Eleven Days in August

by Matthew Cobb

  Poet Camille Vilain was an air-raid warden near the Jardin des Plantes, out in the open and directly beneath the bombs. Once he had herded the inhabitants of his building into the nearest shelter, Camille took up his warden’s post on the boulevard Saint-Marcel and watched hell descend on earth. To the north, a cascade of bombs hit the Halle aux Vins, the massive wine and spirits warehouse by the Seine; to the south, the flour mills at the Moulins de Paris were also destroyed. In both cases, the consequences were catastrophic. The spirits in the Halle aux Vins combusted dramatically, while at the Moulins de Paris the particles of flour formed an inflammable aerosol, and the air burned. At 01:00 Camille climbed up to the roof to watch blazes that threatened to spread and set the whole south-east part of the city alight: ‘The spectacle is nightmarish. Inside the building, it is as bright as day. The flames are easily leaping hundreds of metres into the sky. Suddenly a particularly massive jet of fire spurts up incredibly high, and rolls and roils almost to where we are standing. We can hear the roar of the flames quite clearly.’106 In the Jardin des Plantes, women fled from the warm arms of the soldiers of the 2e DB, while the smell of burning alcohol filled the air, and the frightened animals in the zoo roared their fear.107 Venturing out into the street, Daniel Boisdon saw a sight to rival the images of Saint Paul’s in the London Blitz from earlier in the war: ‘I have never seen anything more amazing than the silhouette of the cathedral, floating in a black sky above a blood-red River Seine.’108

  Over 200 people were killed and nearly 900 injured in the bombing.109 To give a name to just one of the victims, Colette Roy, a pupil at the primary school on the rue des Pyrenées, was killed by shrapnel.110 Among the shattered buildings and wrecked homes there were also minor but distressing losses. Monsieur Lecomte, a hospital administrator and amateur entomologist, was utterly distraught at the destruction of his thirty-year-old insect collection when his study was smashed by a German bomb. As he wrote in his diary, this was ‘the greatest entomological catastrophe of my life, which far surpasses everything that I have suffered, everything that I have had to endure . . . My whole life has been destroyed . . . Can it be true? Can such an awful event be possible?’111 More gravely, in a striking symbol, a few of the 1000 German bombs dropped on Paris that night destroyed the warehouses at Austerlitz that had housed the Jewish prisoners and the Parisian part of Möbel Aktion.112 It seemed as though the Germans were trying to cover their traces.

  18

  27 August–31 December: Restoration

  On 28 August, Colonel David Bruce of OSS writes in his diary: ‘Already, the Liberation of Paris seems almost like a dream. I have never imagined a scene that was, all in all, so dramatic, so moving, and so beautiful and picturesque . . . The frenzied joy of the crowds is impossible to describe. Yet during it all, there was an element of danger that added an almost sinister flavour to the feast . . . It is fitting that it was Leclerc’s Armoured French Division that occupied the city and joined the French Resistance Forces, who had for some days been battling there, in cleansing it of the enemy. It is true that the Resistance people, ill-organized and unused to weapons, are a dangerous nuisance in some respects. Yet it is they who, throughout France, have raised the standard of revolt.’1

