Paris '44: The City of Light Redeemed

by Mortimer Moore, William

  SINCE 1943 THE ORATORY OF VICHY IMFORMATION MINISTER Philippe Henriot had persuaded many naïve young Frenchmen to join Joseph Darnand’s Milice. When Germany’s power was at its zenith little could be done about Henriot; he enjoyed support from all classes. Now retired and devoutly Vichyste, General Le Barazer de Lannurien said, “The tempers raised against Monsieur Philippe Henriot are the best indicator of the good he has done and the bad that he has stopped.”15

  The Resistance felt differently, especially after Henriot crowed over the airwaves at the Glières tragedy.* Evaluating the impact of his diatribes, COMAC decided Henriot was more dangerous than Pétain or Laval. L’Humanité’s underground journalists reckoned that for every Frenchman sent to Germany for STO, Henriot received a hundred francs. Moscow-based writer Jean-Richard Bloch called Henriot a “master provocateur” with a “treacherously melodramatic voice”, who denounced patriots to the Gestapo.16

  Since Vichy power rested on German force of arms, counter-arguments were ineffective against Henriot. He had to be silenced before more naive youngsters joined the Milice. Initially the Resistance intended to capture Henriot and fly him to Algiers. A team was shortlisted for the operation but one of them was arrested by the Gestapo before anything happened. A new assassin was needed. In the southwest, young colonial administration student Charles Gonard, codename Morlot, impressed COMAC by eliminating a German double agent, so Maurice Kriegel—Valrimont—summoned Morlot to Paris to deal with Henriot.

  Initially Morlot planned to kidnap Henriot, but Valrimont advised, “Rather than risk the operation it would be better to kill him.” This then became, “Don’t complicate life; the order is to kill him.” Intelligence reports indicated that, when in Paris, Henriot used a first floor apartment at 10 Rue de Solferino which, until 1940, housed a civil service union. The concièrge, a Resistance sympathiser, still lived there. To “execute” Henriot inside his apartment Morlot’s team needed to seize temporary control of the building and escape afterwards. He required sixteen armed men. Security precautions meant using men from different regions. The weapons came from the Haut-Jura while the assassins came from Paris and Toulouse. By D-Day, Morlot’s team was ready, only waiting for Philippe Henriot.17

  THE SAME DAY THAT THE SS DAS REICH DIVISION MASSACRED the inhabitants of Oradour sur Glane, General Leclerc and his ADC, Christian Girard, drove to England’s south coast for a staff meeting. Leclerc was in high spirits. The 2e DB’s training was going well and relations with their English hosts were excellent. A conversation with the Polish 1st Armoured Division’s General Maczek made Leclerc recognise that, compared to the Poles, his men had much to smile about. “You, General Leclerc,” said Maczek bleakly, “you are lucky. You know where you’re going. Perhaps you will find your country in ruins but you will be able to rebuild it. But for us, there’s no hope. What can we expect? Whether our country is occupied by the Germans or the Russians, we will be just as oppressed.”18

  As the olive drab Buick sped them southwards, Leclerc told Girard they were visiting Major-General Freddie de Guingand, who had welcomed them to Montgomery’s Tripoli HQ in January 1943. Greeted by Guingand’s US liaison officer they entered a medium-sized country house where Captain Johnny Henderson, one of Montgomery’s ADCs whom Leclerc and Girard remembered from Tripoli, offered sherry and canapés. When de Guingand arrived, exclaiming “Mon cher Leclerc,” Girard wrote that Leclerc shrivelled as he did sometimes when the British were painfully confident; something 1940 did to him.19

  After lunch de Guingand ushered them into a drawing room where, opposite the fireplace, a wall-sized map of northern France showed the day’s positions. De Guingand explained events since D-Day in fluent French, enumerating losses, ground gained and the destruction inflicted on French territory. “He didn’t bat an eyelid and neither did we,” wrote Girard. “But what next?”20

  Knowing that Leclerc wanted to speak with de Guingand alone, Girard arranged a little manoeuvre between the salon and the corridor whereby Leclerc could corner de Guingand. While Leclerc visited the bathroom, Girard engaged de Guingand’s aides in time-serving conversation while excluding de Guingand—who outranked him considerably. A few minutes later, Leclerc reappeared and approached de Guingand, who listened to him intently. Girard later learnt that Leclerc requested the 2e DB should serve under British command.21

  For an entirely US equipped division to operate under British command would have created a logistics nightmare that Montgomery would never have allowed. There is only one reason why Leclerc made this request: the Allied positions from D+1 to D+4 would have suggested that the British positions were a better springboard for the 2e DB to make its lunge for Paris.

