De Gaulle’s fury had not been feigned. This did not mean that he was crazy, but the vehemence of his reaction did partly have psychological causes. For someone of de Gaulle’s temperament, his total dependence on the British was intolerably difficult to bear. The defeat of 1940 had been a humiliation which he felt with terrible intensity. One observer commented: ‘I think he was like a man, during these days, who had been skinned alive.’12 All that pain erupted in the summer of 1941. But de Gaulle was also testing how far he could push his allies. His conclusion after the Syrian affair was that ‘With the English one must bang on the table and they will submit’.13 De Gaulle was also acutely aware that if he were not seen to be defending French interests in the Empire, he would be vulnerable to Vichy accusations of being a British stooge. Telling Churchill ‘I am too poor to be able to bow’, de Gaulle bit the hand that fed him because it was his only way of showing that France still had teeth.
As de Gaulle’s difficulties with Churchill developed in 1941, he tried to court America.14 In June, he suggested that if Roosevelt entered the war, he might prefer French Equatorial Africa to Britain as base of operations. But he was unsuccessful in playing America off against Britain. On the contrary, America’s entry into the war in December 1941 compounded de Gaulle’s problems with the Allies. Roosevelt was dubious about de Gaulle’s utility to them: Dakar and Syria had demonstrated that Gaullist involvement in operations against Vichy-controlled areas could be counter-productive. This confirmed Roosevelt’s preference for retaining contacts with Vichy and trying to bring Pétain around to an anti-German position.
Relations between de Gaulle and Roosevelt were aggravated by de Gaulle’s decision, in December 1941, to send a force to recover the two tiny French islands of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, off the Newfoundland coast. Roosevelt opposed anything liable to alienate Vichy, and his Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, condemned this ‘arbitrary action’ by the ‘so-called Free French’. Hull’s comment outraged American public opinion and offered de Gaulle an insight into the possibilities of using Allied public opinion against the Allied governments. Roosevelt insisted that the Free French evacuate the islands. A compromise was reached which saved face on both sides, but left simmering grievances.
During 1942 de Gaulle’s relations with the Allies deteriorated further. One French observer in London commented: ‘The General must be constantly reminded that our enemy number one is Germany. If he followed his natural inclination it would rather be the British.’15 There was another flare-up when the British launched an expedition on 5 May to the French colony of Madagascar without including (or consulting) the Free French. This crisis rumbled on for six weeks. De Gaulle was so incensed that at the start of June 1942 he asked the Russian ambassador in London whether the Soviet Union would offer a refuge if he decided to break with Britain.16
By the middle of June 1942, de Gaulle was persuaded that the British harboured no nefarious designs on Madagascar. His mood improved when the Free French scored their first military success at the battle of Bir Hakeim in Libya. Between 2 and 11 June, the Free French General Koenig, with about 4,000 troops under his command, repelled the forces of Rommel, which were massively superior in number. This was a battle with real strategic importance, winning a respite for British forces retreating eastward. In a month when other military news for the Allies was negative, Bir Hakeim received worldwide publicity. The Americans even accredited an official representative to the Free French in July.
The honeymoon did not last long. In the summer de Gaulle was again in the Levant where he had violent encounters with Churchill’s envoy in the area, General Spears. Once back in London, de Gaulle had another epic confrontation with Churchill on 30 September. Eden commented that he had not witnessed such rudeness since Ribbentrop. The burden of the argument was contained in the following exchange:
Churchill: You say you are France! You are not France! I do not recognise you as France.