  The German garrison in Paris had surrendered, but other German troops were only a few kilometres away and they still posed a threat to the French capital. On the morning of 27 August, five armoured columns of the Leclerc Division spread out to the north and northeast of Paris and soon met German defences. There was a series of encounters and German tanks and armoured vehicles were destroyed – the enemy forces were relatively weak, acting primarily as a buffer between the Allied spearhead and the main retreating German divisions. The hardest fighting took place around the airport at Le Bourget, which had been evacuated by the Luftwaffe eight days earlier.2 According to a reporter from the Daily Mail: ‘The desperation and hopelessness of German resistance is typified by the battle for Le Bourget aerodrome. For six hours German troops fought fanatically . . . The enemy had three defence lines, but no heavy armour or artillery and they were butchered by the French tanks.’3 By 18:00 the battle was over and, at the end of an operation that was personally commanded by Leclerc, Le Bourget was in French hands for the first time in over four years.4 Among the men of the 2e DB who lost their lives that day were 18-year-old Yves Mairesse-Lebrun, the gunner on one of the armoured cars, and Sub-Lieutenant Pity, killed aboard his Sherman, just after he had shot a brave German who had climbed onto the back of the vehicle and tried to throw a grenade into the turret.5 One of the men fighting at Le Bourget was Odette Lainville’s nephew, Bob. Although he survived, many of his friends were killed, including one of the officers who had celebrated the liberation with Odette, four days earlier.6 Thanks to the Allied advance to the south and the north-east of Paris, there was no longer any direct threat to the capital.

  As the Germans continued their retreat to their frontiers, they began to ask why they had lost control of Paris so easily. On 28 August, Field Marshal Model began a court martial investigation of von Choltitz, because he had ‘not lived up to expectations’. The collapse of the Paris garrison was clearly a surprise to Model, and he wondered whether the explanation for von Choltitz’s ‘weakness of will and determination’ might lie in his having been wounded or threatened, or even whether he had been the victim of ‘an enemy chemical agent’.7 Nothing came of these proceedings – over the next eight months the German High Command had more pressing matters to deal with. After the end of the war, the leading Nazi Hermann Göring was questioned about this period:

  Q: How important a part did Paris play in your defence scheme?

  A: I don’t know anything about the importance of holding Paris. At that time I was ill and confined to bed.

  Q: Did General von Choltitz receive authority to surrender the city?

  A: One thing I do know: General von Choltitz had no authority to hand Paris over to the FFI.8

  So rapid was the Allied advance and so headlong was the German retreat that within a week most of France was liberated, with the exception of the north-eastern corner of the country closest to Germany and some isolated Atlantic ports. That did not mean that the capital was safe, however. At the beginning of October, V1 and V2 rockets were launched from Germany against the Paris region, destroying buildings and killing dozens of people.9 A month later, an abandoned German ammunition train at Vitry-sur-Seine exploded, leaving thirty-one dead, ninety-seven wounded and dozens of buildings severely damaged.10 The capital felt one final spasm of fear in December, when the faint-hearted were momentarily shaken by an audacious but short-lived German counterattack in the far-off Ardennes – ‘the Battle of the Bulge’. But by the end of the year the Germans were once again retreating, and the final phase of the war had begun.

  *

  As the military security of the capital was assured, de Gaulle moved to consolidate his political and military dominance over a chaotic situation. Although his personal popularity was not in doubt, there was no central authority in the city, no government, no reliable way in which ‘order’ – a key word in de Gaulle’s vocabulary – could be imposed. Throughout the insurrection, the Parisian Resistance and its armed groups had repeatedly shown that they could not be expected to do the General’s bidding without question. According to Eisenhower, on 27 August de Gaulle asked him ‘for the temporary loan of two US divisions to use, as he said, as a show of force and to establish his position firmly’.11 Eisenhower was unable to comply, but he did agree that on 29 August the 28th US Infantry Division and the 5th Armoured Division – neither of which had been involved in the fighting to liberate the capital – would march through the city. De Gaulle later denied that any such conversation took place, and insisted that the US parade had nothing to do with a show of strength.12 Perhaps, but it certainly did not do any harm: marching twenty abreast, the infantry were smart and disciplined; the new tanks and field artillery that followed them were a perfect expression of overwhelmin
g Allied military might, leaving the crowds amazed, exactly as might have been hoped.13 The parade could not have been a greater contrast to the joyous mess of the French affair three days earlier. Saluted from a podium by de Gaulle and General Bradley, the soldiers – all white – marched straight through the city and off to the north and east to fight the Germans.14 De Gaulle’s later description accurately sums up what he was doing, and why: ‘Despite its wounds, our country would soon find itself on the road of national recovery. On condition that it was governed, which meant removing any power that was parallel to my own. The iron was hot, so I struck it.’15

