At Casablanca in January 1943. Left to right: Giraud, FDR, de Gaulle, Churchill.
The fact is, de Gaulle now held the winning hand. Public opinion in North Africa, France, Britain, and the United States was strongly on his side, and in the fighting in Tunisia, Free French forces had done surprisingly well. Even more important, the resistance in France was coming together. De Gaulle’s appeal spanned the political spectrum, from the Communist left to the monarchical right. His representative in France, Jean Moulin, had worked hard to bring the factions together, and on May 15 he told de Gaulle that a National Council of the Resistance (CNR) had been formed and that it strongly endorsed him “as the unquestioned leader.”III Meeting clandestinely for the first time in Paris on May 27, the council recognized de Gaulle as the leader of the Resistance and demanded that he be installed as president of a French provisional government.
In Algeria, Giraud recognized the inevitable. In late May, he invited de Gaulle to come to Algiers and form a government with him. De Gaulle accepted. “I plan to reach Algiers by the end of this week, and I shall be delighted to work directly with you in the service of France.”40 On May 30, de Gaulle landed in Algiers. Unlike his arrival at Casablanca, this time General Giraud was at the airport, a French honor guard presented arms, and a French band played La Marseillaise. Four days later Giraud and de Gaulle reached agreement. A French Committee of National Liberation (FCNL) was formed and de Gaulle and Giraud became co-presidents. The committee proclaimed itself “the central French power. It directs the French war effort…. It exercises French sovereignty.”41 Equally important, several Vichyite office holders in North Africa retired, and their replacements were Free French. De Gaulle was received by the population of Algiers with a wave of popular demonstrations involving all classes and all political persuasions.
De Gaulle and Giraud in Algeria
Roosevelt was appalled by the creation of the FCNL and immediately set about to destroy de Gaulle’s position. “I am fed up with de Gaulle,” he cabled Churchill on June 17. “The time has arrived when we must break him.”42 On the same day, FDR told Eisenhower, “It is important that you should know for your very secret information that we may possibly break with de Gaulle in the next few days.”43 Roosevelt had allowed his personal antagonism to de Gaulle to obscure the reality of the situation. In July he invited Giraud to the United States for what he assumed would be a ceremonial laying on of hands. Giraud was received unenthusiastically by the North American audience, and by the time he returned to Algiers at the end of the month, de Gaulle had secured his position as the sole president of the FCNL, which had become the de facto government of France in exile. De Gaulle was adept at taking advantage of Giraud’s absence, and he was warmly embraced by the other members of the FCNL. De Gaulle captured the change when he described his return to Casablanca in August: “Six months before I had to reside on the city’s outskirts, constrained to secrecy and surrounded with barbed wire and American sentry posts. Today my presence served as a symbol and a center of French authority.”44
Belated recognition of the FCNL came at the Quebec Conference between Churchill and Roosevelt in late August. Churchill had come to recognize that de Gaulle was in charge and that the FCNL was effectively the government of France in exile. The Soviet Union had officially recognized the FCNL in July, and it was time for Britain and the United States to do the same. In the end, both countries issued statements at Quebec recognizing the FCNL, although the American statement was much more limited. “The government of the United States recognizes the French Committee of National Liberation as administering the French overseas territories which acknowledge its authority. This statement does not constitute recognition of a government of France or of the French Empire by the government of the United States.”45
For all practical purposes, de Gaulle was now the undisputed leader of France’s exile government. On September 12, 1943, the FCNL created a Provisional Consultative Assembly, which was the beginning of a genuinely representative government, and de Gaulle was again overwhelmingly endorsed. By December, the military forces of the Free French under his command numbered more than 400,000, and four divisions, led by General Alphonse Juin, were already fighting on the Allied side in Italy. The Resistance in France was also supportive, and de Gaulle continued his efforts to bring it together. Jean Moulin, his original Resistance leader, had been captured by the Germans and tortured to death. De Gaulle appointed Alexandre Parodi to succeed him and shortly afterward named General Pierre Koenig, the hero of Bir Hakeim, to command the French Forces of the Interior (FFI)—the Resistance forces acting within France. Koenig was based in London, but his command was all-encompassing. The French Communist Party also rallied round, and was rewarded with three seats on the FCNL.
Churchill made peace as well. Returning from the Tehran Conference with Roosevelt and Stalin, the prime minister met de Gaulle in Marrakesh, Morocco. Once again the meeting began frosty but quickly warmed up. Churchill said he regretted the conflict that had arisen between them and that England and France must work together. De Gaulle agreed. Churchill then asked whether Franco-British friendship would extend into the postwar period. “France will be exhausted after this terrible ordeal,” de Gaulle replied, “and to recover she will need help from all quarters, especially from the United States and Great Britain.” Churchill was pleased. “If this is so,” he told de Gaulle, “we should deal gently with each other.”46
De Gaulle invited Churchill to join him at a military review the next day, and Churchill accepted. The review was a major success. According to de Gaulle, “The ceremony took place amid the liveliest popular enthusiasm. For the crowd in Marrakesh, and for those everywhere else who would see the newsreels… the appearance of Churchill and de Gaulle side by side signified that the Allied armies would soon be together in victory.”47
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, commanding Allied forces in North Africa, was even more pleased by de Gaulle’s achievement. Throughout the North African campaign Ike had had to deal with Darlan and Giraud, and neither was capable of governing the area. But de Gaulle and the FCNL did a superb job. And with the invasion of France pending, Eisenhower was convinced that de Gaulle was essential. Accordingly, on December 30, 1943, just before leaving for Washington and London, where he would become supreme commander of the Allied invasion, Eisenhower requested an appointment and then called on de Gaulle at his office.
