Paris '44: The City of Light Redeemed
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The command of one of France’s new armoured divisions was allocated to Leclerc, who took his promotion to divisionnaire modestly, telling Girard, “De Gaulle has no one else”, which was probably true. Several French armoured warfare experts from the 1930s, like Jean Touzet du Vigier and Roger Leyer, had remained loyal to Pétain, but now saw plentiful American equipment as a splendid opportunity to remould France’s tank arm. Under Leyer’s supervision du Vigier formed the new First Armoured Division, or Première Division Blindée, Leclerc the Deuxième Division Blindée and, just to confuse matters, General Saint-Didier the Fifth or Cinquième Division Blindée.
Even with enthusiastic recruits choosing him, Leclerc had under four thousand men, while an American armoured division required sixteen thousand. In addition, much of Leclerc’s original force consisted of black colonial troops and it was unheard of for coloured personnel to form part of an armoured division in any Western army. Leclerc was ordered to transfer his coloured soldiers to the First Free French Infantry Division, much to the sadness of career colonial officers such as Jacques Massu who truly loved these faithful soldiers of France. After deducting coloured troops in the obligatory blanchiment (whitening) process, the Chad veterans became the new division’s motorised infantry regiment, but they were insufficient to provide a battalion for each of the new division’s three battle groups. Regarding armoured regiments, formations that had served under the British Eighth Army, the 1e Régiment de Marche des Spahis Marocains (1st RMSM) became the 2e DB’s reconnaissance regiment, swapping their Marmon Herrington armoured cars for new American M8s. The 1e Régiment des Chars de Combat, which had also served with the Eighth Army, along with supplementary personnel sent out from Great Britain, became the 501e RCC, retaining its Crusader tanks for training purposes until Shermans arrived. But Leclerc still needed men to form two more tank regiments, a tank-destroyer regiment, three artillery regiments, engineers, more infantry, military police, medics and a handful of pilots (an American armoured division had six Piper Cub spotter aircraft).
Allowed back into French North Africa to begin his new task, Leclerc set up his divisional HQ on Algiers’ Rue de Constantine. The Americans, who replaced the British as Free France’s bankers and quartermasters, were everywhere: booking out the best hotels, forcing up restaurant prices, bringing largesse and can-do spirit to everything they touched. Heavy-hearted and reluctantly recognising that he needed to go cap in hand to the Armée d’Afrique for most of the men he needed to create the 2e DB, Leclerc took himself out for dinner to a popular restaurant outside Algiers. While enjoying his food, he noticed another French officer standing smartly beside him. Around a decade older than Leclerc, Colonel Paul de Langlade commanded the 12e Régiment Chasseurs d’Afrique (12e RCA), a smart colonial cavalry regiment which converted to tanks during the late 1930s. Over brandy Langlade described his men’s soul-destroying inactivity from 1940 until the Torch landings which, thanks to being quartered too far east, they had not opposed. Leclerc invited Langlade to bring his men into the 2e DB.64 The 12e RCA had enough men for two tank regiments on the US model, so half became the 12e Cuirassiers to acknowledge Metropolitan cavalry regiments in suspended animation since la Chute.
Compared to individual “self-authorised transfers” this was a spontanément muté of an entire regiment. General Leyer was not pleased. But since Leclerc’s division would necessarily include followers from both Free France and Vichy, General Giraud decided that it should include formed regiments whose colonels had proper authority wherever possible. Langlade’s grenouillage (leap-frogging) was forgiven. “So are we Gaullists now?” asked Commandant Furst, one of the 12e RCA’s least Vichyste officers, when their transfer to Leclerc was confirmed.65
In the interests of unity, Leclerc gave important divisional appointments to men who joined the 2e DB with Paul de Langlade. Captain André Gribius became the division’s G3, or operations officer. Though detesting Vichy, Leclerc had to moderate his views of Pétain’s former followers if he was to rebuild bridges with old friends like Jean Fanneau de la Horie. When Leclerc visited brother divisionnaire Jean Touzet du Vigier, his former instructor, to ask for La Horie, du Vigier emphasised that after la Chute Leclerc had the freedom of choices while du Vigier had a regiment to consider, but now it was necessary for France and her empire to work together.66 Leclerc agreed, but privately, and not always particularly in private, his staunch Gaullist viewpoint remained unchanged.
