Voices from the Dark Years (8 page)

North of the Channel, the rally de Gaulle expected was no flood, but a mere trickle. Coming ashore from one of the French warships moored in Portsmouth harbour, reservist Marcel Verliat was undecided whether to stay or go home until confronted with his first meal on English soil. In civilian life a garage mechanic from the Dordogne, he warily tasted the sausage and chips served up by Royal Navy cooks before deciding with most of his shipmates ‘to go home, where at least the grub was better’.
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In addition, most of the married servicemen marooned by the tide of war in Britain wanted to get back to France and make sure their wives and families were alive and well. Typically, from the 8,000 men of Division Béthouart, only 1,500 chose to remain in Britain.

In France, newspapers in those parts of the country not already occupied by German forces reprinted de Gaulle’s radio speech in whole or in part, inspiring a small number of patriots to hitch a lift to England on aircraft, ships and even small boats – only to find on tracking down de Gaulle in London that he had no headquarters, no staff, and no uniforms, weapons or work for them. They were told to keep in touch with de Courcel and await orders. Shortly after those newspapers reports had appeared, a government announcement from Bordeaux was relayed over the radio stations still under French control that de Gaulle was:

no longer a member of the government and has no authority to make public announcements. He has been recalled from London and ordered to place himself at the disposal of his superiors. His statements must be regarded as null and void.
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The weather that night was stormy on land and a tempest at sea. The requisitioned 16,000-ton three-funnelled SS
Massilia
that had been transporting troops from North Africa was anchored 90km north of Bordeaux, at Le Verdon on the tip of the Médoc peninsula, because the captain regarded docking in the port of Bordeaux as impossible due to magnetic mines dropped by the Luftwaffe in the Gironde estuary.

The
Massilia
was the best transport Admiral Darlan could arrange to convey to French North Africa those senators and
députés
who wished to continue the war from there, of whom Édouard Daladier was the doyen. Jewish parliamentarians who had good reason not to await the German arrival included Pierre Mendès-France, Georges Lévy-Alphandéry, Saloman Grumbach and Georges Mandel, who had found time to marry his blonde lady friend in Bordeaux. Even the captain had no idea how many passengers to anticipate. Estimates varied from forty to 600. In the event, at about 9 p.m. in the teeth of the gale, the car ferry from Royan drew alongside
Massilia
with twenty-six
députés
and one senator aboard, plus their families and personal vehicles, which they fully expected to take with them. The captain of
Massilia
refusing to load cars as deck cargo in such weather conditions, they were abandoned on the quayside, whence they disappeared without trace.

That night the Luftwaffe bombed the military/civilian airfield at Bordeaux-Mérignac. From a hayloft on the opposite bank of the Garonne the future Duchess of St Albans, then an adolescent, watched what her younger sisters were told by their mother was a firework display. Ordered by the mayor of Royan to leave next morning, because he did not want the incoming Germans to find any British citizens on his commune, the family was given enough petrol to reach Bordeaux and set out crammed into their car, soon to suffer heat exhaustion. On their mother’s instructions, all the children were wearing several layers of clothing, in case they should not find any more shops open. When the car broke down on the road, they stripped off the unnecessary layers and joined the stream of refugees on foot heading for Bordeaux, where there was a British Consulate.
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At Le Verdon, the crew of
Massilia
mutinied, refusing to sail to Morocco and leave behind their families, many of whom lived in Bordeaux and could have died in the air raid. Disbelieving the stated intention of their VIP passengers, especially the five Jewish
députés
, to set up an emergency government in North Africa and continue the war from there, they yelled at them, ‘Why should we risk our lives to save you runaways?’ The mutiny swiftly suppressed by a detachment of armed marines, the captain was handed sealed orders from Admiral Darlan commanding him to set sail for Morocco. Rapidly filled with army and navy personnel and their families,
Massilia
slipped her moorings at 2.30 p.m., negotiated the tip of Médoc and set course westwards across the Bay of Biscay. Unfortunately for Mendès-France and the others, they were interned on arrival in Morocco, those with military rank being treated as traitors.

Admitting later in his memoirs that he felt like a solitary swimmer setting out to cross an ocean, de Gaulle wrote to Gen Weygand via the French military attaché in London on 20 June that his sole wish was to serve his country. He diplomatically pleaded an inability to return due to lack of any aircraft in which to travel. The letter was returned to him in September bearing a typewritten note: ‘If Colonel (retired) de Gaulle wishes to contact General Weygand, he should use the proper channels.’

Also on 20 June, the German Military Governor in France issued a proclamation which included a ruling that all businesses must open as normal or risk being placed under an administrator appointed by the Germans. The best news for the general population was that no prices might be increased above the levels on the day of the invasion – not that there was much to buy in the shops. All firearms were to be handed in. Any acts of sabotage would be severely punished, as would any insult to the German army or its leaders. Hoarding was a punishable offence. All public employees were to continue at their posts and would be paid as usual.

