The German armistice terms were moderate only if compared with those that other conquered nations signed. France was to be governed by Frenchmen, but only by Frenchmen who would do as Hitler wished. French prisoners of war were to remain in German prison camps with no promise of release.
General Charles de Gaulle, who went to London and proclaimed a “Free France” that would continue to fight, provided the only voice of protest. In Britain there were three other French generals and two
French admirals, as well as thousands of soldiers and sailors, either en route from Norway or brought from Dunkirk. Virtually all of these men denounced de Gaulle and demanded to be sent back to conquered France. Nor did any notable French civilian join him. “Not a single public figure raised his voice to condemn the armistice,” wrote de Gaulle in his memoirs. It was a personal defeat and one that was later to embitter de Gaulle at a time when he was able to influence Europe.
In July 1940 a curious figure emerged in France from the shadows of the interwar years. An ex-Premier, Pierre Laval, brought a shaky unity to France’s political life. He had been a left-wing Socialist and now found accord with the German totalitarians. He used Anglophobia, anti-Semitism, and the almost religious veneration in which all Frenchmen held Marshal Petain, hero of Verdun.
Laval attached himself to Petain. Using the threat of German disfavor, a fictitious coup d’etat by Weygand, the marshal’s benediction or political favors, and the coveted ambassadorships, Laval persuaded the French Parliament to vote itself into extinction. No pressure was put upon the members, neither did the Germans regard the move as beneficial to them. Rather the reverse: if they were to have men do their bidding, they felt, then let them wear the trappings of a republic.
France’s military leaders, having lost the war, took over the defeated land. As well as the old marshal himself, Petain’s government gave employment to three generals and an admiral. One ex-minister remarked,. “The Republic has often feared the dictatorship of conquering generals—it never dreamed of that of defeated ones.”
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