Evening Post WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1941. PETAIN PARTS WITH DEMOCRACY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 38, 13 August 1941, Page 6

Evening Post WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1941. PETAIN PARTS WITH DEMOCRACY

Marshal Petain's prologue to a new act in the French drama bears all the marks of studied preparation, ; and is a formal notice to the world that e the Vichy Government now takes to itself plenary powers to enter Hitler's New Order. The contemplated overt actions are not outlined in drafts of the speech to hand at time of writing, but the Marshal has laid the broadest foundation for bold departures, and he carefully notifies that these departures will point right away from the Western democracies. Indeed, he lays significant philosophic foundations for such a breakaway, for he declares that the political life of France has "few traits in common with the democracy of the Western Hemisphere." This French rebuke to the eighteenth century betrays a keen desire to forget that the American rebellion and the French revolution were hailed in their day as twin blows for freedom, and were so regarded for more than -a hundred years. With one flourish Marshal Petain sweeps away that fiction! America is America and France is France! Between them there are no democratic bonds. In France, "democracy is dead." Freedom, he insists, remains; but it is the freedom of a one-party State. Between the two Republics of 1939 Marshal Petain's metaphysical ultimatum creates a great spiritual gulf that must make Lafayette turn in his grave, a gulf wider even than the Atlantic. If the Marshal's actions truly reflect his philosophy, the die is cast, and France'is for Hitler body and soul. The dissolution of all political parties in unoccupied France, the insistence on the oath of allegiance to the Marshal, and the consolidation of the power of Admiral Darlan as | the force behind the throne are | further evidence that the foundation is laid for decisive measures. Another piece of corroborative evidence is Marshal Petain's emphasis on the provisional character of the armistice with Germany and that with Italy. If he were standing firm to his promise to President Roosevelt not to co-operate with the Axis in excess of the terms fixed by armistice, would Petain take this occasion to say, in connection with armistice terms, that "the French people must know how to orientate themselves to a new outlook"? Would he hand over "the control of the whole land, sea, and air forces 'of France" to Admiral Darlan?—the Admiral of whom Elie J. Bois writes in "Truth on the Tragedy of France": ■ • . In the conduct of Admiral of the Fleet Jean Darlan there is a mystery that I cannot explain. The brutal fact remains. He gave his word as a sailor. He swore that under no circumstances could the French fleet be used by Germany or Italy, and yet he accepted the armistice clause handing over our [France's] ships to the Axis enemy and trusting him not to make use of them. That is a mockery, to say the least of it. He failed to find glory by failing in his honour. Even the waves of the sea could not wash out the stains from his uniform. Such is the sailor who now controls sea, land, and air forces in the new totalitarian France, whose complete non-democracy finds its prophet in Petain and its handyman in Darlan. The tableau of France's usurping leader bowing to the West,' then turning his back upon the West fer ever, and advancing to meet Hitler as co-operator in the European New Order, links up with recent Rome predictions of a new United States of Europe, "with Britain outside." The balance of power, say the totalitarians, is gone for ever; no more will there be two balanced alliances in. Europe; power in Europe is to be unitary, totalitarian, and irresistible. There may be some wonder that Marshal Petain has the nerve to come into this dreamfabric while Britain and Russia are still unbeaten, but French history in recent years, as detailed by Bois and others, shows that in France anything is possible. France fell not only because Hitler could feed the Germans on the dope of victory, but because Hitler's agents in France could feed Frenchmen on the drugs of defeatism. Here was their preaching, begun years ago, intensified in 1939, and gradually emerging into daylight in 1940, when it consummated in the men of Vichy: France is in need of defeat. Defeat is necessary for her regeneration. Victory would strengthen the political regime which has led to her moral ruin. Anything is preferable to the continuation of so perfidious a regime." Defeat followed by a rapid peace will perhaps cost us.a province, a few ports, some colonies. What is that in comparison with France's regeneration, wuich in indispensable? • Thus ran the philosophy of regenera-tion-by-expiation, which gradually white-anted France, swept away the British alliance, and enthroned totalitarianism. Marshal Petain's parting with the West, and his movement Naziward, are a definite fruit of that philosophy of despair. Its con-j crete results in the theatre of warj are still to be disclosed, but they are foreshadowed in terms of barely concealed hostility. |