. That the Americans had a huge dossier of which we don’t have access to as far as I’m aware, but we have learned more and more.
Edward VIII was bad news. Edward VIII was a weak, silly little man. Wallis was caught up in a marriage she didn’t want to be in, but if Edward was pro-German, she was more pro-fascist and pro-Nazi. Remember, they spent part of their honeymoon at Berchtesgaden with Hitler.
Am I okay? Yes, I am Irene. Thanks.
Q: Why did Hitler divide France into two parts?
A: One, because he didn’t have enough troops and people to govern the whole of France. It’s a massive place. He had in Petain and Laval people who were fascists. The Germans did this in other places as well. Think of places like Slovakia, for example. This is not anything different. The Germans, they would not have allowed a unoccupied Free French France, of course, but an unoccupied fascist France was fine. It was only when the whole thing was beginning to crack apart that the Germans decided they had to take control. And you can argue with some degree of value in it that the Germans took on more than they could cope with by taking over the whole of France.
Yes, de Gaulle was not well thought of to many in Canada, to many of English ancestry in Canada. Vive le Quebec. You take de Gaulle and you take Churchill, you take the rough with the smooth. And of course in Canada, he’s going to be very pro-Quebec. He never really got on with Churchill. They were too alike in some ways. And Churchill used to insist on speaking French extremely badly, even worse than my French, I think. And divide it where he did.
I’m not sure, David. Divide it where he did because it’s in the south, there’s the most fascist French are living. It’s the most Catholic part of France that is the easiest bit to control. He also, in northern France, not only are they less easy to control because they’re more socialist, but in northern France, he has French industry and he needs French industry. He doesn’t need olives and he doesn’t need wine, but he needs heavy industry of Northern France.
Yes. Who’s that? Irv and Monica saying The Sorrow and the Pity is a great documentary.
Betty says, we should never underestimate the power and influence of personality. I honestly believe that. I honestly believe we would’ve been in a terrible state if we had not had Churchill. And I believe France would’ve been in a terrible state in 1944 if it had not had de Gaulle.
Yes, sometimes it doesn’t matter. And after the Americans come properly into the war in 1942, it doesn’t matter. Churchill no longer is important. The important person in 1942 and onwards until his death is FDR. And Churchill is, to some extent, irrelevant. And the fact that the Americans are commanding the Commander in Chief, that is to say Eisenhower and not Montgomery. And I don’t have much time for Montgomery. That’s another story for another time. But it’s the Americans that are really in control of the West in the war by 1942. And a Churchill could have been replaced by Eden, by Attlee. He could have been replaced by anyone. It didn’t matter. What was important was FDR. The difficulties, you might argue, come with FDR’s death and Truman. Now that’s another story.
Q: Why couldn’t the Reynaud government accept the alliance with the British?
A: Because they hate the British, because they couldn’t bear the thought of playing second fiddle to Britain. They wouldn’t, Churchill wasn’t talking about them playing second fiddle, but they simply couldn’t accept a deal. They’d sooner surrender than find themselves in cahoots to Britain.
Q: Did the French soldiers who were evacuated volunteer to fight with the British Armed Forces afterwards?
A: No, they fought with the Free French forces, which were established by de Gaulle. Let’s take the case of the French officers who arrived here. Now most of the French officers who arrived were young because they didn’t have families. Older men with families stayed in France because they knew that if they came to Britain, the Germans were likely to simply kill their families. So the young men came and the British had no idea, nor did the French have any idea, how many of these were genuinely pro-de Gaulle. And so they were all sent, of all places, to Blackpool, the holiday resort in the north of England. All the French officers who came. And there, they were given a choice. And the choice was they either signed up with the Free French army of de Gaulle or they were put in prison. And some were put in prison but the majority signed up with de Gaulle. Where have I got to?
The majority of French. Yes, some evacuees did go back to France, but many were placed in jail here in prisoner of war camps. I visited those war rooms, yes. If you haven’t visited the war rooms, do. This is a memoir, as it were.
