Simon Kitson and Peter Jackson, The Paradoxes of Vichy Foreign Policy, 1940-42

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... 4 The paradoxes of Vichy foreign policy, 1940-1942

Peter Jackson and Simon Kitson

The Vichy government of wartime France was a regime of contradictions. It was born of defeat and its legitimacy rested largely on armistices with Germany and Italy It was beset with enemies and perpetually engaged in undeclared war. While the Vichy regime strove to stay out of the world-wide military conflict, it participated with alacrity in the ideological struggle that was an essential characteristic of World War II in Europe. Vichy's greatest strengths were the French empire and fleet. The empire was a guarantee of great power status and the fleet provided a means to exercise French power. But the regime lacked the armed strength to defend this empire or to deploy its fleet. There was also a contradiction between the priority attached to sovereignty and the policy of collaboration A central motivation for collaboration was the desire to secure an important role in the new European order that was expected to emerge as a result of a German victory. This motivation proved illusory, however, as collaboration only undermined the regime's credibility both at home and abroad .

The historiography of Vichy foreign policy

The last two decades of the twentieth century witnessed a boom in studies of France during World War II. The Vichy government's policy of collaboration has been subjected to intense scrutiny. Particular attention has been paid to France's participation in Hitler's murder of European Jews.

Comparatively Iirtle attention has been paid to the foreign policy of the Vichy regime. Early studies of wartime France were reluctant to challenge the assumption that foreign policy was a result of an implicit understanding between head of state Marshal Philippe Petain in France and Free French leader Charles de Gaulle in London.34D Perain, according to this "hemic interpretation" of Vichy, served as a shield to protect French people from the vagaries of Nazi occupation while de Gaulle kept up the struggle from his base in London. This myth was shattered in the late 1960s and early 1970s by a succession of scholars, most notably Stanley Hoffmann, Henri Michel, Eberhard Jackel, and in particular Robert Paxton,341 But the focus of scholarship has remained on internal issues. The vast majority of the books and articles published on France

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)rl~: War II deal with the regime's domestic policies either inside within the empire. The direct impact of war and international s suffered comparative neglect, when it has not been ignored 42

itive neglect is attributable chiefly to three factors. The first is the he national "crisis of conscience" occasioned by serious historical ilorld War II France. Works by Hoffmann, Michel, Jackel and 'axton, and the release of Marcel Ophuls's dramatic film documentary

France, ~e ch~grin et le Pitie, in1971 sparked a lengthy period of :flectlon rn which the French discursive public addressed the legacy Var II. The focus of this process of "reconciliation with the past" . the character of the Vichy regime and its policy of collaboration izi o:=cupiers. Foreign policy was an important theme in this process r as It encompassed relations with Germany leading to collaboration. cy toward the rest of the world apart from Germany attracted little om scholars of wartime France.

y of the international history of the Vichy regime has not flourished I recent decades. Despite the near consensus that the fate of Vichy to the course of the war, scholars working on wartime France have " interest in the international dimension to their subject. This leaf consensus within the historiography that the emergence of the ie was linked inextricably to the course of the war. One important re relative dearth of research into Vichy foreign policy is that it is istorn in France to avoid undertaking detailed archive-based study r have already been examined by senior historians. The publication ean-B.aptiste Duroselle's L'Abime, 1939-1945, a 600 page study of n policy by the long-time doyen of international history in France, terred other scholars from undertaking major new research projects

l understanding of Vichy external relations is therefore dominated ely small body of scholarship of exceptional quality. The most :udy remains Duroselle's J.}Abime. Duroselle situates foreign policy Tichy period within a larger interpretive framework of decline, fall that has a long tradition in French history writing.343 J.}Abime (,the lassie formulation of the Gaullist interpretation of French history ventieth century. The "abyss" of defeat, occupation and collaboration :l as the bitter fruit borne of French" decadence" during the prewar -uroselle's careful analysis of Vichy policy is part of a larger u leads inevitably to regeneration under the leadership of Charles )uroselle seeks neither to deny nor minimize the extent of the aboration with Germany. He also rejects the "double-game" thesis apologists for Vichy head of state Marshal PhiLippe Perain, ) this latter view, articulated most recently by Francois-Georges :ain was obliged to deal with the Nazis but hoped for an Allied

kept clandestine diplomatic channels to both London and

Vichy foreign policy, 1940-1942 81 Washington open in order to prepare the way for national liberation.34~ For Duroselle there was no "double-game." The decision to collaborate with Germany was made in pursuit of French interests within the wider context of occupied Europe. Little attention is paid to ideological conceptions in Duroselle's analysis. Decision making is represented instead as inspired largely by a misreading of the global balance of power. For Duroselle the policy of Petain and his chief collaborators (Pierre Laval and Admiral Francois Darlan) was predicated on the expectation of a swift German victory over Britain; the aim of preserving what little remained of French sovereignty from the power of the German occupiers; and on the desire to secure a place for France in the new German order dominated by Nazi Germany. Nearly all of Duroselle's conclusions are either echoed or endorsed explicitly by contributors to a recent special issue of the journal Relations Internattonales entitled "The foreign policies of France during the Second World War,"346

Ideology, conversely, is at the centre of the work of Robert Frank who argues that, while the Perainist regime sought to remain outside the military conflict from 1940 to 1944, it participated with alacrity in the parallel ideological struggle that raged in Europe since the formation of the Popular Front in the mid-1930s. The anti-Parliamentarian, anti-Communist and anti-Semitic politics of the regime's National Revolution placed Vichy firmly in the camp of the Axis. These could best be fulfilled by staying out of the war, securing for France a prominent place in the new European order and by collaboration with Germany.347 Frank also rejects the idea that Vichy was playing a double-game and characterizes secret conversations with the British as instead a "double-language.Y'"

The interpretations of both Duroselle and Frank are in line with the existing

historiographical consensus that French collaboration was voluntary rather than imposed and that Vichy officials considered collaboration the best means of securing France's long-term national interests. Both concur With the consensus that the regime owed its existence to the traumatic experiences of defeat, exodus and the armistice with Germany. A grasp of the nature of the defeat and the character of the armistice is essential to understand Vichy

foreign policy.

The defeat and the armistice

The Vichy regime emerged out of the trauma of a comprehensive national disaster. The military collapse and exodus of millions of civilians from northern and eastern France formed the backdrop against which the political future of France was negotiated in June and July 1940. By the first week of June it was clear that the defeat of Allied armies in France was inevitable. The British Expeditionary Force had been evacuated and French forces were in headlong retreat southward from their positions on the Somrne. The choices facing the government of Paul Reynaud were unappealing. The government could leave France and continue the struggle from North Africa. It would be accompanied

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by as much of the army as could be salvaged and moved by ship across the Atlantic and, Medi~erranean. Those armed forces remaining in France would surrender. Alternanvely, the government could ask tor armistice terms. This was the option advocated by Commander-in-Chief General Maxime Weygand as e~rly as ~une 12, 1940. Weygand opposed continuing the struggle from the empire, which would entail losing the bulk of the army. He was supported by Ma~shal Petain, who ?a~ entered the government as deputy premier on May 18 rn the hope that hIS Immense prestige as the victor of Verdun would shore up confidence. On the evening of June 13, however, Petain advocated ending hostilities.

The du:y = the governmen~ is, whatever happens, to stay in the country or lose its right co be recognized as a government. To deprive France of her natural defenders in a period of general disarray is to deliver her to the en~n:y. The renewal of France will come from staying in France rather than wamng for the conquest of our territory by allied forces in conditions and in a timescale impossible to foresee.349

France's Premier Paul Reynaud lacked the authority to oppose both W:ey?,and and Perain, He resigned on June 16, 1940, clearing the way for P~ta~n to form a ~ew .government and ask for armistice terms. On June 17, Petain ann,~unc.ed m.h1s fir~t broadcast to the French people that although the army had fulfilled Its dunes towards our allies" France had no choice but to

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cease Ig nng. 1e Perain government waited nearly three days to learn of

Germany's armistice terms, which were stern but not excessive enough to provoke a b~cklash among ~rance'sleadership. Hitler worried about the difficulty m defeatmg French resistance In North Africa and did not want to see the French fleet come under British control. He wanted to avoid the costs of occupying and administering all of France. He prevailed upon Benito Mussolini who .wanted ~o extend Italian occupation up the Rhone river valley, to agree to relatively lenient armistice terms in anticipation of a more demanding peace settlement.

The. armistice terms agreed decreed that one-third of Metropolitan France would remain unoccupied. Germany would occupy regions in northern France (inch~ding Paris), the Atlantic coast as well as territory along the Franco-German frontier. The French army would be demobilized apart from a force of 100 000 ~en needed. for internal security. Although four of the five major naval ~Orts m metropolitan France were occupied, Germany did not demand surrender of the ne.et. The armistice required the French government to return its warships to their home ports and to disarm them (with the exception of coastal patrol ships).351 A dem~nd for ~rance's air force was dropped. France agreed to pay the costs of occ~r:atlOn (which came to approximately 400,000 francs per day) and to put administrative personnel in the occupied zone at the disposal of German authorities, Italy obtained only a tiny occupied zone between Nice and the Italian frontier. French prisoners of war were to remain in Germany until the

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final peace settlement. The French government engaged to "undertake in the future no action hostile to the German Reich, either with any part of its armed forces or in any other manner." German and Italian Armistice Commissions were established and served as central conduits for day to day relations between France and the Axis powers.352

With these terms the Petain government could claim to have avoided for France the fate of Poland, the Netherlands and Belgium, all of whom were occupied after their governments had fled in exile. The new government was the only defeated and occupied state to maintain itself in power with significant popular legitimacy while securing recognition by the Germans. This was significant because it meant that cooperation with Germany would be official and largely voluntary, rather than nongovernmental and nonvoluntary, as in Poland, Belgium or Holland.353 The price France had paid for an end to the fighting was high indeed. All three armed services were rendered impotent as tools of policy. Any violation of the armistice would provide the Germans with a pretext to renounce the agreement and occupy the remainder of French territory. Finally, as Hitler intended, the temporary character of the armistice left the ultimate peace terms uncertain and thus gave Germany essential leverage in its dealings with the Vichy government. France had surrendered much of its ability to follow an independent foreign policy and relinquished its status as a great power.

The signing of the armistice, along with the decision to end the Third Republic and give constitutional powers to Marshal Petain, were choices taken during a period of chaos and profound insecurity. Vichy policy was based on two key assumptions. The first, contrary to General Charles de Gaulle's views, was the expectation that Germany would swiftly crush Britain and achieve hegemony over the European continent. The war was thus understood as European rather than globa1.354 This analysis contrasted sharply with that of the renegade General Charles de Gaulle in London. De Gaulle, who issued a call for French citizens to rally to him in London on June 18, 1940, argued that the conflict was a world war and that "France is not alone." For Petain and his chief collaborators, however, policy calculations were based on the judgment that France was indeed alone and must make the best of its situation.t"

A second assumption was that continuation of the war would bring social chaos and revolution to France. The link between war and popular insurrection was seen in the 1871 Paris Commune and 1917 Russian Revolution. General Weygand warned repeatedly of the danger of revolution in the event of total military collapse.356 Conservatives and fascists shared his anxiety.357 Behind this fear of revolution, however, there existed a long-standing resentment of republican parliamentary system. Both Petain and Weygand felt that the defeat was the product of a long process of political and moral decay and France's best hope was to cease fighting and regenerate itself from within. This was the key factor in the determination of both WTeygand and Petain to secure an armistice. A mere ceasefire, leaving open the option of continuing the war from the empire, would implicate the armed forces. An end to hostilities would

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engage 'the gov~~nment and the nation and provide better justification for the large-scale political and social changes. Weygand had agreed with Paul Bedouin as' early as May 24, that France must end "the ordeal which she is u~d~rgoing so as to allow her, even if defeated in the field, to rise again."358 Petain agreed. In a statement to the cabinet Perain declared that France needed peace to re~tore itself: "The armistice is in my eyes the necessary condition of the durabiliry of eternal France ... I will not abandon the soil of France and will accept the suffering which will be imposed on our homeland and its chll~r~n. The French renaissance will be the fruit of this suffering."359 The armistice was therefore not only a means of avoiding social disorder. It was also ~ justif~cation and thus a necessary precondition for the imposition of a new ideological order. Ideology was thus central to foreign policy making from the outset of the Vichy period.

The ideological foundations of Vichy foreign policy

Two types of ideological conceptions played a fundamental role in shaping pohcy. The .flrst ~as the construction of France's international identity as that of ~ .great Im~en~l power. The second was the conviction that the proper political orgatuzatjor, of France was authoritarian, based on traditional social hierarchies and a powerful state. This latter conception formed the basis of the Petainist "National Revolution." These two belief systems were distinct but they were linked intimately in the overriding conviction that France was a great nation that had lost its way and was in need of both political reorganization and moral regeneration. This formula for the restoration of France established the twin objectivss of all foreign policy making: to retain the maximum so~~reignty possible under the conditions of the armistice and to stay out of the mlhtary.confllct 11l or~er to maintain the conditions necessary to implement the National Revolution. And whenever these policy aims threatened to become incompatible, the latter always took precedence over the former.

The image of France as a great imperial power was the product of centuries of histO? and underpinned the pervasive belief that France had a special role t~ play III the world as bearer of a universalist message. Although there were disagreernenrs as to the nature of this message, the assumption of French grandeur spanned the great left-right divide in French politics. The left tended to see France as standing for the republican values of the French revolution. The right, conversely, tended to assume it was France's duty to export its superior culture and civilized values to the rest of the world.36o Both views were compatible with quasi-messianic notions of France's mission civiliJatfice and its duty to play a prominent role on the world stage. This conception of the country's international identity suffered a traumatic blow in June 1940. But it did not disappear. It was kept alive largely by the fact that France had retained its empire.

Imperial strength became a central element of Vichy propaganda. A range of stock phrases such as "the empire guarantees the future of France'; or "the

Vichy foreign policy, 1940-1942 85 empire is the secret to national survival" were deployed repeatedly to reassure the French. "Thanks to the Empire" wrote one propagandist "France remains present in the world and conserves its rank among the powers that will decide its future organization." As Charles-Robert Ageron has observed, this kind of mythology was vital to a public whose confidence had been all but destroyed by the military defeat.361 The empire was thus not only France's chief political asset after the armistice, but also a central source of hope for the future.

The ideology of French grandeur was central to the determination of every Vichy policy maker, to defend what was left of French sovereignty. The illusion that France was a great power was also central to what Robert Frank has defined as Vichy's "collaboration for rank," by which he means the effore to forge a good working relationship with Germany in order to secure a central place "worthy of France" within the new European order under construction. This aim, central to the foreign policies pursued by both Pierre Laval and Darlan, implied at least indirect participation in the Nazi war effort.362 Imperialist ideologies were at least as influential in shaping policy. Because the empire constituted France's only credible claim to future great power status, imperial conceptions became central to decision making. This trend was only reinforced by the rise to prominence of naval officers within the machinery of government in Vichy. Their leader was Admiral Darlan, who became Deputy-Premier in February 1941 and remained in charge of the day to day business of governing France through April 1942.363

Ideological convictions were central to the policy decisions of the new regime. On June 25, Petain proclaimed that France had failed to defend itself because the "spirit of enjoyment" had taken precedence over the "spirit of sacrifice." What France needed, he declared, was "a new order ... [and} ... above all an intellectual and moral renewaL"364 The chief aim of Petain's National Revolution was to reorganize and reinvigorate French society along authoritarian lines with an emphasis on order, duty and religious faith rather than equality, individualism and political rights. The National Revolution was most clearly defined by what it was not and thus in many respects it was an ideology of exclusion. The French defeat was blamed on the "enemies of the homeland," namely parliamentary democracy, Jews, Freemasons, foreigners and communists. In place of the republic a "French State" [Etat francais] was established with Petain at its head. Constitutional and judicial powers were invested in the head of state and these powers were used to introduce a raft of anti-Semitic, anti-Communist and xenophobic legislation whose origins were entirely French. Freemasonry was outlawed and thousands of recently naturalized citizens were stripped of their citizenship. Several of France's most prominent prewar political leaders were arrested and placed on trial and the French civil service was subjected to a systematic purge. While the Petainist regime avoided involvement in the military conflict it participated in the ideological war that had been raging in Europe since the end of World War 1.365

The regime's commitment to its ideological vision, which extended to a willingness to wage civil war to ensure its implementation, also shaped foreign

86 Peter Jackson and Simon Kitson

policy choices. The assumption of a swift German victory over Britain was central to the context in which the regime emerged and established itself Such a German victory, significantly, posed less of a threat to Vichy's ideological project than did success by the Allies. Petain's commitment to the National Revolution took priority over all other policy aims. In all negotiations with both the British and Americans Perain made the survival of his regime the sine qua non of the French position and insisted repeatedly on a withdrawal of Allied support for General de Gaulle and his Free French movement. De Gaulle and his advisors exploited the ideological gulf between Vichy and the Allies in June 1942 by producing a list of "war aims" that gave pride of place to democratic politics, an elected assembly and the restoration of the "French secular ideal of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity."366 This manifesto served to underline the fundamental incompatibility between the antidemocratic character of Vichy politics and the ideological crusade for "freedom" that was a central pillar of all Allied war propaganda.

