De Gaulle now had a golden opportunity to establish a power base and an army. Following Operation Torch he moved his headquarters to Algiers and appointed General Pierre Koenig as head of the French military mission in London. Crucially there were still some 100,000 French troops in Morocco and Tunisia, and their presence would help him consolidate his position.
Hitler’s response to the Allied landings in French North-West Africa was swift and predictable: the Wehrmacht and SS rolled into the Free Zone in the south of France on 11 November 1942. Despite Hitler’s assurances to Pétain about the safety of the French Navy, on the 27th German troops attacked and overwhelmed the naval base at Toulon. The final defeat of the fleet was a blow to French national pride, as was the loss of Toulon itself. The port held a special place in the hearts of all Frenchmen, for it was where Napoleon Bonaparte had saved the French Revolution from counter-revolutionary forces in 1793 and set himself on the path to dominance in Europe.
French sailors held the Germans off long enough for 75 warships and submarines to be scuttled at their moorings. Although this meant that these warships were denied to the Axis Powers, who had hoped to use them in the Mediterranean, equally they were lost to the Allies. Just three French submarines escaped to join the Free French at Algiers. The subjugation of the whole of metropolitan France was complete. The Allies were now presented with a dilemma: should they attack Sicily, mainland Italy or the south of France.
Admiral Darlan was assassinated on 24 December 1942 and General Henri Giraud succeeded him as the civil and military chief of French North-West Africa. He soon upset the Allies by ordering the arrest of a number of Frenchmen who had aided Operation Torch. Giraud met Roosevelt, Churchill and de Gaulle at Casablanca in January 1943. During the meeting it was agreed that Giraud and de Gaulle would become co-presidents of the French Committee of National Liberation (FCNL), but when de Gaulle arrived in Algeria on 30 May he soon used his superior political skills to become overall leader of the organisation. Rather grudgingly, Churchill recognised the FCNL on 27 August 1943.
After the Allies’ invasion of French North-West Africa the French Army was in such a state of disarray that it was unable to take part in the invasions of Sicily and Italy. Its most desperate need was for weapons.
These were slow in arriving, not least because in America, the armoury of the Free World, Eisenhower regarded the French forces as just one of the many exiled European armies competing for resources; in addition, many Americans were not convinced of the fighting value of French troops. However, Eisenhower’s Naval Aide, Captain Harry C. Butcher of the US Naval Reserve, was only too conscious of his boss’s role in rearming the French Army and its value to the coming invasion of southern France. He commented:
Ike [Eisenhower] had played a considerable part in the effort of the US to equip the rebuilt French Army. He feels we have in it a very considerable investment, and the French troops, plus the Americans and British, must be used to obtain a final decision against Germany. Therefore, a gateway for them into France must be obtained or all our French investment will have been wasted. Unless we have a southern France invasion, a great number of American and other forces would be locked in the Mediterranean.
At the French Rearmament Ceremony, staged in Algiers on 8 May 1943, Eisenhower himself said, ‘Today, General Giraud, through you, as one of the consistent and implacable foes of Hitlerism, and the leader of the French forces in North Africa, I am happy to transfer these implements of war to Frenchmen inspired by that purpose.’ He then read out a stirring cable from Roosevelt, which set Allied sights firmly on the liberation of Paris and the establishment of French democracy:
French valour and French patriotism now have a trenchant sword with which to help strike from France the shackles of oppression. The victorious Jeanne d’Arc carried her battle standard into the coronation cathedral. Now that the only Axis soldiers left on African soil will soon be in graves or in prison camps, let us set our hearts and minds on complete victory, so that we may march, with this equipment, up the Champs Elysee to the Arc de Triomphe, where lies the Unknown Soldier, symbol of French heroism. There we will render a salute to the Tricolour, once again floating proudly, peacefully and forever over a freed French people, who will re-establish their own government in accordance with their own conceptions of right, liberty and justice.