Michael says, William, my late father was in the Canadian army and who arrived in the UK at Christmas, '39, told me many years later that he often saw de Gaulle in London. Due to his height stood out in any crowd. De Gaulle lived in Carlton Place in London, was often seen on the streets of London. De Gaulle, whenever he had the opportunity, made it clear France had only lost a battle, not the war. My father told me that many people, especially politicians, ignored de Gaulle. However, my father said how impressed he was that someone was speaking up for Free France. That’s a wonderful comment to make because it absolutely underlines what I’ve been saying, and it’s coming via you from your father who was actually there at the time.
Q: Why was de Gaulle a thorn in the allies side?
A: Because he was punching above his weight and he always wanted to be considered an equal. And at D-day, he was excluded from the planning. They found him difficult. He was a difficult man. He’s a wounded bear after the surrender of France in 1940. And he is difficult to deal with.
Yes, probably the most difficult decision Churchill took was attacking the French Navy. Antony, you’ll have to tell me where you were. I looked up the famous de Gaulle French nose as a little boy when he visited my school in the fifties and we were all lined up for inspection in the playground.
Q: Was that in England or in France or in Canada?
A: Yes, Jacqueline, you’re true.
The Warsaw ghetto held out against the might of the Wehrmacht in April '43 for longer than the whole of French army in 1940. The French Army had been bedevilled by politics. Just remember Dreyfus in the previous century. Antisemitism was strong in France, stronger even than in Britain, much stronger than in Britain. And I think largely because of it being Catholic, conservative France.
Q: Were these the last of the great monumental and articulate statesmen of an era, towering figures, Churchill, Roosevelt, de Gaulle, and Stalin?
A: Well certainly not Stalin because Putin is equally scary. In terms of Churchill, many of us in Britain of my age would say Churchill was a great wartime prime minister. When he became prime minister in peace, he was a disaster. War brings out perhaps the best in people. Remember Roosevelt’s claim to fame before the war was that he had put in all these great initiatives in America to get people jobs, but actually the unemployment rate was higher when war came than it had been when he took office. Without the war, Roosevelt would’ve been seen, I think, as a failure. Churchill would certainly never have become prime minister and de Gaulle? Well, I don’t know. I don’t know that de Gaulle would have become president of France. So I’m not sure, war changes things. You need a Churchill and a Roosevelt and de Gaulle and were we to have a war today, maybe those three democracies would elect a proper leader. I say proper leader because maybe many of us feel that they’re not particularly well led at the moment. I’m not really smirking or laughing, but I love the British Canadian response.
I haven’t forgiven to de Gaulle, says Judith, for crying out Vive le Quebec libra. Quebec is and was free, I understand. I do understand that Canadian response and I can’t do anything to deny it or to argue against your view. You are absolutely right. He had a handicapped daughter. When she died, he was alleged to have said to his wife, now she is the same as everyone else. If true, I find it sad. I had not heard that story, but I was relating back to the daughter that died. Interestingly, he had a daughter that died and so did Churchill, Marigold Churchill who died as a child. And it did affect him. It did affect Churchill and it did affect de Gaulle. I guess it would affect any father. Thank God I haven’t had to deal with that.
Yes, Myra. Re: abortion see the USA in 2022. Unbelievable. Well, I didn’t want to comment on that. There are too many nice American friends listening. They can draw their own conclusions about what I said that the Vichy government did about abortion.
I think I’ve got to stop. Thanks very much everyone for listening. I hope you found it interesting and I hope you’ll find the last one in the series on Monday interesting as well. We’re even more likely to disagree on Monday because it’s into the history that we’ve lived. All of us have lived, pretty well all of you listening have lived this history from '45. And you’ll have your own views on what happened and why it happened, how it happened, and your own interpretation of events. So be prepared to come and disagree with everything I say on Monday, and I’m sure some of you will.
Thanks for listening.