To Lose a Battle (89 page)

energy and defiance personified… He was a ray of sunshine. He had a telephone in each hand through which he was constantly giving orders and decisions. His ideas were simple: fight on to the end in France, in order to cover the largest possible movement into Africa.

Then Reynaud arrived. The meeting began with the French declaring that the position of the Army was desperate. Now Reynaud put the fateful question to the British Prime Minister; would Britain agree that France, having nothing further to contribute to the common cause, should be released from the Joint Declaration and be permitted to negotiate a separate peace? Spears, watching him closely, noted that Reynaud no longer mentioned the possibility of fighting on in Africa:

he was a very different man from the cheerful, determined little chap of a few hours ago. For a moment I saw him as a ventriloquist’s dummy voicing the views – of whom? Pétain? Weygand? Could it be Madame de Portes?

Meanwhile, according to Élie Bois, the Countess was trying to get into the conference room. Prevented from doing so, she grew impatient and sent for Baudouin:

‘Tell Paul that we must give up – give up. We must make an end of it. There must be an armistice! Tell Paul so, won’t you? – from me. I insist on it.’

In response to Reynaud’s agonizing question, Churchill expressed
his understanding of France’s predicament. In no case would Britain waste time in reproaches and recriminations. But that was a different matter from consenting to release France from her pledge. He added, however, a solemn promise that was to be fulfilled five hard years later: ‘If England won the war France would be restored in her dignity and her greatness.’ As a final suggestion, Churchill urged that Reynaud send one last new appeal to the President of the United States, with which Britain would identify herself. Reynaud agreed, but made it clear how grave matters would be in the event of an unfavourable reply. With that, Churchill returned to London; it was the last time that he would set foot on French soil for four years. After the meeting, Reynaud was violently reproached, for raising the separate peace issue, by Mandel and the Presidents of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, Jeanneney and Herriot; the latter was in tears. In the meantime Baudouin was insidiously putting it about that Churchill had released France from her engagement. Later that evening when Spears saw Reynaud, he was struck by how ‘ghastly’ he looked, ‘with a completely unnatural expression, still and white’. By the end of that day, he was convinced that ‘the possibility of France remaining in the war had almost disappeared’.

The Plea to America

During the small hours of 14 June, Reynaud dispatched his appeal to President Roosevelt, making it dramatically clear that ‘unless you can give France firmly to understand, in the hours ahead, that the United States will enter the war in the very near future, the destiny of the world will change’. In other words, France would capitulate. It was the last of a series of communications, ranging from the beseeching to the admonishing, addressed to the President by the British and French Premiers. At the beginning of June, Roosevelt and General Marshall had rushed through a deal whereby Britain purchased some six hundred freight-cars of First War arms and ammunition; this was Virtually everything the U.S. Army could spare at the time, but none of it was to reach Europe before France fell.
In harbouring any anticipation whatever that the United States could instantaneously send him ‘clouds of planes’, or ever declare war on Hitler, Reynaud was under a hopeless delusion.
¹⁴
The fact was that America, no more prepared to play a role in Europe than she had been during the past twenty years, had no planes to send; and with the Presidential election coming up in November, no politician alive could have brought America into the war that June. Roosevelt’s response to Reynaud’s appeal was bound to be negative.

The Last Quarter of an Hour

On 14 June, the day the Germans entered Paris, the Government of the Third Republic departed for its final seat at Bordeaux. Reynaud was clearly reaching the end of his tether, and seemed to have lost all his old vigour in dealing with the ‘softs’. He kept on repeating that everything depended on Roosevelt’s answer to his telegram. He would try one last ploy, however, within the confines of his Cabinet. That afternoon he proposed to Weygand that, like the Dutch, France should seek a military capitulation, ‘binding only the army but leaving the Government freedom of action’. Weygand was outraged. ‘I refuse,’ he declared indignantly, ‘to bespatter our colours with this shame!’ But this was a political decision, beyond the prerogative of a Commander-in-Chief, and, as Churchill points out, Reynaud would have been within his rights to have dismissed Weygand. It was a decision, however, that he no longer had the strength or the will to take. Next, Camille Chautemps suggested a compromise solution: why not ask the Germans what their conditions of armistice would be, remaining free to reject them? The proposition had a dangerously Faustian smell about it; said
Churchill, ‘It was not of course possible to embark on this slippery slope and stop.’