“You were originally described to me in an unfavorable sense,” said Eisenhower. “Today I recognize that that judgment was in error. For the coming battle, I shall need not only the cooperation of your forces, but still more the assistance of your officials and the moral support of the French people. I must have your assistance and I have come to ask for it.”
“Splendid,” de Gaulle replied. “You are a man! For you know how to say, ‘I was wrong.’ ”48
According to Ike, the meeting became “a love feast.”49 De Gaulle raised the question of the liberation of Paris and said, “It must be with French troops.” Eisenhower agreed, and it was decided to send a French division under General Jacques-Philippe Leclerc to England as soon as possible. As Ike prepared to leave, he told de Gaulle he did not know what “theoretical position” Washington would take, but “I can assure you that as far as I am concerned I will recognize no French power in France other than your own.”50
I. “He certainly carried out this policy with perseverance,” said Churchill. “He even one day explained this technique to me, and I fully comprehended the extraordinary difficulties of his problem. I always admired his massive strength.” Winston S. Churchill, Their Finest Hour (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1949), 509.
II. Darlan’s assassin was being trained in the Corps France d’Afrique under the direction of Carleton S. Coon, a peacetime professor of anthropology at Harvard, and the resident Office of Strategic Services officer in the area. The weapon the assassin used was a Colt Woodsman pistol, identical to the one owned by Coon. Immediately after the a
ssassination, Coon was transferred to a British unit in Tunisia. See Jean Edward Smith, Eisenhower in War and Peace (New York: Random House, 2012), 251.
III. The National Council of the Resistance had sixteen members: eight from the Resistance movements in France, five from political parties (Socialist, Communist, Radical, Republican Federation, and Democratic Alliance), two from trade unions (CGT and CFTC), and Moulin as chairman.
III
The Allies Advance
“He and I were never Charles and Ike. Never…. He’s rather remote and I think he believes his position requires it…. But there was always a good feeling; not only of respect and admiration, but a very measurable degree of affection.”
—EISENHOWER ON DE GAULLE, AUGUST 25, 1964
Eisenhower and de Gaulle understood each other. They were the same age, born within a month of each other in 1890. Both came from large families that were very religious, both attended their country’s military academy, and both had spent their early careers commanding tank units. Both read assiduously, wrote well, and possessed a remarkable command of their respective languages. Each identified with his country’s heritage, and in many respects exemplified its virtues. De Gaulle’s war record was exceptional, and Eisenhower respected it. Wounded three times on the Western Front in World War I, he was left for dead on the battlefield only to be rescued and healed by the Germans.
De Gaulle also recognized and appreciated the position in which Eisenhower had been placed. “If occasionally he went so far as to support the pretexts which tended to keep us in obscurity, I can affirm he did so without conviction. I even saw him submit to my intervention in his own strategy whenever national interest led me to do so. At least this great soldier felt, in his turn, that mysterious sympathy which for almost two centuries had brought his country and mine together in the world’s great dramas.”1
The first area where cooperation between de Gaulle and Eisenhower was essential was in overriding the instructions from Roosevelt and the State Department pertaining to liberated France. When Ike arrived in London in January 1944, he was informed by his chief of staff Walter Bedell Smith that the State Department had instructed Allied headquarters to have no dealings with the French Committee of National Liberation (FCNL) or de Gaulle pertaining to civil affairs in France. Washington had established a School of Military Government at the University of Virginia in 1942 to train officers to manage civil affairs in former enemy-occupied countries. This produced the American Military Government in Occupied Territories (AMGOT), which was already in operation in Italy, and Roosevelt was adamant that it should also take over France when the Germans were pushed out.