There remains considerable controversy over the extent to which the Vichy regime was fascist. Some historians have underlined the "revolutionary" character of Vichy politics. They have pointed to the prominent role played by a younger generation of intellectuals and technocrats, most of whom had turned away from republican politics during the 1930s, in devising and implementing the regime's social and economic reforms.367 Other scholars stress the need to make clear distinctions between the rather incoherent antiliberal and antiparliamentary conservativism of the Vichy regime and the revolutionary violence that was central to both Italian Fascism and German Nazism. They emphasized that the regime' should be understood in relation to the norm of conservative dictatorships that married the traditional politics with the need to adapt to the modernizing imperative of a new European order dominated by Germany. There were committed fascists in France. But these were gathered mainly in Paris and only became influential in Vichy after Petain was forced by the Germans to accept them into his government in early 1944.368

A careful look at Vichy foreign policy reveals crucial distinction between the doctrine of the National Revolution and that of Fascism and Nazism. Recent scholarship has stressed the centrality of war to both Italian Fascism and German Nazism. War was the ultimate test of national vitality and the fundamental aim of societal transformation was to produce a population better equipped to conquer and dominate.369 War and conquest were not driving forces in the ideology of the National Revolution or key objectives in Vichy foreign policy. Petain's commitment to avoiding war was absolute. Having taken France our of the war in 1940, the Vichy government consistently refused both German pressure to join the conflict against Britain as well as subsequent Anglo-American pressure to resume the fight against Germany. Significantly, Petain was not a pacifist in any ideological sense. He opposed participation in the war chiefly because he feared the social disorder which it might wreak on French society. His conviction was that the only victors would

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Vichy foreign policy, 1940-1942 87 be the Jews and Bolsheviks who had driven France to ruin in the first place.37o Hence, though ideology was central to Perain's opposition to re-entering the war, this ideology was anti-Semitic and anti-Communist rather than pacifist.

Ideological conceptions were similarly influential in shaping the foreign policy decisions of Laval and especially Darlan. Darlan brought to government the ideological and geo-political vision of a career naval officer. His strategic vision was conditioned by his imperial world-view and by a long tradition of Anglophobia within the French navy. Antipathy toward British Protestantism combined with centuries of imperial and maritime rivalry had imbued the naval officer corps with an abiding Anglophobia that was never entirely eradicated by the making of the Entente Cordiale and the experience of World War 1. Suspicion of Britain, and of the "Anglo-Saxon menace" more generally, was a persistent theme both within the French naval staff and at the Ecole Navale.371 Darlan, as a product of this system, was more predisposed than most French army officers to consider Britain as the chief threat to French interests. His overriding objective as chief architect of French naval policy during the 1930s had been to build a fleet that would provide France with strategic independence from Great Britain.372 This naval perspective on politics and strategy came to dominate Vichy policy making as the French navy became "a cornerstone of the Petainist regime and its empire:,m But imperialist ideology and cultural traditions within the navy were not the only sources of Darlan's Anglophobia. He was also an anti-Semite prone to conspiracy theories about the influence of Jews and Freemasons. This combination of ideological prejudices inclined Darlan toward aligning France, indirectly at least, with the Nazi Germany. As early as October 1940 Darlan warned Petain that British peace terms would be "no less severe" than those of Nazi Germany and would, moreover, "bring the return to power of cosmopolitan Jews and Freemasons whose allegiance is to Anglo-Saxon policy."374 Ideologies of imperialism and anti-Semitism combined with Anglophobia and conspiracy theory to shape Darlan's strategic vision.

Laval is typically considered to be the least ideologically motivated of Vichy leaders. Yet the importance of anticommunism and Anglophobia to his understanding of inrernational politics should not be underestimated. All three major biographies of Laval concur that a virulent hatred for Britain was fundamental to Laval's response to the international situation created by the war. Laval's attitude toward Britain was cast by his experience as premier and foreign minister in 1935, when Franco-British relations came to the brink of complete collapse during the crisis over Abyssinia.

"France has never had and never will have a more inveterate enemy than Great Britain" Laval asserted in 1940 " ... our whole history bears witness to this fact. We have been nothing but toys in the hands of Britain ... I see only one way to restore France ... to the position to which she is

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entitled: namely to al y ourse ves reso ute y wit ermany.


After June 22, 1941 laval alluded repeatedly to Nazism as Europe's crucial bulwark agaihst the spread of Bolshevism. He warned after returning to power in April 1942 that "This war carries the germs of a true revolution ... The gigantic struggle waged by Germany against Bolshevism has not only extended the war, it has revealed its nature." In an infamous radio address of June 22, laval declared, "I hope for a German victory because, otherwise, Bolshevism will spread everywhere in Europe."376

Ideology was a key determinant in the making of Vichy foreign policy. It is impossible to understand the regime's pro-German orientation which endured long after it became clear that a German victory was highly unlikely, without taking into account the belief systems of decision-making elites. The commitment to collaboration persisted, and even intensified, after Germany occupied the remainder of France after the Allied landings in North Africa in November 1942. This cannot be explained solely by a fear of German reprisals. Under Vichy, France had taken sides in the war of ideas that had divided Europe since 1917 by lining up against liberal democracy and individual freedom.

The evolution of state collaboration

With regard to France, Collaboration has been defined by Henry Rousso as "all the forms of active sympathies ... and relations of help and cooperation that the French had with the occupier."377 The most extreme collaborators were called "collaborationists." These were fascist sympathizers, frequently based in Paris, who for ideological reasons wished for a German victory and were sometimes even prepared to kill or be killed for that cause. More minor acts of collaboration were committed by individual citizens such as those who slept with German soldiers or committed acts of denunciation. The Vichy regime occupied an intermediary position on this spectrum. Not all of its members were wholly committed to a German victory, although many shared some ideological values with the occupier. Although there was some common ground between Vichy and the collaborationists, Vichy ministers generally distinguished themselves from collaborationists by an attachment to the concept of sovereignty. The purpose of this section will be to outline the contours and the evolution of State collaboration in which the Vichy regime engaged and explore the motivations which lay behind it.

A chronology of the evolution of State collaboration might establish four distinct phases. The first stage, which we will term the "passive" stage, would run from the armistice of June through to the autumn of 1940. The second, which we shall refer to as the "proactive" period would run from autumn 1940 through to autumn 1942. Autumn 1942 to winter 1943 would constitute a third, "reactive," phase. And a final "submissive" stage would run from the beginning of 1944 through to the liberation.378

The "passive" stage was dominated by technical concerns with the financial and material application of the armistices signed with Germany on June 22 and with Italy on June 25, 1940 and involved negotiations by military figures

Vichy foreign policy, 1940-1942 89 and civil servants aimed at trying to lighten their constraints. French concern focused particularly on trying to get some of the 1.6 million Prisoners of War released from Germany, a reduction in the exorbitant occupation costs France was expected to pay and a relaxing of the demarcation line which cut off the unoccupied and occupied zones of the country. Historian Stanley Hoffman has referred to the collaboration practiced during this time as "invoiuntary.v/" Some degree of cooperation between victor and vanquished is necessary in times of military occupation to assure a normalization of life, unless the occupied country is prepared to accept considerable hardships. It is also true that the balance of power between French and Germans was weighted in favor of the latter, although the French with their empire, unoccupied zone, navy and economic resources did have important bargaining counters at the outset. However, the expression "involuntary collaboration" is probably a misnomer because the French did have a choice in the quest for the armistice which set the whole process in operation. Whether or not it would have been really feasible for the French government to continue the struggle from North Africa, it is certainly the case that the decision to enter into an armistice agreement, in other words a political settlement, represented a rejection of opting for a military capitulation.

This political settlement brought with it obligations which provided a precedent for all the collaboration which would follow. Article 3 of the document obliged the administration in the occupied territories to collaborate correctly with the occupier. Article nineteen obliged the French government to surrender on demand refugees of German origin.38o The French negotiators saw this as a "dishonorable" clause because it undermined the country's traditional role as a country of asylum. Despite being unsuccessful in their attempts to renegotiate this they were nonetheless instructed by their government to sign the armistice. This was partly because the emerging Vichy government thought of the armistice as a temporary settlement which would soon be replaced by a negotiated peace settlement.

Underlying this was an assumption that Germany had definitively won the war, not an unreasonable assumption in 1940. Indeed even many Resisters, such as the left-wing journalist Georges Boris, have underlined that that seemed the most realistic assessment at that moment. Writing two years after the event Boris noted that

The arguments advanced by those in favour of prolonging the struggle may have expressed the instinctive wishes of the majority of Frenchmen, but from the practical point of view the seemed to be little more than the vOlcin of a pious wishing.381 ic y's calculation was t at, in the circumstances, logic dictated reaching some sort of arrangement with the occupiers. Although some Vichy ministers like Weygand were actually strongly anti-German, for others the assumption of German victory actually corresponded to their wishes. Germany, it seemed to laval and Darlan, could offer a bulwark against communism and a limit to "Anglo-Saxon" dominance.

90 Peter jackson and Simon Kitson

The "proactive" phase of collaboration opened in autumn 1940. French desire for grandeur resurfaced. The French government did not want France to be seen simply as an occupied satellite and so the focus shifted away from just trying to obtain small material advantages. The aim was now to promote France as a partner, an important interlocutor in a Nazi dominated Europe. Not content with just administering an occupied country Vichy wanted to govern. Senior Vichy officials therefore tried to move the main discussions away from the Armistice Commissions and into the political arena. Vichy desperately sought recognition from the Germans and tried on many occasions to initiate talks with them. The newly appointed German Ambassador Otto Abetz was thus courted by Pierre Laval, whilst Petain for his part sent emissaries to Hitler and Goring to broker relations with them.382 Pierre Laval was particularly convinced of the need to find a long-term diplomatic arrangement with the Germans. His diplomatic efforts in the 1930s had already been geared to such a course of action, a consequence perhaps of his strongly felt pacifist convictions.383 If Germany was going to win the war then realpolitik dictated trying to find a prominent place in the new European order. Gratuitous concessions, such as the ceding of French interests in the Bor copper mines in Yugoslavia by Laval, were offered to try to persuade the Germans to the negotiating table. Two events became particularly symptomatic of this period of "proactive" collaboration. Those are the Montoire meetings and the discussions around the Paris Protocols.

Montoire, near Tours, was the setting for Hitler's meetings with first Laval and the Petain on October 22 and 24, 1940. Little was actually achieved at these meetings. A few French Prisoners-of-War were released and France gained the right to be the "protecting power" of those POWs who remained in Germany-a role which is usually attributed to neutral countrieS.384 Despite this lack of concrete results Montoire assumed huge symbolic importance. Propaganda photographs showing the Marshal shaking hands with Hitler horrified many French citizens.385 In a broadcast of October 30, Petain tried to justify his action explaining how he had voluntarily embarked on a path of collaboration in order to defend French unity.386 The meeting damaged his reputation and it was only after his sacking and arrest of Pierre Laval on December 13, that he restored some of his lost credibility. But Montoire had placed Vichy firmly in the German camp.

By the time of the Protocols of Paris in May 1941, the public was making an increasing distinction between Petain and his government, sometimes accusing the latter of going against the intentions of the old man. The Paris Protocols consisted of four documents. The first three set out French concessions including the right for the Germans to use airbases in Syria and offered the Germans logistic support in North and West Africa. The forth document was a complementary protocol outlining what the Germans would offer in return, including a release of 90000 prisoners of war and a reduction in occupation costs but this forth protocol was never actually ratified by any high-ranking German official, other than Ambassador Aberz. The Protocols ultimately came

Vichy foreign policy, 1940-1942 91 to nothing owing to opposition on the French side and German disinterest. It is often claimed that it was General Weygand's opposition which caused the Protocol agreements to collapse. Although no one contests that he did oppose them, Robert Paxton has underlined that the government continued to try to relaunch negotiations on this theme throughout the autumn. Another argument put forward by Darlan's biographers Coutau-Begarie and Huan is that Darlan changed his mind after the initial negotiations.t'" Darlan, runs the argument, decided that the Protocols should only be applied if German concessions were sufficient and it appears that the French government did not consider them to be so. This merely underlines that the ultimate failure of the Protocols can be explained by the lukewarm German attitude. Germany had initially shown some interest in these negotiations because the German high command wanted to be able to support Rommel's North African advances and to take advantage of an anti-British uprising in Iraq. But their interest soon waned as the British crushed the Iraqi revolt and German attention turned principally to preparations for the invasion of the Soviet Union.388 Hitler never had any intention of granting major concessions because he was reluctant to accept France as a partner. The Protocols were thus still-born and ultimately really only serve to highlight the gulf between French and German conceptions of collaboration at this time.

For a number of reasons, "proactive" collaboration failed to achieve the results expected of it. Vichy made serious miscalculations of judgment: assuming that Germany had won the war and overestimating the extent to which Germany wanted to collaborate. Because Vichy was much keener than the Germans to ensure the success of this collaboration ministers were determined to make it work-making excessive concessions in the process. As Paxton has rightly underlined for this period "Collaboration was not a German demand ... collaboration was a French proposal."389 Few German officials were genuinely interested in establishing France as an equal partner. Their concern was to exploit and if possible to divide and humiliate her. At the same time the French elite were guilty of over-confidence. Vain military leaders like Marshal Perain got caught up in their own myth and believed they were more than a match for jumped-up Nazi upstarts like the Austrian Corporal Adolf Hitler.39o Arrogant young officials like the Police chief Rene Bousquet over-estimated their capacity to outfox their German counterparts. Moreover, "proactive" collaboration was always running against the tide of public opinion. Public hostility might have been dampened if results had been forthcoming but the meager concessions granted by the occupiers were insufficient to overcome public skepticism and German phobia.

By the autumn of 1942, the focus was once again shifting away from the "proactive" search for collaboration as Vichy adopted a more "reactive" stance. It was no longer a question of getting the Germans interested in French cooperation. Germany needed French resources as she needed those of the other occupied countries. Enthusiastic initiatives of Monroire or the Paris Protocols type were no longer necessary. Vichy was increasingly on the defensive,


generally just reacting to Germany's ever-spiralling demands. Germany's increasing demands reflected the costly nature of the war as the Wehrmacht got bogged down in the east. Total war necessitated increased requisitioning, particularly of labour, whilst the Nazis' ideological campaign was stepped up with the expansion of anti-Semitic measures. The Germans recognised that their designs would be facilitated if they could enlist Vichy's support.