  14 June 1944

  DE GAULLE SPENT SEVERAL DAYS PREPARING for his first step on liberated French soil. The previous evening, dining at the British Foreign Office, Anthony Eden passed him a letter from Churchill lifting Montgomery’s practical objections. The Free French frigate Combattante* was waiting at Portsmouth. The Constable would be accompanied by Pierre Viénot, Admiral Thierry d’Argenlieu, Generals Koenig and Béthouart, Gaston Palewski, Colonel Billotte, and longstanding retainers such as Geoffroy Chaudron de Courcel, his ADC in 1940.22

  Combattante dropped anchor near the Norman coastal village of Courseulles, and de Gaulle’s party chugged ashore in a DUKW, while François Coulet sat atop a trunk containing twenty-five million francs. They were welcomed by popular beachmaster Commander Colin Maud, along with a tam-o-shanter wearing Canadian major and Montgomery’s French liaison party under Commandant Chandon.23

  Visiting Montgomery’s HQ, de Gaulle was amused to see Rommel’s portrait hanging in Monty’s caravan. Robert Aron’s version of this meeting emphasises Montgomery’s thick shoe soles and his adoring little dog. As a matter of etiquette, de Gaulle addressed 21st Army Group’s staff.24 While de Gaulle confered with Montgomery, Admiral d’Argenlieu, General Koenig, Gaston Palewski and Colonel de Boislambert, in full uniform, had effectively canvassed Bayeux, creating a storm of excitement. Being a priest alongside his naval career, the extraordinary Thierry d’Argenlieu knocked up the local bishop, Monsignor Picaud, chief of the abbey where d’Argenlieu was once a novice monk. “Do I call you Père or Admiral?” the bishop asked. “Admiral, of course,” replied d’Argenlieu.25

  Next, led by General Koenig clutching a bunch of peonies, d’Argenlieu, Palewski, de Boislambert and the war correspondent Jeannerat marched towards the Place du Château while two local electricians drove around the town with loudspeakers, proclaiming de Gaulle’s imminent arrival.26

  De Gaulle had an eventful drive into Bayeux. First, outside Courselles, the local priest rode after him proclaiming that after hearing the Appel of 18 June 1940 he became a résistant. “I do not shake your hand, I embrace you,” said de Gaulle.27 Next, seeing two policemen cycling from Bayeux, de Gaulle hailed them. Noticing his general’s képi, the policemen stopped and saluted. When de Gaulle introduced himself they were so awestruck they let their bicycles fall over.

  “My friends,” said de Gaulle. “I am going to ask you to do me a service. I’m on my way to Bayeux; would you be kind enough to go back there and tell them I am coming, so that I take no one unawares. We shall not move from here for a quarter of an hour.”28

  When de Gaulle entered Bayeux he found the streets deserted since everyone was congregating in the Place du Château.* “A type of stupor had seized the inhabitants which immediately burst into vivats and tears of joy,” he wrote. “Coming out of their houses, they made a procession around me amid extraordinary emotion. Children surrounded me. Women smiled and sobbed. The men offered me their hands. And so we went, all together, overwhelmed and fraternal, feeling both joy and pride that our nation’s hopes were rising out of the shadows, to the sub-prefecture in whose salon, merely an hour before, the portrait of Marshal Pétain had hung.”29

  In truth much was happening under the surface; incumbent sub-prefect Rochat was grilled about food supplies and French currency usag
e. Only when they were satisfied, and Pétain’s official portrait was removed, did de Gaulle’s party return outside where the crowd was thickening. Immensely moved, the Constable could only say “How are you?” as mothers offered children to be kissed.30

