The Pursuit of Laughter (35 page)

It showed what would have happened if plebiscites had been allowed elsewhere.

The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s
, Weber, E. (1954)

‘We are confident that Hitler’s mechanised hordes will never get to Paris. But should they come so far… we shall defend every stone, every clod of earth, every lamp-post, every building, for we would rather have our city razed to the ground than fall into the hands of the Germans.’

These words, from a French Government spokesman on 9th June 1940, may be set beside Sir Winston Churchill’s well-known speech to the House of Commons a few days
earlier: ‘We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight in the fields’ and so on. Both were typically politicians’ utterances; the difference between them, looked at historically, is that the Frenchman’s words were put to the test of reality within a week, whereas the Englishman’s boast was destined to remain an empty one, since the Germans never crossed the Channel.

It is idle to speculate on what would have happened if the Channel had not existed. One thing is certain: the speeches of politicians, however brave and stirring, would not have affected the issue, which would largely have depended, as it did in France, upon the relative strength of German and English armour and aircraft, and also, to some extent, upon the behaviour of the civilian population. The only evidence we have to go on is what happened to the English army in France in May 1940.

Throughout his book, General Spears pretends that the realities of war do not exist. All that matters is that politicians, and generals too if they can be so persuaded, should continue to shout defiantly that they are winning the war, however obvious it may be everyone that, in fact, they are not. No wonder the French generals were irritated beyond endurance by this attitude, and by the censorious admonitions to France to go on fighting while English troops were embarking for home in French ports, and the bulk of the
exiguous
English air force was (quite rightly) being saved for the defence of the homeland. The French begged for more fighter cover for their armies; the English turned them down. Half the book is taken up by these reiterated demands and refusals.

Sir Winston Churchill’s promise to France, on 11th June, of a couple of divisions
within
a fortnight and twenty five more by March 1941, made when the French armies were at their last gasp facing one hundred and twenty four German divisions, was described by General Weygand as
dérisoire
. He might well have used a stronger term. At the same
conference
, which took place at Briare after the Government had left Paris, General Weygand ‘was launched on his favourite theme, the folly of having embarked on war at all. “I wish to place on record that I consider that those responsible embarked upon the war very lightly”,’ he said. Churchill and Eden quickly changed the subject, as well they might. The cap fitted.

After further argument about whether the RAF could be used in the battle, Marshal Pétain spoke. ‘He was calm, detached…. He wished, he said, to support General Weygand in his contention that the present war in no way resembled the last one.… He then paused and said gravely, alluding to Churchill’s advocacy of fighting in Paris: “To make Paris into a city of ruins will not affect the issue”. There was a rather painful pause, brought to an end by Eden’ who told one of those cheering stories which were being spread by neutrals about the very heavy losses the Germans had suffered. For Churchill, with his usual
disregard
for the consequences, ‘urged the French to fight in Paris, describing how a great city, if stubbornly defended, absorbed immense armies,’ writes General Spears. He adds: ‘The French perceptibly froze at this’. Not only Frenchmen, but the whole civilised world owes a debt of gratitude to General Weygand and Marshal Pétain for saving Paris from
this senseless destruction. General Weygand declared the incomparably beautiful capital an open city that same evening.

But Sir Winston was determined not to let France fall without making one supreme effort to bolster her strength and morale. On 16th June he made his great offer on the telephone; France and England were to be united as one country, ‘the Franco-British Union’. Since no soldiers or airmen could be spared to help France on the eve of defeat, the Prime Minister offered himself and a bunch of politicians instead—as if France had not enough politicians already. Reynaud at first received the idea enthusiastically, but
presumably
the soldiers pointed out that it would not make a pin of difference. No more was heard of it; the battle of France was lost.

General Spears’ book should be read by everybody interested in the Second World War, for his work placed him at the very centre of affairs, where he was an observant onlooker. He can describe men and events vividly. Even those who agree with the French lady who said to him: ‘I hate the war. It is the fault of your country. You bear a heavy responsibility,
you
were a
belliciste
, like your Churchill’—even they must be glad that General Spears was there to describe Reynaud, Pétain, de Gaulle, Weygand and the rest, their words and their actions, in those fateful June days.

The Fall of France
, Spears, E. (1954)

The third and last volume of M. Benoist-Méchin’s* history of the summer of 1940 is in some ways the most interesting of the three. It describes the early days of Vichy, the
formation
of the new government, and how full power was conferred on Marshal Pétain by the National Assembly voting 569 for to 80 against with 17 abstentions. This
overwhelming
parliamentary majority accurately reflected feeling in the country as a whole.