General Giraud wanted to reorganise the French Army into 13 divisions, but shipping requirements meant that the Americans at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943 could only commit to supplying 11. The first convoy arrived in North Africa on 14 April and by July 75,000 French troops had been equipped with American weapons, uniforms and vehicles. In the meantime de Gaulle’s two Free French divisions had been poaching recruits and were redeployed to Tripolitania (Libya).
Giraud, though, was obliged to factor de Gaulle’s units into his plans, and this plus a shortage of support personnel required him to disband five divisions, and therefore he ended up with just eight (including three armoured) available to take part in the liberation of Europe. Two of these, the 1st Motorised and 2nd Armoured, remained staunchly Gaullist units, while four others were composed almost entirely of colonial soldiers.
The French I Corps was reconstituted on 16 August 1943 at Ain-Taya in Algeria under Lieutenant-General Martin. It consisted of the 4th Moroccan Mountain Division (4e DMM), the 1st Regiment of Moroccan Tirailleurs (1er RTM), the 4th Regiment of Moroccan Spahis (4e RSM), with light tanks, the 2nd Group of Moroccan Tabors (2e GTM), the Commandos de Choc battalion and the 3rd Battalion, and the 69th Mountain Artillery Regiment (69e RAM). These key French combat units were re-equipped with American-supplied uniforms and weapons as part of the rearmament of the French Army of Africa. It would not be long before the corps was blooded in liberating French territory.
By early September the German 90th Panzergrenadier Division and the Reichsführer-SS assault infantry brigade were evacuating Sardinia and transiting via southern Corsica. In response, the French launched Operation Vésuve, landing elements of I Corps at Ajaccio on the 13th, just three days after being informed that the Italian troops on the island were willing to fight for the Allies. Aiming to cut off the withdrawing German troops, I Corps linked up with Corsican partisans who also wanted their occupiers gone.
When the German forces under General von Senger und Etterlin began disarming the Italians, General Magli ordered them to consider the Germans as an enemies. From that point Italian units on the island cooperated with the French forces. Unfortunately though, SS troops captured 2,000 men on the 13th after surprising the Italian Friuli Division in the northern port of Bastia, and secured the port from which they could evacuate. Although supported by the Royal Navy, the French were unable to land swiftly enough to prevent the bulk of the Germans from reaching their exit ports on the east coast.
The final battle with the German rearguard took place around Bastia and the island was secured by 4 October. The Germans suffered 700 casualties and lost 350 taken prisoner, but most of their forces escaped. The Italians lost 800 men, mostly from the Friuli Division, while French losses were modest, with 75 killed, 12 missing and 239 wounded. The French I Corps remained on Corsica until May 1944 conducting training exercises. On 18 April that year it was subordinated to General de Lattre’s Armée B (Army B).
By mid-October 1943 Hitler had reinforced his forces in Italy with 27,000 troops who had escaped from Corsica and Sardinia. In the meantime Field Marshal Albert Kesselring had managed to keep the Allies at bay and disarm the Italian Army. He then brought the invaders to a halt 160 km from Rome. Eight months were to pass before the Allies reached the Italian capital, and then it would take another eight months before they managed to break out into the plains of northern Italy.
During the Corsican operation de Gaulle and other Allied leaders criticised Giraud for arming the communist-dominated Front National resistance group. Giraud was also implicated in the Pecheu affair; M. Pecheu was the Vichy Interior Minister whom Giraud had permit
ted to come to Algiers, where he was charged with complicity in the execution of French workers by Germans. Pecheu himself was shot and the French Committee of National Liberation decided in April 1944 that Giraud should stand down as commander in chief and he was put on the retired list. His enemies tried to assassinate him in Algeria on 28 August but he survived. By November 1943 de Gaulle was in complete control of the FCNL, which in turn controlled most of France’s colonial possessions and more importantly the French troops now being equipped by America. During the Italian campaign of 1943 and 1944 some 100,000 French troops took part in the fighting against the German Winter Line and the Gustav Line. In the meantime frantic reequipping went on in French North Africa, and by the time of the Normandy invasion Free French forces totalled over 400,000 men under arms.
