Pétain and De Gaulle: Recollections of 1940 (response article)

Professor Binion’s article brought back a flood of memories. In June of 1940 it was my 11^th birthday—no different than my other birthdays. I

Page 87

was in the hospital being prepared for another operation to exorcise the recurring melanoma. In bed in a ward most of the time, I had nothing to do but read, listen to a little portable radio, and work on my stamp collection. I had been an avid observer of European developments since 1937 when I helped collect food for the Spanish Republic and I was not particularly pro-allied. I considered the French rather stupid, and the English no better. The League of Nations was a failure. Spain, Ethiopia, Albania, and Czechoslovakia were symbols of cowardice. I thought that the Maginot Line, especially after the failure to link it with either the Albert Canal Line or extend it northwest toward to the sea, as a useless and dangerous fantasy. With a detailed map I followed the progress of the German army—and much later the Italian army as they pushed through France. I hated the Fascists, but, in a way, I thought that the French got what they deserved for their betrayal of Spain, Ethiopia, and Czechoslovakia.

While radio commentators wondered where were the Parisian taxicabs, I wondered how the French General Staff could be so stupid. Hitler followed the same path as Bismarck in 1870 and the Germans in 1914. If I could see that, why couldn’t they? What made them think that the Germans would attach through Alsace and Lorraine? A good typographical map would have demonstrated the stupidity of such an idea.

On June 5, the Germans opened a mass drive from Sedan to Abbeville. By then, the Netherlands and Belgium had capitulated and 215,000 British and 120,000 French had squeezed into boats at Dunkerque and reached the white cliffs of Dover. France was alone. The French army melted away. I studied the map and wondered where the French would make a stand. Would it be at the Loire? Would a new Charles Martel appear to stop the invaders? But my fantasy of Charles Martel proved to be as realistic as the French fantasy of the Maginot Line. Verdun fell and the defenseless rear of the Maginot capitulated. Paris was declared an open city and the government fled to Bordeaux where, on June 16, Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain replaced the weary Paul Reynaud as Premier. A week earlier Italian troops crossed the frontier to retake that which Napoleon III had gained.

On June 17, Pétain requested an armistice. Hitler, who understood symbolic events, pulled the “infamous” railway car from the museum, and had it brought to Compiegne. Hitler, who had constantly referred to the shame, the humiliation, the degradation of 1918, was going to undo that. Now that railway car would symbolize German triumph and French humiliation. Hitler did not share his victory with II Duce, who had to wait two days for the signing of his armistice.

In London de Gaulle watched these events in horror. He and Churchill had called Reynaud in Bordeaux, but to no avail. De Gaulle flew to Bordeaux. Back in London, de Gaulle announced that he did not recognize the capitulation and that the struggle would continue. One can suppose that de Gaulle expected his June 23 pronouncement would be hailed by the French throughout the world. It was not! With the exception of French officials in Polynesia, most French colonial officials opted to serve the new remnant government being formed in Vichy.

It was in Vichy that the remnant of the Third Republic dissolved itself and transferred authority to Pétain, who created an executive-driven state. In a way, de Gaulle agreed with Pétain’s creation. An authoritarian state could galvanize the glory of France and lead to a rebirth. But Pétain could not operate freely: he fired Pierre Laval in December, but was forced by Hitler to reinstate him in April of 1942. Pétain had failed.

France continued to be humiliated. On July 3, 1940, the British fleet sailed into Oran harbor and demanded that the French join them. When the French officers and crew refused, the British sank, disabled or captured the French Fleet. In the Caribbean, Roosevelt neutralized the French fleet. In Hanoi and Saigon the Japanese turned French officials into puppets. After June 22, 1941, Stalin refused to recognize de Gaulle, except to note that a French legion was fighting for Hitler.

Only after December 7, 1941 did American and British forces allow de Gaulle to take over the French colonies in the Western Hemisphere and India—it served American and British interests to support the Free French. However, both Roosevelt and Churchill would have preferred someone else to lead the Free French.