The extent to which this was so is illustrated by the fact that even André Gide, most liberal of men, who was subsequently attacked by Vichy as a writer who led youth astray, had noted in his
Journal
a few days earlier:
L’allocution de Pétain est tout simplement admirable
[Pétain’s address is brilliant], after listening to a broadcast speech.

The second half of the book consists of a series of portraits of the principal French actors in the drama of the sixty days, and of two foreigners, King Leopold and Sir Winston Churchill. Although, like everything he writes, these essays are full of
illuminating
anecdote and intelligent observation, they nevertheless have the defect (probably inevitable, yet so admirably avoided in the remainder of this detailed history) of being partisan. Thus, while admitting his brilliant cleverness and power of managing men, the author does much less than justice to Laval, and perhaps more than justice to the Marshal and the King of the Belgians. These two honourable men have been meanly treated, and
M. Benoist-Méchin’s view of them as perfect gentle knights is very well as a corrective to vilest denigration, yet his readers are bound to ask themselves whether these qualities alone, in the jungle world, are adequate. M. Benoist-Méchin, in redressing the balance, insists perhaps rather too much. However this may be, there is no corresponding failure of objectivity in his account of General de Gaulle.

The great value of this enormously long book is precisely that it recaptures the
day-by
-day atmosphere, through the use of contemporary memoranda, diaries and the like. The portraits, on the other hand, may be slightly coloured by subsequent events, by
successes
and failures, developments and changes which subtly altered the size and shape of the personages themselves. Yet, at a time when almost all France was agreed in giving the Marshal
pleins pouvoirs
[full powers] to get the best terms possible from the conqueror and to negotiate the difficult details of inevitable collaboration, M. Benoist-Méchin does not deny a certain nobility to the lonely figure of de Gaulle. Snubbed and used by the English government, kept in the dark about military projects, his correspondence censored, spurned by many of the French soldiers and sailors who happened to find themselves in the island, unable to induce a single governor or prominent personality from the French overseas empire to join his revolt, suffering the humiliation of appearing to have
condoned
the bombardment of the French fleet by the English at Mers el Kebir, he yet
persisted
, and huffed, and believed in final Allied victory. (True, he had passed the point of no return.) In the summer of 1940 the liberation and the terrible events accompanying it were infinitely remote and unpredictable; and M. Benoist-Méchin does not allow their shadow to cross his sad little sketch of the General as he was then.

It would be impossible to over-praise this book as a whole. With M. Fabre Luce’s
Journal de la France
it presents a detailed, accurate, vivid and absorbing picture of a vitally important episode. In English we have nothing comparable; translators should be found for the
Soixante Jours
.

* A Minister in Pétain’s government.

Soixante jours qui ébranlèrent l’Occident: III La Fin du régime
, Benoist-Méchin, J. (1956)

If a militarily unprepared country declares war on a militarily stronger neighbour it must envisage the possibility of defeat. If this unprepared country is alone in the fight it will then have to accept the best peace settlement it can get. If, on the other hand, it has unbeaten allies it must await the final outcome of the war, enduring meanwhile, as best it may,
occupation
by its conquerors. All this seems self-evident, and would not be worth stating except that ever since 1940 an unrealistic argument about what should or should not have been the attitude of the French during the four year armistice has raged with inconceivable
bitterness
.

This was not a case where a stronger aggressor country pounced on a weaker country in order to conquer it. France declared war on Germany, not the other way about. And the consequence of this declaration of war might have been foreseen.

There were then, roughly speaking, four courses open to Frenchmen. They could
completely
withdraw from public life; or they could choose co-operation with Germany,
working
for the so-called New Order in Europe; or they could harry and sabotage the
occupying
power by every possible means; or they could hold a balance between these two extremes while waiting to see which side would win the war. The vast majority preferred to take this last course, and meanwhile were content for France to have a number of extremists on either side, to be ready for any contingency.

At the same time, it was also obvious that ‘resistance’ was not analogous to, for
example
, the resistance of the Irish forty years ago to the English. In that case every act of
violence
might be thought to be hastening the end of a hated foreign domination. But there was never any question of Germany occupying and ruling France except for the duration of war, and therefore acts of violence were gestures of defiance which led only to
immediate
reprisals suffered by the whole population, and for that reason were disapproved of by many patriotic Frenchmen.