B006NTJT4U EBOK

by Jackson, Julian

  After Laval’s insouciance and secrecy, Pétain appreciated Darlan’s orderly reports. His view on collaboration did not differ substantially from Darlan’s, although he noted in the margin of one of Darlan’s memoranda that collaboration must not be military or involve the cession of bases.40 If Pétain was not as sure as Darlan that Germany would win, he was no less convinced she would not lose: ‘if Germany wins the war, we must have settled our account with her while she still has need of us’.41 Darlan’s main difference from Pétain was on domestic policy. His priority, and that of the technocrats in his government, was to enable France to hold her own economically in the new Europe. With Darlan therefore the congruence between domestic and foreign policy was greatest: where Laval was cynical about domestic reform and primarily interested in collaboration and Pétain primarily interested in collaboration to facilitate domestic reform, for Darlan the two were inseparable.42

  To relaunch collaboration it was necessary to interest Hitler in France again. This became possible after February 1941 when Hitler sent Rommel to North Africa to assist the Italians. France’s opportunity to capitalize on this occurred in April when Hitler decided to support an anti-British coup that had broken out in Iraq. Abetz asked for Germany to be allowed to use airbases in French Syria. On 5 May Darlan agreed and the first German planes arrived four days later. Darlan’s understanding was that in return the French would win some of the concessions they so desperately wanted: a reduction in occupation costs and the release of more POWs. But Abetz had promised more than he could deliver, and no concessions were forthcoming.

  On 11 May, Darlan met Hitler at Berchtesgaden. Hitler told him that although Germany would win the war anyway, France could speed up victory. For every large concession France made to Germany, the Germans would make a large one in return; for every small one, the Germans would make a small one. Back in France Darlan reported:

  This is the last chance for us of a rapprochement with Germany … If we collaborate with Germany … that is to say, if we work for her in our factories, if we give her certain facilities, we can save the French nation; reduce to a minimum our territorial losses in the colonies and on the mainland; play an honourable—if not important—role in the future Europe.

  My choice is made: it is collaboration … France’s interest is to live and to remain a great power … In the present state of the world, and taking account of our terrible defeat, I see no other solution to protect our interests.43

  The cabinet approved these conclusions. The ensuing negotiations with Germany resulted in the signature on 27 May 1941 of the Protocols of Paris. These contained three major French concessions: German use of Syrian airfields (formal confirmation of the 5 May agreement); German use of the Tunisian port of Bizerta to supply Rommel in North Africa; submarine facilities for the Germans at Dakar. Annexed was a fourth protocol mentioning political concessions to give the French government the ‘means to justify to public opinion the eventuality of an armed conflict with Britain or the United States’. The first three protocols were signed by Darlan, Abetz, and the German military negotiators; the fourth was signed by Abetz and Darlan alone. While France remained officially neutral, in practice that neutrality was increasingly asymmetrical.

  When the Protocols came up for approval on 3 June, Weygand, who had hurried over from North Africa, threatened to resign. Darlan conceded that before proceeding further, the government would itemize the political concessions it required. A list of these was handed to Germany on 6 June. The German reaction was unforthcoming and the negotiations stalled. Weygand was back in Vichy on 11 July, and on 14 July the government presented Germany with another note. Again the German response was negative, and the application of the Protocols was suspended. Nonetheless the affair had had grave consequences for France. The Iraqi revolt had been crushed by the end of May which allowed Darlan to obtain the removal of German planes from Syria. But this was too late to prevent the Anglo-Gaullists launching an attack on Syria on 8 June. After a month of fighting, the Vichy forces surrendered. Vichy had lost another piece of her Empire; Vichy forces had fought the Anglo-Gaullists; no German concessions had been obtained.