Besides German demands two other factors contributed to Vichy shifting to a more defensive stance. The first was the decline in Vichy's bargaining counters and the second was the changing nature of the regime itself. The margin of . maneuvre of Vichy ministers was severely restricted by a decline in their bargaining counters. By the end of 1942 the French fleet had been scuttled, her empire lost and the previously unoccupied zone invaded. In the circumstances Vichy'S bargaining counters were effectively reduced to the collaboration of her administrations and the resources of her industry and agriculture. With reduced resources ambitions were scaled down to trying to soften German demands or to trying to influence the choice of targets of measures of repression (foreign Jews rather than French ones; communists in preference to Gaullists).

Laval's government was increasingly isolated-cut off from public opinion, it also suffered from a narrowing of its own political base.391 Many of the early Vichy ministers such as General Weygand who were enthusiastic supporters of the National Revolution had been removed from office by the spring of 1942. Moreover, some of those involved in the early Vichy governments were becoming less certain of German victory in the war.392 Indeed some were starting to consider defecting to the Allies. Darlan, for instance, began sending out feelers to the Americans with a view to a possible defection.393 His position was criticised by Laval's pro-German War Minister General Eugene Bridoux who complained in his diary of the Admiral's increasingly pro-American stance.394 The new Vichy government consisted of a combination of hardened collaborationists, like Abel Bonnard, Fernand de Brinon or General Bridoux, and those like Laval who were more interested in realpolitik and it was these latter who still held the balance of power.395 Laval had moved the agenda away from trying to govern-the focus was now on trying to administer decisions the Germans introduced.

At the beginning of 1944 the balance of power shifted again. Seeing that regular State administrations were becoming unreliable, the Germans increased their influence over Vichy still further and insisted on the promotion of more collaborationists such as Joseph Darnand and Marcel Dear to ministerial rank. Some historians have suggested that one can no longer refer to "State collaboration" by this stage because the French government was so subservient. Henry Rousso for instance has argued that "State Collaboration" would imply a degree of mutual cooperation rather than just a diktat.396 Whilst we might not push the point as far as Rousso the increasing dominance of the Germans over the levers of power as well as the internal fascisation of the regime itself now severely limited the autonomous actions of the Vichy regime. For this reason the first eight months of 1944 can be portrayed as a period of "submissive" collaboration.

Vichy foreigll policy, 1940-1942 93 The higher echelons of the State were increasingly controlled by those who were totally won over to the German Cause and who did not even attempt to enter into meaningful negotiations.

The patterns of state collaboration

Although useful, rigid divisions of the chronological evolution of collaboration can never be absolute. Such compartmentalization between different phases is necessarily a simplification. An examination of different forms of collaboration will highlight that there was some overlapping between the different phases. Three types of collaboration have formed the focus of historians' attention: military, economic, police.

Vichy never fully engaged in military collaboration with the Germans. It did not declare war on the Allies, not even the USSR, and held a neutral position in the war. But neither was this neutrality fully adhered to. Robert Frank has described it as an "asymmetric neutrality" because while Vichy offered no help to the Allied war effort there was a daily dialogue with the Germans.397 Material support was given by the French government to the Axis. Thus, for instance, by an agreement of July 28, 1941 French companies were to produce 2038 warplanes for the Luftwaffe in return for the right to construct 1074 for the armistice army.398 Moreover, although Vichy never used its regular armed forces to fight alongside the Germans, it engaged in its own battles against the Allies bombing the British colony of Gibraltar in July 1940 and fighting Allied troops in Syria in June 1941 and North Africa in November 1942. Vichy was slow to countenance recruitment of French civilians to the Waffen SS. Whilst Denmark authorized enlistments of its citizens in the Waffen SS in 1941, Vichy only accepted such enlistments after July 1943.399 Laval's pro-German war minister General Eugene Bridoux did send French volunteers to fight with the Germans in Tunisia in 1943. So military cooperation was engaged in only half-heartedly and with a degree of ambiguity. Overall there were never more than 10000 Frenchmen in German uniform at anyone time, a far cry from the Netherlands where more than 30000 enlisted.t'" But this partiy reflected German reticence to recruit French troops viewed as unreliable.

The Germans did not extend this reticence to economic collaboration.

Economic collaboration existed on all levels, whether it is on the level of the State, of individual companies or private citizens. By 1943 the Germans received 40-50% of all French industrial and agricultural production. To some extent it was difficult to avoid. The French economy was in a dreadful state after the 1940 defeat with high unemployment and low levels of production. In order to stimulate its growth France needed certain raw materials to produce and markets in which to sell. Since the Germans or their allies controlled most of the territory around France access to raw materials depended on agreement with Axis countries. All the more so since the Germans directly occupied or even annexed those areas of France with the greatest natural resources. The industrial heartlands of Alsace and the coal deposits of the Nord thus came


under German tutelage. The problem of access to markets and raw materials was compounded by the British naval blockade which made it difficult to import goods and left Germany as the major export market for French products. However, it should not be assumed that all economic collaboration happened Out of necessity. There were huge profits to be made and many industrialists probably acted more out of a capitalistic logic of maximizing profits than of altruistic desires to keep compatriots in employment.

Of the forms of collaboration discussed here, economic collaboration was probably the area where ideological considerations had the least obvious influence on State policy, In the initial phase of economic collaboration Vichy sought primarily to regenerate the French economy and generally to ensure that concessions were obtained in return for French products and raw materials. Vichy tried to coordinate industrialists in their dealings with the Germans through its Comites d'Organisation.i?' These were designed to centralize collaboration and to offset it against German concessions. By 1942 the nature of German demands was changing. The strains of the war in the East had encouraged the Nazi leadership to put the German economy on a "total war" footing. Increasingly they sought to exploit foreign labor and were no longer content with recruiting only volunteers. The Vichy government collaborated extensively in the process of sending workers to Germany through the "Releve" and the Service du Travail Obligaroire (STO).402

The "Releve" (relief) scheme which Pierre Laval introduced in June 1942 has been widely condemned by historians. In fact it was one area in which Laval did obtain concessions, however temporary. Originally the Germans had been trying to impose a forced labor scheme. Laval countered that with this voluntary scheme. The basic premise was that in return for volunteer workers heading off to Germany, French POWs would be returned to France. However, even if the Germans had respected the terms agreed, the equation of three skilled volunteer workers for each prisoner released seemed a heavy price to pay. So few workers offered themselves that in September Laval had to make the scheme compulsory. The new "Releve Obligaroire" also failed to meet its targets, as many of those selected simply did not turn up at the departure points. As the German demands increased still further at the beginning of 1943 Laval was pressured into setting up a new forced labor scheme, the STO, applicable to all voung men in their early twenties. Laval, trying to defend French adrninistra:ive sovereignty, agreed that it should be French administrations that iznplenented and policed the new scheme. The STO was a disaster as it pushed nany previously passive individuals into opposition to Vichy and the :;'ermans.

In the "aryanisation" of Jewish enterprises Vichy combined its ideological ie sire to exclude Jews from society with the pragmatic desire to ensure that the 'rench and not the Germans would control formerly Jewish-owned businesses. \5 in other domains a desire to preserve French heritage was in evidence.403

Vichy's use of police collaboration may have been used to win German good "ill but it also served to combat Vichy's internal enemies, who very often

Vichy foj'eign policy, 1940~1942 95 happened to be the same groups targeted by the Nazis. It was therefore particularly ideologically charged. The necessity for the police to collaborate had been outlined in articles 3 and 19 of the 1940 armistice bur it was really from the beginning of 1941 that the pernicious effects of police collaboration began to emerge with the "affair of the tWO Rudolfs:>404

Rudolf Hilferding and Rudolf Breitscheid were German Social Democrats and and-Nazi refugees. On January 27, 1941 they were granted visas to leave France. However, following a Nazi demand to extradite them these were cancelled two days later and they were assigned to residence in Arles. They were then handed over to the Nazis. Both men died in captivity. It later emerged that the two Rudolfs had been sacrificed by Vichy in an attempt to improve Franco-German diplomatic relations in the wake of Pierre Laval's sacking. This case was symptomatic of how Vichy would use refugees as human bargaining counters and as such it set a precedent for what would follow.

In 1942 it was decided to renegotiate the terms of Police collaboration. Rene Bousquet, Vichy's Secretary General in charge of the Police, was concerned that the Police in the Northern Zone were not adequately under his control, as the Germans often requisitioned them for joint Police missions. He was also worried that in the period September 1941 to May 1942 the Germans had executed 471 civilian hostages in reprisal for Resistance attacks against German military personnel.f'? He hoped that a more efficient Police force would deter the Germans from intervening directly. On the German side, it was hoped more than ever to be able to use French administrations for the application of Nazi policy. This would spare German personnel needed in other theatres of operation. So a new basis for Police collaboration was established in the form of the Bousquet-Oberg agreements in August 1942. Oberg, the SS General recently given charge of German security in France, recognized the independence of the French Police. The Germans would henceforth refrain from issuing direct orders to the French Police and agreed to pass through the proper administrative channels. The Germans also agreed to abandon the collective execution of civilian hostages, although in fact they executed 254 between May 1942 and December 1943.406 The French courts were to be given jurisdiction to try those arrested by the French Police, except in cases where a crime was specifically committed against the Germans. The French side of the bargain was that they would increase their campaign against "terrorism, anarchism and communism."

Police collaboration was used primarily to target Jews, 76000 of whom were deported with French help to the Nazi death camps, and the communists. This form of collaboration was motivated by an ideological concern to target specific groups but also reflected a strongly held Vichy desire to maintain sovereignty.

Sovereignty and collaboration

The defense of sovereignty has long been seen by historians as an essential motivation behind state collaboration in Vichy France. According to Yves


Durand "The illusory search for sovereignty was probably the principal motivation ... for State Collaboration, not only in Vichy, but in all the countries where a government presented itself as a partner of the Germans:>407 Vichy was trying to maintain its independence through collaboration as paradoxical as that may sound. While historians have always seen sovereignty in the singular, sovereignty in a partially occupied country was a plural phenomenon. It should be broken down into specific types-individual, political, territorial, and administrative-because, although they overlapped, they also each had their own calendars and agendas and were to a certain extent traded off against each other. Their evolution was also closely intertwined in their own ways with the history of collaboration.

Vichy actively promoted collaboration. However, when individual citizens took it upon themselves to collaborate without passing through government channels the regime was considerably more reticent. Foreign policy is often interwoven to some extent with domestic considerations but this is even more the case when a country is partially or fully occupied. The presence of the occupier makes it easier for individual citizens to enter directly into contact with enemy powers. The foreign policy of the government can inadvertently or deliberately encourage this whilst the direct contact between the citizen and the occupier can undermine the bargaining position of the "host" government in its relations with the occupier. If citizens offered collaboration to the occupier but bypassed official channels the government could not negotiate their collaboration in its own discussions with the Germans. Vichy was an authoritarian regime which did not appreciate initiative on the part of its citizens.

An essential, but often under-acknowledged, aspect of Vichy's policy was its desire to centralize collaboration and thereby preserve sovereignty over the individual. At least until the end of 1943, Vichy actively tried to prevent individual citizens entering into their own arrangements with the occupiers, unless it could gain some advantage from such dealings. In the first two years after the armistice somewhere between 1500 and 2500 men and women were arrested by the Vichy government in the unoccupied territories for passing on information to the Germans. Even in senior government circles such uncontrolled collaboration was considered as a form of high treason and around forty individuals were executed for such offences by the armistice army. Even Pierre Laval was prepared to envisage the execution of individuals who provided information to the Germans without authorization.v" Thus, in November 1942, Laval gave serious consideration to the execution of Rene Legras who had passed information to the Germans about his compatriots without government permission.

This brings us onto the second form of sovereignty over the individual:

Vichy's desire to govern the destiny of its own citizens. One under-studied element of Vichy history is the government's attempts to intervene on behalf of individuals arrested by the Germans. Being an independent, sovereign government, as Vichy wished, meant being able to offer protection to national citizens under threat. Vichy certainly did intervene on behalf of individuals

[

.1 ',

Vichy foreign policy, 1940-1942 97 arrested by the Germans, including resisters, but these interventions were often of little practical effect, Thus for instance on June 11, 1941 the head of the French armistice delegation intervened (unsuccessfully) on behalf of the Resister Honore Estienne d'Orves who had been condemned to death by the Germans.t"? Vichy's desire to control the fate of its own citizens also caused it to make a distinction between French and foreign Jews. Although both were targeted for exclusion when it came to organizing their deportation Vichy still generally considered French Jews as citizens to which it owed a right of protection. Of the 76000 Jews deported from France more than 50000 were foreigners. Indigenous Jews were relegated to the status of second class citizens but only a minority was deprived of their nationality. In its negotiations with the Germans the French sought to limit the deportation of its own Jews by a zealous hunting down of foreign Jews.

Like sovereignty over the individual, political sovereignty took two essential forms. Firstly it involved maintaining control over ministerial appointments. Secondly, this type of sovereignty implied preserving control over the direction that policy decisions took. German interventions concerning the nomination of ministers initially met with attempts by Vichy to preserve their sovereignty in this domain. This became a continuing battleground in postarrnistice relations but ultimately Vichy was forced to concede. Two concrete examples of German intervention in the composition of the French government will be used to highlight this process. They concern General Maxirne Weygand and Pierre Laval.

In September 1940 the Germans insisted that Vichy remove Weygand from his position as Minister of War. Although Weygand was one of the principle instigators of the 1940 armistice, he was known for his resolute hostility to the Germans. Although Vichy ceded to the pressure to remove Weygand from government Perain underlined his determination to control the choice of political appointees by immediately designating the General to a post which, in the circumstances, was actually fur more important, French supremo of North Africa. Furthermore Petain replaced him at the War Ministry with another fervent Germanophobe, the Alsatian General Charles Huntziger.

Soon the Germans began demanding the removal ofWeygand from his new posting. They were infuriated by Weygand's outspoken hostility to them and the support he was giving the French Secret Services in their anti-German operations but they also feared that the, officially authorized, MutphyWeygand agreements on US food aid to France were being used as cover for more covert unauthorized negotiations with the Americans.i!" They pressed the French government to remove him from his role as Delegate General in North Africa and obtained satisfaction in November 1941. Removing Weygand in this way provided a dangerous precedent. It is probable that the ease with which Deputy-Premier Darlan now sacked Weygand was due to their difficult personal relations, coupled with the fact that Weygand's continued presence was making it more difficult for the French government to negotiate collaboration. If Vichy wanted to persevere with collaboration, it needed to


accept the removal of Weygand, even if this un . . .

The Impotence of Vichy in the fate of thei de~n:med political sovereignty. strength of feeling against \Xt; d err mmlsters, as well as German arrested and sent across th e;~~n :vas further underlined when he was protestations.411 e me m November 1942, despite Petain's

Running simultaneously with the W': .

Deputy Prime Minister Pierre Lav I I h~ygand ISsue was the saga of the

. h ' a. ntIs case the Onno . . hi

rn t e government was co' 1: h . YY sinon to IS presence

. mlllg rrorn t e French side and f hi

commg from the Germans Th b 1 most 0 S support

. . e atr e over the so' f'

appomtments remained the same 0 D verelgnty 0 political

the resignation of Laval Pet' . n .ecem.ber 13, 1940 Petain insisted on

h G . am was not slgnahng an end 11 b

t e ermans. It Was rather that th P' . . to co a oration with

which the unpopular Laval ~ detha~nlstes were frustrated by the way in

. 1 organIze IS own cont t . h h

WIt 10Ut reference to the Marshal L I' di ac s WIt t e Germans,

their embassy embarked on . a~a s ismissal angered the Germans and

a CampaIgn to have him' d Thi

was resisted for more than a ye r 1 h h' remstate. 15 pressure

back in early 1941 Only in Apar:la1t94°2ugd' VIChy did consider bringing Laval

. • 1 ld Petain gi . d

reappomtment. Petain had realized that if he w ve in an accept Laval's

collaboration he would need LIB di anted. to contlnue a policy of shown once again that when rh avah: y ce mg to this pressure, Petain had

e c IpS were down the P . f 1

would take precedence over th . . ursurt 0 co laboration

e sovereIgn ChOI f hi ..