  De Gaulle had known since 1943 that he was the most popular man in France and had already experienced his compatriots’ adulation in French North Africa. But this was the first time he was fêted on French soil. Against a backdrop of Allied flags, he gave a speech. “We are all moved to find ourselves together again in one of the first Metropolitan French towns to be liberated; but it is no moment to talk of emotion. What the country expects of you, here behind the front, is to continue the fight today as you have never ceased from fighting since the beginning of the war and since June 1940. Our cry now, as always, is a war-cry, because the path of war is also the road to liberty and of honour. This is the voice of la Patrie. I promise you to continue to fight till sovereignty is re-established over every inch of our soil. No one shall prevent our doing that.

  “We shall fight beside the Allies, with the Allies, as an ally. And the victory we shall win will be the victory of liberty and the victory of France. I am going to ask you to sing with me our national anthem, the Marseillaise.”

  To sing the Marseillaise with the once obscure general who now represented the voice of France moved Bayeux’s citizens to tears. They crowded around de Gaulle’s party, preventing their departure until British military police arrived.31

  Next the French convoy entered the battered village of Isigny. Soon people emerged from damaged buildings waving Tricolores and cheering, apparently oblivious to streams of British half-tracks and artillery limbers trying to pass through. Since Isigny was in a combat area, de Gaulle’s walkabout was getting in the way, and this was soon reported to Montgomery. Again, de Gaulle asked the people to sing the Marseillaise with him. Returning to Courseulles, de Gaulle visited the fishing village of Grandcamp, which had prepared for his arrival. The ritual was repeated a third time: an effusive welcome at the mairie, a road-blocking crowd, and another rendition of the Marseillaise.32

  Following his visit, de Gaulle’s HQ at 4 Carlton Gardens estimated that he shook hands with around three thousand French citizens. De Gaulle’s latest British biographer, Jonathan Fenby, wrote, “As in Africa, de Gaulle had shown that, whatever distance he maintained in personal relationships, he could work a crowd to perfection. The popular reaction would be used to give the lie to Roosevelt’s insistence that he was not a representative figure.” But Montgomery was less than pleased to find his troop movements interupted by de Gaulle’s PR campaign, even ordering that de Gaulle should return to England, under arrest if necessary. De Gaulle never forgave Montgomery.33

  21 June 1944

  DURING OCTOBER 1943 LECLERC ADDRESSED HIS OFFICERS in the casino at Temara, impressing upon them that France was in dire straights and their task was to retrieve her former glory. But at that time Leclerc’s division was half-formed. Now, reassured by Patton that they would soon arrive in Normandy, Leclerc called all the 2e DB’s officers to Dalton Hall’s great lawn where loudspeakers were set up and he delivered this address:.

  I have brought you together to tell you why we are here. Last summer when General de Gaulle told me to form the 2e DB he asked me if I thought it was possible to form a solid unit from elements of such diverse origins. My reply to him was, “Yes, since our goal these last four years has always been to see the maximum number of Frenchmen return to the war behind him. From the moment a man retakes his arms after the Appel, we would be be in agreement.” The General completely agreed with this conception of “Fighting France”.

  Once the decision to open a second front was taken, General de Gaulle demanded that the French Army was represented, especially by our unit. We had less equipment than the others. We are, perhaps, less well trained. But in his eyes that was of small importance. He has succeeded. We were the first designated to take part in the campaign of liberation. For each of us this is the greatest honour of our career. Since Africa until now, obviously I have not been able to speak to all of you. We must rise to this moment, especially in our attitude to combat. Where bravery and guts are concerned, I am not worried. As soon as Frenchmen are properly equipped and armed they fight well. You have already shown that. Our comrades in Italy have confirmed it. Nevertheless you must be aware that the task ahead will be hard.

  Because the armoured force has become the rapid force, the difficult force. One of our generals wrote during the last century “the cavalry will not tolerate mediocrity”. Otherwise we will be charging into a hop field, like at Reichshoffen!* This is even more true today for armoured forces.

