A BACKGROUND OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 21, 20 October 1941, Page 6

A BACKGROUND OF THE WAR

Vichy Versus France PEOPLE IN DEFEAT The National Revolution, and its leaders, have had a long year in which to try their reactionary experiment of constructing s medieval authoritarian State on the ruins of a modern democracy. In that year, through their own incompetence and the carefully calculated German moves to maintain a maximum of disorder and dissatisfaction in unoccupied Frahce, the reno-. ration of France has got exactly no-* where. The Germans have forced concession after concession from the Vichy Government and have given nothing in return. Both halves of France, occupied and unoccupied, have been systematically looted, and the Germans are now running their vacuum cleaner over the French colonies in Africa. Up the railway lines that converge on Bans and then go north and east to Germany are flowing all the raw materials and manufactured products which were the surplus fat of a great capitalistic republic, and in some instances the muscle and bone us well. Unhappy People

This is oue of the many revealing pictures of unhappy France sketched 111 a long article in "Life” by Mr. Richard de Rochemont,. who lived in France from'l93l to 1940 and from 1934 on WaS European manager for “Life” and its associated publications. He remained in Paris till the capitulation and recently went back from the United States to unoccupied France for three months to' learn how Frenchmen were taking the new regime. No enchanting .vision of Frances favoured place in a new European order, repeated in the octogenarian Marshal’s speeches and echoed by Darlan, can make hard-headed Frenchmen and their wives forget that when France was a democracy they ate well, owned things, had money in their pockets and time on their hands, and that since the Germans came they have less and less. In his heart the Frenchman knows the German hates him and seeks his destruction. Week by week and day by day, the breach between the people of France and the government at Vichy has widened. The conviction has grown in the minds of most intelligent Frenchmen that something is Wrong, something not to be explained merely by the presence of the Germans or the severity and rapacity of the conditions of the armistice. Today,, though the French dislike to, make a 'direct attack on the Hero of Verdun, they rationalize their discretion by whispers that the Marshal is being slowly poisoned. Only the most bitter and realistic Frenchmen admit that the old reactionary is behaving exactly as they should have known from his record that he would. Darlan And Vichy The article has many biting things to say of Admiral Darlan who “today holds all the power that is left in France in his own hands.” His career in the French Navy has been a political one. “From the day he became a cadet through family influence, he learned to polish up the plate on tinbig front door, and to shine the boots of influential politicians, all in the best Gilbert and Sullivan tradition. A perfect ‘Rue Royale sailor,’ he went sea only for the minimum periods required for promotion, and his commands were invariably those involving the fewest headaches and the greatest publicity. ' Vichy is described as a town lull oi spies and agents provocateurs, Whose job is to draw out each civil servant and visitor, find out where he standson the Darlan policy and report to headquarters. The remaining European embassies and legations are centres of espionage. The American diplomats, north and south, consider the Vichy government as slightly absurd. The South Americans refer to it. as a “banana republic with no bananas. France Bled White

For the national economy of France has ceased to exist. France is living on the reserves set aside for the war, on the sardines and the sugar squirreled away by housewives, peasants and restaurant keepers who remembered 1914-18. Today those reserves are running out and there is iwithei production nor imports to replenish them. Eighty per cent, of the traffic through the port Of Marseilles is for German consumption. Fodder aud fruit from West Africa travel north with Algerian wheat aud mutton and Tunisian olive oil. If a shipload of bananas has been delayed so long en route that the fruit is nearly rotten, it is dumped on the Marseilles market. If the bananas are iu good condition they go on to Germany. One Marseillais said quite calmly : “I can’t understand why the British haven’t bombed the docks at Marseilles long ago. Today this is Germany’s biggest port of entry.” In retail business it is impossible to discover a firm economy of any kindThe rapidly-growing “black market” is ruining the legitimate tradesman. In Marseilles the best cuts of meat, when there is meat, are sold in the bistros of the Old Port by the gangsters whose old occupations, white slavery, drugpeddling and vote-selling, are in the doldrums. The announced revival of the Ireneti labour unions under a new “Charter of Labour” from the Vichy Government should uot be taken seriously. The new organization of labour* is proceeding, slowly and against heavy and sullen resistance, along purely Fascist lines. Bribery And Hatred

The French soon found out that a German could be bought like anyone else. Army officials, Gestapo and functionaries let themselves be persuaded by bribes running from a few francs to thousands. Smugglers operate between occupied and unoccupied France With the connivance of the German frontier guards and their officers. Control commissions sell exemptions from requisition to business men and manufacturers. Exit permits and the» release of prisoners can be purchased from the Gestapo. After a year of tear, suspicion and confusion, the French live in a moral depression which is reflected in every aspect of their daily life. They are nervous and irritable, given to long, pointless discussions. The whole population Is obsessed with the problem of food, and hunts for am eats each meal as though it expected :i to- be the last. The bitter hatreds born of defeat and oppression were voiced by a lea del of De Gaulle sympathisers in !■ ranee. “We have confidence in the victory or the Allies. We know that one day the Germans will have to leave, and on that day, whatever the peace may be, we will begin to settle accounts. Today we have a list of nearly 3060 traitors. Bv the time our chance comes, the list may be 10,000 or 20,000. But every one of them will have’l2 bullets in his skin When that job is done we wu> leave it to others to settle the future of the world, for we will have done the first and best thing for France. A has la trabisou! Vive la France!”