Set the pattern with regard to rh f b ce 0 IS mmlsters. This was to

sovereignty in this domain. e uture alance between collaboration and

The other type of political sovereignr th .

political ptogram was clearly am' bi y'. ~ pursuir of an independent

. ajor 0 jectrve 1Q the pe . d f V' h .

proactrv- collaboration. Petain's ove . .£10 0 IC ys most

agenda. It hoped that keeping t: t~;~:~~had, Its own.mdependent political pursue this agenda more 0 1 . dans good side would allow it to

. d ' r ess urump- ed By the s f 1 4

10 ependence Was beginning to b d .' ummer 0 9 2 this

process can be seen in the que t: un ;rml~ed, ~~ excellent example of this Vichy was an anti-Semitic stat: 1~ 0 anti-SemItlSm. Like Nazi Germany Marrus have underlined Vi h ,. o~Sever,. ~s Robert Paxton and Michael

h b ' c Y s ann- emitrsm was i di 412

t e eginning of 1942 the anti S '. r v: n igenous. Up till

separate, but similar Both invoiveedmltlslm.o VlfChy and that of the Nazis were

b . . exc USlOn 0 Jewish Com . , h

to e Isolated from the mass of the 0 1 . . munines w 0 were

of the Jews, through a program f pUl ~tl?n. Both mvolve~ an exploitation significant departure from indi 0 sPohlatl.on. None of this necessitated a

1genous t eorres of . S '. .

based around exclusion rather th '. anti- emitrsm which were

. an extermmatlOn The Nazi d '.

10 a process of industrial mass murder fur the] '. eClSlOn to engage

Vichy to subordinate its own ant'S .. ews raised the stakes and caused

Thi . 1- errnnc strategy to that of the Nazis

IS pomt, of Course, supposes that Vich h d' .

were going to their death that anti Se .. eli a some Idea that the Jews indigenous desire for excl~sion to a -fj n;-ItlC ~o ICy fhad shifted away from the

hi oreign VISIOn 0 extermi . Al

some istorians continue to believe th t Vi h k . matron, though

h id a lC y new nothmg of rh H 1

t e eVI ence suggests otherwise 413 Al h b i e 0 ocausr

. t oug It seems that the Nazis never

Vichy foreign policy, 1940-1942 99 officially informed Vichy of the fate of the Jews, the government was receiving reports from its diplomats and military attaches in Eastern Europe. On August 17, 1942, Jacques Truelie, Vichy's representative in Romania wrote to Pierre Laval explaining that the Jews deported from that country were being killed, although he remained vague about the exact derails.i'" On August 31, 1942 Colonel Chabanier, Military Attache in Bulgaria, wrote a report, sent to the Intelligence Bureau in Vichy, which made reference to high levels of mortality in deportations and a program of extermination which seemed to be underway.t" Of course it could be argued that Vichy did not necessarily take such reports seriously. However, someone in Laval's office underlined in crayon the lines in Truelle's correspondence about the deportations resulting in the deaths of almost all of the Jews. The ultimate proof that Vichy knew that the majority of the Jews were going to their deaths is provided by a government circular of August 28, 1942, eleven days after Trueile's letter. This insisted that the forthcoming trainloads of Jews from the Les Milles camp near Aix-en-Provence should include wagons of the sick and of the untransportable-hardly suitable workers for the salt-mines of Upper Silesia.416 Indeed in the 1954 trial of the SS Officials Knochen and Oberg former Vichy Police chief Rene Bousquet insisted that the reason he was so keen to sacrifice foreign Jews in order to save French Jews was that he had known they were confronted with a "direct and serious threat.'>417 There is no evidence to suggest that left to its own devices Vichy would have pursued a policy of extermination against the Jews but it did make itself a voluntary accomplice of the Nazi extermination program, thereby subordinating its own anti-Semitic policy to that of the Germans. Its political sovereignty was being sacrificed in much the same way as would happen with territorial sovereignty.

France's territorial sovereignty was undermined very rapidly and the French government was left with little control over "French" space. By the terms of the armistice, as well as by the German annexation of Alsace-Moselle, French territory was divided into several different zones of occupation, The Germans decided how much influence Vichy would assert in these areas. Its influence was clearly very limited in the annexed Alsatian territories and despite official protests about this annexation the government more or less accepted the de facto situation thus created. Vichy planning for the postwar was largely built around the assumption that Alsace-Moselle had been lost for the foreseeable future. This assumption was broadly accepted for example by a l'eport prepared in November 1941 by the DGRE (General Delegation for Franco-German Economic Relations) which examined the potential situation of French industry in the event of a peace treaty,418 The majority of the north of France was not actually annexed but was directly controlled by the Germans. There, Vichy was compelled to accept the authority of the occupier and its own laws were only effective when they did not contradict German ones.

Because the French had only limited say about what went on in the northern parts o{France the government was keen to assert its sovereign rights over the territory of the south and to ensure that access to this area was controlled by


.ie French government. Although Vichy propaganda liked to insist on the idea f French unity, privately the regime's policies differentiated between northern nd southern France. For instance, Minister of War, General Huntziger, isisted in an internal memo of September 1941 that Germans operating for ae armistice commissions in the unoccupied territories should under no ircumstances be referred to as "occupation troops" as they were known in the orth. In the south they were to be called "operational troops" to suggest that heir mission was limited in scope.i'? Vichy tried to maintain this particular ppellation even after the invasion of the southern zone by German troops in ~ovember 1942.420 If France was to preserve its legitimacy as a government it .eeded to defend its territory against ali-comers.v" Her capacity to actually do his was limited. She could stop German diplomatic vehicles at the demarcation ine which separated the two main zones.422 She could arrest German customs fficials who strayed over the border into the unoccupied territory.423 She could mprison German spies crossing into the southern zone.424 She could insist that yermany should not have the same right to interfere in French justice as in the 10rth.425 But for aU the posturing concessions were made with territorial overeignty.

From an early stage it was realized that allowing the Germans some access

o the south could be used to gain concessions elsewhere. In the summer of 941 Admiral Darlan informed the Germans that he was prepared to allow hem use of French military bases in North Africa.426 More proof that Vichy vas undermining its own distinction between the northern occupied and outhern unoccupied zones came with the deportation of Jews. In May 1942 vhen the Germans were discussing with Vichy the possibility of arresting Jews n the north Rene Bousquet offered to supplement their numbers with foreign ews already interned or still to be arrested in the south. Later that summer outhern France became the only unoccupied area of Western Europe to sarricipare actively in the handing over of Jews to be deported. A further mderrnining of the status of the southern zone as a territorially sovereign area :ame in September of that year when Laval agreed to an operation known to he Germans by the codename "Donar" and to the French as the "Desloges nission"-a name referring to the French officer charged with organizing it. l'his involved a group of 280 German intelligence officers being offered official "rench police protection to come into the southern zone to detect radio :ransmitters sending messages to the Allies. The agreement was that anyone irresred in the operations would be held by the French and not the German oolice but giving the Germans the right to trespass in the unoccupied zone :learly undermined French territorial sovereignty,

In effect politicaL and territorial sovereignty were to a large extent being subordinated not only to collaboration but also to the pursuit of administrative sovereignty. Increasingly Vichy's concern was on the right of indigenous administrations to control the application of policy, even if that policy was effectively decided by the Germans. Administrative concerns

Vichy foreign policy, 1940-1942 101 were overriding political and territorial ones. The agreement of May 1942 to hand over foreign Jews from the unoccupied zone demonstrated a desire to prevent the Germans from arresting French Jews in the northern zone but was also set within the framework of negotiations in which Vichy was pressing the Germans to allow French, rather than German, administrations to organize the arrest of those Jews. The Desloges mission which allowed German police agents to penetrate the southern zone with official French protection was negotiated in a similar spirit, involving agreements to aUow the French police a monopoly over certain types of policing in the north.

All levels of the French administration from government ministers to police chiefs were determined to keep the task of administering France in French hands. The sovereignty of French administrations was a contentious issue from the outset. This was even the case in the unoccupied zone because some French citizens were inclined to contact German armistice delegations directly for administrative needs such as passes allowing them to cross the demarcation line or news about Prisoners-of-War held in Germany.Y' Admiral Darlan sent out instructions informing civil servants that they should actively discourage French citizens from approaching these armistice delegarions.v''' Some civil servants who continued to direct their compatriots toward German administrations were punished for this offence.429 By late 1942 the quest for administrative sovereignty had become Vichy's Holy Grail. In policing for instance Vichy's policy increasingly revolved around trying to limit the extent to which German Police services would have to intervene directly in questions of public order. To keep policing in French hands Vichy was prepared to go to extraordinary lengths, including doing the Nazis' dirty work for them.430 The Prefecture in Orleans for instance was worried to see Germans arresting Jews, believing that only the French police should be used to arrest Jews.431

Vichy's use of French administrations to do German dirty work often met with public disapproval. What Vichy's critics had understood was that the quest for administrative sovereignty served the Germans very well and that far from saving France from humiliation the determined defense of administrative sovereignty was actually leading her into further dishonor.

Vichy, the allied powers and the empire

Three central factors conditioned Vichy's relations with Britain, the United States and the other Allied nations. The first was acute strategic vulnerability. France could defend neither its metropolitan base nor any part of its empire. The second was the ideological antipathy of most Vichy elites for both British imperialism and western liberal democracy. This antipathy, central collaboration, was tempered from an early stage by Germany's failure to knock Britain out of the war and by a growing awareness that the majority of French public opinion was sympathetic to the Allied cause. A third key element in Vichy policy making was the chronic ministerial instability and internal divisions that


characterized Perain's approach to government. The Foreign Ministry, the War, Navy and Interior Ministries, together with Deputy Premier and Petain all had a hand in foreign policy making. Relations between these various authorities ranged from uneasy cooperation to intense rivalry. The result was incoherence and often contradiction in Vichy foreign policy.

Few imperial powers have functioned with greater restraints on their freedom of action than did France during World War II. The terms of the armistice imposed acute constraints on policy options. France's armistice forces in both the metropole and the empire were undermanned, deprived of any substantial heavy weaponry and desperately short of modern warplanes. Most of the French fleet was spread out across the empire and unable to concentrate to mount effective operations on the high seas. The largest single naval contingent (250,000 tons of warships) stationed at Toulon, was a hostage of the armistice agreements and could not be deployed without obtaining prior German acquiescence. The French fleet, lacked aircraft carriers and was ill-suited to modern naval warfare.432 Military weakness was compounded by the fact that France faced more potential threats than ever after the arrnisrice.v? It faced threats to its imperial possessions not only from Germany and Italy, but also from Spain, Britain, the Free French movement and Japan. The Vichy government also had to deal with an implicit threat to French possessions in the western Atlantic from the United States, which made clear it would not tolerate a pro-Axis presence in the western hemisphere. Nor was the French navy able to mitigate the invidious effects of British naval blockade on continental Europe. Vichy appeased the Japanese over Indochina and assented to American oversight of its fleet and colonies in the western Atlantic. But, in order to fulfill France's armistice obligations, Vichy officials had no choice to but to resist any Allied attacks on is possessions in Africa and the Mediterranean.P" Although a fundamental aim of Vichy policy was to stay out of the war, for much of its existence the regime found itself waging undeclared war against the external threats posed by Britain, the British-sponsored Gaullist movement and later the United States as well as the growing internal threat from the French resistance.

Strategic vulnerability combined with the dynamics of Vichy internal politics were chiefly responsible for the persistent lack of coherence that characterized Vichy policy toward the Allies. Petain's central preoccupations were internal stability and the implementation of the National Revolution. His priority was a foreign policy that best established the conditions under which his internal program could be put into operation. Some collaboration with Germany was virtually inevitable. But there were other considerations, foremost of which were the effects of the British blockade and growing sympathy for the British cause within French public opinion in late 1940. These factors made it difficult for the Petainisr regime to adopt an openly pro-German and anti-British foreign policy. Such a strategy would increase the threat of further British or Gaullist attacks on the empire.

Ambiguity was therefore a necessary and unavoidable component of Vichy foreign policy. But the situation was exacerbated by Petain's style of leadership.

Vichy foreign policy, 1940-1942 103 The old Marshal had limited experience of politics, could not manage cabinet meetings and tended to listen to a small circle of advisors. He was fond of shuffling and reshuffling ministerial posts. Ministers were responsible directly to Petain and could be sacked on his whim. The resulting ministerial instability added to the general confusion in overall policy.435 Added to all of this was Perain's focus on domestic issues and his failure to provide clear direction to foreign policy. As a result, control of policy-making was a focus of rivalry between opposing camps. Up until his removal from office in December 1940 Deputy Premier Laval was a dominant figure within the government. Laval cared little for the National Revolution but was convinced France must earn a central role in a German dominated Europe by aiding the German war effort-even at the risk of war with Britain. He cultivated close contacts with the German occupying authorities in Paris and consistently advocated greater collaboration with the Third Reich. Naval Minister Darlan was similarly convinced of the merits of collaboration but for different reasons. He had less faith in German good will and greater interest in receiving direct compensation for French concessions.

There was greater anti-German sentiment in both the Foreign Ministry and the War Ministry. Petain's first Foreign Minister, Paul Baudouin, opposed risking everything on an Axis victory and favored maintaining at least clandestine links with Britain.436 An even greater opponent of voluntary collaboration with Germany was Francois Charles-Roux, a career diplomat and secretary general of the Foreign Ministry.437 The other locus of official opposition to collaboration was the Ministry of Defense. As Defense Minister, Weygand viewed Germany as France's chief enemy. He considered collaboration as an evil necessity that would allow France the time to implement the National Revolution and to restore its strength in preparation for a future war of revenge.v" He opposed any policy that might lead to a state of war between France and Britain. This reinforced German enmity toward Weygand and gave rise to hope among both the British and the Americans that Weygand was a likely candidate to lead a French campaign on behalf of the Allies in North Africa. Such speculation was illusory. Weygand was loyal to Petain and consistently refused all talk of defying the Marshal by rejoining the Allied war effort. He was convinced that France could not contemplate war until it had been regenerated by the National Revolution.439

Disagreement over foreign policy took place within the context of a complete breakdown in Franco-British relations. From the outset there were tensions between Vichy and London over British sponsorship of Charles de Gaulle. The Petain government branded de Gaulle a traitor and sentenced him to death in absentia. Relations collapsed after British attacks on the French fleet and British and Free French moves against French colonial possessions in Africa. On July 3, 1940 a powerful British naval task force deployed against the principal French overseas naval base at Mers-el-Kebir at Oran. Despite assurances that the French navy would .not be surrendered to the Axis, the British were resolved to take no chances. The French squadron commander at Mers-el-Kebir

104 Peter ja(kson and Simon Kitson

was given the choice to surrender, scuttle or disarm his ships. When he refused t~e British force opened fire killing 1,380 French crew and destroying or disabling three of the four French capital ships. All French ships in British ports were seized and an arrangement was negotiated to neutralize another French fleet in Alexandria.v'"

For the British "Operation Catapult" (as the action at Mers-el-Kebir was termed) was a savage act of war aimed at disabling the French fleet while at the same time demonstrating Britain's determination to continue the struggle. For many French, and in particular for naval officials, it was an act of treachery aimed at destroying France's ability to defend its empire. The affair forced Vichy officials to choose between violating the armistice and fighting their former ally. The choice to refuse British demands was also a choice to honor the armistice. The decision demonstrated to the Germans and Italians Vichy's determination to resist British moves against the French empire and made them more receptive to demands for naval rearrnamenr.v'! Mers-el-Kebir was an important step on the road to collaboration.