  You will be thrown into battle without adjustment. You will not have the time to familiarise yourself with the terrain nor with your adversary. You will have to take rapid decisions. You must prepare yourselves for a brutal entry onto the battlefield. I say this particularly to unit chiefs. But be in no doubt that the battle awaiting you will not tolerate mediocrity and that leaders, whether of a troop or a single tank, will be weighed in the balance.

  The fight will be particularly difficult because because we are so few, being French in the midst of large foreign formations, which creates its own problems. Reflect on your responsibilities as officers and don’t lose a minute in improving the quality of the men entrusted to you.

  I would also draw your attention to a second point. I ask you to be of the highest conduct out of combat and afterwards. Tomorrow, both during the campaign of liberation and afterwards, we have to find out whether or not France can be a great nation again. Having been invaded, bloodied and diminished, she runs the risk of never being able to become a great power again. She has not been in such danger for centuries. This is not a gratuitous remark; this is sadly a fact.

  The French are always optimistic. It is so easy to fall back on grand phrases: “Eternal France”, “The Educator of the Human Race”. For fifty years we have known what this has cost us. Therefore it is wiser to look reality in the face and understand how France has got into such danger.

  It is because our leadership classes, our élites, have failed. Before 1939 this élite led France to the chasm into which she has fallen. Since 1940 another class has lacked the will to mitigate the situation from the Empire, preferring either directly or indirectly to assist Germany. When you meet a notable tomorrow, you will be able to ask him whether he was an incompetent before 1940 or a coward afterwards. Obviously there will be numerous exceptions, but most of our governing classes cannot escape from this dilemma.

  This moral crisis is already materialising presently with the Resistance. I have met several of them recently. One of them, taking an example, who came from the maquis where he had been playing an admirable part, while bearing witness to the faith and idealism of his comrades, told me how worried he was by the lack of leaders. A few days afterward I met another who came from a group made up of old soldiers who deplored the lack of rank and file résistants. So “the maquis has men but no leaders and the Résistance has leaders but no men”. In other words, under the German threat, while recognising the task and knowing the importance, these Frenchmen have not yet refound their unity.

  Considering the moral difficulties and the material destruction, and the enormous setback that France has suffered compared to other nations who are already preparing for peace-time, and you will have some idea of the formidable tasks awaiting you. Why have I deemed it useful to raise these problems with you? Normally, before sending men into battle, one avoids discouraging them by enumerating the difficulties. It is because of the officers’ galons that you wear, and here, it is especially to the young that I am speaking. You are officers. You do not have the right to be ignorant of these problems. It is your duty to enlighten your subordinates.

  How will France get out of such a situation? The ideal would be to do what Russia has done for several years and isolate herself completely from the rest of the world while rebuilding herself. S
adly this is not possible for France owing to the situation she already has in the world. I think, in the first place, it is necessary to be ardently patriotic, and in saying this to officers, it is because at the moment, there is a definite tendency, even in the army, to regard patriotism as something narrow and retrograde. It should now be seen as “progressive”. Taking other nations’ example and reading their newspapers, never is patriotism less than an honour in Russia, in England and even in the United States.

  I believe it is also necessary to have strong authority, and in this we are very lucky to have General de Gaulle. For those of you who don’t know him well, I would point out some of his character traits. He is above all a man of irreproachable character from the moral viewpoint. It would be impossible to find, either before 1940 or since, a single flaw. He is the best type of French officer, in every meaning of the term, against whom it would be impossible to find any weakness.

  He is also a man very susceptible to the patriotic viewpoint. I have born witness to this for the last three years. The difficulties concerning our dealings with London prove that to you. And I can tell you that, without General de Gaulle, the unity of the French Empire would today be little more than a memory.

  In short we can be sure that such a man would never put his personal interest above the national interest. That is the most precious of guarantees. In the chaos facing our country, such authority needs solid foundations, a real lifeline; the Division, or whatever remains of it after the battle, must constitute a healthy organism.