Brave Genius Read online

  ODETTE HAD STAYED in Paris, hoping to spend more time with Jacques, but he and the rest of his unit were confined to the barracks. They were only able to see each other very briefly in what Odette described as a “dark hovel” that served as a visitors’ room. Odette decided to return to Dinard to be with the twins and her family. It was a difficult parting. Jacques felt great anguish at seeing Odette go, alone, to make a potentially hazardous journey. Odette did not know when she would see Jacques again, as the war seemed to be moving very quickly.

  Relieved when he heard that she’d arrived safely in Dinard, Jacques told her not to worry if there were aerial bombardments, as he was safe. Moreover, he added, “In any case, I do not believe, I cannot believe, that the situation is as serious as some seem to think it is. It was much worse, on many occasions, in ’14.” Two days later he wrote, “It seems to me that after the first shock, everyone is regaining their strength and hope. At least that is what is happening here, but we hear only so much from the outside … My dear, I am maintaining the hope, the certainty that this nightmare will pass, that we will remain free, that we will be together, and we will love each other more and better than ever, if that is possible.” In closing his letter the next day, he suggested, “Do as I do, don’t listen to the radio too much, think about me as I think about you, be hopeful. It is a necessity and a duty.”

  PRAYERS

  The Germans’ thrust west meant they were bypassing Paris, at least for the time being. That brought some relief to the French government and kindled hope that the lengthening German spearhead might be vulnerable.

  “Le Colonel Motor” de Gaulle had been given command of an armored division that, at the outbreak of the battle, still had no tanks. He was assigned the task of trying to halt the enemy in the region of Laon, about seventy-five miles northeast of Paris. De Gaulle was under no illusions as to the dire state of the Army. On May 16, during reconnaissance, he came across streams of refugees fleeing Belgium and, worse, many soldiers who had lost their weapons and their units: “At the sight of those bewildered people and of those soldiers in rout … I felt myself borne up by a limitless fury. Ah! It’s too stupid! The war is beginning as badly as it could.”

  He resolved, “Therefore it must go on. For that, the world is wide. If I live, I will fight, wherever I must, as long as I must, until the enemy is defeated and the national stain washed clean.”

  De Gaulle received several battalions of tanks, about 150 in all, and assembled all of the forces he could muster in the vicinity. He attacked on May 17. Despite heavy pressure from Stuka dive-bombers, and the complete absence of his own air support, de Gaulle’s division managed to inflict heavy casualties on the enemy. He attacked again farther west on the nineteenth, until he encountered overwhelming resistance.

  Meanwhile, Premier Reynaud was thinking how the course of events would have been different if he had someone else as commander in chief instead of Gamelin. If the leadership was to be any better from then on, he would first have to get Daladier, Gamelin’s chief backer, out of the War Ministry. On May 18, he moved Daladier to the Foreign Ministry and took over the War Ministry himself. He also wanted to restore the waning morale in the armed forces. The same day he brought France’s greatest hero from World War I, eighty-four-year-old Marshal Pétain, into his government as his vice premier.

  The newspapers gushed. The unanimous view was that this living embodiment of French pride and honor, who had served “everywhere and always” with brilliance, would prove of inestimable value at this critical time, just as he had in the last war.

  ON SUNDAY, MAY 19, Reynaud, members of his cabinet, deputies, and senators attended a special Mass at Notre-Dame. A huge crowd gathered outside the eight-centuries-old cathedral, which was enshrouded in sandbags and had its stained-glass windows removed as a precaution against bombs. Inside, Msgr. Roger Beaussart led the audacious prayers: “What have we come to ask of God? Victory … We ask Him for this because we are fighting a war not for money or worldly power, but to preserve spiritual values without which there is no reason to live … We face a barbarism and a perverse cruelty of which there is no other example in history … We have in our hearts an indelible faith in final success. Saints of France, protect us, grant triumph to France and the Allies.”

  The immense throng exhorted in unison:

  Our Lady of Paris, we have confidence in you!

  Saint Michael, defend us in combat!