At a cabinet meeting the next day Darlan, supported by Laval, tabled plans for French attacks against British warships in the Atlantic and Mediterranean that would likely have led to open war with Britain. In his diary Paul Baudouin takes credit for convincing Petain of the folly of such an action.442 The government decided instead on a token bombardment of Gibraltar that claimed no casualties and caused no damage. Vichy instead severed diplomatic relations with Britain while at the same time maintaining its ties to the British Dominions. The situation was exacerbated first by a succession of French colonies rallying to the Gaullist movement in the Pacific and sub-Saharan Africa in August 1940 and then by the unsuccessful attack on Dakar by British and Free French forces the following September.v"

The Franco-British breach threw debates over future policy into sharp relief Within the Foreign Ministry Jacques Guerard argued that Mers-el-Kebir had "liberated entirely French policy from its attachment to British policy" and urged a realignment of French policy toward the Axis. Liberty from Britain, he asserted, "permits us to revise our relations with Italy and Germany not only in the domain of the armistice conventions but also in that of general policy."444 These arguments complemented entirely Laval's position that France must go beyond the armistice terms in order to negotiate a durable relationship with Nazi Germany. In the aftermath of Mers-el-Kebir Laval pressed the case for this "grande polirique" both in Vichy and with his German interlocutors in Paris.

Darlan also favored a closer relationship with the Axis. Although he favored a more "subtle" form of collaboration, he was equally convinced that France's interests lay in forging a lasting partnership with the Third Reich. As naval minister and admiral of the fleet, Darlan was infuriated by the British attacks on French warships. His geo-strategic perspective thereafter was imbued with a virulent Anglophobia that complemented his conviction that international politics were a perpetual struggle for imperial power. From such a perspective

t

Vichy foreign policy, 1940-1942 105 Britain was clearly France's chief enemy. A continent dominated by Germany, Darlan concluded, might "permit our country to recover and, who knows, perhaps even later assume a directing role in the economy of a federated Europe." Britain, conversely, would break up France's empire and destroy its fleet.

All indications are that (Germany) will leave us a powerful fleet, if only as a counter-weight to Italy in the Mediterranean ... a German victory, already a fact as we are concerned, appears the most favorable solution for the future recovery of our country. The victory must be as rapid as possible, because nothing is worse for our country than this period of uncertainty that is also the period of the armistice which makes it difficult for

. f . 1 445

us to construct anything 0 permanence or even to sus tam ourse ves.

I

[

I

f

Darlan, like de Gaulle, anticipated an expansion of the conflict. But his conception of France's interests in the coming world war was fundamentally opposed to that of de Gaulle. On October 2, 1940 he envisaged a global struggle between continental blocs in which France could not remain neutral. It was in France's interests that Britain was knocked out of this war quickly.

The German action against Britain remains undefined ... It is in the interest of our country that it comes as soon as possible, because only then will the European phase of the coming world war be brought to a conclusion. Will our country then have the time to recover its strength before the intercontinental war pitting Europe and Japan against America and Australia?446

In a note in early November Darlan insisted that France had no choice but

lav i . hi 1 "b E ,447 From

to p ay Its part rn t 1S commg strugg e ecause we are uropeans.

the Foreign Ministry Secretary General Charles-Roux disagreed and warned that: "We should be careful of basing our calculations on an imminent British defeat."448 Tensions with Britain should be kept to a minimum and collaboration above and beyond the armistice terms should be avoided. "We have nothing to gain," he asserted, "in allowing the Reich the impression that it can bully us into measures hostile to Britain, or by being impatient to take such measures on our own account. Such a strategy will never succeed in moderating German demands.'0449 Charles-Roux also rejected the view of both Laval and Darlan that a German victory would better serve France's interests. "A Pax Britannica," he argued in mid-October 1940, "would be infinitely less disadvantageous for us than a Pax Germanica.,,450

The military establishment, in particular Weygand and the army staff, were less sympathetic to Britain than the Foreign Ministry but equally unwilling to follow Laval down the road to intensive collaboration with Germany. Most army officers viewed Germany as France's chief foe. Weygand was the most forthright opponent of Laval's policy within the government and there were frequent shouting matches between the two men during cabinet meetings. But Weygand's


ability to Oppose Laval from within the cabinet was undermined after he was sacked as war minister by Petain in early September 1940. Thereafter Laval felt able ~o. con~uc~ personal diplomacy without worrying about heavyweight opposrnon within the Vichy government. 451

The result of these disagreements was two contradictory policy initiatives.

Laval openly pursued collaboration with Germany but clandestine negotiations were undertaken with the British government in Madrid and London in late 1940 and early 1941. These exchanges do not constitute evidence that the Petainisr regime was playing a "double-game."452 Vichy'S central aim in these negotiations was to improve economic conditions in France and North Africa by obtaining a relaxation of the British continental blockade. The British wanted further assurances concerning French neutrality and guarantees that t~e fleet and. empire would not fall into Axis hands. They hoped to obtain V1Chy recogn1t1on .of the Gaullisr movement and to convince Weygand to bring French North Afncan possessions back into the war on the side of the Allies. The two sides were so far apart that it IS scarcely surprising that nothing came of these negotiations.

For Vichy officials, any violation of the armistice terms was Out of the questio~ while Germany maintained its military grip on Western Europe. Nor coul~ Petam recogruze t~e Free French movement without undermining the legitimacy of hIS own regime, The British were promising to restore France in the long term while collaboration with Germany seemingly offered short term benefits. The British could only deliver on their pledges if they defeated Germany. Until the United States entered the war in late 1941 this seemed unlikely. In terms of ideological inclination and material inreresr the cards were stacked in favor of the pro-German camp in Vichy in 1940~1941.

The Franco-German summit which took place at Monroire on October 25 1940 ~arked a victory for Laval over his opponents in Vichy. At the same time Rougler was meeting with Churchill and high-ranking officials in London. Montoire led to the resignations of both Baudouin and Charles-Roux. Laval acceded to th: foreign office with greater freedom to pursue his policy of partnership WIth Germany. Yet Laval failed to secure any tangible benefits for French. concessions in October and November 1940. Moreover, Germany's de~~t m t~e Battle. of Bmain led to a "spectacular reversal" in French public oprmon. V1Chy offlcrals were well aware of the growth in pro-British sentiment i~ la:e 1940.4~3 Thes.e factors, along with Laval's failure to consult closely with Petam over hIS dealmgs with the Germans, led to his removal and arrest on December 13, 1940.454 His immediate Successor as Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister was Pierre Etienne Flandin, a veteran politician with little ~o~c: of characte~ and no political vision. His only noteworthy foreign policy trutratrve was to inform the Germans of Vichy's secret talks with the British 455 Plandin was quickly overshadowed by Darlan, who represented himself' in Vichy and Germany as Petain's designated successor.

.Dadan replaced Flandin as Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister in ChId-February 1941. Until the summer of 1942 he was the most important

Vichy foreign policy, 1940~1942 107 government figure and exercised a dominant role in. the formulation of Vichy strategy and diplomacy. Darlan placed many of hIS collaborators from t~e

. . . hi h t 456 ThIS

Marine Ministry in key government pOSItIOnS WIt in t e governmen ..

left scant prospect that Vichy policy would move away from collaboration and back toward the Entente. In fact Darlan was as convinced as Laval of the need for a durable understanding with Germany. He was unwilling to risk w~r w.ith Britain but based his strategic calculations on long-term German domination of the European continent. Once in power he identified his policy 'pri~rities as being to "Save the French nation, reduce our metropolitan and te~ntonallosses to a minimum and play an honorable-if not important-role 1U the Europe of the future." The British had little of substance to offer France as "For my

Part my choice has been made: it is for collaboration and I will not let myself , f h l"457 be lured away by the offer, with conditions, of a boatl~ad 0 ~ eat.or.petro.

There was little prospect of any improvement in relations WIth Bt1tal~. Dar~an instructed diplomatic agents abroad to "abstain from personal relations WIth

B .. h 11 ,,458

your ntIS co eagues. ..

Vichy policy moved toward ever greater collaboration. After a lull m Franco-British tensions in early 1941 relations once again approached a state of undeclared war. The British blockade was tightened, resulting in frequent standoffs and occasional fighting between the Royal Navy units and Vichy naval forces.459 The Paris Protocols included a passage stating that Fren:h assistance to the Axis war effort "could result in an immediate armed conflict with Britain and the United States."460 While the protocols were never ratified, this did not prevent Darlan from agreeing to such assistance. In the ~pring and summer of 1941 Vichy warships escorted Axis convoys to North Africa and t~e Levant French war materiel and airfields were placed at the disposal of Axis

. 461 h B .. h

forces seeking to overthrow British control of Iraq. The result was t e. nus

decision to attack Vichy controlled Syria. The result was a month of intense fighting before the Vichy authority in Syria surrendered ~o ~ritish and Free French troops in early July. During this period Darlan was inclined to send the remainder of the French Mediterranean fleet to support Vichy forces and :vas dissuaded from doing so only when War Minister General Charles Huntziger

. h B' . '-462 Al h h

protested that this would lead to "all~out war ,:It rrtain. t .oug

Darlan realized Vichy could not take this step he did volunteer t.o share intelligence on the British fleet with the Germans. ynder .Datlan .Vichy took the initiative in breaking off relations with the SOVIet Union .and assente~ to the creation of the "legion" of French volunteers to fight alongside the NaZIS on the eastern front.463

Darlan also played a key role in the removal of Weygand, t~e last ?owerful opponent of collaboration in the Vichy establishment, from hIS post 10 NO,~th Africa. In October 1941 the Germans advised Darlan that Weygand was .an insurmountable obstacle to the implementation of a constructive policy between our two countries." Darlan used this as an opportunity to present Petain with an ultimatum: either continue collaboration and get r~d of Weygand or change the course of French policy and give him a more prornment


I . 464

to e in government. On November 18, Weygand was recalled and replaced

by General Alphonse Juin, removing one of the foremost opponents to a closer Franco-German relationship from the policy making equation.Y?

There were numerous officials lower down the Vichy administrative hierarchy who opposed the pro-German line in French foreign policy. Many were concentrated within the military, where anti-German sentiment was an !nstit~tional reflex of long-standing. Military officers within the security and intelligence .serv1C~s, in particular, conducted a policy that was in many ways parallel to, if not mdependent of, that of the regime. Under Article 10 of the armistice, France was forbidden from having a foreign intelligence organization 01' conducting espionage.

This meant that France's prewar intelligence services had to be disbanded but re~emerged disguised as private companies operating in Vichy, Lyon and Marseilles. The activities of the reconstituted secret services, led by prewar secret intelligence Chief General Louis Rivet, provide a fascinating illustration of the complexities and ambiguities of Vichy security policy. The counter-intelligence services, operating under the appellations "Rural Operations" [travaux ruraux] and the "Bureau of Anti-National Activities" [Bureaux des menees aminationales] pursued and arrested all foreign agents working in France.466 Yet, while they did not hesitate to apprehend British and Gaullist agents working against the Vichy regime, their overwhelming focus was on combating German espionage in France. What is more, General Rivet's clandestine services quickly re-estabLished communications with' the British Secret Intelligence Service [SIS] and remained in regular contact throughout the war. The links between Vichy and British secret services included cooperation between British signals intelligence and French code-breakers working secretly under the command of Colonel Gustav Bertrand at the Chateau des Fouzes near Nirnes. This cooperation extended even to highly secret work on the enigma machine ciphers used by Germany's military and police services-perhaps the most carefully guarded secret of World War II.467 While these ties were the continuation of pre-1940 cooperation, the willingness of British intelligence to share such sensitive information with their French counterparts is a startling testament of the anti-German credentials of some Vichy officials. It is clear, moreover, that high-ranking officials had at least general knowledge of the activities of the Vichy's secret services. General Weygand and his successor as war minister, General Charles Huntziger, were important patrons of Rivet's services, providing them with resources and resisting pressure from Laval and others to rein them in. Even Darlan used the secret services as conduits for secret communications with the British. The ambiguous role of these services illustrates the complex and diverse character of attitudes toward war and international politics among Vichy officials.

If the Vichy government mounted a modestly independent foreign policy in Europe, the Mediterranean basin, and northern and Western Africa, its other colonial possessions were terribly exposed to external pressure. Most vulnerable were the colonies in the western Atlantic and the Far East. Up to the end of

Vichy foreign policy} 1940-1942 109 1942 Vichy retained possession of the Antilles through an implicit understanding with the US government that the important naval base at Martinique would not be used by the Axis war effort. Vichy sovereignty in the western Atlantic was limited and dependent on the goodwill of the Roosevelt administration.46B Efforts to maintain control of Indochina, by far the largest and most important of France's eastern possessions, were less successful. French military in this colonial federation consisted of 40,000 lightly armed colonial troops and only fourteen modern military aircraft. Nor was there any chance of reinforcements. Hence even before the fall of France, Indochina was dependent on British sea power in Hong Kong and Singapore to deter Japanese aggression in the region. When the strategic balance changed in the summer of 1940 the Japanese seized the opportunity to exploit French weakness and dominate the Gulf of Tonkin. Control of the gulf was crucial to Japan in its ongoing struggle to crush the Chinese nationalist rnovement.Y"

The first in a series of Japanese ultimatums demanded that the French cede all control over commerce between the Tonkin and northern China to Japan. Having tried and failed to secure US diplomatic support, the Vichy government decided to appease the Japanese. The Roosevelt administration was not willing to prop up French colonial rule in the region. Efforts of both officials in Vichy and Rear-Admiral Jean Decoux, the French Delegate General in Indochina, to come to a satisfactory arrangement were stymied as Japanese demands increased constantly. By August the Japanese were insisting on control of all airfields and railways in Indochina and a garrison of 5,000 Imperial troops. On August 30, 1940 a political accord was signed in Vichy whereby the French recognized "the dominant interests of Japan in the region" and agreed to grant the Japanese "exceptional military facilities.Y" This agreement was immediately superseded by a further demand by Japanese military officials in Hanoi for an occupation force of 25,000. When the French hesitated, a Japanese army in the Chinese province of Canton concentrated on the frontier and fighting took place near the town of Langson. The situation was exacerbated when conflict broke out simultaneously with Thailand. Isolated and utterly unable to resist a Japanese invasion, Decoux had no choice but to capitulate on September 22 and agreed to the new set of Japanese demands.

