Books

The Lear of Vichy

Allan Massie

Main: Hero or Traitor? Herbert R.Lottman (Viking £16.95)

DMain's story is the closest to Eli- I zabethan tragedy produced by the second world war. Hitler's and Mussolini's are disqualified by their lack of dignity, by Mussolini's inherent clownishness and Hit- ler's petit-bourgeois •nature. But Petain's has everything the Elizabethans looked for, except a violent end. The manner in which the Hero of Verdun was subsumed in the Man of Montoire is the stuff of tragedy. For this reason, the question posed by the subtitle of Mr Lottman's excellent biography is irrelevant. For this reason too, Petain's story attracts the sort of moralistic and emblematic apophthegms the Elizabethans loved. 'La vieillesse', wrote de Gaulle, contemplating his former patron, 'est un naufrage. Pour que rien ne nous fat epargne, la vieillesse du marechal Petain allait s'identifier avec le naufrage de la France.' Yet the story of Main and de Gaulle may also remind one of Harring- ton's judgment that 'treason doth never prosper'.

Reviewing Paul Farmer's Vichy Political Dilemma in the Spectator some 30 years ago, Sir Denis Brogan wrote: 'As an American, Professor Farmer is not affected by the British anger and alarm that affected our judgment in 1940. It was very rare to find anyone among us who, in that terrible summer, could see not only that there was a case for Vichy, but a case for Pierre Laval.' But of course there was. Most Frenchmen saw it. Thousands of French soldiers and sailors were repatriat- ed from Britain in the summer of 1940; by the middle of July, the Free French forces amounted to no more than 7000 men. In France itself, Petain was regarded for at least the first two years of Vichy as a true saviour of his country. Paul Claudel's adulatory Ode expressed the feelings of the elites and 'les gens du Bien'; the Radical Mayor of Lyon, Herriot, called tin the French to 'rally round the Marshal'; L'Hu- manite, the Communist newspaper, attack- ed Britain's 'imperialist' continuation of the war.

Petain was 84 when he became the personification of the French State, which the National Assembly abdicated to him by 569 votes to 80 on 10 July, 1940. Hence- forth, he could rule by decree: 'We, Philippe Petain, Marshal of 'France'. Laval Was to tell him that his powers were greater than those of Louis XIV, because Louis XIV had to submit his decrees to the Parlement'. Yet there was make-believe and self-deception here; Louis XIV did not rule a France half-occupied by a victorious power; his freedom was not circumscribed by the requirements of that power still engaged in war with France's erstwhile ally. Vichy was always less than it seemed; there was an element of charade in the regime from the start.

If Vichy was theatre, who better for the lead than the octogenarian Marshal? The Emblem of Victory, Honour and Human- ity in 1918 would guide France through the Valley of Defeat and Humiliation! The career that had brought Main to this point was already extraordinary. Had the first war been delayed a few years, he would have been a retired colonel living on his pension, unknown to history. But his defence of Verdun had made him a nation- al hero, and one much better suited than his rival Foch to catch the mood between the wars. In 1914-18 he had been the opponent of the doctrine of frontal assault, which was careless of men's lives. Though the British might accuse him of defeatism even then (on 12 June, 1940, Churchill told the War Cabinet `Petain had always been a defeatist even in the last war'), to the French he stood out as the only comman- der who had been careful and tender of his soldiers' lives, 'old Papa Petain'. His repu- tation with the French was justified. He was an intelligent• military thinker, an advocate of the concentration of fire pow- er, even before 1914. Though 'the argu- ment as to Petain's responsibility for the inadequate state of French forces at the outbreak of the Second War will,' in Lottman's words, 'probably never end', there is evidence that such responsibility was the result of lack of energy rather than a failure of perception. He was a consistent advocate of air power; he called for a unified command; he considered that the continuous-front strategy (the Maginot line) was applicable only at 'the com- mencement of operations'; moreover, Lottman observes that owing to the 'drop of 50 per cent in the draft-age population . . . Main could not have gotten the army France needed, no matter how he tried'.

The completeness of disaster in 1940 was demoralising. France threw itself into Pe- tain's arms. For the octogenarian, howev- er, 1940 was merely the third in the series of Franco-German wars which had domin- ated his life. France had lost in 1870, rejecting terms, incidentally, that year which were easier than those imposed in 1871; been victorious in 1918; now lost again. It was necessary to save what could be saved, and to establish a government which could prevent a revolutionary out- break like the Commune of 1871. Hence the severe, if distasteful, rhetoric of 'National renewal'. It might seem ironic that the chiefs of the defeated army should now represent the defeated nation, but who else was there? The Republic which had invited ignominy must be punished just as the Second Empire had been punished in 1870. Of course, all those who had long opposed the Republic, especially the old fashioned Royalists of Maurras's L'Action Francaise and the new fascists were delighted to do so; but what other course was there, the war being lost?