When the Chautemps proposal was relayed to London, Churchill’s reply was that Britain would give her consent for France to ascertain the terms of an armistice,
‘provided, but only provided, that the French Fleet is sailed forthwith for British harbours pending negotiations’.
¹⁵
Britain, in her resolve to continue the war, would in no way associate herself with such an inquiry.

That evening Reynaud received Roosevelt’s answer. Spears was with him when it arrived:

As he read it he grew still paler, his face contracted… ‘Our appeal has failed,’ he said in a small toneless voice, ‘the Americans will not declare war.’

Meanwhile in England, de Gaulle, who had flown there on the 14th to ask for shipping to transport troops to Africa to continue the fight there, had impressed upon Churchill the need for some ‘dramatic move’ to keep his Government in the war. In the words of Churchill, de Gaulle ‘suggested that a proclamation of the indissoluble union of the French and British peoples would serve the purpose’. So, on the afternoon of Sunday 16 June, such a ‘Declaration of Union’, of staggering historical implications, was duly drafted and approved by the Cabinet. De Gaulle then dictated it over the telephone in person to Reynaud.

With him in Bordeaux, Spears records that as Reynaud put down the telephone ‘he was transfigured with joy, and my old friendship for him surged out in a wave of appreciation at his response, for he was happy with a great happiness in the belief that France would now remain in the war’. A Cabinet meeting was immediately called. But Reynaud’s colleagues did not share his elation. From the front, reports had arrived that the Germans were at the gates of Besançon and Dijon. Baudouin claims that the French Ministers were ‘stunned’ by the British offer: ‘It in no way satisfied our expectations. It did not loosen
the stranglehold on the country.’ Chautemps declared that he ‘did not want France to become a Dominion’. In the middle of the discussion, an usher entered with a cryptic note (‘I hope that you are not going to play at being Isabella of Bavaria!’)
¹⁶
hastily scribbled by Hélène de Portes, giving Reynaud the last orders he would receive from her as Prime Minister of France. Suddenly the tough little Frenchman with the mandarin face collapsed. Physically and mentally exhausted, he could no longer stand up to the ‘softs’. No vote was taken on the British ‘Declaration of Union’ proposal; Churchill’s telegrams concerning the safety of the French fleet were not even presented to the Cabinet. Reynaud announced his intention to tender his resignation to the President. He would propose that Marshal Pétain be sent for.

At about eleven o’clock that night, President Lebrun relates that he told the eighty-four-year-old Marshal:

‘Well, there it is. Form a Government.’ Without hesitation the Marshal opened his briefcase with a characteristic gesture, showed me a list and said to me: ‘Here is my Government.’ I must say that, despite the deep sadness of the moment, all the same I felt a small ray of comfort. I recalled those difficult negotations about forming administrations… and here I had one given me ready made… I thought that this was excellent.

Two hours later Pétain called for the Spanish Ambassador, Señor de Lequerica, and requested him to approach the Germans about an armistice. Later on that morning of 17 June, Spears – his mission ended – prepared to fly back to England. By a prearranged plan, de Gaulle (only just returned from his own journey to England) came to the airstrip, affecting to see Spears off. After the engines had started up, Spears reached out a hand as if to say goodbye and yanked de Gaulle into the
plane. Georges Mandel was less fortunate; attempting to get to North Africa and set up a ‘Government in exile’ there with other leading politicians among the remaining ‘hards’, he was arrested and returned to France. Four years later he was murdered by Vichy Milices. De Gaulle alone ‘carried with him’, said Churchill, ‘in this small aeroplane, the honour of France’.