This did not mark the end of Imperial Japan's encroachment however. In late June 1941 the Japanese demanded bases in southern Indochina. An ultimatum to this effect was presented to Decoux on July 14, but a 50,000 strong force was dispatched before Decoux managed to craft a response. Once again, the French sought support from the Roosevelt administration but the Americans refused to take any action. The result was a military convention concluded between Decoux and Japanese General Surnita on July 23, 1941 that was ratified by a political accord signed in Vichy one week later. These agreements granted the Japanese military free access to the entire province and envisaged French and Japanese cooperation in the "common defense of Indochina." Jean-Baptiste Duroselle has aptly characterized this arrangement as a "virtual military alliance directed against the Chinese but also against the


British and Americans."!" Japan's ability to coerce Decoux increased further afte~ the stu.nning military successes achieved by the Imperial army and navy ~unng ~he firsr four momhsof 1942. Thereafter French Indochina played a role 10 relation to Japan that was similar to that of occupied France in relation to Germany. The French retained administrative sovereignty but had little genuine political or military independence.472

japan's ability to coerce Vichy was greatly increased by American refusal to support. the French. After uncertain beginnings relations between Vichy and the United States were clarified by the arrival of American ambassador Admiral William Leahy in January 1941. The Roosevelt administration was suspicious of the Gaullist movement and leahy's appointment was part of a concerted US effort to ensure that the Vichy government maintained a strict neutrality .in Europe and North Africa. Roosevelt and Perain exchanged a series of notes with the. former :onsistently warning the latter of the danger posed by G.ermany. American policy makers hoped to avoid having to choose between Vichy and the Gaullists by cooperating with local French officials in North Africa. In late 1940 and early 1941 Roosevelt sent special envoy Robert M~r?hy to report on the situation and to negotiate with Weygand. Like British offlC~als several months earlier, Murphy concluded that Weygand could be convmce~ to lead French North Africa back into the war against Germany. Forwarding an absurdly optimistic assessment of the situation in French North Africa, he urged Washington to make Weygand the focus of US policy toward France.473

The result was the "Weygand-Murphy Accord" of February 1941, which aim~d at . lifting the British blockade to get coal, fuel and agricultural equrpment to North Africa. The British agreed to let American shipping through the blockade in exchange for guarantees that this material did not end up in Axis hands.474 The American hope was that Weygand might serve, in the words of Secretary of State Cordell Hull, as a "cornerstone around which to buil~ a policy of resistance towards Germany." This hope was ill-founded. While Weygand accepted American economic assistance, he did not ask for arms and refused to break with Perain. Nor was he able to ensure that American imports did not find their way to the Axis war effort. Indeed soon after the accord was concluded the British and Americans learned that the French had shipped 5,000 tons of petrol to Italy.475

American efforts to influence the Vichy government obtained similarly ~odest r~sults. Petain's. government was pleased at the legitimacy conferred by dlplo~atlc. relations with the United States. But there was limited scope to American influence. The United States counted for little in Darlan's calculations. Once again, ideological preconceptions conditioned political and strategic assessments. In May 1941 Darlan judged that the "social state" of the world's largest democracy rendered it "incapable of waging war." This was because in Darlan's view, the United States was "in a more advanced state of decomposi:ion than France in 1939." Even if the Americans entered the conflict, he argued, "It

Vichy foreign policy, 1940~1942 III

. f . ld' 1:' E '<476

will be many years before a single one 0 Its so iers sets loot 10 urope.

Ideological prejudices thus blinded Datlan to the strate~i~ importanc~ o~ the world's most powerful economy. Not all Vichy officials were similarly handicapped however. Before resigning in protest at the policy of ever greater collaboration, General Paul Doyen, chief French delegate on the Franco-German armistice commission, composed a lengthy memo in which he rea~hed a diametrically opposing conclusion. The United States, in Doyen's analysI~, was "the great arbiter of today and tomorrow." Only American power, he predicted, could "restore the territorial integrity of metropolitan France.,>477

The problem was that in 1941-1942 US financial, industrial and demographic strength had yet to be translated into military. power .. ?erman tro~ps on the ground in France counted for more than American ~llItary ~otentla~. There was thus little hope that American diplomacy could 'induce Vichy officials to abandon collaboration. Leahy rarely saw Perain alone and US diplomacy failed to block Vichy assistance to the Axis in the Mediterranean '. Nor cou~d it prevent Vichy from fighting the British and free French 10 Syna. American influence also failed to prevent either the sacking ofWeygand or the return of Pierre Laval to power in April 1942. Leahy was recalled in prote~t to laval's reappointment. In their final meeting Petain promised t~e Ameflca~ amb~ssador that while France was obliged to accept economic collaboration WIth Germany, 'it would never provide military assistance to the AX.is. laval, how" ever, assumed a different tone. He advised Leahy that the United States had committed "a grave error" in entering the war. If German~, was defea~ed, he warned Bolshevism would triumph. He went to say that In these circum-

, . ,>478 L l' .

stances he would prefer to see Germany WIn the war. ava S commI~ment

to the German cause would last to the bitter end and would cost him hIS life,

Support for Vichy's pro-German policy began to waver among a number of key officials after the United States entered the war. Darlan was the most ~otable figure in this trend. In November 1941, with the ~wesome porential of American industrial power increasingly in evidence and WIth th~ ~~rman army halted short of Moscow, Darlan began to hedge his bets. He initiated secret contacts with the British government to ask what its attitude would be .towa.rd "a French government of which I was a member" in the event of an Allied VICtory. Churchill responded by urging Darlan to lead the French fleet out of Toulon and thus "take up an honorable place among the Allies.,>479 The following January Darlan asked to be invited to the Allied Arcadia Confe~ence in Washington. The response from Roosevelt was iden~ical to that glv~n by Churchill one month earlier.48o Yet his preference remained a German VICtory. In another note forwarded to Pecain in January 1942 he argued that "The b~st solution would be one that would permit us to maintain our present neutrality with good relations with Germany and Italy in vie: of t~e constitution of a Europe of the future." He recognized, however, that ThIS IS unfortunately ~he least probable oUtcome."481 Thereafter Darlan remained in secret contact WIth

. . N h Afri 482

American representatives 10 art rrca,


Operation Torch and the end afVichy foreign policy

Darlan's opportunism was a central factor in resolving the impasse created by the Allied invasion of North Africa on November 8, 1942. Operation Torch marked the end of Vichy control of what was left of France's African empire. Moreover, Vichy's response to the Allied landings was also the last significant foreign policy decision in which the regime was able to exercise a measure of sovereignty in its relations with the Allied powers. It illuminates both the pressures on Vichy decision makers and the divisions within the regime concerning the future course of policy. Vichy forces resisted the Allied landings in Algeria and Morocco in combat operations lasting thirty-six hours and costing over 900 French lives.483 Why did Vichy resist an operation aimed at destroying German power in Africa and preparing the ground for the invasion of Europe and the liberation of France? The entire episode illustrates the contradictions at the heart of Vichy foreign policy.

A major Allied priority in preparation for Operation Torch was to avoid or at least minimize the resistance the landing forces would face from the French army of Africa. There were three central elements to Allied efforts to neutralize Vichy power in North Africa. First, British participation was minimized and the Free French were cut out of the operation altogether. Anti-British and anri-Gaullist feeling had been carefully cultivated by Vichy propaganda in Africa. American diplomacy and American military power would thus lead the way. The second key aspect of AUied policy toward Vichy were the clandestine contacts between American representatives and Admiral Darlan, who, as chair of the newly constituted Imperial National Defense Council, was the chief authority over the French military in North Africa. Although Darlan was not informed of Allied intentions, American planners did not consider him an implacable enemy. Darlan's readiness to engage with US authorities and their willingness to deal with him was to prove crucial. The final strand in efforts to neutralize the army of Africa was American patronage of a network of Vichy civilian and military officials on the ground that would seize control of the army and take it over to the Allied side. At the centre of this plan was the intention to use French General Henri Giraud, an illustrious soldier who had escaped from a German prisoner of war camp, as a standard around which to rally the army of Africa. But there were serious flaws with this plan-which was formulated and implemented entirely independently of all contacts with Darlan. General Giraud (who was in France until the eve of the invasion) had little credibility among the majority of French military officers in North Africa and none at all within the navy. Nor were his collaborators on the ground able to prevent resistance to Allied landings. Perhaps even more problematic was the fact that, in order to secure the cooperation of these conspirators, the Americans had been forced to promise not to alter the military or administrative status of the African provinces. This would leave existing officials in place and thus leave open the possibility of a continuation of Vichy political rule after the Allied landings. It did not help that the politics of Giraud and most of his

Vichy foreign policy, 1940-1942 113 followers were deeply conservative if not openly antidemocratic. The result was a political situation that one scholar has aptly described as "Vichy ism under an

A . ,484

rnerican protectorate.

It was virtually inevitable that Vichy would mount some resistance to the Torch landings. Resistance was important not only for the dignity of the armed forces but even more so for relations with Germany. The German army remained in control of the European continent and if the French did not put up any resistance Hitler was sure to exact revenge on ~etropoli~an F.rance. In autumn 1942 there were rumors of both Axis and Allied landings in North Africa. A standing order was issued to resist any invasion. This order was reiterated by both Petain and Laval when news of the landings reached Vichy on the morning of November 8, 1942. For Vichy, the first priority was to avoid breaching the armistice.485 What remained uncertain, however,. was ~he duration of the resistance the French would put up and the ferocity WIth which French military and naval personnel would fight. From the outset i~ was apparent that Giraud and his supporters were unable to sec~re a ceasefue: It was at this point that Darlan emerged to play a crucial rol.e in the resolut1~n of the last of Vichy's undeclared wars. By luck or by design Datlan was m Algeria at the time of the landings. His first response was to ?rder French forces to resist. But, after meeting with Allied representanves, Darlan authorized first a local and then a general ceasefire. This directive was repudiated explicitly by Petain on November 9. This order was overtaken by events however. On the morning of November 11 German forces crossed the demarcation line to occupy the rest of France. This allowed Darlan to justify another ceasefire order by arguing that Marshal Perain was a prisoner of the Germans and no longer in control of Vichy policy directives. Darlan could thus go over definitively to the Allied side while still maintaining his loyalty to Petain.486 While he was able to secure a ceasefire, Darlan's plea to the French squadron at Toulon to weigh anchor and join him i~ North Africa was unsuccessful. The French commander in Toulon elected Instead to sc~ttle the

. d 1 48/ W' hi

warships under his command after the Germans oc:upie t ~e P?rt. it m

the space ora few days Vichy had lost its North African emp~re, l~S army, most of what remained of its fleet and the last vestiges of political independence

with the German occupation of the whole of France. .

Laval tried desperately to avert this disastrous outcome. The days following the Allied landings marked the last throw in his "grande ?o!it~qNe.': Laval resolved to go to Germany to meet with Hitler personally. HIS chief aim was to save the fleet and avoid occupation by convincing the Germans that France remained loyal to the armistice. His task was made more difficult by the arrival on the morning of the invasion of a German demand that France declare war on the United States and Great Britain. Laval realized that this would be suicidal for the regime. But he did urge that French forces resist the Allies until they were beaten in the field. But his mission was doomed from the outset. Hitler had ordered the occupation of the remainder of France before meeting with Laval. The policy of collaboration had failed. Prospects for an


important role for Vichy France in a new European order were bleaker than ever. Vichy foreign policy was revealed as an empty vessel.

Conclusion

Ope~ation Torch was t~e culmin~tion of a lengthy process of decline in Vichy's relations with the Allies. RelatlOns toward the British were tense from the beginning and more than once degenerated into undeclared war. Although some- senior officials, such as Charles-Roux, were reasonably well-disposed tow~rds L~~don, ~nglophobes within the Vichy government were never likely t~ View British pohcy as anything other than a threat to France's vital interests. Bmern.ess over Britain's traditional willingness to "fight to the last Frenchman" was reinforced by the naval blockade and by British or British-sponsored attacks ?n France's fleet and its colonies. And any threat to the empire was neces~aflly a threat to any remaining hopes to regain a world role for France. And n should not be forgotten that whilst Britain mourned 43,000 civilian deaths at the hands of the Lu~twaffe, Occupied France suffered almost 70,000 deaths under the bombs of fmt the Royal AIr Force and then its American c~unterparr.488 Added to this was British sponsorship of de Gaulle as a rival to Vichy's political legitimacy. All of this left little room for rapprochement with t~e British. Wha: COntacts there were after the defeat were at best fleeting and did not offer a senous attempt at a double-game. Discussions with the Americans in 1941 and early 1942, on the other hand, were of a different character. A~eri~an diplomatic recognition of Vichy was a vital factor in promoting the regime's claims to legitimacy. The Americans also offered important food aid in the wake of the Murphy-Weygand agreements of February 1941 and this aid was readily publicized by the regime.489 But hopes of continued American good-:vill were ill-founded given the regime's unwillingness to envisage any violation of the armistice terms with Germany.

Perhaps most importantly, as the ideological character of the war became ever mo~e pronoun.ced, it was increasingly clear that the Vichy regime would not survive an Allied victory. The reality was that Vichy and the Nazis had ma~y of the same ideological enemies. It was far easier to imagine the Vichy regime as part of the Nazi European order than as a member of the liberal democ~atic .communityof nations for which the British and Americans purported to be fight mg. Gamblmg on a German victory was considered to be the best way to preserve the regime. The foreign policy aims of the regime evolved from protecting the empire and securing a prominent role in a Germanized Europe throu?,h 1941 to mere survival from early 1942 onward. For Vichy the potential benefits of Allied good-will in the longer term were never as important as the much more pressing menace of German occupation in the short term. Those ~nti-German figures such as Weygand in the early Vichy regime were mcreasing~y ma~ginalized. Although Vichy never engaged in full scale military collaboratlOn with the Germans and remained ambivalent toward the Parisian fascists, the regime put both its economic and administrative resources in the

Vichy foreign policy, 1940-1942 115 service of the occupier, on condition that the occupier paid lip-service to French sovereignty.

This last point highlights one of many paradoxes inherent in Vichy's foreign policy. The search for sovereignty was a central motivation in Vichy's quest for collaboration. Initially this meant offering collaboration so that the Germans would allow Vichy the freedom to engage in its indigenous political reforms without interference from Berlin. Later Vichy offered the collaboration of its administrations in the hope that this would encourage the Germans to grant French institutions a monopoly over the application of policy-s-even though the policies themselves were increasingly being decided by the Germans. For Vichy the defense of French sovereignty could go hand-in-hand with collaboration.

There were other paradoxes inherent in Vichy foreign policy. Vichy was a polity born of the defeat but engaged in a perpetual pursuit of grande~r: For Petain's regime, however, grandeur was not pursued through military expansion but rather through trying to stay out of the war. This was the prerequisite for the moral regeneration deemed necessa~y for rebuilding .the country's strength. Re-entering the war could only end m chaos an~ poss.Ibly even revolution. Yet, for all its efforts to remain aloof from the conflict, Vichy was inevitably drawn in. Official neutrality was always a sham. The regime chose to side with the Germans. It waged undeclared war against Britain and later America. It also provided volunteers for the battle against the Soviet Union. Another paradox is the contradiction between a parochial view of the war and a more global vision of French status. One reason why Petain was convinced that France was defeated in 1940 was that he believed that it was involved in a European rather than a global war. However, the focus in rebuilding France placed great emphasis on its extra-European possessions. Although France initially possessed several trump cards, in particular the Empire and the Navy, it was not strong enough to be ~ble to mobilize t~ese. fo~ces prope:ly.

Vichy impotence was therefore not Just the result of. its luu.Ited margins of maneuver but also the contradictions at the heart of rts foreign policy, The impact of these contradictions was exacerbated by the perpetual infi~hti~g and ministerial instability which characterized the regime. Moreover since it was French leaders and not the Germans who were most actively seeking collaboration, France was always at a disadvantage in its dealings with the Axis. \What is more, the French entered into the relationship on a series of false assumptions. The idea that Germany had won the war proved to be as false as the parochial conception of a conflict which rapidly escalated to a global scale. The arrogance of the French elite convinced that they could outwit their interlocutors proved ill-founded and they gained little return on their collaboration. All indicati~ns t~at Ger:nany was respecting French sovereignty were seen by Vichy as m.aJor d~plomatlc tr~umphs. In reality the occupier only respected French sovereignty rn so far a~ It served German purposes. Although it was conceived in the hope of regammg French grandeur, Vichy's foreign policy merely succeeded in undermining national prestige as collaboration paved the way for humiliation and dishonorable compromise. This was the greatest paradox of a failed foreign policy.

222 Notes

4 The paradoxes of Vichy foreign policy, 1940-1942

340 vThhe c(lpassic state4mem of this interpretation is that of Robert Aron, Histoire de I~ y aris, 195 ).