Eisenhower was dumbfounded. As he saw it, there was no alternative to de Gaulle and the FCNL. Roosevelt’s instructions had to be overturned. On January 15, Ike cabled General George Marshall in the War Department. “It is essential that immediate crystallization of plans relating to civil affairs in Metropolitan France be accomplished. This requires conferences with properly accredited French authorities. I assume, of course, that such authorities will be representatives of the Committee of National Liberation. I therefore request that General de Gaulle be asked to designate an individual or group of individuals with whom I can enter into immediate negotiations in London. The need for prompt action cannot be overemphasized, since we will desire to turn over to French control at the earliest possible date those areas that are not essential for military operations.”2
Eisenhower’s cable was a frontal assault on FDR’s plan. The War Department was sympathetic, and Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy was dispatched to convince Roosevelt of Eisenhower’s need for de Gaulle. McCloy, former managing partner of the prestigious New York law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, was a favorite of FDR, and after thirty minutes of subtle flattery he brought the president to accept what Ike was doing. Roosevelt authorized McCloy to tell Eisenhower “informally” that he should feel free in making decisions about French civil affairs, “even if it involved dealing with representatives of the French Committee.”3 McCloy kept at it, and two months later Roosevelt approved a War Department directive that empowered Eisenhower to decide “when, where, and how the Civil Administration in France” would be conducted. Eisenhower was given explicit authority to consult with the FCNL and allow it to select and install civil officers, providing this did not constitute official recognition of the committee as the government of France.4
For Eisenhower, the issue was over and he had won. “The whole matter has been thrown back in my lap,” he noted in a memorandum, “and I may deal with any French body that seems capable of assisting us.”5 De Gaulle was less pleased but understood. “Actually, the President’s intentions seemed to me on the same order as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In North Africa, Roosevelt had already ventured on a political enterprise analogous to the one he was now contemplating for France. Yet of that attempt nothing remained…. That the failure of his policy in Africa had not been able to dispel Roosevelt’s illusions was a situation I regretted for him and for our relations.”6
As D-Day approached, Roosevelt began to hedge his authorization, and Eisenhower again went to the mat. Writing to the Combined Chiefs of Staff on May 11, Ike said, “The limitations under which we are operating in dealing with the French are becoming very embarrassing and are producing a situation that is becoming very dangerous. We began our military discussions with the French representatives here in the belief that, although we have no formal directive, we understood the policies of our government well enough to be able to reach a working way with any French body or organization that can effectively assist us in the fight against Germany. For the present there is no such body represented here except the French Committee of National Liberation.” Eisenhower told the Combined Chiefs it was increasingly urgent to resolve a host of issues pertaining to the upcoming situation in liberated France. “The most effective means of doing so would be for General de Gaulle himself to come to London. I would then be able to deal with him direct on the most immediate and pressing problems of the initial approach to the French people and their organized resistance groups.”7
Churchill agreed with Eisenhower that de Gaulle should come to London, but again FDR resisted. In the president’s view, there must be no discussion of political affairs in France with de Gaulle. “I know you will understand that any matters relating to the future government of France are a political and not a military matter,” Roosevelt told Eisenhower. “We must always remember that the French population is quite naturally shell-shocked…. It will take some time for them to quietly and normally think through matters pertaining to their political future. We as liberators have no ‘right’ to color their views or give any group the sole right to impose one side of a case on them.”8 Roosevelt was gearing up to run for a fourth term and his health was failing.I He was also supported in his hostility to de Gaulle by the senior level in the State Department who were still enthralled by Vichy, and by the daily anti–de Gaulle rants of Admiral Leahy, FDR’s former ambassador to Pétain who was now the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with his office in the White House.
Eisenhower was taken aback by Roosevelt’s resistance. On May 16, he cabled FDR, “you may be quite certain that my dealings with the French Committee will be confined to military matters and related civil administration…. I understand your anxiety in the matter and I assure you that I will carefully avoid anything that could be interpreted as an effort to influence the character of the future government of France. However, I think I should tell you that so far as I am able to determine from information given to me through agents and through escaped prisoners of war, there exists in France today only two major groups, of which one is the Vichy gang, and the other characterized by unreasoning admiration of de Gaulle.” Eisenhower told FDR that once ashore he expected to find “a universal desire to adhere to the Gaullist group.”
Eisenhower was counting on Roosevelt’s ultimate willingness to defer to the commander in the fie
ld. But as a backstop, he reminded the president that SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) was an Allied command. “I hope that your desires on this subject of which I am already aware, can eventually come to me as a joint directive of the two governments.”9 By suggesting that Roosevelt needed British approval, Eisenhower was providing himself with some wiggle room.
As supreme commander, Eisenhower knew that he needed de Gaulle, and he had already given him his promise of support. “We were depending on considerable assistance from the Resistance in France, and an open clash with de Gaulle would hurt us immeasurably,” Ike wrote in his memoirs. Roosevelt was a problem and would have to be dealt with. As Eisenhower saw it, “de Gaulle would represent the only authority that could produce any kind of French coordination and unification, and no harm would result from giving him the kind of recognition he sought. He would merely be placed on notice that once the country was liberated the freely expressed will of the French people would determine their own government.”10
Eisenhower did his utmost to maintain his ties to de Gaulle. On May 23 he wrote the general to congratulate him on the performance of Free French troops in Italy under General Alphonse Juin. “Although I have never for one minute doubted that the reborn French Army would distinguish itself from the first moment of its entry into battle, and on this basis have consistently urged the rearming of the French divisions, it is most gratifying to me as it must be to you to have our faith confirmed in this striking and spectacular manner.”11 (On May 14, 1944, General Juin’s troops broke through the German “Gustav Line” on the river Garigliano, forcing the Germans to withdraw northward.)
Liberation of Paris : How Eisenhower, De Gaulle, and Von Choltitz Saved the City of Light (9781501164941) Page 4