Since January de Gaulle had been lobbying Duff Cooper over the transportation to England of the 2e DB. Noting that General Leclerc “is said to be the most popular man in France after de Gaulle”, Duff Cooper advised de Gaulle to mention the 2e DB before raising matters like the Syrian affair and AMGOT, since AMGOT particularly was the most contentious.115
Despite Churchill’s misgivings over de Gaulle personally, the British vocally promoted the idea of a French division joining the northern campaign rather than leaving all the newly equipped French divisions with de Lattre’s First Army. This was confirmed by SHAEF* on 12 January 1944. Considering the pressures an armoured division placed on ship space, it was also noted that, if Leclerc’s division was included, an American armoured division would be held back.116 Transporting the 2e DB required twenty-four LSTs (Landing Ship Tanks), which could only be done using vessels returning from supplying the Italian front. The same day that Pierre Pucheu was sentenced to death, Duff Cooper received a telegram from Churchill: “He [Churchill] tells me that he is much in favour of the Division fighting with the main invasion forces from England, that Eisenhower agrees with him, and that he is, therefore, doing all in his power to overcome the difficulties of transportation. I am glad to have this information to give de Gaulle, which ought to cheer him up.”117
On 29 March Leclerc boarded an RAF aircraft for Algiers. Seeing him off, Girard watched fascinated as the crew saluted Leclerc with discreet deference. In Algiers Leclerc met his wife’s cousin, Canadian Major-General Georges Vanier, and Duff Cooper, whose diary reads, “I went out to see Vanier during the afternoon in order to meet General Leclerc, a dapper little soldier exactly like an English officer, quiet and giving one the impression of competence. I told Leclerc and Vanier that it was almost certain that his division would go to England to take part in the invasion. He was naturally delighted to hear it.”118
Awaiting his commander’s return beside Temara’s airstrip, Girard fell asleep in the Ford.
“Ambassadors, no less, have been concerning themselves with the 2e DB,” said Leclerc as he got in the car. “We’re the political division!”
Major General and Madame Vanier’s arrival from Algiers accompanied by Leclerc’s brother, Guy de Hauteclocque, indicated that the 2e DB was becoming the renascent French Army’s pre-eminent division. Girard found it strange walking among comrades who remained unaware of SHAEF’s decision; “I had to suppress the desire to shout the news from the rooftops,” he wrote.119
On 7 April General de Gaulle arrived in his personal Lockheed Hudson. First he inspected the tank regiments at Rabat, walking along rows of parked Shermans, Stuarts and M8 armoured cars, shaking hands as he passed. Colonel Louis Dio, one of Leclerc’s closest associates since 1940, paraded the Chad Regiment at Skhrirat. Bayonets fixed, they presented arms in an enormous phalanx, as de Gaulle walked slowly through their ranks. Though supplemented by Spaniards and other nationalities from the Corps Franc d’Afrique, many of these men had been Gaullists for four years. They would get their reward. That evening, in Temara’s casino, de Gaulle told Leclerc’s officers that the 2e DB would soon depart for England. They cheered. The letter appointing Leclerc “interim governor” of Paris was no empty gesture. They were going.
AMAZINGLY, DURING EARLY 1944 Marshal Pétain’s popularity lifted. On 25 April the Prefect of the Seine, René Bouffet, summoned Pierre Taittinger and the Prefect of Police Amedée Bussière to his office at the Hôtel de Ville. Pétain would visit Paris the following morning for the first time since 1940 to show Parisians his solidarity with their hardships and the uncertainty that lay ahead. He would attend a requiem mass at Notre Dame for those killed by the bombing in the 18th Arrondissement on 20 April and do a walkabout. But there should be no announcements and no publicity.
“The Marshal must come without any visible police escort,” insisted Louis-Dominique Girard, an emissary from Vichy. “There must be no exaggerated protective measures and certainly no German uniforms at any price. If Paris is left to the Parisian population and if the Marshal can communicate directly with them then there shouldn’t be any incidents to worry about.”