341 Stanley Hoff~ann, "Aspects du l'egime de Vichy," Revue FranfaiJe de science POiltZqllf, 6, 1 (Janvier-mars 1956), pp. 44-69; "Collaborarionism in France during World War II," Journal of Modern History, 40, 3 (1968), pp. 375-95; and Decline or Reueuel? France ~mce the 1930s (New York, Viking Pres, 1974); Henri Michel, Vzchy, mmee 40 (Paris, RoberCLaffollt, 1966); Pitain, Laval, Darlan, trois politiqlleS? (Pa~lS, Flarnrnarion, 1972), and Petain et te regime de Vichy (Paris, Presses Universitaires Francaises, 1978); and Eberhard Jackel, La France dans l'Eerope de Hitler (Pans, Fayard, 1968); Robert Paxton, Parades and Politics at Vichy: the French officer corps under Marshal Petain (Princeton, Princeton u.P., 1966) and Vichy France: old guard and new order (London, Barrie and Jenkins, 1972). Also significant is the Y;es Durand V,lchy(1940-1944) (Paris, Bordas, 1970), a text aimed at students wl~h ~ very similar inrerpretive thrust to that of Paxton. For useful discussions of t?}~, Literature s,ee Jac~son,. Dark. Years, pp. 1-20 and Henry Rousso, Vichy, Let.-e7Jelllfnt, la memoire, l'bistoire (Pans, Gallirnard, 2001), pp. 1-51.

342 A good example of this trend in the historiography is Jackson's otherwise excellent France: T~e Dark Years, which focuses overwhelmingly on culture and society in metro~o!ltan France but treats the course of the war as a peripheral issue.

343 ?n this ,~ssue see Hugo Frey, "Rebuilding France: the Rise-Fall Myth and French identity, In S. Berger, M. Donovan and K Passmore (eds.), Writing National HzstorteJ (Lon~on, Routledge, 1999), pp. 205-16; Raoul Girarder, Mythes et myt?o[ogzes polttzques (Paris, 1986), pp. 63-138 and Peter Jackson, "Post-War Politics and the Historiographv of French Strategy and Diplomacy before the Second World War," History Compass, 4, 5 (2006), pp. 870-905.

344 Jea~-Bapt1se Duroselle, Politiqlle etrmlgcre de la France. I:Abfme, 1939-1944 (Paris Se~)~,. 19~2). "La decadence" is the subtitle of the Duroselle's previous book Pol!ttq,:e etnmgiJre de fa France. La decadence, 1932-1939 (Paris, Seuil, 1979).

345 ~ran~ols~~eorges r:reyfus, Histoire de Vichy (Paris, Perrin, 1990).

346 Les polmques exterieures de la France pendant la deuxierne Guerre Mondiale" Relations Internaliana/f.(, 107 (2001), with an introduction by Elisabeth du Reau,

347 Rober~ Frank, "Vichy er Ie monde, le monde et Vichy" in Jean-Pierre Azerna and Francois Bedari~,a ~eds.), Vichy et les Franfais (Paris, Fayard, 1990), pp. 99-121 and especially Idem, Petain, Laval, Darlan," in Azema and Bedarida (eds.), La France des amz(.es noires, pp. 407-448.

348 Robe?~: .Frank; "Vichy et,les britanniques, 1940-1941: double jeu ou double Iang~ge .. 1D Azema and Bedanda (eds.), Vtchy et les Franfais, pp. 122-63.

349 CIted m Jac~son, Dark Years, p. 123 and Aron, Histoire de Vichy,p. 21.

350 Duroselle, LAMme, p. 184. the wording of this passage was unfortunate because It sllggest~d that a ceasefire had already been declared. The vast majority of the 1.-15 million prisoners were taken in the week between this address and the SIgnature of the armistice. The collapse in fighting power of France's armed forces only further weakened the ability of the new government to resist armistice terms.

351 For a. concise but excellent summary of the naval terms of the armistice see Martin Thomas, "After Mers-el-Kebir: the armed neutrality of the Vichy French navy, 1940-:-1~43," English 1I1storical Review, 112,447 (1997), pp. 647-649.

352 O~ the arrmstices se~ the pnmary material collected in the volume of the Docemenu Dlplomatlq1les Pl'ctllfats, 1939-1944, vol. 3, Les armistices de juin 1940 (Berne Peter

Lang, 2003). See also the analyses in Duroselle, I:Abime, pp. 195-203. '

Notes 223

353 An important point made in Frank, "Petain, Laval, Darlan," p. 31l. 354 Crernieux-Brilhac and Frank here.

355 Eux-Brillhac and Frank.

356 Julian Jackson, The Fall of France: the Nazi invasion of 1940 (Oxford, O.u.P., 2003), pp. 107-108.

357 Ibid., pp. 107-108.

358 Baudouin, The Private Diaries of Paul Baudouin (London, Eyre and Spottiswood, 1948), p. 47.

359 Cited in Aron, Histoire de Vichy, p. 21.

360 On these issues see especially Pierre Birnbaum, La France imagines (Paris, Fayard, 1998), pp. 9-19 and 273-369.

361 All three quotations from Charles-Robert Ageron, "Vichy, les Francais et l'Empire," in Azerna and Bedarida (eds.), Vichy et les Franfais, pp. 122-134.

362 Frank, "Vichy et le monde, le monde et Vichy," p. 106. Frank also defines this as "the logic of a great power on its knees."

363 On Darlan see especially Claude Huan and Herve Courau-Begarie, Darian (Pris, Fayard, 1989).

364 Cited in Henry Rousso, "Qu'esr-ce que la «Revolution Nationale»?" in Vichy, I:itJenement, fa memoire, i'histoire, p. 56 and Jackson, Dark Years, p. 129.

365 On the character of the National Revolution see Rousso, "Qu'est-ce que la «Revolution Nationaie»?"; Jean Marie Guillen, Jean-Marie Guillon, "La philosophie politique de la Revolution nationale," in Azcrna and Bedarida (eds.), Vichy et les Franfais, pp. 167-183.

366 Cited from Duroselle's analysis of de Gaulle's speech at Albert Hall on June 18, 1942, I:Abime, p. 349; see also Cremieux-Brilhac, France Ubre, pp. 247-249.

367 See, for example, Zeev Sternhell, Neither Right nor Left: Fascist ideology in France (Princeton U'P; 1986; Kevin Passmore, From Liberalism to Fascism: the Right in a French province (Cambridge, c.u.P., 1997); as well as the essays in Michel Dobry (ed.), .Le my the de l'ailerg}« franfaise au fascisme (Paris, Albin Michel, 2003) and Brian Jenkins (ed.), France in the Era of Fascism: Essays on the French Authoritarian Right, Oxford, Berghahn, 2005).

368 Robert Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (Oxford, O.u.P., 2004), especially, pp. 112-114; Philippe Burrin, La del-ive fasciste: Doriot, Deat, Bergery, 1933-/945 (Paris, Seuil, 1986); Pierre Milza, Fascisme /ranfais: passe et present (Flammarion 1987) and Guillon, "La philosophie politique de la Revolution nationale," pp. 167-83. For a thoughtful interpretation that falls somewhere in between these two schools see Michele Cointet-Labrousse, Vichy et le fascisme (Brussels, Editions Complexe, 1987).

369 For two recent examples see MacGregor Knox, Common Destiny: Dictatorship, Foreign Policy and War in Fascist Itaty and Nazi Germany (Cambridge, c.u.P., 2000) and Richard Bessel, Nazism and War (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004). 370 On these issues see especially Marc Ferro, Petain (Paris, Fayard, 1987), pp. 45-98 and Frank, "Petain, Laval, Darlan," pp. 310-317.

371 For a good discussion of anti-British sentiment within the French navy during this period see Ronald Chalmers Hood III, Royal Rep1!biicall.r: the French llat)ai dyna,rties betuieen the World Wars (Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1985), pp. 95-99 and Herve Coutau-Begarie, Castex: le stlY/tege inconnu (Paris, Economica, 1985), pp. 20-22 and 78-80. On the French air force and collaboration see Claude d'Abzac-Epezy's excellent study, L'amllfe de FAir de Vichy, 1940-1944 (Vincennes, Service Historique de l'Arrnee de rAir, 1997).

372 Theodore Ropp, "Continental Doctrines of Seapower," in Edward Meade Earle (ed.), Makers of Modern Stratezy: Military Thoftf!:ht from MarhiatJelli to Hitler

224 Notes

Notes 225

(Princeton, Princeton UP, 1971), pp. 448-464. On Darlan's geo-political perspective see also Chalmers Hood's interesting essay "Defense tous azirnuts pour la France seule: Darlan au coeur du systerne des relations politico-militaires de Vichy," Relaiions lntemationales, 107 (2001), pp. 323-336.

373 Cited in Thomas, "After Mers-el-Kebir," p. 645.

374 Cited from Herve Coutau-Begarie and Claude Huan (eds.) Lettres et notes de l'Amiral Darlan (Paris, Economica, 1992), "OU est notre devoir?" Darlan note October 9, 1940, doc. No. 134, pp. 237-239.

375 Cited in Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (London, Eyre & Spottiswood, 1968), p. 198; see also Fred Kupferman, Laual, 1883-1945 (Paris, Flammarion, 1988) and Jean-Paul Coimet, Pierre Laval (Paris, Fayard, 1993). 376 Laval cited in Kupferman, Laua], pp. 323 and 337; see pp. 338-339 for a discussion of Perain's role in editing and approving Laval's speech.

377 Henry Rousso, "Col laborer," EHistoire, no 80, 1985, p. 49.

378 This is in essence a modified version of a chronology established by Henry

Rousso in his article "Collaborer."

379 Quoted in Jackson, Dark years, p. 167.

380 For the text of the armis rice see: http://artsweb.bham.ac.uk/vichy/defeac.htm. 381 Georges Boris, French public opinion since the armistice (Oxford, O.U.P, 1942), p. 5. 382 Robert Paxton, "La coilaboration d'Erar'' in J.-P. Azerna er F.Bedarida, La France

des anuees noires (Paris, Seuil, 2000, vol.l), p. 364.

383 For Laval's attempts at Franco-German entente see Jean-Paul Cointet, Pierre

Laval (Paris, Fayard, 1993), pp. 147-150. 384 Rousso, "Collaborer," p. 5l.

385 Nicholas Atkin, The French at war (London, Longman, 2001), p. 64.

386 Yves Durand, "Collaboration, French Style" in Sarah Fishman (et al), France at war: Vichy and the historians (Oxford, Berg, 2000), P: 63.

387 Paxton, "La collaboration d'Etat," pp. 371-372; Herve Coutau-Begarie and Claude Huan, Darlan (Paris, Fayard, 1989\ pp. 395-438. The full text of these protocols is reproduced in appendix II of William Langer, Our Vichy Gamble (New York, Knofp, 1947), pp. 402-412,

388 Nicholas Atkin, The French at war (London, Longman, 2001), p. 66. 389 Paxton, Vichy France, p. 5l.

390 For an excellent analysis of Petain's vanity see Atkin, Petain, pp. 99-130. 391 Jackson, Dark years, p. 227; Warner, Pierre Laual, p. 352.

392 AN (Archives Narioriales, Paris) 2AG 520 CC 104 H, Prefecture de Police, Note of Augusr 13, 1941.

393 Courau-Bcgarie and Huan, Darlan, pp. 521-526.

394 SHAT (Service Historique de lArrnee de Terre, Paris), 1K545 6, Diary of General

Bridoux.

395 Jackson, Dark Years, pp. 213-214.

396 Henry Rousso, La collaboration (Paris, MA editions, 1987), p. 57. 397 Frank, "Petain, Laval, Darlan" pp. 307~348.

398 D'Abzac-Epezy, L!arlllee de l'Air de Vichy, pp. 289-304 and Paxton, "La

collaboration d'Etat," p. 373.

399 Durand, "Collaboration, French Style," p. 67.

400 Figures taken from Rousse, La collaboration, p. 64.

401 Herve Joly (ed), Comites d'organisatioll et 1'{':ollDllIie dirigie du regime de Vichy (Caen, Centre de Recherche rl'Histoire Quantitative, 2004).

402 Edward L Homze, Foreign labor in Nazi Germany (Princeton, N.J., 1966). 403 Rousse, Vichy, l'evenernent, la mernoire, l'histoire, pp. 110-147.

404 For more details of this affair see: Vincent Auriol, Hier, demain (Paris, Charlot, 1945), pp. 85 -8 8; Alexander Stein, Rudo/fHilferding find die deutrche Arbeiterbe weg ulIg (Hamburg, Gedenblater, 1946); Arthur Koestler, La lie de fa terre (Paris, Livre de Poche, 1971).

405 Jackson, Dark years, p. 182. 406 Ibid., p. 217 ..

407 Durand, "Collaboration, French Style;' p. 69.

408 AN F60 522, Rapport du Chef du Gouvernernent au Marechal Chef de I'Ecat Francais, Vichy, November 26, 1942; SHAT "Fonds de Moscou" 676/15100 dossier sur Rene Legras, condarnne pour acreince a la surete extericure de l'Etat (August-October 1942).

409 AN AJ40 1357, Le General Doyen, President de la delegation francaise aupres de la Commission Allemande d'Armistice a M le General der Artillerie Vogl, President de la Commission Allemande d'Armistice, N° 20603JAE, June 11, 1941.

410 AN AJ41 1609, Proces-verbal de l'entrerien du Colonel Bohrne et du Colonel

Vignoi en date du 12 novembre, 11h 30, n? 1.037JEMJS, November 13, 1941. 411 AN F60 1479, Philippe Perain au gouvernement allemand, November 1942. 412 Michael Marrus and Robert Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews (New York, Basic Books, 1981).

413 For one angle on the debate about what Vichy knew concerning the Holocaust see Stephane Courtois and Adam Rayski (eds), Qui sauait quoi?: l'extcnnination des Jui/s 1941-1945 (Paris, La Decouverte, 1987).

414 AN PIa 4682, M Jacques Truelle, Ministre de France en Roumanie a Son excellence M Pierre Laval, chef du gouvernemenr, Bucarest, August 17, 1942. 415 SHAT 3P 103, Rapport du colonel Chabanier au 2nd bureau de I'EMA, August 31, 1942. This reference was provided by Sebastien Laurent.

416 Simon Kitson, "The Marseille Police in cheir context, from Popular Front to Liberation" (University of Sussex, D Phil Thesis, 1995), p. 116.

417 CDJC (Centre de Documentation Juive et Contemporaine) CCCLXIV-9, Proces Knochen-Oberg, deposition de Bousquet, September 30, 1954.

418 Rousso, "Col laborer," p. 51.

419 AN Fla 4685, Le General Huntziger, Secretaire d'Etat a la Guerre, a M le

Secretaire d'Etat a I'Interieur, September 5, 1941.

420 H.R. Kedward, In search of the Maq1fi.r (Oxford, OUP, 1993), p. 5.

421 SHAT 1K 254 19, Feuille d'information, "A la croisee des chemins," June

1941.

422 AN FIa 4680, General Picquendar aux Gencraus des l e et 2e Divisions

Militaires, January 7, 1942.

423 AN PIa 4680, Le Lieutenant-Colonel, Commandant la 12° Compagnie a M le

Chef de Bataillon, Commandant le district, August 11, 1942.

424 Simon Kitson, Vichy et fa chasse aux espiOI1S nazis (Autrernent, Paris, 2005). 425 AN BB18 3328, General Huntziger a M le Garde des Seaux, May 1, 1941.

426 Dominique Veillon, La colleborasion, texte et dibats, Paris, Librairie Generale Francaise, 1984, p. 103.

427 AN F1a 4681, Le General Bourget aux ler et 2eme Groupes de Divisions Militaires, n? 29.990IDSA/12, September 16, 1941; AN AJ41 1562, Le General Bourget, directeur des services del'arrnistice, note pour les chefs des derachemenrs de liaison, n? 26271DSAI7, January 26, 1942.

428 SHAT 3P 102, F.Darlan aux Secreraires d'Etat it l'Inrerieur et it la Guerre, No 812/SG, July 5, 1941; this same letter also features in AN AJ41 1562, le General

226 Notes

Notes 227

de Saint-Vincent, Gouverneur militaire de Lyon, commandant la 14° Division Militaire a M le Prefer du Rhone, Lyon, le November 24, 1941.