  These events have been interpreted in various ways. Weygand believed that his intervention was decisive in forcing Darlan to abandon the military collaboration he was contemplating. The French diplomatic historian Jean-Baptiste Duroselle accepts this claim. According to this interpretation, the French notes of 6 June and 14 July were drafted to invite a German refusal and sabotage the protocols.44 Jäckel and Paxton, on the other hand, utilizing German sources, downplay Weygand’s role. Noting that Darlan continued to negotiate with the Germans after Weygand’s intervention, they see the note of 14 July as a bid to put Franco-German relations on a new footing going beyond the Armistice, and taking Hitler’s words at Berchtesgaden at face value. Benoist-Méchin, who helped to draft the note, certainly claims in his memoirs that this was its purpose.45 According to Paxton, if Germany did not take the bait, it was because the invasion of the Soviet Union again redirected Hitler’s priorities away from the Mediterranean: Abetz informed the French on 13 August that Germany could not consider their proposals because she was now tied up in the East.

  Pétain’s biographer, Marc Ferro, offers a different interpretation. He believes that Darlan quickly became suspicious about Germany’s willingness to offer concessions. Weygand therefore pushed Darlan in a direction he wished to go, providing an alibi for retreat.46 Thus Weygand wrote to Noguès on 15 July: ‘I must say that I had to fight less hard than I had expected.’47 Darlan’s biographers, in their heroic attempt to salvage the Admiral’s reputation, have pushed this line even further. They argue that even when he signed the Protocols, Darlan, who felt the Germans had cheated him on 5 May, was already wary of their intentions: he had inserted the fourth protocol as an escape route.48

  The only certainty is that Darlan had taken France to the brink of military collaboration and that he drew back for want of German political concessions. The view that the Protocols foundered because Germany lost interest does not square entirely with Germany’s irritation at the new French position. Even if the view is correct, it is not incompatible with the idea that the 14 July note was intended to elicit a negative response. Probably the various protagonists had different expectations of the note, Benoist-Méchin hoping it would relaunch collaboration as a genuine partnership, Weygand believing it met his requirement of ‘keeping our political demands very high’,49 Darlan probably expecting a German refusal, but unsure if he wanted one.

  After the Protocols: Collaboration goes on

  The Protocols, however, were only part of a longer process of Franco-German co-operation in North Africa which had started before the Syrian affair and went on after it. French North Africa had become important as a base of supply for Rommel’s armies. On 25 April 1941, the Germans asked to purchase French military vehicles. Vichy agreed and a contract was signed in May for the provision of 1,100 lorries and 300 liaison vehicles.50 Negotiations on this subject reopened in September. In general Darlan’s behaviour in the second half of 1941 suggests, even to his own apologetic biographers, that ‘he persisted in the idea that France could obtain from Germany more favourable conditions and even a modification of her political statute’.51 He did everything possible to win German approval, starting in July with the removal of General Doyen from the Armistice Commission for being too anti-German.

  Vichy’s adoption of more repressive internal policies in August was partly a response to the deteriorating internal situation, but it was also linked to collaboration. Policing was at the intersection of politico-administrative and politicodiplomatic collaboration: it was a way of preserving sovereignty by preventing the Germans from interfering in French internal security; and a way of winning German approval for the wider project of relaunching political collaboration. It was also a means of pre-empting more ruthless German measures likely to render both the regime and collaboration more unpopular. The Germans had res
ponded to the first Communist terrorist attacks in August by executing five French hostages, and Hitler ordered that future attacks should be punished by the execution of 50–100 hostages per victim. To keep some control over the situation, the French themselves executed three Communists on 28 August after a trial in a ‘Special Section’ and another three on 24 September after a trial by the Special Tribunal. These six victims, guilty of no more than being Communist, were in no way implicated in the terrorist attacks.

  If these measures proved insufficient to stop the German policy of shooting hostages, Vichy at least wanted to limit the unpopularity of that policy. On 23 October, the government proposed co-operation between the French and German police to avoid the Germans shooting the wrong people: ‘it is eminently desirable in the future that the Communist hostages are selected by the German authorities but after consultation with the relevant French authorities’.52 Prefects were instructed to hand the Germans lists of those arrested as Communists. This was only a step away from the French government selecting French citizens to be shot by the Germans. Anti-communism blunted Vichy’s recognition of the invidious territory into which it was straying.

