FRENCH CABINET RENT BY DEFEATIST ADVICE

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25737, 24 February 1949, Page 4

FRENCH CABINET RENT BY DEFEATIST ADVICE

CHURCHILL MEMOIRS.-

BOOK II

[By the Rt. Hon. WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL, M.P.] XVII

Meanwhile the situation on the French front went from bad to worse. The German operations north-west of Paris, in which our 51st Division had been lost, had brought the enemy, by June 9, to the lower reaches of the Seine and the Oise. The capital fell on the 14th. To lessen the shock of the impending French surrender, it was necessary at this time to send a message to the Dominion Prime Ministers showing them that our resolve to continue the struggle, although alone, was not based upon mere obstinacy or desperation, and to convince them by practical and technical reasons, of which they might well be unaware, of the real strength of our position. I therefore dictated the following statement an the afternoon of June 16, a day already filled with much business.

PRIME MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTERS OF CANADA, AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, AND SOUTH AFRICA.

.... I do not regard the situation as having passed beyond our strength. It is by no means certain that the French will not fight on in Africa and at sea, but, whatever they do, Hitler will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. Our principal danger is his concentrated air attacks by bombing, coupled with parachute and air-borne landings and attempts to run an invading force across the sea. This danger has faced us ever since the beginning of the war, and the French could never have saved us from it, as he could always switch on to us. Undoubtedly it is aggravated by the conquests Hitler has made upon the European coast close to our shores. Nevertheless, in principle the dangei - is the same. I do not see why we should not be able to meet it. . . . As long as our Air Force is in being it provides a powerful aid to the Fleet in preventing sea-borne landings and will take a very heavy toll of air-borne landings. [There followed a matter-of-fact review of the whole dangers and strengths.] No one can predict or guarantee the course of a life-and-death struggle of this character, but we shall certainly enter upon it in good heart. I have given you this full explanation to show you that there are solid reasons behind our resolve not to allow the fate of France, whatever it may be, to deter us from going on to the end. I personally believe that the spectacle of the fierce struggle and carnage in our Island will draw the United States into the war, and even if we should be beaten down through the superior numbers of the enemy’s Air Force, it will ajways be possible, as I indicated to the House of Commons in my last speech, to send our fleets across the oceans, where they will protect the Empire and enable it to continue the war and tne blockade. I trust in conjunction with the United States, until the Hitler regime breaks under the strain. We shall let you know at every stage how you can help, being assured that you will do all in human power, as we, for our part, are entirely resolved to do. I composed . this in the Cabinet Room, and it was typed as I spoke. The door to the garden was wide open, and outside the sun shone warm and bright. Air Chief Marshal Newall, the Chief of the Air Staff, sat on the terrace meanwhile, and when I had finished revising the draft I took it out to him in case there were any improvements or corrections to be made. He was evidently moved, and presently said he agreed with every word. I was comforted and fortified myself by putting my convictions upon record, and when I read the message over the final time before sending it off I felt a glow of sober confidence. This was certainly justified by what happened. All came true.

We must now quit the field of military disaster for the convulsions in the French Cabinet and the personages who surrounded it at Bordeaux. M. Reynaud reached the new seat of Government from Tours in the evening of the 14th [June 14, 1940.] He received the British Ambassador about 9 o’clock. Sir Ronald Campbell informed him that His Majesty’s Government intended to insist on the terms of the Agreement of March 28, binding both parties not to make any terms with the enemy.

Cn the morning of the 15th Reynaud again received the Ambassador and told him that he had definitely decided to divide the Government in half, and to establish a centre of authority beyond the sea. Such a policy would obviously carry with it the removal of the French Fleet to ports beyond German power. Later that morning President Roosevelt’s reply to Reynaud’s appeal of June 13 was received. The Ministers having now all reached Bordeaux. the Council was summoned for the afternoon. WEYGAND’S ATTITUDE

General Weygand had been for some days convinced that all further resistance was vain. He therefore wished to force the French Government to ask for an armistice while the French Army still retained enough discipline an<£ strength to maintain internal order on the morrow of defeat. He had a profound, lifelong dislike of the Parliamentary regime of the Third Republic. As an ardently religious Catholic, he saw in the ruin which had overwhelmed his country the chastisement of God for its abandonment of the Christian faith. He therefore used the power of his supreme military position far beyond the limits which his professional responsibilities, great as they were, justified or required. He confronted the Prime Minister with declarations that the French armies would fight no more, and that it was time to stop a horrible and useless massacre befoce general anarchy supervened.