429 AN Fla 4681, Le General Hunrziger a M le Ministre, Secreraire d'Etat a l'Interieur, August 23, 1941; AN Fla 4680, Le General Huntziger a lAmiral Darlan, September 26, 1941; AN F1a 4681, Le General Hunrziger a M Ie Ministre, Secretaire d'Etat a l'Interieur, October 2, 1941; AN Fla 4681, Le Colonel Bresse, chef de du derachemenr francaise de liaison a M le General, commandant le let groupe de DM (section armistice), n? 703/DFA, Grenoble September 25, 1941.

430 Jean-Marc Berliere & Denis Peschanski, "Police et policiers parisiens face a la lutte arrnee, 1941-44," in Francois Marcoe (ed), La Riristance et les FranraiI: lutte armcc et maqui: (Annales litteraires de I'Universire de Franche-Comre, 1996); Marc-Olivier Baruch, Servir I'Etat Franrais (Paris, Fayard, 1997), p. 372; Jackson, Dark years, pp. 181-182.

431 Durand, "Collaboration, French Style," p. 69.

432 Jean Daise and Maurice Vaisse, Polirique etrangere de la France: diplomatic et outil rnilirairc, 1871-1991 (Paris, Seuil, 1992), pp. 443-445.

433 14, 2 (1999), p. 176.

434 On this subject see, above all, Martin Thomas, The French Empire at War (Manchester, Manchester u.P., 1998) but also Chantal Metzger, UEmpire colonial /ranfais dans la strategie du troisietne Reich (1936-1945), two vols. (Berne, Peter Lang, 2002).

435 See the discussions in Baruch, Servir I'Etat, passim and Jackson, Dark Years, pp. 144-148. See also the vivid memoir account by Henri Du Moulin de Labarrhere, Le Temps des illusions: Sonoenirs Ulfillet 1940-avril 1942) (Geneva; Editions du Cheval Aile, 1946).

436 Baudouin's published diary (cited above in note 22) is a vital source on the initial period of Vichy foreign policy but it should be used with caution because it was almost certainly edited to accentuate his pro-British sentiments.

437 There is documentary evidence for Francois Charles-Raux's opposition to Laval.

But he has also left a useful and generally reliable memoir account: Cinq mois tragiqucs aux Af/aires etrallgeres (Paris, Pion, 1949).

438 Kitson, Vichy et la chasse aux espion nazis, pp 184-185.

439 Duroselle, L'Abime, pp. 275-77 and 298-301; Frank, "Vichy et les britanniq1leJ," pp. 150-156 and Christine Levisse-Touze, I.;Ajrique du Nord dans fa guerre, 1939-1945 (Paris, Albin Michel, 1998), pp. 132-165.

440 Duroselle, I..:Abime, pp. 229-234; Philippe Masson, La Marine /ranfaise et fa gucrrc, 1939-1940 (Paris, Lavauzelle, 1991), pp. 119-196; PMH Bell, A Certain E1!etJt1laiity: Britain and the Fa!! 0/ France (London, Saxon Honse, 1974), pp. 137-164; RT Thomas, Britain and Vichy: the dilemma of Anglo-French relations, 1940-1942 (London, Macmillan, 1979), pp. 42-48 and Thomas, "After Mers-elKebir," 649-651.

441 An important point emphasised in Duroselle, L'Abtme, pp. 233-234 and Thomas in "After Mers-el-Kebir," p. 649 and Masson, Marine /ranfaise ez la gltcl're, pp. 144-149. The Germans responded to Mers-el-Kebir by suspending the naval clauses of the armistice and granting French naval squadrons the freedom to move around. The authorised strength of French naval personnel was raised from 4,000 to 75,000 in the months that followed.

442 Baudouin, Private Diaries, pp. 231-232.

443 See Thomas, French Empire at War, pp. 38~97; R.T. Thomas, Britain and Vichy, pp. 48-52 and 62-65; Duroselle, UAbtme, pp. 234-249 and Kim Munholland,

Rock of Contention: Free French and Americans at War in New Caledonia, 1940-1945 (New York, Berghahn, 2005).

444 France, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres [cited hereafter as MAE], Papiers 1940:

Cbarles-Roax, vol, 35, "Note," July 5, 1940.

445 Herve Coutau-Begarie and Claude Huan, editors, Lettres et notes de I'Amiral Darlan (paris: Economica, 1992), untitled and undated Darlan note written in late December 1940, doc. 152, pp. 264-265.

446 Ibid., "Evenements du 16 juin et 31 decernbre 1940," doc. No. 97, note for October 2, 1940, ap. 199.

447 Ibid., "Note pour le Marechal de France, chef de I'Erat," November 8, 1940, doc.

no. 142,pp. 245~248.

448 MAE, Papiers 1940: Charles-Roux, voL 32, "Note pour le rninistre," July 8,

1940.

449 MAE, Papiers 1940: Cberles-Roux, vol. 32, "Note," August 4, 1940.

450 MAE, Papiers 1940: Charles-Roux, vol. 32, long and detailed note of October 14, 1940.

451 Cointet, Pierre Laval, pp. 271-273.

452 On this question see especially Frank, "Vichy er les briranniques"; Thomas, The French Empire at War, pp. 87-92 and Duroselle, UAbime, pp. 274-285.

453 Quoted in Frank, "Vichy et le rnonde," p. 107. On the Vichy regime and the state of public opinion see Pierre Laborie, Uopilli011/ranfaise sous Vichy: Les Franfais et la crlse d'identiti nationale, 1936-1944, second edition (Paris, Editions du Seuil, 2001), especially pp. 244-283. Laborie identifies a "visceral hostility to collaboration" among the majority of French opinion. The best discussion of the effect of popular opinion on Vichy foreign policy is Frank, "Pecain, Laval, Darlan."

454 Kupferman, Laval, pp. 244-77; Coinret, Pierre Laual, pp. 270-327. 455 Frank, "Vichy et le monde," p. 107.

456 Philippe Masson, La Marinc /ranfais8 et fa gmrre, 1939-1940 (Paris, Lavauzelle,

1991), especially pp. 290-295.

457 Quoted in Huan and Begarie, Darlan, p. 406; see also Frank, "Vichy et le

rnonde," r- 109-110.

458 Quoted in Duroselle, L'AMme, p. 276.

459 Thomas, French Empire at War, pp. 92-93. 460 Langer, Our Vichy Gambie, p. 411.

461 Paxton, Vichy France, pp. 117-23; Duroselle, UAbime, pp. 289-293 and Thomas,

French Empire at War, pp. 101-107.

462 Quoted from Thomas, French Empire at War, p. 106; see also A. B. Gaunson, The Anglo-French Clash in Lebanon and Syria, 1940-1945 (London, Macmillan, 1987).

463 On this issue see especially Georges-Henri Soutou, "Vichy, l'URSS et l'Allemagne de 1940 a 1941," in L Mieck et P. Guillen (eds.), La Ffance et l'Allemagne [ace a fa Rsssie (Munich, Oldenbourg, 2000), pp. 184-201 and "Vichy et Moscou, de 1940 a 1941," Relations internationales, 107 (2001), pp. 361-374.

464 Huan et Courau-Begarie (eds.), Lettres et notes de l'Amira! Darlan, "Rapport an Marechal," October 22, 1941, doc. no. 265, p. 408-410.

465 On Weygand's removal see Levisse-Touze, UAfrique du Nord dans fa glterre,

pp. 169-176.

466 On this subject see Kitson, Vichy et la chasse aux espions nazis, pp. 47-83; Thomas, "Intelligence in Defeat"; Douglas Porch, The French Secret Services: a history of French intelligence from the Dreyfus Affair to the Gulf War ~New York, Farrar, Straus and Grioux, 1995), pp. 204-224. See also the memoirs of

228 Notes

Notes 229

some of the veterans of Vichy intelligence services: Paul Paillole, Services Speciaux (Paris, Robert Laffont, 1975); Henri Navarre, Le Service de renseignernents, 1871-1944 (Paris, Pion, 1978); idem, Le Temps des verites (Paris, Plaon, 1979) and Gustav Bertrand, Enigme ou Ia plus grande enigrne de la guetre, 1939-1945 (Paris, PIon, 1973).

467 Thomas, "Intelligence in Defeat," especially pp. 179-185 and idem, "France in British Signals Intelligence, 1939-1945," French History, 14, 1 (2000), pp. 41-66.

468 Langer, Our Vichy Gamble, pp. 103-104.

469 Discussion of French policy in Indochina is drawn primarily from Duroselle, I.:Abime, pp. 250-256 and 296-307; Thomas, French Empire at War, pp. 191-217 and Admiral Jean Decoux's vivid but self-justificatory memoir account, A la Barre de l'Indocblne: Histoire de mon gonvernement general (1940-1945) (Paris, Plan, 1949). See also Eric Jennings, Vichy in the Tropics: Petain's National Reuolraion in Madagascar; Guadelollpe and Indochina (Stanford, Stanford u.P., 2001).

470 Quoted in Duroselle, L'Abime, p. 254. 471 Ibid., p. 296.

472 See Thomas, French Empire at War, pp. 193-203 and Jennings, Vichy in the Tropics, pp. 227-249.

473 Langer, Our Vichy Gamble, pp. 179-195; Duroselle, I.:Abime, pp. 297-299. See also Murphy's memoirs: Diplomat among \Varriors (New York, Doubleday, 1964).

474 Christine Levisse-Touze, I.:Afrique du Nord dans la guerre, pp. 160-69; Langer, Our Vichy Gamble, pp. 128-136.

475 Quotation is of Cordell Hull, US Secretary of State, cited in Jackson, Dark Years, p. 177. On French petrol shipments to Italy see [;Abime, p. 299.

476 Cited in Huan and Begarie, Darlan, p. 406.

477 Cited in Duroselle, [;Abime, p. 289. See also Armand Berard, "Note sur le rapport de la fin de mission du general Doyen, Wiesbaden, 16 juillet 1941," Relations lruernationales, 35 (1983), pp. 359-367. Berard claims he drafted Doyen's note. 478 Foreign Relations of the United States.

479 Frank, "Petain, Laval, Darlan," p. 337.

480 Huan and Courau-Begarie, Darlan, pp. 521-522.

481 Cited in Frank in "Perain, Laval, Darlan," pp. 337-338.

482 There is a detailed discussion of these contacts in Huan and Coutau-Begarie, Darlan, pp. 522-529; see also Arthur Funk, "Negotiating the 'Deal with Darlan,' "Journal of Contemporary History, 8, 2 (1973), pp. 81-117.

483 For analyses see Levisse-Touze, I.:Afrique du Nord dans fa geerre, pp. 233-58 and Thomas, French Empire at War, pp. 159-167.

484 Levisse-Touze, L'Afrique du Nord dans la guerre, p. 279.

48S For a careful reconstruction of Vichy responses to the Allied landings see Duroselle, I.:Abime, pp. 377-394.

486 Darlan's position was reinforced by two secret telegrams from Petain expressing entire confidence in Darlan. See Duroselie, L'Abtme, p. 381.

487 Masson, Marine franfaise et la guel're, pp. 379-403.

488 Figures taken from Daniele Voldman, "Les civils, enjeux du bombardement des villes" in Scephane AudoinRouzeau et al, La violence de guerrc, 1914-1945, Brussels, Complexe. 2002, pp 161-162.

489 See for example Petain's radio speech of March 19, 1941 in Jean-Claude Barbas (ed) , Philippe Paain: diJCDlIrJ aux Fran{aiJ, Paris, A.Michel, 1989, p. 117.

5 The path marked out by history: the German-Italian alliance, 1939-1943

490 From the preamble of the pact of Friendship and AHiance between Germany and Italy (Pact of Steel), Documents on German Foreign Policy (DGFP), series D, V. VI, document 426, p. 562.

491 I dommenti diplomatici italiani (DDL), 7, XIIm 87, 108, 364, XIII 61,91, 179,427, 924, 936, XV, 411, William 1. Shorrock, From Ally to Enemy: The Enigma of Fascist Italy in French Diplomacy, 1920-1940 (Kent, Ohio, 1988), pp. 94-169 an.d Gerhard L. Weinberg, The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany, 2 volumes (Atlantic

Highlands, New Jersey: 1994), v.I... .. . . .

492 John F. Coverdale, Italian I~tcl·venttoI1. rn the SPanuh Ctvt! ~ar (Pf1~cetOn. 1975), pp. 85-126, Massimo Ascoli and FlaVLO Russo, La diftsa dellarea alj)tno 1861-1940 (Rome: 1999), p. 234 and J.E$aufmann and R.MJurga, Fortress Europe: European FortificatimJJ afWorld War II (Conshohocken, P.A.: 1999), pp. 191-199.

493 DGFP, D., VI, 149, 185, 433. . . .

494 Lajos Kerekes, editor, Allianz Hitler-Horthy-Mu5so1tnt: Doesmenie zur Ungartshchen

AltS.fmpoiitik (1933-1944) (Budapest: 1966), 55, 57, C.A.Macartney, October Fifteenth: A History of Modern Hungary 1929-1945, 2 volumes (Edmburgh: 19?6), I, pp. 347-348 and Thomas Sakmyster, Hungary's Admiral 011 Horseback: Mtklos Horthy (New York: 1994), p. 233. . .., J

495 Shorrock, From Ally to Enemy, pp. 233-260, Wemberg, The Foreign Policy of Hitler 5 Germany, v.2, Starting World War II 1937-1939, pp. 507-513, 522-524, 545,

563-564.

496 DDI, 8, X, 500, XII, 110, XIII, l l.O, 469. . .

497 Anita J. Prazmowska, Easte-rn Europe and the Orzgtns of the Second World War

(New York: Palgrave, 2000).

498 Allianz, pp. 55, 57 and Macartney, October Fifteenth, I, pp. 347-348, DIMK,

499 ~~'s;~:~, t» origini, pp. 142-179, Weinberg, Starting World .War II, pp. 566-567 and Rosaria Quartararo, Rom« tra Londra e BerihlO: La polaic« estera [ascist« dal 1930 al 1940 (Rome, 1980), pp. 461~470.

500 DGFP, D, I, #129, 745, 760, 769, IV, #458, VI, #86, 190, S36~ VII, #226, 438. SOl Hungarian National Archives, K 100, Foreign Ministry ~rchlves, Laszlo Szabo,

Military Attache Papers (SP), Report 528/1139, Pro 1l1~'l:orta.. ..

502 Minniti, Fino alta Guerra, pp. 48-81, 136-137, Ufficio Stor~co ~mlster~ della Marina (USMM), series Bolletino segreto verde, #1138, subseries, Turchia busta

3279, dscicolo 15, SIM to Ministero della Marina. .. .

503 Ferrruccio Botti and Virgilio Ilari, 11 persiero militare Italiano dal pnrno al secondo dopoguerra (1919-1949) (Rome: 1985): pp. 2DS-:-207, Filippo Stefanie, La coria della dottrina e degli ordinamenti deUescerC1to iral iano, 3 volumes m 4 ~arts (Rome: 1984-1986), v.II, tomo 1 and DaVittorio Veneto alla 2° guerra mondiale, pp. 293, 310-315.

504 Leo GW.G.Niehorster The Royal Hungarian Army, 1920-1945 (New York: 1998), pp. 39-46, 226-263, 272-273, Peter Mujzer, The Royal Hungarian A1'my 1920-1945 v.II Hungarian Mobile Forces (New York: 200), pp. 10-16 and George F. Nafziger, Bulgarian Order of Battle World War II: An Organizational Hist01)1 of the Bulgarian Army in World War II (Pisgah, Ohio, .1995), .pp. 6-10, 17, 23-2S~ 63, 6?

505 Paolo Caruso, "Mobilita strategica e guerra di mezzi nelle rnanovre dell Eserciro degli anni Trenta" in Societa Italiana di Storia Militar~. QN.ademo 1998 (Naples, 2001), pp. 154-56, Brian R. Sullivan, ':!he Impatient Cat ., Assessments of Military power in Fascist Italy, 1936-1940 rn Wlillamson Murray and Allan R.

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