General de Lattre
In the autumn of 1943 General de Gaulle hinted to General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, commander of the Free French 2nd Armoured Division, that the Allies might employ his division for the Overlord operation. Leclerc was a staunch Gaullist and his men were veterans of the fighting in Libya and Tunisia. In the summer of that year his force had become known as the 2e Division Blindee and was fully equipped along the lines of an American armoured division, with Sherman medium and Honey light tanks, armoured cars, self-propelled guns and towed artillery. Its organisation included two powerful tank regiments, the 501e Chars de Combat and the 1er Regiment de Marche de Spahis Marocains.
Understandably, Leclerc began to press for transport to Britain, causing a row with General de Lattre de Tassigny, who wanted the 2nd Armoured Division as part of his Army B (1st Army), which was earmarked for the invasion of southern France. When Leclerc’s force was finally shipped to Britain in April 1944, all the black colonial troops were returned to France’s African possessions, on the grounds that they would be unable to cope in Europe. The remainder found themselves in Yorkshire, rapidly converting from bush and desert warfare to an armoured role more suitable for the fighting to come in Europe. As if to drive home the division’s destination, all the tanks and vehicles had a map of France painted on them. Leclerc and his men hoped to fight alongside the British in the opening assault, but instead the division was attached to General George Patton’s US 3rd Army, which was allocated the break-out role.
By early 1944 the French Army had sent to Italy under General Juin an expeditionary corps of four divisions, consisting of the 1st Motorised, 2nd Moroccan and 3rd Algerian Infantry Division, and the 4th Moroccan Mountain Division. The 2nd Moroccan Infantry Division had been formed on 1 May 1943 and committed in Italy at the end of November 1943; the following month it was followed by the 3rd Algerian Infantry Division, also created on 1 May 1943 after the conversion of the Constantine temporary division. The 4th Moroccan Mountain Division had come into being on 1 June 1943, after being raised from the 3rd Moroccan Motorised Division, but was not committed to Italy until February 1944. Lastly the 1st Free French Division formed on 1 February 1943 was converted to the 1st Motorised Infantry Division on 24 August 1943 and sent to Italy in April the following year.
As commander of Vichy forces in French North Africa, Juin had fallen out with de Lattre over how best to defend Tunisia from Axis incursions should the British win in Libya. De Lattre had wanted to conduct a forward defence, but Juin knew that this could leave Algeria vulnerable. He also knew that to bring forward reinforcements from Morocco and Algeria would violate the armistice with Hitler. Their best hope lay in holding the hills to maintain a foothold and screen Algeria. In January 1942 de Lattre was sacked and posted to Vichy France.
De Lattre was clearly not a Gaullist, having commanded the Montpellier region under the Vichy regime, but he was arrested by the Vichy authorities in late 1942 for planning to oppose the German takeover of the unoccupied zone. He was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment but managed to escape to Britain in September 1943. De Lattre now faced two problems: even before 1940 he had not seen eye to eye with de Gaulle, whom he now had to support, and secondly, what could he usefully do? His greatest desire was for a field command and he was soon lobbying the British, Americans and Free French to create a French Army in North Africa. After a short stay in hospital for a damaged lung, he flew to Algiers to see de Gaulle and Giraud. The latter was an old ally and got him appointed as commander of the French 2nd Army, which encompassed all the French forces in North Africa. He would have to wait until April 1944 before he was officially informed that his force, designated Army B, would be committed to Anvil. In the meantime he faced the headache of forging ardent Gaullists, colonial forces, former Vichy supporters, escapees and other disparate units into a single coherent command capable of combat operations. His efforts were further complicated by the fact that the best units were either now with Juin fighting in Italy or already earmarked for Normandy. In addition, de Lattre needed weapons and equipment, not only for his assault force but also for eager recruits once they were back on French soil.
De Lattre had the backing of de Gaulle, as neither was happy at the idea of a French Army within the American command structure and reliant on American logistic support. Both felt Roosevelt and Eisenhower did not fully appreciate that a revitalised French Army could be charged with liberating its homeland. They in turn were insensitive to Roosevelt and Eisenhower’s concerns over the future of the French Empire and whether de Gaulle was the right man for the top job.