AN UNAVOIDABLE REALITY OF CLANDESTINE WARFARE is that it is most successfully prosecuted by the working class. De Gaulle’s early attempts to send agents into Occupied France often met with tragedy. In the meantime resistance groups grew from the bottom up, glued together by proletarian disciplines: unobtrusiveness, appearing unassuming, knowing how things work, manual practicality and lack of sentimentality. Since the proletariat is more numerous, a résistant had more people to hide among following acts of sabotage or assassination. But the tragedy of large-scale hostage shootings after FTP operations made de Gaulle determined to bring the résistance interieure under centralised command. When senior civil servant Jean Moulin arrived in London, de Gaulle thought he had the perfect candidate to unite the résistance interieure.67
Now codenamed Max, Moulin’s first trip back to France on de Gaulle’s orders went well; he joined three groups under the authority of MUR—Mouvements Unis de la Résistance. These were Henri Frenay’s Combat, Emmanuel d’Astier de la Vigerie’s Libération and, most importantly, Jean-Paul Lévy’s Francs Tireurs, thereby demonstrating a working-class resistance group’s willingness to accept centralised command. Returning to London, Moulin was accompanied by sixty-four-year-old General Charles Delestraint, who commanded an armoured unit during 1940. Already linked to Frenay, when de Gaulle decided to merge Combat, Libération and Francs Tireurs* into the Armée Secrète, he appointed Delestraint its commander to avoid unfairly favouring one of the three group leaders over another, despite Delestraint’s lack of clandestine experience.68
Other working-class résistants also turned to de Gaulle for central leadership. Prompted by Moscow, Fernand Grenier arrived in London offering to place the FTP under de Gaulle’s authority. After the horrific losses inflicted by the German invasion, Stalin favoured anything that diverted Nazi pressure from the Soviet Union; French unity under de Gaulle served his interests. He was also grateful to de Gaulle for sending fighter pilots to serve with the Red Air Force, and had little wish to undermine him. But de Gaulle distrusted the communist FTP while the FTP regarded the London connection as a useful source of weapons while they continued operating as before.69 Moulin’s formation of the Conseil National de la Résistance (CNR) was useful progress for de Gaulle. But the FTP regarded hierarchies as alien to the essentially fluid nature of clandestine warfare.
In mid-1943 a set of tragedies befell the Resistance that echo to this day. Arriving back in France in March 1943, General Delestraint soon had authority problems; the FTP regarded his belief in fixed base units as tantamount to creating sitting ducks for SD†s detection units and a waste of the armaments now available from England. Graciously, the traditional Delestraint accepted their viewpoint. However, the FTP’s underlying realism was grimly justified when Delestraint, a proud, distinguished-looking man, not given to camouflaging himself, and his adjutant, both smartly dressed, were arrested at the 16th Arrondissement’s La Muette Metro Station. From SIPO’s mugshots of Delestraint taken after his arrest, the only thing missing was a bowler hat.70 They were followed all the way from Dijon. After a two-day interrogation, Delestraint was imprisoned in Fresnes before being sent to Dachau.*
Compounding the tragedy, when Jean Moulin called a meeting at Doctor Dugoujon’s house in Lyons’ Caluire suburb to decide Delestraint’s replacement, the Gestapo captured all of them. There are several theories over who betrayed him: whether it was René Hardy, who had been arrested, interrogated and released shortly before Moulin’s arrest; or simply that there was an atmosphere of jealousy, squabbling and
betrayal among the Resistance anyway.† Nevertheless, basic precautions were ignored. Several present at the Caluire meeting were already known to the Gestapo and, as marked men, should have quarantined themselves for weeks rather than days. Interrogated brutally by the notorious Klaus Barbie, Moulin died a couple of weeks later on a train to Germany.71 The Caluire arrests inflicted a massive setback on de Gaulle’s efforts to bring the disparate resistance groups under central control.