That was the starting-point and the justification of Vichy and of Petain. The war was lost; it was necessary to reduce and repair the damage. 'Anthony Eden found Main "mockingly incredulous" when Churchill promised that if necessary Britain would pursue the war alone.' He can hardly be blamed. It took the imagina- tive audacity of de Gaulle to think other- wise; Petain's incredulity was shared by most French soldiers, including men of honour like the future marshals Juin and de Lattre de Tassigny.

Having signed the Armistice and erected the Vichy State in the Free Zone, Main was compelled by the logic of force to accept collaboration. 'It is with honour and in order to maintain French unity, a unity

ten centuries old, in a framework of a constructive activity of the new European order that I have today entered the way of collaboration,' he told the French people after his meeting with Hitler at Montoire in

October 1940; 'I alone will be judged by history.'

Henceforth there were two possible atti- tudes for Vichy. The first was 'attentisme' -

France would hold on, waiting to see what happened, disturbing the Germans as little as possible, conceding as little as possible also. The second was a sincere collabora- tion. All the evidence carefully and judi- ciously assembled by Mr Lottman suggests

that Main was always an attentiste. But

there were whole-hearted collaborationists in his government — Laval principally (though he was temporarily dismissed in December 1940, a move which provoked German anger); and also the enigmatic Darlan, who, unlike Laval, went so far as to favour French intervention on the Ger- man side. It was Darlan who ordered French forces to fight the British in Syria.

It may be said too that, but for Petain's moderation and good sense, the British destruction of the French fleet at Mers-el- Kebir might have led to whole-hearted military collaboration, even a declaration of war.

After November 1942, Petain's policy collapsed. He became a cipher when the Germans disbanded the French army and occupied the Free Zone: 'he was said to have even less power now than Third Republic presidents in that he did not even have to countersign decrees.' Perhaps he should have resigned; perhaps he should have fled to North Africa. Henceforth he could only be used by the Germans to impede French resistance. Yet he clung on: 'I gave my word to the French that I would not leave. I don't want to abandon them. Perhaps my glory may suffer, but I won't abandon them. In any case, the path of duty is not the easiest one. For me the easiest path would be to leave.' There may be rhetorical self-deception here; there is something heroic too. He continued to hold his titular office, doing the very little he could to mitigate hardships. That was what he had seen as his role. It had led him into mean crimes of petty revenge (against the Third Republic politicians) and wicked weakness (the decree against the Jews and the French contribution to the Final Solu- tion). Yet it was also the result of the inexorable logic of his original judgments that France required a government on French soil, and that the war was lost in the Battle of France in 1940. Both were de- fensible; both were to be proved wrong.

During the crisis of November 1942, Petain's aide Bernard Serrigny urged him to dismiss Laval. `Pdtain replied that in such a case, as Berlin had warned him, the Germans would rule France with a gaulei- ter. "Think of the suffering that would result for the French". "You think of the French too much and not enough about France, Marshal."' It was true; it may be contrasted with the famous first sentence of de Gaulle's memoirs: `Toute ma vie, je me suis fait une certaine idee de la France.' History justified de Gaulle's idea of France rather than the Marshal's care for the French, whom, anyway, it may be added, he could not adequately protect. But if there had been no Main, there would still have been collaboration, and it would not have been mitigated by any such tender- ness.

The end was honourable. Having been carted around as a virtual prisoner by the Germans, he made his way to Switzerland. De Gaulle urged the Swiss to keep him there. The Marshal, now 89, insisted on returning to France to stand trial and justify himself. In the circumstances of 1945 there could only be one verdict; no one need scruple to call the defeated traitors.

This is an admirable, fair and immensely detailed biography. Mr Lottman's method is to accumulate and deploy significant detail, contemporary evidence, judgment and observation. He intrudes little himself; yet his own judgment is clear; Petain did the best according to his lights in an intolerable situation. He does not make him an attractive character, does not con- ceal his vanity, selfishness and frequent weakness. (For all his prating about family, his own marriage — to a divorced woman was cool; he remained a philanderer, having his last woman during the war aged 86 or 87.) Lottman disposes of the defence of senility. Though Petain's concentration was poor, and his memory often faulty, though he had periods of 'absence', he knew very well what he was doing, and retained his shrewdness and general sense of reality beyond the end of the war. My one criticism of Lottman's method is that he might usefully have given us more background information about the other figures in the ramshackle Vichy regime.

In the end, though, nothing can quite efface de Gaulle's judgment: `Trop fier pour l'intrigue, trop fort pour la mediocri- te, trop ambitieux pour etre arriviste, it nourissait en sa solitude une passion de dominer, longuement durcie par la consci- ence de sa propre valeur, les traverses rencontrees, le mepris qu'il avait des autres . . . et voici que, tout a coup, dans l'extreme hiver de sa vie, les evenements offraient i1 ses dons et it son orgueil l'occasion, tant attendue!, de s'epanouir sans limites; a une condition, toutefois, qu'il acceptat le desastre comme pavois de son elevation et le decorat de sa gloire.'

So, Main in the shipwreck of old age, became a Shakespearean figure, the Lear of Vichy.