DE GAULLE'S GREAT FICTION

FIGHTERS IN THE SHADOWS
A New History of The French Resistance Robert Gildea

History, at least as it is commonly consumed, is often a compound of disparate facts, half-truths, often in the form of ‘myths,’ and sometimes outright fictions. These fictions are often created to soothe national pride or assuage guilt, as in the latter case the fiction of Austria as ‘Hitler’s first victim.’ Indeed, the Second World War alone has generated a whole plethora of stories that distort reality and obscure painful truths. The greatest, or perhaps more accurately most successful, of these rose coloured narratives is surely that of the ‘French resistance’ and a very strong case can be made for General De Gaulle, the creator and primary peddler of this myth, as the greatest confidence trickster in modern history.
France’s defeat in 1940 was the result of a complex interplay of factors that I do not intend to explore here, except to state baldly that the France of 1940 was not the France of the Belle Epoch. The inter wars years had witnessed deep divisions in France between the Nationalist right[1] and the Communist and socialist left, that at times threatened civil war, whilst the First World War had resulted in the slaughter of a whole generation of young Frenchmen, often sent to their deaths by incompetent generals like Robert Nivelle. Consequently, there was, to say the least, no appetite for a round two.
 However, what made the French defeat so devastating was its speed and comparative ease. The shock to French institutions and the French psyche cannot be understated. In the numbed aftershock, for most French people, two emotions struggled for prominence, shame and relief. For the bourgeoisie elite the easy winner was relief, and they consequently swallowed the ramblings of a semi senile old man spouting a lot of windy guff about travail, famille, patrie, (Labour, family, fatherland). For in 1940 it was Petain, not De Gaulle,- whose radio broadcasts were listened to by a tint minority, who represented the desire of the overwhelming majority of the French people. This was a desire for peace, no matter how dishonourable. Though Petain’s dishonesty was of course even greater than De Gaulle’s, the Vichy government presenting a catastrophic defeat as ‘divine judgment upon the French people and their love of indolence and luxury.’*
In 1940 the only groups forming any resistance to Nazi occupation were those with little, or nothing, to lose, that is Jews and foreign refugees who had already fled from fascism and Nazism. Whilst the Communist dominated industrial working class, though instinctively hostile to the Germans, and Vichy, held back. The Communist party having swallowed and sold the Nazi-Soviet pact, was temporarily paralysed by the absurd policy, that this was just another capitalist/imperialist war.
Thus the immediate resistance to German Occupation and Vichy came largely from foreigners, refugees from pro fascist regimes across Europe, including Austrian and German anti fascists,[2] and Spanish Republicans and other veterans of the International Brigades. This latter group provided a significant and effective contribution throughout the German Occupation and is a story that deserves wider currency.[3] (The first ‘French’ soldiers into Paris when it was finally liberated in 1944, was part of a regiment “called 'la Nueve’ because it was composed mainly of Spanish republicans”.)

Spanish Republicans Liberating Paris

II
Asked by a German court in Lyon in May 1942 why she had taken up arms, Marguerite Gonnet replied: “Quite simply, colonel, because the men had dropped them.” Yet women, who sometimes led, and often contributed to so many successful resistance operations, formed no part of De Gaulle’s narrative.

Significant ‘French’ resistance, albeit from a small minority, only arose after the Nazi invasion of the USSR -the Communist Party being unleashed against the occupation, - and the later German occupation of Vichy France, with the ensuing German mass conscription of labour. This led to growing numbers of men forced into hiding, men who now also had little left to lose.  
We tend to associate the re-writing of history with the former communist states of Eastern Europe, primarily the USSR, however De Gaulle’s erasure of the role of foreign fighters in the French resistance was far more effective than Stalin’s erasure of Trotsky’s contribution to the Russian Revolution. Whilst only since the 1970’s has the leadership role by women and the Communist Party within the resistance been more fully acknowledged.
De Gaulle’s fiction that the French freed themselves never really had much traction outside France, for the obvious reason that D Day correctly enjoys centre stage in the liberation. However within France itself De Gaulle managed, with the happy complicity of the French people as a whole, particularly those heavily involved in collaboration, to sell the idea of France as a nation of resisters.
Those of us across the channel who had to face no such choices should not feel smug about Vichy France, one only has to see pictures taken in the Channel Islands during German Occupation to see that the British as a whole were unlikely to have behaved much differently[4].
Channel Islands Under German Occupation

 Remember too that in 1940 France had been so significantly defeated that for the average Frenchman German dominance and occupation stretched out possibly decades ahead. Few believed the British could hold out. In these circumstances people looked to secure their own safety and security. This was not noble or brave, but it was human, and is what people instinctively do. When this ‘cowardice’ crossed the borderline between passive complicity and collaboration was often far more difficult than armchair resisters would have you believe.
The German occupation of France in 1940 was a great tragedy. De Gaulle’s narrative was a great farce and Gildea has done a great service in correcting De Gaulle’s fictional narrative and in honouring all those citizens of every nationality, including British, who resisted the German occupation of France.
*Though Petain might have believed this to be true but, as George Orwell remarked at the time, how much indolence and luxury did the average worker enjoy, as compared to say Petain?


[1] Who adopted the extraordinary slogan ‘Better Hitler than Blum.’ Blum being the leader of the French Socialist Party.
[2] A German Brigade of the French Resistance fought alongside their French and international comrades after D day.
[3] To see how Spanish were treated by the French after Franco’s victory I strongly recommend Arthur Koestler’s ‘Scum of the Earth.’
[4] Though of course in those circumstances German Occupation would have been much more secure, with little prospect of liberation from across the vast and turbulent Atlantic Ocean. 

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