  Saint Denis, defend France!

  Saint Louis, protect those who govern us!…

  Saint Geneviève, protect Paris and France!

  Saint Joan of Arc, fight with our soldiers and lead us to victory …

  Saints of France, we have confidence in you!

  After a final blessing, the organist played “La Marseillaise.” More than a few dignitaries had tears in their eyes.

  But those prayers would go unanswered. In this war, there would be no miracle on the Marne. The Savior of Verdun would save nothing.

  WHILE THE GERMANS had bypassed Paris, at least temporarily, anxiety in the capital was spreading. Camus wrote to Francine, “As the days go on and the dangers become clearer, Paris becomes more anguished.” Some packed what belongings they could and left, but many stayed for their families, their jobs, or school.

  Some of the staff of Paris-Soir left for Nantes, but Camus remained, as he wrote to Yvonne, “in the middle of an almost deserted newspaper; on double duty.” He continued: “Paris is dead and there is a latent threat. We go home and wait for the alarm or for anything at all. I’m stopped regularly in the streets for verification of identity: the atmosphere is charming.”

  With the military situation deteriorating, Camus thought again about enlisting. He wrote the Army to offer his services. He explained to his fiancée why he would take such a risk: “This war has not stopped being absurd, but one cannot retire from a game when the game becomes deadly … If I am accepted, I’ll finish my work in the middle of the brawl, I’m sure, just as I would have done in the silence and solitude of Paris.” Camus was still waiting to hear back from the authorities in late May.

  Monod heard Reynaud’s address to the Senate on May 21 over the radio. The premier opened by stating bluntly, “The homeland is in danger,” and went on to speak of the “disaster” that had befallen certain armies. Jacques had spent his days digging trenches, and while he had jauntily reported to Odette, “I think that I missed my vocation of earthwork contractor,” it was time to face the situation. He wrote Odette after Reynaud’s speech:

  My dear angel,

  I am back from the cafeteria, where I heard Reynaud’s speech at the Senate. His pure frankness and brutality let me think that there is still a chance to pull through. But even without believing the worst, we must still think about our kids, and what we would do if the total catastrophe were to materialize. We don’t have to look far away, and I see only one solution. In case every hope was to be lost, you must try to find a way to England. Once there, you can seek asylum with [distant cousins] the Glehns and the Marshes.

  After giving Odette their addresses, Jacques continued:

  My darling, I am writing you all of these things coldly, without believing that they are real or possible … I am asking you to do and to organize everything as if it had to be carried out. I have total confidence in you and in your courage, my darling. I know that when the time comes you will do everything so that our children live free. As far as I am concerned, I will never believe in the total and final victory of those people, even if it would appear to be as total and final as possible. Trust me, my darling. I will find a way to rejoin you if there is nothing more that can be done here.

  All of this being said, my darling, I should add that I don’t believe a word of it. My courage and my trust rest on you. Not a minute, not a second, are you away from me, my darling. I hold you against me, my darling. I love you more than anything in the world.

  RETREAT

  General Gamelin was finally relieved of duty.
He was replaced by another World War I icon, the highly decorated, seventy-three-year-old Gen. Maxime Weygand. But it was too late for him or any other French commander to reverse the tide. The only hope for the isolated northern armies to survive was to make for the Channel coast and disembark there for England.

  The operation was a British initiative. Lord Gort, commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), had alerted London that evacuation might become necessary. The Admiralty thought that at best 45,000 troops or so might be rescued, which would still leave the bulk of the BEF and all of the French Army stranded. By May 26, Gort’s forces had withdrawn to the Dunkirk bridgehead.

  Any British doubts about the necessity of evacuation were erased on the evening of May 27, when King Leopold of Belgium, without giving any notice to Britain or France or even his ministers, asked Germany for an armistice and surrendered unconditionally. The retreating British forces were now fully exposed on one flank; the Germans would have free passage through formerly defended territory straight to the sea.