De Gaulle: Why are you discussing these questions with me if I am not France? …I am acting in the name of France. I am fighting alongside England, I am not fighting for England…
Churchill: The problem is to decide what France is… There are other fractions and other elements of France who could one day play a larger role.17
The National Committee
Churchill was too committed to de Gaulle to be willing—yet—to explore these ‘other elements’. But from 1941 he was looking for ways to bring de Gaulle to heel. One possibility was to exploit the distrust existing towards him among the French in London. Like most émigré communities, the French in London were riven by factional infighting. One persistent intriguer was Admiral Muse-lier who resented his subordination to de Gaulle. Muselier was encouraged by another born mischief-maker, André Labarthe, who had been an aide to the Popular Front Air Minister Pierre Cot. In November 1940, Labarthe founded a review entitled La France libre which, despite its title, had no connection with the Free French movement, and adopted a mildly critical stance towards it. Thanks to the participation of the young philosopher Raymond Aron, the journal had real intellectual weight, and enjoyed considerable influence in London.18
Churchill was aware of these currents of dissent. In September 1941, he suggested that de Gaulle set up an advisory committee to make the Free French less of a one-man show. In this way he hoped to curb the troublesome general. The scheme backfired. Taking Churchill’s idea as his cue to attempt a palace revolution, Muselier summoned de Gaulle to form a council composed of himself, Labarthe, and others. De Gaulle counter-attacked by declaring that he would set up a committee of his own choosing. Muselier thereupon threatened to secede from the Free French, taking the fleet with him. After British mediation, the contest was won by de Gaulle. On 25 September Muselier was forced to accept the creation of a national committee with de Gaulle as president. Churchill told Eden: ‘this is very unpleasant. Our intention was to compel de Gaulle to accept a suitable council. All we have done is to compel Muselier and Co. to submit themselves to de Gaulle.’19 Muselier, who was not entirely trusted by the British, had pitched his ambitions too high. The British had wanted to reduce de Gaulle’s power, not emasculate him.
The eight-member National Committee began to give the Free French the appearance of a provisional government. It claimed to be ‘the sole representative of France and the empire’ although the British did not recognize it as such.20 Although de Gaulle’s authority was now greater than it had ever been, criticisms of him continued. Labarthe’s La France libre kept its distance: in all the articles written by Raymond Aron, which run to 1,000 pages, the name of de Gaulle appears only eleven times. Criticism of de Gaulle was also expressed in the newspaper France, edited by Pierre Comert, a former press officer at the Quai d’Orsay who had been sacked for his anti-Munich opinions. Comert was assisted by two Socialists, Louis Lévy and Georges Gombault. Lévy organized the French Socialists in London into the ‘Jean-Jaurès Group’ which became another centre of anti-Gaullist sentiment. After the setting up of the National Committee, the Jaurès Group refused to recognize it.21 This sniping against de Gaulle continued throughout the next year. It influenced perceptions of de Gaulle among the British left, and gave ammunition to those in America who argued de Gaulle could not be trusted.
De Gaulle’s Ideology
These criticisms of de Gaulle were fuelled by suspicion of his political ambitions. There was a long-standing republican mistrust of generals becoming involved in politics which de Gaulle’s aloof manner and authoritarian style did nothing to allay. Gombault remarked after his first meeting with de Gaulle in July 1940: ‘I had not expected to meet General Boulanger.’22 There was a persistent rumour, sedulously cultivated by Labarthe, that Dewavrin was a former Cagoulard, and had stuffed the Free French intelligence services with right-wing extremists. Rumours circulated about ‘torture chambers’ in Duke Street, where these intelligence operations were located. Although Dewavrin was certainly not a left-wing sympathizer, the only substance to these
allegations was that one of his first agents had been a Cagoulard. But the mud stuck.23
It was true, however, that many of de Gaulle’s first followers were army officers, with no love for democracy. When Pierre Cot presented himself to de Gaulle in June 1940, claiming that he was ready to serve in any way, even to sweep the stairs, his offer was rebuffed on the grounds that his reputation would frighten away air-force officers. But there were figures of the left in de Gaulle’s movement from the start, among them Boris, Schumann, Cassin, and the trade unionist Henry Hauck. They were willing to give de Gaulle the benefit of the doubt or at least shelve politics until the end of the war.24
In fact, no one knew much about de Gaulle’s political ideas. Certainly he did not have republicanism in his bones. His parents were Catholic and monarchist, although his father had been unusual in believing Dreyfus to be innocent. But well before 1940 de Gaulle had parted ways with the prejudices of his family. This is clear from his book France and her Army (1938), a history of France told through the history of her army. Its interpretation of French history is entirely unideological. France’s many regimes are judged only according to whether they had contributed to the country’s military greatness: such a book could not have been written by Maurras. De Gaulle was positive about the ancien régime but also the revolutionary armies; scathing about the period 1815–70, viewed as a mediocre interlude between disasters; admiring of the Third Republic up to 1918 for restoring French military strength. Such views were not self-evident for someone from de Gaulle’s milieu: his eulogy of the revolutionary General Hoche attracted a grieved rebuke from his father.25
In 1940, de Gaulle was happy to take on followers from all political backgrounds. He had no trouble accepting that one could be a Socialist, a Jew, and a patriotic Frenchman. De Gaulle was intransigent in defence of what he believed to be France’s national interests, but pragmatic about everything else. In The Edge of the Sword, a book he published on the nature of leadership in 1932, one guiding theme is that leaders must be able to adapt to circumstances. When lobbying for his campaign for army modernization in the 1930s, de Gaulle readily approached politicians of all stripes.