De Lattre, though, was not easily dissuaded and the Americans eventually agreed to supply weapons and equipment for five infantry and three armoured divisions. This was not considered quite so generous when it became apparent that it included Juin’s four divisions already in Italy and Leclerc’s armoured division. Under these circumstances friction was inevitable. One can only feel sorry for Eisenhower, even while admiring his stamina, as he was caught between the competing demands of Churchill and de Gaulle. It is astonishing that the alliance managed to survive these strains; that it did is testament to Eisenhower’s quite remarkable management skills. A lesser statesman could have greatly exacerbated the situation.
De Lattre now began to cast an envious eye on Juin’s corps, advocating that it should be brought back from Italy and placed under him. In this he was supported by General de Gaulle and the Allied command, and Juin’s forces duly joined him in July, giving him a total of seven divisions. De Lattre showed great diplomacy in assimilating the four divisions who were devoted to Juin, tactfully keeping General Marcel-Maurice Carpentier, Juin’s Chief of Staff, and all the existing divisional commanders.
In February 1944 de Gaulle created the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) under General Koenig in an effort to unite all the various resistance groups. In the run-up to Overlord and D-Day Britain and America were loath to discuss their plans with Koenig, for information sent to Algiers would end up in Paris, where the Resistance movement was so heavily infiltrated by the Germans it would inevitably reach Hitler.
The FCNL now became the provisional government of the French Republic, although cynics smiled at the word ‘provisional’. De Gaulle now considered himself head of the French government, though neither America nor Britain recognised him as such. At the end of the month he returned to London, where he disassociated himself once more from the Allied cause by refusing to broadcast a message to his fellow countrymen on D-Day.
Chapter Three
Churchill and Monty take on Ike
In late December 1943 General Bernard Montgomery bade an emotional farewell to the officers and men of his beloved 8th Army at Vasto Opera House in Italy. Major-General Francis de Guingand, Monty’s Chief of Staff, who was to accompany him, recalled the occasion:
My Chief was very quiet and I could see that this was going to be the most difficult operation he had yet attempted. We arrived inside and he said, ‘Freddie, show me where to go.’ I led him to the stairs leading up to the stage. He mounted at once, and to a hushed audience commenced his address to the officers of the Army which he loved so well.
Montgomery’s
place in the history books was already secured after his actions in North Africa and Sicily, but now he was going on to bigger and better things, having been appointed to command the 21st Army Group that was to assault northern France. He flew out from Italy on 31 December, and his arrival would sow the seeds of British opposition to Operation Anvil, the proposed invasion of southern France. Freddie de Guingand noted their progress:
Our course allowed us a glimpse of Etna and then nothing until the North African shore. We landed to refuel at Algiers, taking off immediately for Marrakech, where we arrived about six in the evening. Here we changed aircraft. Montgomery went off to spend the night with Winston Churchill, who was convalescing there, …
It may have been imprudent of Churchill to show Montgomery the Overlord plans before he was fully briefed by the planning staffs in London. Indeed, even before Monty had arrived in Morocco General Sir Hastings Ismay, the Prime Minister’s Military Secretary, received a cable from Marrakech saying Churchill ‘is full out on Overlord and Anvil but suspects Eisenhower and Montgomery will demand considerably heavier assaults in the full moon period’. Understandably Ismay was not happy and signalled back:
It is most undesirable that Monty should be given an opportunity of criticising the plan before he has discussed it with the people who prepared it. They alone can explain the reasons which have led to the adoption of the plan in its present form. We are sure it would be much better for Monty to reserve judgement until he comes home …
Nonetheless, Montgomery spent the evening in Marrakech preparing written comments for the Prime Minister. The following day he remarked, ‘Today, 1 January 1944, is the first time I have seen the Appreciation and proposed plan or considered the problem in this way.’ This was not entirely true; Eisenhower and General Walter Bedell Smith had discussed the Overlord plans in some detail with him in Algiers just days earlier.
Operation Dragoon Page 5