Moulin’s most important information concerned the Resistance in the South although his information was not entirely accurate. He reported the existence of three movements—Liberté, Frenay’s Libération nationale movement (this was just before their merger), and Libération—but he had not heard of Franc-Tireur and had no idea that d’Astier, whose existence he knew about, was the leader of Libération. Moulin knew much less about the Resistance than he let on, but the important fact was that no one else in London knew any more.
Moulin first met de Gaulle on 25 October 1941. Whatever reservations Moulin might have harboured quickly evaporated. To François de Menthon, he later remarked: ‘De Gaulle is a very great man … What does he think, in his heart, about the Republic? I could not tell you. I know his official positions, but … is he really a democrat? I don’t know.’8 He wrote to Cot in America: ‘for the moment one has to be with de Gaulle. Afterwards we’ll see.’9 De Gaulle’s private thoughts are not known, but he was certainly delighted by the arrival of someone of Moulin’s stature—the first prefect to come to London—and impressed by his personality. One of Moulin’s British interrogators noted that he had ‘the sort of natural authority and experience which his past history brings him’.10 Moulin also managed to inflate his knowledge of the Resistance and his relationship to it. He claimed not only to have met the leaders of all the main movements—in fact he had not met d’Astier—but also to be bearing instructions from them. This idea that Moulin had some kind of mandate from the Resistance would certainly have surprised the resisters whom he had met.11
Moulin not only provided information about the Resistance, he also proposed a strategy to exploit it, arguing that it could make a military contribution to the war. Its forces could assist the allies at the liberation, and maintain order in the transition from the Vichy regime to its successor (this was the ex-prefect speaking). Moulin also warned that if the Resistance was not taken in hand by the Free French, it could fall under Communist influence. These arguments impressed de Gaulle who sent Moulin back to France as official ‘Delegate of the French National Committee to the Unoccupied Zone’. His mission was to persuade the Southern movements to recognize de Gaulle and co-ordinate their meagre military forces which would be placed under Free French authority. In return, the Resistance would receive the material aid it desperately needed.12 On 1 January 1942, Moulin was parachuted back into France where he remained until 15 February 1943.
The Resistance and London: First Contacts
Moulin had concluded his report by saying that the movements looked ‘above all’ to the Free French to help them. This may have been what he surmised de Gaulle would want to hear, but it was probably not what Frenay had told him. There is no contemporary record of the meeting between Frenay and Moulin in 1941, but there is one of a meeting at about the same time between Frenay and Howard Brooks, an American Unitarian pastor. Brooks was visiting France ostensibly for humanitarian purposes, but in reality to glean information about the Resistance. Frenay told Brooks that he was ‘very distrustful of the De Gaullists’ and did ‘not wish to work with them’. Quite apart from ‘bad blunders’ like Dakar, de Gaulle was ‘not sympathetic to democracy, without a social plan, and seriously handicapped by his political ineptitude’.13
Resistance leaders were certainly interested in obtaining help from de Gaulle, but they were interested in any sources of funds. SOE received a report from d’Astier in December 1941 saying that the movements sought above all a direct agreement with the British government.14 From July 1941, Frenay was receiving funds from General de Laurencie who had in 1940 been Pétain’s representative in the Unoccupied Zone before breaking with Vichy. De Laurencie’s money came from the Americans who were hoping to build him up as a counterweight to de Gaulle. In December 1941, there was a meeting between de Laurencie, Frenay, and d’Astier. The stumbling block to an agreement proved to be de Laurencie’s attitude to de Gaulle. Like many in the army, de Laurencie could not forgive de Gaulle his defiance of Pétain in 1940. ‘I’ll amnesty him’, he told one resister; another was told de Gaulle could become military governor of Strasbourg.15 D’Astier and Frenay insisted that de Laurencie reach an accommodation with de Gaulle. His refusal to do