De Gaulle never found anyone in Moulin’s league to head up the CNR. Georges Bidault, a left-wing Catholic was decent enough, but nowhere near as effective. FTP leader Charles Tillon later wrote that de Gaulle, the Free French and the Allies were reactionaries and attentistes who simply wanted to control the Resistance for their own ends, imposing bankrupt tactics of doing nothing. Bemused that de Gaulle should appoint former Legion officer Marie Pierre Koenig to command the FFI—Forces Françaises de l’Intérieure—the FTP believed the best way to save French lives was to hit the enemy by every possible means, cutting railways, immobilising locomotives and sabotaging factories. They thought it criminally stupid to place themselves under foreign military command and, while tugging a forelock to de Gaulle in return for weapons, they thought submission to that portion of the French Army he controlled—mainly la Coloniale—was little better.72
De Gaulle fell back on a system of military delegates to maintain his authority in mainland France. Though sixteen years younger than Moulin, it was no coincidence that his chief delegate, Jacques Chaban-Delmas, also hailed from France’s grandes écoles. This time, recognising Chaban’s ability (Chaban was a nom de guerre) de Gaulle bounced him up from reserve captain to général de brigade. Furthermore, having been a résistant since 1940, Chaban understood clandestine life and, like Rol-Tanguy, developed a sixth sense for when something felt wrong. Though good-looking, Chaban was of medium height with no eccentricities of dress or physique to distinguish him. As a keen three-quarters rugby player, Chaban was also a fast runner; a talent that had saved his life.73
To de Gaulle’s chagrin Chaban had little authority over military matters in the Conseil Nationale de la Résistance. The FTP dominated the résistance interieure and, while they regarded the London link as essential, they formed COMAC (Comité Militaire d’Action), a three-man committee to decide on military action, standing separately from the hierarchy Moulin created. COMAC regarded Chaban’s role as advisory and to provide weapons.
Between COMAC’s leaders—“the three Vs”, so-called because all their noms de guerre began with a V—the Left, and Jews, predominated. Roger Ginsberger, the son of a rabbi, architect and trade unionist, was Villon. Maurice Kriegel, a young radical Jewish lawyer with syndicalist connections, was Valrimont. The third man, in a perverse linking of social opposites, was Count Jean de Vogüé—Vaillant—an aristocratic naval officer. Vogüé had made the pilgrimage to London but had not got on with de Gaulle. Torn in several directions by the Occupation, Vogüé’s populist leanings won through and he returned to France to fight, going under cover and eschewing all contact with family and friends. Vogüé was “my exact antithesis”, wrote Kriegel-Valrimont, “the typical class enemy. My first meeting with him was not friendly. But on getting to know him, I was astonished. He wanted the same thing I wanted; to fight for freedom giving no quarter. We recognised our differences, certainly, but apart from that, he was a rebel in himself, an absolute hero.” Kriegel-Valrimont considered himself in good company on COMAC.74
WITHIN PARIS ITSELF YET ANOTHER COMMITTEE was created during late August 1943, providing yet another parallel command chain, the Comité Parisien de Libération—the Paris Liberation Committee, or CPL. As veteran French historian Christine Levisse-Touzé writes, “It held executive power over deliberating assemblies, both national and Parisian, and over a clandestine army, the FFIs, from 1 February 1944.”75
On the CPL, once again, left-wingers abounded. Under the authority of André Tollet, a CGT union official, the CPL included André-Max Hoschiller to manage liaison between the police and FFI, George Marrane of the French Communist Party; Marie-Helene Lefaucheux, the wife of a résistant industrialist, from the Organisation Civile et Militaire, one of the earliest resistance groups; Leo Hamon from Ceux de la Résistance; Robert Deniau, secretary of the CGT union, also representing resistance group Libération Nord; and Jacques Bingen,* a Jewish engineer related to the Citroen family, to act as consultant for the CFLN (Comité Français de Libération Nationale).76
Reflecting French enthusiasm for bureaucracy, the CPL’s role was defined by two separate texts: first in the Statuts des Comités Départmentaux de Libération of 23 March 1944, and secondly the Ordonnance of 21 April. During the remaining months of the période clandestine the CPL’s task was to “co-ordinate immediate action against the enemy and his accomplices, prepare the national insurrection and the allocation of powers for the day of liberation”. Next, during the période insurrectionelle, the CPL was to “organise and co-ordinate the actions of patriots in order to dislocate the German forces and eliminate enemy agents; to facilitate the establishment of new public offices, notably representing centralised power”. On liberation the CPL’s role would become “to act as the provisional representatives of the population in the department until the [arrival of] designated authorities of the central power and to assist them in their task”.77