Paving the way, Girard visited arch-collaborator Fernand de Brinon, Vichy’s ambassador in Paris, to impress upon him that Pétain refused to meet any Germans, collabos or Milice leaders—a measure clearly intended to dissociate the Marshal from reprisals and excesses committed against the Resistance. To Cardinal Suhard, Girard also insisted that visiting dignitaries enter Notre Dame discreetly through the Rue du Cloitre Notre Dame side entrance. After the service a lunch reception would be held at the Hôtel de Ville.120
On 26 April, with no prior warning, those gathered on the Parvis of Notre Dame de Paris began cheering when Pétain arrived, sitting in the back of an open topped limousine between Prefects Bouffet and Bussière, all in smart uniforms. Even Gaullist sympathiser Claude Mauriac was moved to see Pétain in his khaki greatcoat and gold braided képi bathed in spring sunshine. During the service, news spread that the Marshal was in Paris and crowds gathered between Notre Dame and the Hôtel de Ville, waving Tricolores for the first time since June 1940. Infant children who had never seen France’s flag were made to look at it by their mothers.
During the luncheon the crowd thickened on Place de l’Hôtel de Ville.
“The acclamations are for the Victor of Verdun, to the uniform that you wear; saluting in you the army of another time in the hope of having a new army tomorrow. You are the incarnation of la Patrie and not of a government. One should not seek to find a political argument in the cheers they are giving you,” Taittinger told Pétain.121
After luncheon in the Salon Jean-Paul Laurens, Pétain was asked several times if he was returning to Paris permanently.
“I have returned as a stranger,” he replied. Then, almost as if he saw himself as Christ, believing in the kitsch busts of himself decorating every mairie, he announced, “On our soil we can no longer make our laws. I will come among you again when, as in the past, we are able to be among ourselves.”
Outside, Pétain mounted the plush draped scaffold to be engulfed by cheering. The famous blue eyes welled up. Trying to prevent himself from choking, he spoke hoarsely. “I have come at a time of great unhappiness to lift from you the ills which hang over Paris. It is the first visit that I have made to you. I hope that I will be able to return before long without being obliged to warn my guardians. Today is not a formal arrival in Paris; it is a little reconnaissance visit. I think of you always. When I return we will have a lot to say to each other. That, then, will be an official visit. À bientôt, I hope.” The crowd cheered, but the new relay equipment malfunctioned. Only a few strongly ennunciated phrases, such as “my hope to find myself once again among the people of Paris who had been so tested”, were audible.122
The Germans left the Marshal’s visit uninterrupted, expecting him to denounce Allied air raids; Pétain did not even mention them. The crowds were simply immensely moved to see him because, as Taittinger said, he symbolised a more glorious France. As Pétain’s motorcade toured bomb-damaged areas it “was hailed by cheering Parisians without any hints of discord, no wolf-whistles, not a single hostile shout”. Throughout the hardest hit arrondissements the reception was the same. “Particularly in the Quartier des Épinettes and in the 18th, a notoriously revolutionary arrondissement, which was particularly welcoming.”123
At the Hôpital Bichat, Petain’s party was welcomed by a well-built matron. “One doesn’t need to see that old monkey,” she muttered as Pétain toured the hospital, exchanging greetings. Outside, another crowd gathered, shouting “Vive Pétain.” After comforting the injured, Pétain was driven through the bomb-damaged streets where people rummaged through their ruined homes. He ordered his chauffeur to stop. Breaking through the police cordon, the crowd soon surrounded him.124
Lastly Pétain visited the grace and favour apartment on the Square de la Tour-Maubourg allocated to him after the 1919 Armistice, where he greeted his cook A
dele for the first time since 1940. In that most military neighbourhood the crowd was ecstatic. “You see, Monsieur,” a lady explained to Taittinger, “Le Maréchal est du quartier! ”125 Of General de Gaulle, once Petain’s subaltern, there was no mention. It was Petain’s day; his last parade.
OVER EASTER THE 2e DB DISMANTLED their Moroccan encampments. Some were still on leave, especially artillerymen owing to the late arrival of their Sherman-based self-propelled guns. Leclerc had also finally received his anti-tank regiment, the Régiment Blindée des Fusiliers Marins (RBFM), recruited from French Navy personnel who lost their ships fruitlessly resisting the Torch landings and who were re-equipped with US-built Tank Destroyers. Since they had come from the most Vichyite of the French armed forces, Leclerc’s attitude towards these sailors was contemptuous. Their leader, Captain Raymond Maggiar, a school contemporary of Leclerc, was the 2e DB’s only regimental commander to have been imprisoned by the British after being sunk off Madagascar in 1942. After their heroic defence of Dixmude in 1914, Fusiliers Marins wore red lanyards around their left shoulders. After leaving the RBFM in no doubt that de Gaulle had foisted them upon him, Leclerc made them remove these lanyards, not to be replaced until they had been earned afresh. Finally Leclerc said, “If you can’t get on with the rest of the division I shall leave you behind in England.”