  The resistance attacks continued, and the Germans went on exacting their revenge. After a German soldier was shot in Bordeaux on 20 October and another at Nantes the next day, ninety-eight French hostages were executed. These executions became particularly controversial because Pucheu, having managed to get the number of victims reduced, was later accused of having selected the names of Communists from among the hostages. He had apparently asked the Germans to spare the names of some people with heroic war records, and then presented with another list containing the names mainly of Communists, he kept silent. The executions caused a wave of national outrage, and Pétain decided to present himself as a hostage at the demarcation line. He was talked out of the idea, but news of it spread sufficiently for Pétain to secure credit for it without having had to carry it out. In fact the German reprisals did not let up. Ninety-five more hostages were shot after another resistance attack on 28 November. In total, 471 hostages were executed by the Germans between September 1941 and May 1942.

  To win German approval, Darlan was also ready to sack Weygand who had done his best during September to slow down deliveries for Rommel.53 On 8 November 1941, Darlan delivered Pétain an ultimatum: ‘France, having been beaten by Germany, cannot hope to survive unless she draw closer to her conqueror who desires this not out of sentiment but self-interest … I have chosen the path of integrating France into the European bloc.’ If Pétain would not sack Weygand, Darlan would resign.54 Weygand was finally dismissed on 18 November and replaced by General Juin who was given military command over North Africa, but not the political powers which Weygand had also exercised. Weygand’s dismissal did more to alienate American opinion than to win concessions from Germany.

  As Rommel’s position in North Africa deteriorated at the end of 1941, Vichy came under more pressure to provide him with help. Juin was sent to negotiate in Berlin. Asked whether France would defend Tunisia even if this meant French troops alongside Rommel, he was evasive, saying that it was necessary to create the ‘necessary climate for the French troops to accept the idea of fighting side by side with the Germans’. As usual Germany would not offer the concessions which this statement implied. Nonetheless at the end of December Darlan was forced to provide more supplies and promise that the French would resist any British incursion into Tunisia if Rommel were forced to retreat there. In effect, then, the Germans had secured the second of the Protocols without giving anything in return. Luckily for French neutrality, it never became necessary to offer a refuge to Rommel because the British offensive faltered. But France delivered supplies to Rommel until the Americans threatened to stop their deliveries under the Murphy accords. Between June 1941 and May 1942, France had provided Rommel with about 1,700 vehicles, a small quantity of arms, and about 3,600 tons of fuel.55

  None of this brought a political settlement any closer. In return for sacking Weygand, Pétain was granted an interview with Goering at Saint-Florentin on 1 December. But when he presented the usual French demands and complained at Germany’s lack of co-operation, he was told: ‘Who won this war, you or us?’56 This was what ‘collaboration’ had come to. A glimmer of hope that the Germans might consider a general settlement was offered by Abetz after a rare meeting with Hitler on 5 January. He told Benoist-Méchin that Hitler really seemed interested in offering a peace treaty ‘which will astonish the French’ if they would declare war on the Allies. Benoist-Méchin enthusiastically reported this to Darlan. The information was discussed by a small group of ministers in Pétain’s presence on 10 January. Despite Pétain’s reluctance, they decided not to reject the overture flatly, but explore what was on offer. Benoist-Méchin reported back positively to Abetz who immediately informed Ribbentrop that the French were ready to declare war.

  In the end, nothing came of this. If Hitler had fleetingly nursed the idea of offering France something, he did not do so for long. He told Goebbels on 22 January that ‘France renders us certain services in Africa but not of sufficient importance for us to offer concessions.’ On the French side, this curious incident is difficult to interpret. What seems to have happened was that at every stage Abetz and Benoist-Méchin inflated the significance of what they had been told: Abetz exaggerated to Benoist-Méchin a few reveries by Hitler; Benoist-Méchin exaggerated to Darlan what Abetz had told him, and then exaggerated to Abetz the way Darlan had responded; and finally Abetz exaggerated to Ribbentrop what Benoist-Méchin had told him. This makes it difficult to reconstruct exactly how the French government did respond, but it seems certain that the response was to keep the door open. Darlan rushed to Paris in the hope of meeting Ribbentrop. He returned empty-handed. The whole affair was a tragicomic condensation of the entire history of collaboration.57