Before the insurrection, or rather before the shooting began, the CPL’s administrative tasks were preparing posters, organising protests, helping those evading the hated STO (Service Travial Obligatoire), encouraging strikes and other forms of collective action. The phrase “milice patriotique” (as distinct from Darnand’s collabo paramilitary Milice) was used to describe rank and file résistants from all groups. The CPL’s advice was that résistants should be organised along the lines of an infantry section of six to eight people. The envisaged actions were intended to dissipate German efforts to create an organised defence. The CPL also intervened in everyday issues to control the cost of living, maintain bread quality and denounce suppliers of stale meat.78
From September 1943 its media officers devised wall posters to correct the lies put out by German propaganda, like the Deutsche Wochenschau, by reproducing information from the BBC World Service. It aimed to create an atmosphere of upheaval to shake Parisians into activity, a goal that was only partially achieved. Beginning in November 1943 the CPL’s newspaper, Le Patriote Parisien, encouraged strikes in factories supporting the Nazi war effort. During the période clandestine, however, the CPL advised against attacking German personnel directly. Sabotage, such as derailments, was permissible but military violence came under COMAC’s authority.79
Short of direct military action the CPL performed initial measures of the process which became épuration (the purge)—identification of traitors and collabos so they could be brought to justice. Since the Third Republic, Paris had developed exceptional municipal institutions. The elected Municipal Council administered all aspects of life falling outside the political control of the Prefect of the Department of the Seine (which shared offices at the Hôtel de Ville) or the Prefect of Police based at the Préfecture. Being tainted by Vichy, prefects René Bouffet and Amedée Bussière, loyal, dutiful Parisians though they were, would have to be replaced.80
But the left-wingers dominating the Resistance deluded themselves if they thought liberation provided a springboard for revolution. Basically conservative, de Gaulle was not such a fool as to remove Vichy officials without having his own replacements waiting in the wings. Well before D-Day he chose Marcel Flouret as Prefect of the Department of the Seine and Charles Luizet as Prefect of the Paris Police. The Constable never intended to allow Paris to fall to the Left at the liberation.81
Alexandre Parodi, de Gaulle’s political delegate in France, bore two noms de guerre: Quartus and Cerat. Tasked with uniting the Resistance around Paris, Parodi was assisted by two secretaries: Felix Gaillard, who negotiated the labyrinthine layers of governance that bedevilled Occupied Fra
nce, and Michel de Boissieu,* who advised on political matters. They were supported in their turn by regional adjutants Jacques Maillet (Mirabeau) for the south of the country, and Roland Pré (Daru) for the north, who had recently been parachuted in from London. This “Delegation” included various committees covering areas such as intelligence appraisal, finance, press, radio and social matters. These organs accomplished important groundwork enabling the new régime to hit the ground running once France was liberated, avoiding the need for AMGOT. Though quietly spoken, Parodi demanded absolute discipline. With the Gestapo and their collabo henchmen becoming more experienced, Parodi prioritised security just as much as Henri Rol-Tanguy.82
1944
FOR THE MUNICIPAL COUNCIL the bombing of railways and factories clearly indicated that the invasion was imminent. It also made the feeding and fuelling of Paris far more difficult. A useful corrollary of this problem was that the Municipal Council could claim fit young men and women as essential workers who might otherwise have been sent to Germany under the hated STO. Though not directed by the London French, Taittinger insisted this form of resistance deserved respect.83
Since Paris had been declared an open city in 1940, Taittinger hoped for a similar arrangement as liberation approached. Both the United States Army Air Force and the Royal Air Force were asked not to bomb central Paris.84 The Municipal Council struggled to ensure that as few factories as possible made Paris a legitimate military target. After an SKF ball-bearing factory was destroyed in the banlieues, its Swedish proprietors suggested rebuilding it at the Parc des Expositions. But when another of their factories was destroyed near the Porte de Versailles, SKF relented and considered Dugny-Le Bourget instead.85