None of this makes de Gaulle a Republican, but it does not make him an anti-Republican either. It is true that the first months of the Free French were striking for the absence of references to the Republic. Free French broadcasts were introduced by the motto ‘Honour and patrie’ not the Republican motto ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’. In November 1941 de Gaulle declared that his condemnation of the ‘appalling tyranny’ of Vichy did not signify any indulgence for the ‘anarchic abuses’ of the decadent Third Republic: both should be swept away.26 But the idea there had been much wrong with the Third Republic in its last years was widely shared in 1940. De Gaulle’s motives in avoiding any association with republicanism were also tactical. He wanted to avoid specific political labels so as to attract the widest support. When Cassin tried in July 1941 to obtain a clearer commitment to democracy, he was told that the French people currently identified democracy with the fallen Republic which had been ‘condemned by the facts and by public opinion’.27 On the other hand, at Brazzaville in October 1940, de Gaulle promised that the French people would choose their form of government after liberation.
In short, de Gaulle’s political radicalization over the next two years was not a complete break with his previous beliefs. In January 1941, he invoked ‘all the traditions of French freedoms’; in March, the ‘two-thousand-year pact between the grandeur of France and the liberty of the world’. The real turning point came in November 1941 when de Gaulle embraced the slogan ‘Liberty, Fraternity, Equality’ in order to ‘remain faithful to the democratic principles… which are at stake in this war of life and death’. In April 1942, he proclaimed that France was going through the greatest revolution in her history. He preferred to ‘win a war with Marshal Hoche than lose it with [the ancien régime general] Marshal Soubise’.28 One of de Gaulle’s representatives in Washington, Adrien Tixier, was told in December 1941 to explain in America that de Gaulle was a ‘firm partisan of the democratic principles’ of the French Revolution. The word ‘revolution’ appears seven times in his speeches and writings in April 1942 alone.29 In the same month, he referred for the first time to the Republic.
De Gaulle’s radicalization partly reflected his resentment of what he saw as France’s betrayal by her elites. He once observed that his earliest followers had all been Jews and Socialists. Visiting New York in 1944 he remarked: ‘My supporters are Negroes and Puerto Ricans, cripples and cuckolds, émigrés and Jews.’30 De Gaulle’s radicalization was also a tactical response to circumstances. He was quick to grasp the ideological nature of the war, especially after the entry of the Soviet Union. In addition, it was increasingly difficult to separate opposition to Vichy’s collaboration policy from opposition to Vichy’s domestic agenda. If in 1940–1 de Gaulle felt that associating the Free French with republicanism might alienate French opinion, there was reason to believe in 1942 that this situation was changing. For all his quarrels with his allies, de Gaulle never lost sight of France.