Sounding like a blessed restoration of law and order, the proclamation was welcomed by most civilians, who were relieved to hear on 22 June that Hitler had signed the Armistice agreement in Rethondes near Compiègne. In despair, Admiral Darlan dined that night in Bordeaux’s gourmet restaurant
Le Chapon Fin
, drowning and deadening his sorrows with the best of its cellar and cuisine.
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Hitler had insisted that the ceremony should take place in the Compagnie Internationale des Wagon-Lits dining-car No. 2419. This had been used by General Foch as his mobile office in the First War and was where the defeated Germans had signed the surrender in November 1918. Arriving at Rethondes at 3.30 p.m. that day, the French team under General Huntziger asked for an immediate cessation of hostilities. Across the table, neither Hitler nor Goering uttered a word. General Keitel, as German spokesman, refused Huntziger’s request because Hitler had laid down that no concession was to be made to the defeated French before they had signed. Afterwards, why bother? After three hours of attempted clarification of the
Diktat
with which he was confronted, Huntziger signed at 6.50 p.m. – forty minutes before Keitel’s ultimatum ran out.

The Führer had written in
Mein Kampf
as long ago as 1925, ‘The mortal enemy of the German people is and remains France’, so the terms could have been worse. However, destroying what remained of the French state and replacing Pétain’s fragile government by a puppet government, as in Poland and Czechoslovakia, risked provoking France’s extensive overseas territories – in North Africa alone there were 250,000 men under arms – into siding with Germany’s enemies on the grounds that their once-proud Fatherland had been reduced to the status of a Nazi-controlled province. Secondly, there was the wild card of the French navy, out of German reach thanks to Darlan’s foresight, but still under his personal command.

To preserve the appearance of French independence, conditions were therefore considerably softened from Hitler’s original intentions. To relieve him of the burden of garrisoning the entire country, Pétain was to remain the legal ruler of the whole of France after certain border adjustments. Most of the three
départements
making up the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine were to be annexed into the Reich under their ancient titles of Elsass und Lotharingen. West of them was a Zone Réservée. The
départements
of Nord and Pas-de-Calais were for strategic reasons to be governed by the German military administration of Belgium. South of this lay la Zone Interdite, or forbidden zone.

The northern and western three-fifths of the country, including its financial centres, most of its industry, oil and mineral reserves and the strategically vital Channel and Atlantic littoral, would be occupied by German forces for the duration of the continuing war against Britain. There, the French government would wield authority subject to the Wehrmacht and other German organisations. In the Free Zone, comprising the south-eastern two-fifths, it was to have sovereign powers. Should Pétain’s government wish to re-install itself in Paris, that would be considered later. Fifty-two
départements
were thus occupied in whole or in part with Vichy’s theoretically unfettered writ to run in thirty-four
départements
and parts of seventeen others.

French army and air force units not already captured were to withdraw to the Free Zone for disarming and demobilisation, but all surrendered and captured troops would be held as POWs. That clause of the
Diktat
sentenced 1.6 million men, including 4,000 priests serving as chaplains, to four years of incarceration in fifty-six Stalags and fourteen Oflags spread out all the way from north-eastern France to Poland. For the most part, officers were not required to work, but the men and NCOs left their camps without escort each morning and marched themselves to work in factories, on farms and as road-building gangs. Their daily rations were ersatz coffee made from acorns, a thin soup in which small pieces of unidentifiable meat floated and 250g of bread per man per day. The best-off were those working on farms, where extra food could be had. Supplementary food parcels from home were allowed, but limited to one 5kg parcel or two 2kg parcels per man per month.

France divided by the Armistice Agreement of 22 June 1940.

No mention was made of occupying the French North African territories, for fear of prompting their secession. The French fleet was to be neutralised, but not delivered to the Germans. The bitterest pill Huntziger had to swallow was Article 23, which made the Armistice subject to Italian confirmation. Dictator Benito Mussolini had only attacked France in order to suffer a token few thousand casualties that would permit him to attend the anticipated peace conference and make territorial demands on France after its defeat by German arms. On the Alpine front in the south-east of the country, he had massed thirty-four divisions totalling 550,000 men against 80,500 French soldiers with a few outdated planes and hardly any anti-aircraft defences against the Italian air force. Yet, Mussolini’s invasion gained little ground against an intelligently led and flexible defence that contrasted sadly with the disastrous inflexibility in the north.
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Two amendments to Article 9 passed unnoticed by the general population. In the first, Admiral Canaris of the Abwehr required the immediate liberation of German citizens imprisoned by the French authorities ‘for espionage and defeatism’. In the second, aimed at Jewish and political refugees, Heinrich Himmler required
all
German refugees in France to be handed over to his Gestapo.

While the fate of France was being thus settled, 800km to the south on the Spanish border the Comtesse de Portes’ final gamble had come unstuck. In defiance of customary diplomatic dispensation, Franco’s border guards insisted on opening the diplomatic pouch in the car of Lecca and Devau. Inside, they found the comtesse’s personal jewellery plus bonds and currency. They also found $2 million in gold. Confiscating the contents, they informed the new French government.

It could all have been quite innocent. After all, what could a French Purchasing Commission do without money to buy things with? However, the comtesse panicked Reynaud into meeting her clandestinely at a remote country inn to discuss their situation. After some time spent in visibly anxious conversation, they left with Reynaud at the wheel of their car. There were no witnesses when he drove into a telegraph pole, killing the comtesse and sustaining head injuries himself so grave that for several days he hovered between life and death after being transported by ambulance to his villa at St-Maxime.
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