The 2e DB would be shipped to Great Britain in two halves; first the tanks and tracked vehicles under Colonel de Langlade, followed a few weeks later by the rest under Colonel Dio. Langlade supervised the Casablanca embarcations from a cabin on the damaged battleship Jean Bart. Further along the dockside, huge US-built LSTs lined up, their prows facing the quay, bow doors open, ramps down, ready to load the 2e DB’s vehicles. Different regiments’ equipment were deliberately mixed and distributed equally between the LSTs, so that if a ship was lost no regiment lost more than another. It also meant that personnel from different units got to know each other during the voyage.
The 2e DB’s staff flew to England in a converted Liberator bomber on 18 April. By lunchtime the next day, Leclerc was back at 4 Carlton Gardens where he had first reported to de Gaulle on 25 July 1940. Pulling open empty drawers, Leclerc exclaimed, “What do these people do all day?” His adjutant, Weil, and Girard shrugged.126 Since 1943 de Gaulle’s staff had mostly transfered to Algiers.
On 23 April Langlade’s convoy was met at Swansea docks by Leclerc and Girard. Acclimatising to the British home front, the 2e DB soon learnt who was helpful and who otherwise. Once disembarked they travelled north to battle schools around Hull and Beverley in Yorkshire. Insufficient trains meant most tanks had to be driven there and the British Quakers—the division’s stretcher-bearers—doubled as traffic policemen. Leclerc was allocated Dalton Hall, the home of the Hotham family, as his HQ, and for three months the 2e DB shared training grounds with the British Guards Armoured Division and the Polish 1st Armoured Division.
If Leclerc and Langlade were good examples of France’s traditional officer type, Joseph Putz was definitely not. An oddball inherited by Leclerc along with the Corps Franc d’Afrique, Putz had a French mother and a German father who refused to acknowledge him. His experiences as an ordinary poilu during the First World War made him deeply compassionate towards ordinary soldiers, subsequently turning him into both an excellent officer and a left-winger. During the Spanish Civil War Putz became a colonel in General Walter’s 14th International Brigade and was wounded several times. Some believe that Ernest Hemingway based Robert Jordan, his hero in For Whom The Bell Tolls, on Putz. After 1940, Putz supervised labour groups on the Mediterranean-Niger railway for a while. But, after witnessing Vichy’s despicable treatment of Spanish Republicans, Putz dissociated himself and turned towards resistance activities. When French North Africa went over to the Allies, Putz helped form the Corps Francs d’Afrique’s third battalion, mainly Spaniards, who subsequently transfered into the 2e DB’s Chad Regiment.127
The Chad Regiment’s 9th Company, La Nueve, included “têtes difficiles”—tough, difficult men who had experienced a lot but still had much to give. Captain Raymond Dronne, a Gaulliste de la première heure and one of Leclerc’s best and toughest officers in Africa, was the obvious choice as their commander, not only because he spoke Spanish, but also because he was intelligent enough to handle them.128 They affectionately dubbed him “El Kapitan”. They possibly preferred serving under Frenchmen like Putz and Dronne than Spaniards they knew too well. Some of Leclerc’s Spaniards were undoubtedly communists, but mostly they were anti-Franco and hoped for a rematch once Hitler was defeated.129 In the uniquely cosmopolitan 2e DB, personality clashes were inevitable until everyone got used to each other. Leclerc’s clear leadership style ensured that the combination worked. La Nueve were among the 2e DB’s proudest members; it was no accident that Leclerc chose them for special missions in the months ahead.