  De Gaulle’s first move against this ‘parallel power’ was political. On 27 August, he summoned all the secretary-generals who had been running the ministries since the beginning of the insurrection. He asked each in turn what his previous job had been and, most often, brusquely advised them to prepare to return to their pre-war occupation. All of those involved were shocked by the General’s cold demeanour, by the lack of even a word of thanks or recognition of their work during the years of occupation.16 Despite their loyalty, despite the fact that they had occupied the ministries at no small risk to themselves in order to give a semblance of continuity, and despite many of them having worked underground for years, the secretary-generals were suspect in de Gaulle’s eyes. Unlike the politicians and civil servants in Algiers, whom de Gaulle had tamed, the Parisians were an unknown quantity. And although the Allies accepted his role as head of the government, that might easily change. To secure Allied acceptance of the Free French as the government of France, de Gaulle needed to show that the new regime in Paris was essentially the same as the one that had operated in Algiers, with the same personnel and the same politics.17

  General Leclerc shared de Gaulle’s view, as he showed in a highly critical private letter to his commander, describing the situation he had found in the capital: ‘The leaders of Paris, even those appointed by your government, are . . . extremely timid. This, I think, is the one of the cruxes of the problem. It is not my business, but having seen certain things, I felt I had to tell you. You will not find your task easy, Sir.’18

  Even more important than dealing with the civilian administration was finding a way of getting control of the thousands of résistants in the city who were still armed – de Gaulle could not expect the US to continue marching their men through the capital. In over half the country, the Resistance had taken over as the Germans fled, sometimes without a shot being fired; Paris was just one example where people had acquired a taste for action and could glimpse the potential and the excitement of running the world in a different way. The usual mainstay of order, the police force, was nearly useless: its members were either hopelessly compromised by their collaborationist past or they were basking in the glow of popular approval following their turncoat change earlier in the month, and could not be relied upon to move against the very people who were cheering them in the streets.

  The first metaphorical shot in a battle that would last two months was fired on 28 August, when de Gaulle ordered that the FFI should be incorporated into the Free French Army, while the FFI staff should be dissolved. This provoked an immediate row with the Resistance who wanted to retain this parallel military power, and led COMAC leader Pierre Villon to refuse to join the new government, which was formed on 9 September.19 Nevertheless, many Parisian FFI fighters joined the 2e DB before it left the Paris region, and the men and women of the FFI soon either returned to civilian life or fused with the army. Leclerc was not particularly impressed by the FFI fighters – he told de Gaulle that 10 per cent were ‘really brave, real fighters’, 30 per cent would follow the best soldiers, while the remainder were ‘useless or even detrimental’ to military activity.20 Among the FFI volunteers from the Paris region who were accepted into the army were Colonel Fabien and his group, including André Calvès. They were attached to the Third US Army and left for the front in early September (Fabien was killed in an accident at the end of the year). Madeleine Riffaud wanted to join up with her comrades, but she was told that no matter what she had done during the insurrection, there was no place for her in the army, although whether this was because of her politics or her gender was not clear. Madeleine was demobilised; a year later she was awarded the Croix de Guerre.21

  To explain his controversial decision to dissolve the FFI, de Gaulle made a radio broadcast on 29 August, the same day that US soldiers were marching down the Champs Elysées. The speech contained his first public recognition of the role of the Resistance in liberating the capital, as he saluted the ‘brave people who for a long period actively organised resistance to the oppressor’, before recognising that the ‘irresistible offensive’ of the Allied armies had made it possible to liberate the capital.22 This was mere window-dressing. The decisive part of the speech came at the end, where after a lot of rhetoric about ‘The nation’ and its ‘2000-year history’, de Gaulle made clear what he intended to do: ‘the French people have decided, by instinct and by reason, to meet the two conditions without which nothing great can be achieved: order and passion. Republican order, under the only valid authority, that of the state; concentrated passion, which makes it possible to build the structure of renewal legally and fraternally. That is the meaning of the red-blooded celebrations in our towns and villages, finally purged of the enemy. That is the sound of the great voice of liberated Paris.’23

