The Resistance
Page 19
‘HAVE SEEN GENERAL DE GAULLE AND PHILIP STOP THEY ARE ENCHANTED WITH MY SUPPORT AND WILL ENSURE PUBLICITY’.448
The decision of the Communist Party to rally to the Free French was the fruit of a long series of negotiations, first with Moulin and then with Rémy.449 Although the British and the Free French knew of these discussions, the first sign of how successful they had been came when Grenier turned up in London. The Communists had a reputation as the most combative of the Resistance organizations and, after the USSR’s victory over the Germans at Stalingrad at the end of January, they bathed in the reflected glory of Moscow’s military might. The real impression of Resistance unity created by the PCF’s support for the Free French was reinforced on 26 January 1943, when, following weeks of work by Moulin and Frenay, Libération, Combat and Franc-Tireur publicly formalized the existence of the Coordinating Committee that had been set up at the London meeting in September, by announcing the creation of an umbrella organization, the Mouvements Unis de la Résistance (MUR – United Movements of the Resistance).
Moulin’s ambitions were even greater, however. He wanted to create a national resistance leadership that would include not only the Resistance movements but also the trade unions, and – most controversially – the old political parties. Combat leader Claude Bourdet was scornful of this last suggestion: these parties, with the exception of the Communists, were ‘the living dead’ who had been silent since 1940. Worse, by resuscitating these ‘fossils’, the Resistance would hinder the reorganization of the French political landscape that everyone agreed was necessary.450
Moulin considered that the return of the parties was inevitable, especially given that the Allies wanted the Free French to show they had the support of the French population and their political representatives. In these circumstances, Moulin felt, it was best to act pre-emptively, thereby creating conditions that were as favourable to the Resistance as possible. Although de Gaulle agreed with Moulin’s analysis, Frenay and d’Astier, who had neither Moulin’s vision nor de Gaulle’s guile, were strongly opposed. They were supported by Pierre Brossolette, who was not just hostile to the old political parties but also wanted to strengthen the power and influence of de Gaulle. As he declared in November 1942:
We have arrived at a period of concentrated capitalism throughout Europe, and soon, perhaps, in the whole world. Either the Trusts will be the masters of the country, or the country will be the master of the Trusts. That is why we need a strong executive . . . we need an élan, a voice, a mystic, which will enable the whole of France to cooperate, to go forward, together, towards a new political life . . . There is only one possibility, one guarantee of that, and that is the Fighting French, as represented today by General de Gaulle.451
Frenay expressed similar ideas in the pages of Combat, as he evolved further from his narrow-minded military origins:
In no case will we tolerate in France the kind of sinister pantomime that has taken place in North Africa, in which the spoils of the victory to come would be confiscated to the benefit of the abject Vichy regime . . .
One leader, one symbol: DE GAULLE.
One idea: LIBERTY WITH HONOUR.
One system: SOCIALIST REPUBLIC AND DEMOCRACY IN ACTION.452
The clashes between Moulin and the Resistance were growing in number and in importance. To the outside world, the Resistance appeared unified. The reality was somewhat different.453
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In February 1943 Moulin and General Delestraint flew to London, where Moulin argued that the Free French and the Resistance should incorporate the political parties. As usual, he won. Ten days later he left for France, the sole passenger in Lysander ‘D for Dog’, carrying a suitcase full of tobacco and British food.454 The pilot, Squadron-Leader Hugh Verity, later recalled: ‘I had just one passenger outbound. He was a Frenchman of some authority, I judged by his bearing, although he wore a very ordinary suit and overcoat and a felt hat.’455 But there was fog over the landing ground near Bourges, and Verity had to fly back to Britain with Moulin still on board. At this point the situation became dangerous, as Tangmere aerodrome was also fog-bound. After eleven landing attempts, and with fuel running low, Verity decided he had to land come what may. Unable to see anything in the thick fog, which glowed orange from the light of flares along the runway, Verity misjudged the plane’s altitude and crunched into the ground. The Lysander’s undercarriage snapped off and the aircraft skidded along nose first, the propeller twisting out of shape as it gouged into the soil. Verity recalled:
I turned off the petrol and ignition, threw off my helmet, safety harness and parachute straps and clambered out. I was concerned about my unfortunate passenger stuck up there in the rear cockpit with the little ladder unhelpfully far from the ground and at the wrong angle. I was very relieved that there was no fire . . . My distinguished passenger managed to slide his roof back (and up) and climb out. I helped him to jump down. It had been a truly disastrous trip and I apologized profusely in my best French. He could not have been more charming and even went to the length of thanking me for ‘a very agreeable flight’.456
Two nights later Verity and Moulin tried again, with no greater success – this time a danger signal was flashed from the landing ground – but with a less dramatic flight back. As a result of these problems, Moulin had to wait until the next moon before he could return to France. The enforced stay in London was undoubtedly useful for Moulin’s physical state – he had been operating underground without a break for nearly fourteen months, far longer than was advisable. As time wore on, complacency and mistakes became ever more likely, and ever more lethal.