De Gaulle and the French
De Gaulle’s first speech had been addressed less to the people of France than to French citizens outside or prepared to leave France. From the beginning, however, he was aware of the importance of propaganda within France itself. The radio was his most powerful weapon. The Free French had five minutes on the BBC every evening. De Gaulle spoke on the big occasions—sixty-seven times in total—but the most frequent broadcaster was Maurice Schumann, who spoke over a thousand times. The British had the right to vet the speeches, and when they wished to punish de Gaulle, they stopped him broadcasting. De Gaulle could also speak from Brazzaville, where the British did not control him, but until June 1943 there was no transmitter powerful enough to be heard in France.31
In addition to the Free French radio slot, there were also the French broadcasts of the BBC which increased from two and a half hours daily in 1940 to five hours in 1942. One of the most successful programmes was ‘Les Français parlent aux Français’ run by Jacques Duchesne, a theatre director who stayed in England after Dunkirk. Duchesne’s team was not under de Gaulle’s control, and he did not always appreciate their broadcasts. Although ‘Les Français parlent aux Français’ could not match the stars of Radio Paris, it cultivated an irreverent style which was no less lively. One characteristic invention was the ditty (sung to the tune of La Cucaracha):
Radio Paris ment
Radio Paris ment
Radio Paris est allemand.32
(Radio Paris lies, Radio Paris lies, Radio Paris is German).
From the beginning, de Gaulle was keen to test opinion in France. In his tenth speech, on 23 July 1940, he appealed to anyone working for the Germans to ‘resist passively by all the means at their disposal’. He also called on people to keep off the streets for one hour on 1 January 1941, and to go into the streets on 11 May.
In December 1940, de Gaulle created a department responsible for ‘action in the occupied territories’. This portfolio was given initially to Gaston Palewski, and then in March 1941 to Maurice Dejean, a former aide to Daladier. Palewski conceived the idea of setting up a network Free French committees in France. But he lacked the resources to implement this plan, and nothing came of it. Dejean decided that rather than trying to create committees out of nowhere, he would build contacts with French trade-union circles, and win them over to the Free French. This mission was given to Léon Morandat, a trade unionist who had stayed in London after the signature of the Armistice. Morandat had been the head of the Catholic CFTC in the Savoie, and he had good trade-union contacts. But in the autumn of 1941, several months after the decision to send him to France, Morandat was still in London: it was easier to make plans than to execute them.33
The only contacts which had been made with France were the work of Dewavrin’s intelligence service. What Dewavrin knew about intelligence work when he started came from
spy thrillers. He and his first associates began by selecting their pseudonyms from the Paris metro map: Dewavrin became ‘Passy’. Everything had to be created from scratch. His agents were not professionals; he took anyone willing to volunteer. The first one, Jacques Mansion, was landed in Brittany in July by two fishermen. He returned with a map of German installations in Brittany. Another agent was Gilbert Renault, a 35-year-old film producer, who was sent to organize an escape route through the Pyrenees.34
To transport his agents to France and provide them with radio contact and equipment, Passy needed the co-operation of the British intelligence service, MI6. He also had to deal with the newly created Special Operations Executive (SOE) which had a special section (RF) to liaise specifically with the Free French, but also its own French section (section F) which carried out independent operations in France. Passy’s relations with these British services—themselves at loggerheads with each other—were tense. Colonel Buckmaster, the head of Section F, was his particular bête noire. But Passy could not have functioned without the British, and they needed any intelligence information he could provide them.
By the end of 1941 Passy had sent twenty-nine agents to France. The most successful was Renault, better known to posterity under his pseudonym Colonel Rémy, who set up an intelligence network, the Confrérie Notre Dame (CND), which developed tentacles throughout France. Passy’s ultimate ambition was to carry out military actions—especially sabotage—as well as gather intelligence. De Gaulle was sceptical about this but did not forbid it, and in July 1941 Passy set up a military action section to work with SOE. Passy’s overall operation was now called the Central Bureau of Intelligence Information and Military Action (BCRAM). The ‘M’ for ‘Military’ was added because although de Gaulle was happy to let Passy organize military operations, he believed that these must be separated from political action and propaganda (which was Dejean’s responsibility).
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