so ended their connection with him.16 The de Laurencie affair showed that, whatever reservations Resistance leaders harboured towards de Gaulle, they were starting to incorporate him into their vision of the world. The term ‘Gaullist’ had become a synonym for opponents of the Germans or Vichy; his name itself functioned as an effective recruiter for the Resistance organizations. This smoothed Moulin’s task, but his most powerful means of persuasion was money. Having resumed contact with Frenay, and having soon afterwards met d’Astier and Lévy, he provided them with funds from the 1.5 million francs he had brought over from London. Moulin also had the prestige of being the first officially accredited representative of de Gaulle whom the Resistance leaders had ever met. The matchbox in which he carried the microfilm of his instructions from de Gaulle had an almost talismanic quality to these resisters starved of contact with the outside world.17
Moulin’s position as sole intermediary between de Gaulle and the Resistance was short-lived, however. Even while Moulin was still in London, Yvon Moran-dat had, on 7 November 1941, left for France on his much-delayed mission. Having contacted trade-union circles, as he was instructed to do, Morandat encountered Libération-Sud. He got on so well with d’Astier that he was invited to join the movement’s executive committee. Meanwhile in 1942 Resistance leaders started to visit London. The first, in March, was Christian Pineau of Libération-Nord. After several meetings with de Gaulle, Pineau returned to France with orders from BCRAM to set up a new network. Pineau’s visit to London had important political consequences. Before leaving France, he had consulted a number of Resistance leaders, including d’Astier and Frenay. They deputed him to request de Gaulle to provide a statement of his position on democracy. Reluctantly, de Gaulle agreed to do this, and he drafted a ‘Declaration to the Resistance Movements’, which Pineau took to France. The Declaration contained an unequivocal commitment to democracy, but also a condemnation of the Third Republic. It promised that at the liberation the French would be allowed to elect a national assembly to decide their future. Finally, it affirmed de Gaulle’s support for the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, announcing that while ‘the people of France are uniting for victory … they are preparing for a revolution’. The Declaration merely expressed more solemnly what de Gaulle had been saying for several months, but it was this solemnity which made it so important.18
The next visitor to London, between April and July 1942, was d’Astier de la Vigerie. He got on remarkably well with de Gaulle, and badly with Passy.19 May saw the arrival of Philippe Roques who had been instructed in the previous year to sound out French politicians. He brought the names of fifty-six politicians favourable to the Resistance and reported that Mandel and other politicians were considering the idea of a sort of underground parliament which would accept de Gaulle as the symbolic leader of France. It is not known what de Gaulle thought of this, but Roques was sent back to develop his contacts.20
The most important French arrival was Pierre Brossolette. Before 1940, Brossolette had been a rising star of the Socialist Party and a brilliant journalist opposed to Munich. After defeat, he was involved in various Parisian resistance groups, including the Musée de l’homme group and OCM. As a cover, he ran a bookshop which became a meeting point for resisters. Having been contacted by Rémy’s CND network, he began producing reports on French opinion which were highly appreciated in London.21 Brossolette arrived in London in April 1942, with precious information about the Resistance in the Occupied Zone. He made a deep impression on Passy who became a devoted admirer. Brossolette argued strongly against the separation of responsibility for political and military operations between the Interior Commissariat and BCRAM. Passy had been saying the same for a long time, but since Brossolette spoke with the authority of someone directly
arrived from France, his views carried great weight. As a result, BCRAM was renamed BCRA in July 1942. The dropping of the final ‘M’ (Militaire) signalled that BCRA was now authorized to carry out political missions, although overall political strategy still rested with the Commissariat.22 In fact the distinction was hazy, and the rivalry between the two bodies continued.