When he did eventually return to France – on the same plane as Christian Pineau and General Delestraint457 – Moulin was charged with setting up the Conseil National de la Résistance (CNR – National Resistance Council),458 which would involve both the Resistance movements and the political parties. London was determined to limit the influence of the Resistance movements – only those groups that had a publication, an armed wing and an intelligence-gathering role would be admitted to the CNR. As a result, Défense de la France – which was only a newspaper and at this stage was opposed to armed action459 – was excluded, despite having the largest circulation of any of the underground publications (by 1944 Défense de la France was printing 440,000 copies of each issue).
Moulin’s new mission to create the CNR provoked more conflict with those in the Resistance who were already chafing under his leadership. To make matters worse, de Gaulle had made him a minister with responsibility for Resistance work in the whole of the country. The final addition to an already explosive mixture was the presence in France of Pierre Brossolette (code-name ‘Brumaire’), who had recently joined Free French Intelligence (the BCRA). Brossolette had been ordered to convince some of the groups in the old Occupied Zone – Libération-Nord, OCM and the Communists – to set up military wings under the direct control of the BCRA.460 These intense discussions were accompanied by a flurry of nearly eighty telegrams to London, which received virtually no response. Brossolette therefore decided to use his initiative, and set up a Resistance coordinating committee for the northern zone, deliberately excluding the political parties, in clear breach of the position agreed in London.461
The Free French were furious, and André Philip sent a blistering telegram to Passy, Brossolette’s superior, who was also in France: ‘BRUMAIRE PROPOSITIONS . . . INCOMPATIBLE WITH DECISIONS HERE STOP BRUMAIRE GONE BEYOND MISSION LIMITS STOP DO NOT COMPROMISE RESULTS OF DISCUSSIONS HERE . . . DELAY ANY DECISION UNTIL ARRIVAL OF REX [Moulin].’462 But Brossolette simply ignored these orders and went ahead.463
Shortly after returning to France, Moulin confronted Passy and Brossolette in an apartment on the Avenue des Ternes, on the west side of Paris.464 The atmosphere was electric. Also present were Moulin’s old friends Meunier and Chambeiron, who claimed in the meeting that Brossolette thought Moulin was power-hungry. Brossolette explained that he had been misinterpreted, but to no a
vail. Moulin began to shout. He attacked Brossolette for putting his own ambition before the unity of the Resistance, and criticized Passy for not ensuring that his subordinate obeyed orders.465 Passy later recalled that Moulin was shouting so loudly that he had to be told to calm down, as there were Germans in the building:
. . . it was tragic to think that the Gestapo might be in the room above, next door or below us, and that these verbal fireworks might lead to the capture of two men who had worked so hard for their country. The shouting carried on for a good quarter of an hour. I admit that I wanted only one thing: to leave, as I had the impression I was sitting on a powder keg. Thankfully nothing serious happened and we all left in one piece, although there was no conclusion to the debate. A wave of disgust swept over me and it took the fresh air to bring me back to life.466
Once again, Moulin won. Within days Brossolette and Passy were packed off to London while Moulin’s view that the old parties and the trade unions had to be represented in a national Resistance leadership gradually took hold. However, Moulin still had to cope with a campaign of criticism from his comrades. Frenay complained to de Gaulle that Moulin always took London’s side and that he knew nothing of the real life of the Resistance organizations, having only ever met their leaders. Frenay concluded by threatening ‘a serious conflict’ if the Resistance was not given greater independence from both London and Moulin.467 At the same time, d’Astier arrived in London and complained of ‘the danger to the Resistance and to its future development caused by the installation of a system that would lead to the bureaucratization and sterilization of the movements’.468 In reply, Moulin wrote to de Gaulle explaining the need for centralization, ironically using terms that were close to the hearts of Brossolette and Frenay and which reveal de Gaulle’s overwhelming influence over the Resistance:
I consider that you should consider yourself more as a leader of a party than leader of a government. What is your task, apart from liberating the country? You will have to take power against the Germans, against Vichy, against Giraud, and perhaps against the Allies. In these conditions, those who rightly call themselves Gaullists must have, and in fact do have, only one political leader: you.469
The vast majority of Resistance members knew nothing about these arguments. The rows over the role of the political parties, the niggling over various internal structures, all took place only at the highest level. As Claude Bourdet later put it: ‘none of us had heard of all these proposals which, we should not forget, involved a tiny fraction of the Resistance, a few sectors that were linked to London, and that’s all.’470 The rank and file would no doubt have been horrified by the squabbling and venom, and would have despaired at the way in which their leaders were distracted from the task at hand. If such debates were lost on the Resistance, they would have seemed even more obscure to the French population. At this point in the war, the Resistance still had little effect on the lives of ordinary people. The Occupation was a crushing weight, but people were convinced that deliverance would come from developments on the international stage. In the meantime, they thought, there was nothing to do but wait.471 During the course of 1943, that attitude began to change.