Page 88

The war ended. To many, de Gaulle was the symbol of France. Unfortunately for de Gaulle, France no longer was a world power and the French had more pressing problems than the loss of Empire. De Gaulle offered to lead under certain conditions—conditions which he though would restore the grandeur. But the French were busy creating the Fourth Republic, which included a Third House to represent the colonies. A magnificent idea, but it did not work, except that a few island territories became “French Overseas Departments.” The Fourth Republic did not solve the liabilities of the Third.

Except for the Overseas Department, the Empire was dissolving, while inflation reduced the Franc to over 500 to the dollar. By 1958, the monarchs in Morocco and Tunisia ended the French Protectorate while West Africa was just waiting to end the French occupation. In Algeria, the nationalists, with minimal popular support, were challenging the European population while the French army was preparing a coup to force the government to protect the rights of the European minority. In France, the government turned to de Gaulle in order to prevent the Algerian crisis from turning into a French civil war. De Gaulle demanded “reforms” such as those secured by Pétain and those he had failed to obtain in 1945-1946. The fear of a civil war in France was so pronounced that the Government capitulated and thus the Fourth Republic followed the Third into oblivion and, in the process, gave birth to the Fifth Republic.

If 1958 were a reply of 1940, with de Gaulle taking the role of Pétain, and I think that Dr. Binion’s evidence is convincing, then we have to see if the catastrophe of 1958 was equal to that of 1940.

It was, but to see that reality we have to look beyond the obvious military situation. The age of Empires was over. One by one, the European colonies had declared their independence. What happened to France happened to the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, and Denmark and would soon happen to Portugal and eventually to Russia. But the French trauma was caused by something more than a loss of political-military power. In fiction, France was one of the “Big Five.” But that was a veneer. There was a deeper reality, a reality not quantifiable by the number of divisions, atomic bombs, or foreign bases. Let me spell it out.

English had replaced French as the language of diplomacy. Scholarly journals published in Europe and Asia appeared in English, while those that maintained the native language began to also accept articles written in English. Paris no longer had a monopoly on fashion. Teenagers all over looked the same—jeans and “DA” haircuts. Even for high fashion you had to make it in New York to be successful. On the university level the world flocked not to the Sorbonne, but to the United States. French cuisine still had lots of appeal, but the hamburger and coke was ubiquitous. The Paris Opera was great but was dwarfed by the Metropolitan Opera. Americans, Catalans and Russians had come to Paris to study art; now they flew to New York. Musicians had flocked to Paris, where jazz was welcomed, but now they went to the United States to learn and perform.

The trauma of 1958 was not so much the loss of Empire as the loss of status as a center of civilization. De Gaulle was a figure—a successful man on the white horse—a new Karlus Magnus—who would restore French grandeur. Churchill and Roosevelt disliked him for that very reason—they considered it arrogance. But that did not matter to the French. Yes, French India was lost, but the school in Pondichéry still taught in French. Yes, West Africa was lost, but Félix Éboue wrote his poetry in French and French was the working language of those states. The “Ivory Coast” insisted that the New York based United Nations change its official listing from the English Ivory Coast to the French Côte d’lvoire. With pride the French could point to the French-African Free French who marched Chad through Libya to outflank the Germans at the Mareth Line and then move on to D-Day, the entrance into Paris and the liberation of Strasbourg. Arrogance to the Anglo-Saxons was a restoration of dignity to the French.

Action has many levels of causation. De Gaulle had a private matter to settle with Pétain. De Gaulle and the French had to undo the humiliation of 1940 and 1958. To undo the humiliations it was agreed to sacrifice the Fourth Republic and create the Fifth Republic with the Great Charles as “the Sun President,” who would illuminate the

Page 89

glory of France. If that vexed the Anglo-Saxons, “Long Live de Gaulle.”

Page 90