In France, the news that Pétain had requested an armistice was greeted by emotions of widespread relief. ‘At last, the nightmare is about to end’ was the common reaction. Crowds of refugees gathered around the Government buildings in Bordeaux to cheer the old Marshal. People wept publicly in grief, and in gratitude.

In Germany, the immense events of the past weeks seem to have provoked, at least on the surface, astonishingly little excitement. At the end of May, Shirer recalled three Germans betting him that the Wehrmacht would be in London within three weeks, but a week later, as the battle round Dunkirk was about to end, he admitted that the scene in Berlin ‘confounds me’. Strolling down the Kurfürstendamm in the evening, Shirer found it

jammed with people meandering along pleasantly. The great sidewalk cafés on this broad, tree-lined avenue were filled with thousands, chatting quietly over their
ersatz
coffee or their ice-cream. I even noticed several smartly dressed women. To-day, being the Sabbath and a warm and sunny June day, tens of thousands of people, mostly in family groups, betook themselves to the woods or the lakes on the outskirts of the city. The Tiergarten, I noticed, also was thronged. Everyone had that lazy, idle, happy-go-lucky Sunday holiday air.

Shirer was equally taken aback at the lack of elation the normally excitable Berliners displayed on hearing the unbelievable news that Paris had fallen. The city took it

as phlegmatically as it has taken everything else in this war. Later I went to Halensee for a swim, it being warm and I feeling the need of a little relaxation. It was crowded, but I overheard no one discussing the news. Out of five hundred people, three bought extras when the newsboys rushed in, shouting the news.

He added: ‘It would be very wrong, though, to conclude that the taking of Paris has not stirred something very deep in the hearts of most Germans. It was always a wish-dream of millions here.’

Chapter 21

Aftermath

Can it be that France has had her day like Athens, Rome, Spain or Portugal in the past? Is it Germany’s turn now? No. Our virtues and our culture, which only twenty years ago proved so strong and full of life, have not been killed by a mere handful of politicians.

MAJORD. BARLONE,
A French Officer’s Diary

There are no Allies any more. There remains only one enemy: England!

Final Wehrmacht communiqué, 25 June 1940

FRENCH SIGN PEACE TREATY
:
WE’RE IN THE FINALS
.

Newspaper vendor’s sign in London, 1940

The Clearing at Réthondes: Hitler’s Revenge

Shortly before noon on 20 June, Pétain received radio instructions from the Germans for the dispatch of the French armistice delegation. They were to present themselves ‘at the Loire bridge near Tours’ early that evening. There would be a temporary cease-fire in the area. After some argument, the unfortunate General Huntziger, erstwhile commander of the Second Army, had been selected to lead the delegation. Reluctantly he accepted. His orders were to break off talks instantly if the Germans called for the surrender of the French fleet or the occupation of any colonial territory.

So great was the cluster of refugees and military traffic on the roads that Huntziger and his convoy did not reach the appointed rendezvous until late that night. A German escort then whisked them, with no time for sleep or any proper meal, to Paris, where they arrived at 7.30 a.m. They still had no clue as to the site chosen by the Germans for the cease-fire negotiations. Then, after only a few hours’ pause, they were driven on to Compiègne, some fifty miles north-east of Paris. Finally, just after three o’clock that afternoon, the cavalcade halted at
the clearing in the forest at Réthondes. There stood the historic
wagon-lit
where, in November 1918, Marshal Foch and Weygand himself had received the defeated German emissaries. With characteristic efficiency, German Army engineers had hacked down the wall of the museum housing the railway coach and brought it out to where it had stood twenty-two years earlier. A large Swastika was draped over the monument to the 1918 Armistice. The cycle of revenge could not be more complete. France had chosen as the setting for the final humbling of Germany in 1919 the Versailles Hall of Mirrors where, in the arrogant exaltation of 1871, King Wilhelm of Prussia had proclaimed himself Kaiser; so now Hitler’s choice for the scene of his moment of supreme triumph was to be that of France’s in 1918.