Besides inspiring these organizational reforms, Brossolette offered a strategic vision of the Resistance comparable in its breadth to Moulin’s. He argued that the discrediting of the old political parties opened the way for the creation of a unitary ‘Gaullist’ movement to link the new forces which had emerged in the Resistance with what could be salvaged from the parties, extending from Socialists on the left to La Rocque’s PSF on the right. Brossolette was as committed to de Gaulle as Moulin was, but where Moulin, the prefect, thought in terms of administration, Brossolette thought in terms of politics. Moulin saw de Gaulle as the provisional incarnation of the Republic; Brossolette saw him as a symbol of political renewal. Moulin wanted the Resistance to serve the State; Brossolette wanted it to regenerate the nation.23 As a step towards this end, Brossolette returned to France in June in order to bring back two leading personalities, representing diametrically opposed positions: André Philip, a Socialist who was involved in Libération-Sud, and Charles Vallin, a leader of the PSF.
Philip, who arrived in London in July 1942, was the most important politician to have joined de Gaulle so far. He was immediately appointed to head the Interior Commissariat. In September, Brossolette returned from France with Vallin. They gave a joint news conference, and Brossolette wrote an article in the Free French newspaper La Marseillaise, arguing that the association between a Socialist like himself and a member of the extreme right like Vallin, showed that former political conflicts were moribund: one was either for Vichy or against it, ‘Gaullist’ or ‘anti-Gaullist’. This article aroused criticism from the Socialists in London, and from liberal British newspapers like the Observer, who portrayed Brossolette as a proto-fascist. This scotched any idea of bringing Vallin into the National Committee and for the moment Brossolette shelved his idea of creating a Gaullist movement. Instead he began to prepare another mission to France—to organize the Resistance in the North, as Moulin was doing in the South.24
Moulin and the Resistance
Up to a point this proliferation of contacts between London and France complicated Moulin’s task. It increased the likelihood of crossed wires, especially given the rivalry between the Interior Commissariat and BCRA. Moulin, who had not even known about the Morandat and Roques missions which were the responsibility of the Interior Commissariat, was jealous of any potential rivals to his authority.25 He and Morandat did succeed in working together, but their relationship was uneasy. Moulin, arguing that Free French envoys should remain independent of the Resistance movements, criticized Morandat for having become too involved with Libération. Morandat believed that Moulin wanted to control everything and was scheming to have him recalled to London.26 There was also friction between Moulin and Pineau who had returned to France with a mission from BCRA. Moulin claimed Pineau was interfering in matters beyond his brief; Pineau retorted to London that one person could not expect to have ‘exclusive control over all possible contacts’.27
The arrival of Resistance leaders in London also threatened Moulin’s position. Having established independent contact with London, they might become tempted to undermine his authority by operating behind his back. This did occur eventually, but it took time for resisters to discover the complexities of the rivalries existing in London. At first the burgeoning contacts between France and London did more to help Moulin than hinder him: Resistance leaders were reassured about de Gaulle the more they learnt about him. Morandat’s contacts with Libération-Sud made it the first Southern movement to rally formally to de Gaulle. In 1941, the newspaper Libération had not mentioned him; in the first four months of 1942, he became a ‘symbol of recovery’; from May, the commitment to de Gaulle was unconditional. Combat was not far behind and rarely appeared after the middle of 1942 without the phrase: ‘Un seul chef de Gaulle’.28 De Gaulle’s Declaration of June 1942 was published by Combat, Libération-Sud and Franc-Tireur. On 22 June, Maurice Schumann read extracts from the Declaration on the BBC, claiming that the Resistance movements had rallied to it ‘without reserve’. In fact this anticipated events. Franc-Tireur was still worried about de Gaulle’s attitude to the Third Republic—it printed de Gaulle’s Declaration with the warning that ‘we would no more tolerate the dictatorship of a General than of a Marshal’—as were several politicians. Schumann’s broadcast aroused some antagonism by seeming to take the Resistance for granted.29 Nonetheless, on 13 July the British agreed that the Free French could henceforth be called France combattante (Fighting France) to signify that it now represented all French citizens opposed to the Armistice—inside France as well as outside it.30