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On 27 May 1943 the CNR, Moulin’s brainchild, met behind the closed shutters of a first-floor flat on the Rue du Four, on the Left Bank in Paris.472 Even d’Astier, Levy and Frenay had signed up, although Frenay refused to be a delegate and d’Astier and Levy were in London. There were sixteen men at the meeting – eight for the major Resistance movements (five from the north), six for the political parties and two for the trade unions. The Communist Party effectively had two delegates (their own, and the representative of the Front National), while most of the other parties were what Bourdet had described as the ‘living dead’. Moulin, of course, was in the chair.
At the beginning of the meeting, Moulin read a message from de Gaulle which explained that after the liberation of France the CNR would be ‘the primary representation of the desires and feelings of all those who, within the country, had participated in the struggle’. It would therefore be the ‘indispensable instrument’ for de Gaulle’s government-in-waiting to ‘exercise its duties within the country and help it to express the rights and interests of France with regard to the foreign powers’. In other words, the CNR – and therefore the Resistance – would be entirely subordinated to de Gaulle. For its part, the CNR adopted a single resolution – co-authored by Moulin – which called for the creation of a provisional government, with Giraud as the head of the ‘resuscitated French army’, but with de Gaulle (‘the soul of the Resistance in the darkest days’) as the undisputed leader. The Communists initially demurred, but after some heated debate, during which Moulin had to ask the participants to keep their voices down, the resolution was adopted unanimously.
Many years later, de Gaulle was quite clear about Moulin’s importance in bringing the Communist Party on board:
Precisely because he had the reputation of being a prefect who was left wing – and even close to the Communists . . . he could not be rejected by them. His mission was to reintegrate them into the national community. He was the best person for that. He was as straight as a die. A right-wing prefect like Bollaert could never have succeeded. It was Moulin, more than any other, who made it possible to bring the Communists on board, as part of the Free French organization, and thus to control them. Without the CNR, there would not have been a resistance, but several resistances. At the Liberation, there would not have been a united people, but a divided country. We would not have stopped the Communists from holding parts of the territory.473
The existence of the CNR, and its clear support for de Gaulle, helped put an end to the complex wrangling between the Allies, Giraud and the Free French. But in either a cock-up or (more likely) a piece of wartime spin by the Gaullists, the founding of the CNR was announced on the BBC over two weeks before it actually took place. Despite the irritation and confusion this caused in France – the members of the CNR understandably suspected that they were being manipulated474 – it apparently helped push Giraud and the Allies into finally accepting de Gaulle’s dominance.475 The Allies were not completely convinced, however. The British tried to censure broadcasts about the meeting,476 and even after de Gaulle arrived in Algiers at the end of May, Churchill and Roosevelt continued to snipe at him.477 But with public support in Britain and America clearly on the side of the Free French, both leaders eventually had to bow to the inevitable. At the end of August the Allies recognized that de Gaulle’s Comité Français de Libération Nationale (CFLN – French Committee of National Liberation), the latest re-branding of the Free French, governed the French colonies and liberated territories (it was still not recognized as the French government-in-exile).
Had Moulin been able to create the CNR a year earlier, it is highly unlikely that the Allies would have been impressed. At that time, the Resistance was simply too small and ineffective to have any weight in the context of a world war involving millions of men and machines. The existence of a small make-believe Resistance ‘parliament’ would probably have provoked no more than a condescending smile on the faces of Roosevelt and Churchill. But by the middle of 1943 the Resistance had changed completely and was becoming a vital factor in Allied planning. Paradoxically, this fundamental shift came about through the desperation and short-sightedness of the Nazis and their Vichy stooges.
In June 1942 Laval announced that French men and women would be encouraged to work in Nazi Germany, in return for the liberation of French prisoners of war. But only 17,000 skilled workers left voluntarily (the Germans wanted 150,000), so in September Vichy decided men aged eighteen to fifty and single women aged twenty-one to thirty-five had to carry out work ‘in the superior interest of the nation’. The interests of ‘the nation’ and those of the Nazis turned out to be exactly the same, so 200,000 workers were shipped off to Germany.478 There were protests all over the country as workers went on strike against the new law, blocked the railway lines t
aking people to Germany and fought with the gendarmes and the Nazis.479 But the hunger of the Nazi war economy was boundless: with so many men fighting on so many fronts, the Nazis needed even more workers. In February 1943, Vichy therefore obediently set up the Service du Travail Obligatoire (STO – Obligatory Labour Conscription): all men aged between eighteen and twenty would have to work in Germany for two years. 250,000 men were due to be sent to work for the Nazis in the space of a month.480 One fascist bright spark – Dr Hermes, head of censorship in Paris – predicted that the new policy ‘would, by itself, disorganize the army of resistance’.481 He could not have been more wrong.
Faced with the prospect of going to work in Germany for two years, many young men simply took to the hills. There they looked to the Resistance to feed them, protect them, organize them and arm them. The Resistance leaders soon sensed the potential in the situation and began to bombard London with calls for help. On 6 March, d’Astier sent de Gaulle a personal telegram; its excited and exaggerated tone captures the mood of the time: