GENERAL J. P. KOENIG, GOVERNOR OF PARIS

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24372, 26 September 1944, Page 4

GENERAL J. P. KOENIG, GOVERNOR OF PARIS

LIBERATION OF FRANCE

Two years ago, Bir Hacheim was just coming into the history of the second world war. And with the name of this insignificant water-point, lost in a desert of sand and stones, there appeared also, for the first time, that of General Joseph Pierre Koenig., now Military Governor of Paris and commander of the French Forces of the Interior. Before the invasion of Europe he represented in London the French Provisional Government with the Supreme Allied Command. He was required by the Allied Command to hold on at Bir Hacheim for 10 days. He had 3600 men, made up of a varied assortment of French troops: men of the Foreign Legion, marines, volunteers from the French Pacific islands, and African colonial riflemen. There was an artillery regiment with 24 75 guns A few more: 75 s and some 4Ts bad to do as anti-tank guns. Some days before, the marines had been equipped with Bofors—which they had not had time to learn to operate —for anti-aircraft defence. There was not a single armoured vehicle. For 15 days the encircled brigade held on against Rommel’s attempts to rush the garrison. On. the fifteenth day came the order to retreat, and, clearing a path across its own minefield, they stabbed through the enemy lines, smashed the encirclement, and rejoined the mam body of. the Allies. A quarter of the effective strength, 900 men, were left on the battle field, but they brought back the wounded. 300 prisoners, and 1000 soldiers pf a Hindu brigade, whom they had freed by a counter-attack. Koenig had three successive ultimatums, onei a personal note in Rommel s own hand. From the Ranks Joseph Pierre Koenig, son of an Alsatian father, was born in 1898, m Nor mandy. In demeanour and tempeiament Koenig is Norman with a yen geance, a very unusual type °f French man—for those who associate the French with the small southerner, black skin, black . hair voluble and gesticulating. Koenig is tall, built with the solidity which, the old peasant stock still retain m France. Sparing of gestures as of words, he seldom betrays restlessness, nervousness, or haste. He might easily, pass for an Englishman, a Scandinavian. „ In 1915, at 17. he left school at Caen and joined the French Army for the duration Of the war. By the armistice he had won the Military Medal, the Croix de Guerre, and had been mentioned several times in dispatches, fie chose to stay in the Army, and carved a slow. hard, gallant career. France has a special Military Academy at which non-commissioned officers study for promotion from the ranks. ne took the course at St. Maixent: once commissioned he went to Morocco, served in the Foreign Legion, traditionally reserved for keen officers irked by the dreary boredom of town garrisons. ■ . - He fought under Lyautey. and under Giraud in the Moroccan colonial campaign conducted by France against Abd el Krim. In 1939 he was still in the Foreign Legion. Forty-one years

[From the Profile Series in the “Observer.”] (Published by Arrangement.)

old. he had grown grey in the service without rising above the rank of captain. The brilliant team produced every year at St. Cyr and Saumur ' barred the way to this ranker officer Captain Koenig sadly spent the “phoney war” period with his unit, ia a hopeless watch on the Italian Alpina frontier. Then hartily his regiment was equipped to the last button, ready to embars for Finland and fight with, the Finns against Kussia. The operation was countermanded. But some months later the same troops were again dispatched to fight a different enemy—at Narvik. Norway and France When the evacuation of Norway was decided on, the Legion was brought back to England and immediately sent into battle in France. For three days Koenig and his company fought desperately behind the little low stena walls of Brittany. The Wehrmacht broke into Franca with a might that seemed irresistible, and certainly forced conviction on the classic military minds of the French' High Command. Brought up on the same “kriegspiel,” Keitel and Weygand in reality spoke the same language. The very rigidity of their game, played according to the same strict rules —an over-intelligent game that made no allowances for chance or for human beings either —compelled Weygand to give in with a gesture like that of a chess player throwing up the game when he thinks the end a foregone conclusion. In vain de Gaulle waited in London . for the arrival of Reynaud and Man- • del. Those whom de Gaulle saw ar-" riving were just those Koenigs who bluntly refuse to take a fact for grant-’ ed because it is supposed to have been proved. - , Henceforth. Koenig’s own story the reflection of the history of Fight-1 ing France: recruiting in the French? camp in Great Britain throughout thel summer of 1940, the ill-starred Dakarj expedition, the rallying to de of the French Equatorial African col-1 onies, thd hero-comic campaign in Eri-| trea, the fratricidal war in Syria, .: | From Captain to General | In 18 months de Gaulle turned this* 1 old captain into a young general. | Then came Bir Hacheim. It was not I a military victory in the popular sense. ! But it restored the French soldier, the! men of France. Koenig’s scornful reply! to Rommel’s ultimatum showed that I the moral fibre to say “No” was.not? dead in France, ' ? The whole life of this general stands k as a silent protest against the stiffness I of the great schools, the folly of pre-l paring for the next war on the in-i spirations of the text-books of the last i There is a Jacobin or a Cromwellian? touch about his extraordinary career.! History will remember his reply to aal. Italian officer who summoned him to| surrender and whom he would not j: even see; | “We are men who have lost every-f thing; our country, our homes, ourl’ families. One thing only is left to ust| our military honour. Of that you shall I not deprive us. ...” I