  Darlan still hoped for a general settlement, but it is unclear how far he was now prepared to go to obtain it. In February 1942, he sent notes to Abetz and Stülpnagel expressing his continued interest in a rapprochement ‘indispensable to the establishment of a new stable order in Europe’, but he added that ‘rapprochement does not mean participation in the war, at least as long as the country is neither materially nor morally ready’. Privately, however, Darlan had begun to lose hope. He wrote to Admiral Duplat who was negotiating with the Italians:

  While for a year I have deliberately oriented French policy towards a rapprochement, I have only met mistrust from both the Germans and the Italians. The proof of this is given by the constant refusal to give us the military means to respond to the Anglo-Saxon reprisals which are risked by our transports for the Axis … So it is not surprising if I respond to mistrust with prudence.58

  The American entry into the war in December 1941 was a further blow to Vichy’s policy of asymmetrical neutrality. Worried that the Germans might use French bases in the Caribbean, Washington insisted in February 1942 that Darlan refuse Germany any facilities in France’s Caribbean possessions. The Germans pressurized him to resist American pressure. Darlan’s freedom of manoeuvre was rapidly shrinking.59

  By the end of 1941, Darlan’s policy was as discredited as Laval’s had been a year earlier, and he was losing favour with Pétain. He resented Darlan’s failure to produce results, and had been deeply disappointed by the interview with Goering. Pétain’s frustration emerged in his New Year message where he spoke of his ‘partial exile’ and ‘semi-liberty’. Darlan tried to stop Pétain delivering this speech, and the Germans would not allow it to be reproduced in the North.

  Darlan’s position was not helped by the opening on 19 February 1942 of the long-delayed trial, at Riom, of those judged responsible for the defeat. The two most prominent defendants, Daladier and Blum, had little difficulty in showing the flimsiness of the charges against them, and turned the occasion into a public relations disaster for the regime. The Germans, on the other hand, were furious that the accused were being tried not for causi
ng the war, but for losing it. Under German pressure the trial was suspended in April. Darlan had few friends left.

  The weeks of scheming preceding Darlan’s dismissal were Byzantine even by Vichy standards. On 26 March 1942, Pétain had a secret meeting with Laval. In fact he remained as hostile to Laval as he had ever been, but Darlan took fright and showed the German consul at Vichy a note from the American ambassador, Leahy, informing Pétain of America’s opposition to Laval’s return. This was a tactical error on Darlan’s part. Apart from Abetz, whose star was waning, the Germans had not been pushing for Laval’s return, but once Darlan turned his own survival into a trial of strength between Germany and America, he obliged Berlin to swing behind Laval. On 17 April Darlan resigned, and Laval returned to power.60 Collaboration was now to enter a new stage.

  Economic Collaboration

  Leaving aside any moral objections to the policy as pursued up to April 1942, collaboration followed logically from the premiss that Germany had won the war, just as de Gaulle’s resistance followed logically from the opposite premiss. Although Vichy’s premiss turned out to be wrong, it was not an absurd one between 1940 and 1942. In that sense, as Henri Michel observed, the policy of Darlan and Laval made more sense than Weygand’s position of noble obstinacy, which drew the opposite conclusion from the same premiss.61

  Even allowing for the flawed premiss, however, collaboration turned out to be a chimera because Vichy grossly overestimated the degree to which France mattered to Hitler. Vichy Realpolitik was wishful thinking based on a complete misreading of Germany. Although Hitler had not made up his mind about France’s long-term fate, in conversation he mused about annexing Burgundy and Flanders to the greater Reich, and returning France to her borders of 1500. Of course, Vichy leaders were not privy to these thoughts, but available indications of German intentions towards France were hardly promising. The German Propaganda Ministry had announced on 9 July 1940 that France’s future would be to become ‘a greater Switzerland, a country of tourism … and fashion’.62