Arriving in Yorkshire, Jacques Massu’s 2/RMT* were encamped at Fimber Station, adjacent to “an immense prairie cut in two by the road to Wetwang. On our arrival, an Irish Guards tank regiment was encamped to the west of this great space and bonds were forged quickly, full of jollity and mutual respect. Drink followed drink signifying a brotherly welcome and, helped by whisky, the Entente Cordiale was re-established.”130
3 June 1944
WAITING BESIDE A COUPLE OF AVRO YORKS at Algiers’ airfield, Alfred Duff Cooper was relieved when Gaston Palewski confirmed that de Gaulle would visit Great Britain for consultations with Churchill. The Constable’s indignation over AMGOT had become extreme.131 When they arrived at Northolt the following morning. Duff Cooper was “surprised to see a large Air Force band and a Guard of Honour of at least fifty men. The band played the Marseillaise extremely well.” The Englishman hoped this would soothe de Gaulle’s injured patriotism.132
For D-Day, Churchill’s personal train was parked at Droyford, which significantly lacked the War Cabinet’s London facilities. Nevertheless it was to this inconvenient lair that Churchill welcomed de Gaulle, whose entourage now included the GPRF’s* London ambassador, Pierre Viénot, General Koenig, the commander of the FFI, and de Gaulle’s ADC, Colonel Pierre Billotte.133 The British were represented by Ernest Bevin, Anthony Eden and, to Duff Cooper’s surprise, the South African Field Marshal Jan Smuts, who had once declared publicly that France would never be great again.134
At luncheon the conversation was businesslike. Whereas Great Britain and America were the invasion’s key players, France’s unfortunate role was to provide the battlefield while trying to retain her sovereignty. The idea that one of America’s great military forts housed political officers preparing to govern France through AMGOT infuriated de Gaulle. Anglo-Saxon high-handedness risked making a nonsense of his efforts to prepare a new political class to govern France after liberation.135 Hence, when Churchill suggested “talking politics”, de Gaulle’s party was apprehensive.
“Politics? Why?” asked de Gaulle.136
After lunch, everyone but Churchill and de Gaulle repaired to the carriage’s tight corridor.137 Churchill told Gaulle he should visit Roosevelt and submit to AMGOT. The old chestnut again; the Constable was unelected and neither Churchill nor Roosevelt approved of that.
“Why do you seem to think that I am required to put myself up to Roosevelt as a candidate for power in France?” de Gaulle protested. “The French government exists. I have nothing to ask of the United States of America, any more than I have of Great Britain. That being understood, it is important for all the Allies that relations between the French administration and the military command be set in order. We have been proposing this for the last nine months. Since the armies are going to land tomorrow, I quite see that you are in a hurry to have this question settled. We ourselves are ready. But for this settlement where is the American representative? Furthermore, I observe that the Washington and London governments have taken measures to dispense with any agreements with us. The troops who are preparing to land have been furnished with ‘so called’ French money whi
ch is absolutely unrecognised by the government of the Republic. Tomorrow General Eisenhower, in agreement with you, [will proclaim] that he is taking France under his authority. How do you expect us to negotiate on this basis?”138
Churchill breathed deeply before telling de Gaulle the realities of his special relationship with Roosevelt. “And what about you? How do you expect us, the British, to adopt a position separate from that of the United States? We are going to liberate Europe, but it is because the Americans are with us to do so. For get this quite clear, every time we have to choose between Europe and the open sea, it is always ‘le grand large’—the open sea that we shall choose. Every time I have to choose between you and Roosevelt, I shall always choose Roosevelt.”
Witnessed from the corridor, this exchange is rightly remembered. Eyeing the Frenchman he had supported since 1940, Churchill raised his glass.
“To de Gaulle, who never accepted defeat,” he said.
“To Britain, to victory, to Europe,” de Gaulle replied.139
Churchill then took the French group to Eisenhower’s HQ. Eisenhower was deeply concerned that bad weather could delay the invasion.
“What do you think?” he asked de Gaulle.
“If I were in your place,” de Gaulle replied, “bearing in mind the disadvantages of a delay of many weeks, which would prolong the psychological tension of the attacking forces and endanger secrecy, I should not put it off.” As it turned out, Eisenhower’s meteorologists advised him that he only needed to postpone the invasion for one day.
Then Eisenhower showed de Gaulle a draft of the announcement he intended to read via the BBC declaring that, once Allied troops landed, France was taken under his authority. De Gaulle was appalled. “It was a summons to obey a foreign general,” wrote Jean Lacouture.140 It negated the sacrifices de Gaulle had asked of his compatriots.
“I am ready to change it according to your remarks,” said Eisenhower.
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