Although the Southern movements had rallied to de Gaulle by the middle of 1942, Moulin never had sufficient funds to meet their needs, and one of his problems was to prevent them looking elsewhere for more generous benefactors. The British had money available for movements or networks prepared to work directly with them. The most important of these was the Carte network near Nice, founded in September 1941 by the painter André Girard. He claimed to have some 300,000 men at his disposal. In fact it emerged that he was a total fantasist and SOE broke its connection with him at the end of 1942. But for a time the funds at his disposal had provided a temptation to members of other movements. Some members of Franc-Tireur defected to Carte; others formed a splinter group with their own paper, Le Coq enchaîné, funded by the British. But these defections did not spread far: Lévy, the movement’s leader, refused Girard’s requirement that he break with de Gaulle.31
Moulin’s task of rallying the movements to de Gaulle proved easier than bringing them to work with each other. When he had left for London, a union between Libération-Sud, Liberté, and Libération nationale seemed imminent. On his return, he discovered that only Liberté and Libération nationale had merged, and that there was another movement—Franc-Tireur—he had not known about. The first joint meeting between Moulin and the three Southern leaders took place in Lyons in May. Moulin found Lévy less jealous of his independence than the other two, and came to use him as a mediator between them. Lévy felt that d’Astier and Frenay both viewed him with slight condescension as the leader of a smaller movement, but this made them less inclined to see him as a threat.32 The legacy of Frenay’s meetings with Pucheu still poisoned his relations with d’Astier. No negotiations about unity were possible during the four months of d’Astier’s visit to London. The circumstances of this caused further acrimony. D’Astier had obtained transport to London by misleading an SOE agent into believing that he was the official representative of all the movements. Frenay resented this attempt by d’Astier to steal a march on him in establishing direct relations with de Gaulle.33
In the absence of high-level negotiations between Resistance leaders, Moulin created two centralized Resistance agencies staffed by members of all three movements. The first of these was the Press and Information Bureau (BIP), a sort of resistance press service, set up in April 1942, to publicize themes of Free French propaganda and pass on suggestions for propaganda to London. The second was the General Study Committee (CGE), a sort of brains trust, set up in July, to discuss post-Liberation reforms. Moulin also organized services to facilitate contact between London and France: one to organize radio contact (WT) and another one to organize parachute drops and transport between Britain and France (SOAM).34 The SOAM was the lifeline of contact between London and France. Lysanders or Hudson bombers arriving from Britain with money, supplies, and visitors would usually return carrying resisters or distinguished Frenchmen ready to rally to de Gaulle. Each of these landings had to be meticulously prepared.
The CGE and the BIP were based in Lyons which was the centre of Moulin’s resistance activities. Here h
e lived an undercover existence with a series of pseudonyms. Moulin adapted to clandestine life with remarkable facility. Although someone capable of close friendships with both men and women, he was also highly secretive by nature, and was used to compartmentalizing his life. During this period, he succeeded in conducting separate relationships with three different women. He divided his time, under his real name, between his family property at Saint-Andiol in Provence, where he had moved after being sacked from his prefectoral post; Montpellier, where his mother lived; or Nice, where he had opened an art gallery. The gallery provided a pretext for travelling, but it also reflected a genuine passion: Moulin was an amateur artist who had published many drawings before the war.35
Moulin tried to accustom the movements to work together. He and Moran-dat encouraged them to co-operate in preparing demonstrations on 1 May and 14 July 1942. The first of these was organized by trade-union leaders, publicized on the London radio, and supported by the movements. It was the most significant public expression of resistance since 1940 and its success encouraged the movements to co-operate even more closely for 14 July. For this occasion the three movements signed a joint manifesto for the first time. As Moulin reported to London, these demonstrations were an opportunity for resisters to experience the benefits of ‘synchronization between London and their local leaders’.36 This also helped create a dynamic of unity at the base. One Resistance leader in Saint-Étienne wrote to Jean-Pierre Lévy that the preparation of the July demonstration had revealed the need for co-ordination: ‘it is regrettable that Combat, Franc-Tireur and Libération disperse their activities and give the impression of trying to compete with each other’. Morandat, Pineau, and Moulin all reported to London that the movement leaders were under pressure from their activists to work together.37
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