THE FALL OF FRANCE

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 85, 4 January 1941, Page 6

THE FALL OF FRANCE

"The Ijtsl Days of Paris,” by Alexander Werth (London: Hamish Hamilton).

Those who have read his previous books will agree that Alexander Werlh is one of the most illuminating writers upon Franco. In the present book he gives extracts from bis diary, and the whole thing is a magnificent piece of personal reporting. Because the French censors would not permit him lo write the truth to his paper in England, he commenced a diary ou May 10, 1939— the day the Germans invaded the Low Countries, aud it is a direct and spontaneous narrative. There lire many fine word pictures, including a good description of the scene in I lie Senale ou the occasion of Iteyuaud's speech in which be announced that, because of treachery, bridges had not been blown up to hinder the German advance. “Reyuauil has just started talking in a dead kind of voice. He talks about the Weyguml appointment. They cheer half-heartedly at the mention of Weygand aud Petain: they stand up again aud cheer when the R.A.F. is mentioned. But a deadly gloom hangs over the assembly, aud when Reyuaud suddenly declares that Arras and Amiens -have fallen u gasp of bewilderment rises from the Senators’ benches. What Reyuaud said about the Meuse crossing almost suggests there was treason or at least hopeless iueompeteuce. Actually 1 do nut believe there was any treason' The man in ch-urge of the Sedan sector was a decent old fellow who hadn’t enough pull to be given a good sector, and was left ou the undefended .Meuse with some Senegalese and other second-rate troops.”

With each page of the diary the sense of tragedy increases despite the little interludes of false hope and optimism.

Then follows the grim story of the exodus to the provisional capitals, and later the story of the capitulation, which was opposed to the last by Reyuaud and nine other members of the Cabinet. The last part of the book is an attempt to explain why France collapsed, and the author declares that it was possible for France to have continued the war after the fail of Paris, but the men of Vichy allowed themselves to be hoodwinked into the belief that Petain—lhe hero of Verdun—would be offered an honourable soldier’s peace.