Paul Reynaud, on the other hand, realised that the battle in France was over, but still hoped to carry on the war from Africa and the French Empire and with the French Fleet. He sought a solution on the lines of the Dutch capitulation. This, while it left the Army, whose chiefs had refused to fight any longer, free to lay down its

arms wherever it was in contact with the enemy, nevertheless preserved to the State its sovereign right to continue the struggle by all the means in its power. This issue was fought cut between the Premier and the Generalissimo at a stormy interview before the Council meeting. Reynaud offered Wey. gand written authority from the Government to order the “Cease Fire” Weygand refused with indignation the suggestion of a military surrender. The Act of Surrender, which he deemed imperative, must be that of the Government and of the State, to which the army he commanded would dutifully conform. In so acting General Weygand, though a sincere and unselfish mah, behaved wrongly. He asserted the right of a soldier to dominate the duly-constituted Government of the Republic, and thus to bring the whole resistance not only of France but of her Empire to an end. contrary to the decision of his political and lawful Chief.

REYNAUD EXHAUSTED In theory at least the Prime Minister had his remedy. He could have replied: “You are affronting the Constitution of the Republic. You are dismissed from this moment from your command. I will obtain the necessary sanction from the President.” Unfortunately M. Reynaud was not sufficiently sure of his position. Behind the presumptuous General loomed the illustrious Marshal Petain, the centre of the band of defeatist Ministers whom Reynaud had so recently and so improvidently brought into the French Government and Council, and who were all resolved to stop the war. Behind these again crouched the-sinis-ter figure of Laval, who had installed himself at Bordeaux City Hall, surrounded by a clique of agitated Senators and Deputies. Laval’s policy had ' the force and merit of simplicity. France must not only make peace with Germany, she must change sides; she must become the ally of the conqueror, and by her loyalty and services against the common foe across the Channel save her interests and her provinces and finish up on the victorious side. Evidently M. Reynaud. exhausted by the ordeals through which he had passed, had not the life or strength for so searching a personal ordeal, which would indeed have taxed the resources of an Oliver Cromwell or of a Clemenceau, of Stalin or of Hitler. In the discussions on the afternoon: of the 15th. at which the President of the Republic was present, Reynaud, having explained the situation to his colleagues, apnealed to Marshal 'Petain to persuade General Weygand to the Cabinet view. He could not hava chosen a worse envoy. The left the room. There was an interval. After a while he returned with Weygand, whose position he now supported. At this serious juncture. M. Chautemns, an important Minister, slid in an insidious proposal which wore the asoect of a compromise, and was attractive to the waverers. He stated in the name of the Leftist dements of the Cabinet that Reynaud was right in affirming that an agreement with the enemy was impossible,, but that it would be nrudent to make a gesture which would unite France, They should ask the Germans what the conditions of armistice would be. remaining entirely free to reject them. It was not, of course, possible to em-. bark on this slippery slope and stop,. The mere announcement that the? French Government were asking the Germans on what terms an armistice would be granted Was sufficient in itself to destroy what remained of the morale of the French Army. How could the soldier be ordered to cast away his life in obdurate resistance after so fatal a signal had been given? However, combined with the demonstration which they had witnessed from Petain and Weygand. the Chautemps suggestion had a deadly effect on the majority. It was agreed to ask , His Majesty’s Government how they would view such a step, informing them at the same time that in no circumstances would the surrender of the Fleet be allowed. Reynaud now rose from the table and declared his intention to resign. But the President of the Renublic restrained him, and declared that if Reynaud went he .would go, too. PETAIN’S THREAT The next morning Reynaud received the British Ambassador again, and was told that the British would accept the French request on the condition that the French Fleet was placed beyond German power—in fact, that it should be directed to British ports. These instructions had been telephoned to Campbell from London to save time. At 11 o’clock the distracted Council of Ministers met again. President Lebrun being present The President o'f the Senate, M. Jeanneney, was brought in to endorse, both on hie own behalf and on that of his colleague. the President of the Chamber. M. Herriot, the proposal of the Premier to transfer the Government to North Africa. Up rose Marshal Petain and read a letter, which it is believed had been written for him by another hand, resigning from the Cabinet. Having finished his speech, he prepared to leave the room. He was persuaded by the President of the Republic to remain, on the- condition that an answer would be given to him during the day. (To be continued) Copyright 1949 in U.S.A, by The New York Times Company and Time. Inc. (publisher of Time and Life); in the British Empire by the Daily Telegraph Ltd.; elsewhere by International Cooperation Press Service, Inc. World rights reserved. Reproduction in full or in part in any language strictly prohibited.