  *

  Foreign journalists visiting Paris shortly after the liberation were struck by the joy they found on the streets of the capital. The New Yorker correspondent A. J. Liebling reported: ‘For the first time in my life and probably the last, I have lived for a week in a great city where everybody is happy.’24 Embedded war photographer and fashion journalist Lee Miller, newly arrived from the Normandy front and furious to have missed the liberation, was struck by something else – the smell of Paris had changed: ‘It used to be a combination of patchouli, urinals and the burnt castor oil which wreathed the passing motorcycles,’ she wrote. ‘Now it is air and perfume wafting across a square or street. All the soldiers noticed the scent and, asked what they thought of Paris, became starry-eyed. They said, “It’s the most beautiful place in the world and the people smell so wonderful.”’25

  On Sunday 3 September the whole city seemed to turn out just to have fun. Ordinary Parisian Monsieur Lasalle wrote:

  There is joy in the air. The boulevards and the Champs-Elysées are back to their bustling selves. Different types of Allied aeroplane fly over the capital endlessly. There are still flags at the windows and rosettes on the chests of the men and in the hair of the women. Americans, Canadians, Englishmen and soldiers of the Leclerc Division fraternise with the population. There is still no gas, no electricity, no Métro. It doesn’t matter! This is the first relaxed Sunday of the Liberation. Paris has been given back to us. Paris is coming back to life.26

  That day there were massive crowds in Clichy and Batignolles as Parisian women and soldiers mingled in a way that would have been unthinkable during the occupation. Lee Miller cast a professional eye over the way the women were dressed:

  Everywhere in the streets were the dazzling girls, cycling, crawling up tank turrets. Their silhouette was very queer and fascinating to me after utility and austerity England. Full floating skirts, tiny waist-lines. They were top-heavy with built up pompadour front hair-does and waving tresses; weighted to the ground with clumsy, fancy thick-soled wedge shoes. The entire gait of the French woman has changed with her footwear. Instead of the bouncing buttocks and mincing steps of ‘pre-war’ there is a hot-foot long stride, picking up the whole foot at once.27

  Prudish Berthe Auroy was slightly shocked by the behaviour of the young women: ‘The girls proudly display themselves on American lorries, in the arms or on the knees of these warriors, who must think that what they have heard is true – Parisian girls are easy. Of course it was inevitable that the youth should get carried away in the joy of the Liberation, but I would have liked a bit more discretion, a
nd a bit less vulgarity.’28

  Berthe would not have approved of Benoîte and Flora Groult, who were heavily involved in entertaining the Allied troops. In September, the two sisters were invited to a Franco-Allied party full of girls and soldiers, and they both had a whale of a time: ‘We danced; we laughed; we drank coffee with thick milk, deliciously over-sugared, ate doughnuts dripping with butter and felt admitted, without complicated examination, into a little universe without problems.’29 Benoîte’s relations with the soldiers were frank and open (‘No hypocrisy, no nonsense. Yes means yes; no is okay, and one leaves it at that,’ she wrote in her diary). She was particularly taken with an American officer called Rudi, who had ‘a delicious back with tremendous freckles . . . His back smells of the prairie, the West and childhood. His chest is a discreet savannah . . . his legs are hairy from top to bottom on every side and of an unexpected strength.’30 In October, when Rudi returned after a week’s absence, the two of them sat in the bus from the airport scarcely saying a word, with the same thoughts going round and round in their heads: ‘Do you want me? I want you. How I want you. We want each other.’31