  To protect Dunkirk, the French First Army dug in at Lille and was ordered to fight to the last man in order to delay oncoming German divisions from reaching the bridgehead. Under constant bombardment from the Luftwaffe, a flotilla of all sizes of boats managed to evacuate an astounding 338,226 troops (198,229 British) over the span of nine days. More than 200 boats were sunk, the RAF lost 474 planes, casualties were heavy, and all equipment had to be left behind, but the scale of the evacuation was seen, particularly in Britain, as a miracle.

  As always, the French authorities tried to cast the operation in the most favorable light. In the middle of the evacuation, the public was merely told that Allied forces were pursuing “with vigor, in the middle of constant combat, and in good order, the execution of movements decided by the command.”

  Churchill, however, reminded the relieved British Parliament, “We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations.”

  ONE LAST STAND

  After the capitulation of the Dutch and the Belgians, and the Dunkirk evacuation, the French stood largely alone, with just sixty divisions up against more than twice that many German divisions, which were better armed and more mobile. With the RAF removed to guard the British homeland, the Germans also had complete air superiority.

  The sickle cut had carved a line across northern France, so the Germans controlled all territory north of the line. Ninety percent of France, including Paris, was still controlled by the French, whose forces held a four-hundred-mile-long front from the Channel all the way to Switzerland. But the options facing the French leaders were grim. They could fight on against a numerically superior force, they could try to evacuate more troops to Britain or to colonies in Africa and continue the fight from abroad, or they could seek an armistice.

  Reynaud was determined to fight on. He told his generals, “Since I am convinced that no peace and no armistice will be acceptable, the armies must fight on as long as possible, and the government must be ready, if necessary, to leave the soil of France.”

  Defeatism was infecting Reynaud’s cabinet, spread in no small part by Marshal Pétain. From the moment the marshal entered the government, he believed that the war was lost and that France should seek peace terms. Moreover, he was convinced that he, as an eminent soldier, would be able to secure better terms with the enemy.

  To help resist this faction, Reynaud again shuffled his cabinet. On June 5, he dismissed Daladier and made Charles de Gaulle, who had been promoted to brigadier general only two weeks earlier, undersecretary of the Ministry of National Defense. De Gaulle’s appointment infuriated Weygand and Pétain, both of whom detested their brash forty-nine-year-old former protégé and saw him as an arrogant upstart.

  De Gaulle was candid with Reynaud. “The disproportion between our forces and the Germans is so great that, barring a miracle, we have no longer any chance of winning in Metropolitan France, or even holding there,” he told the premier. “If the war of ’40 is lost, we can win another. Without giving up the fight as long as it is possible, we must decide on and prepare for the continuation of the struggle in the Empire.”

  Reynaud agreed and asked de Gaulle to fly to London to “convince the English that we will hold out, whatever happens, even overseas if necessary. You will see Mr. Churchill … the reshuffling of my Cabinet and your presence by my side are signs of our resolution.”

  ON THAT MORNING of June 5, the Germans launched a new offensive to crack the French lines. General Weygand’s Order of the Day declared the stakes: “The Battle of France has begun. The order is to defend our positions without thought of retreat … The fate of our country, the safeguarding of her liberties, the future of our children, depends on your tenacity.”

  And they did fight. Some units, such as the 14th French Infantry, led by the young general Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, fought valiantly. During these desperate days of early June, even when the government and the command knew that the battle for France was hopeless, French forces inflicted nearly five thousand German casualties per day, almost double the rate of the first three weeks of the war.

  Day by day, however, they were pushed back. By June 9, the Germans were just forty miles from Paris. Each hour, as the battles raged with the Germans, the battle inside Reynaud’s government intensified. Weygand told Reynaud, “We are at the end of our reserves.” He advised the premier that it would be wise for the government to evacuate the capital.

  Pétain pressed the premier further by reading a formal note, which stated: “The necessity of asking for an armistice to stop hostilities if, of course, the conditions of the armistice, though hard, are acceptable. The salvation and future of the country demand that we proceed in this way with courage.”

  Reynaud rebuffed Pétain, insisting that “no honorable armistice with Hitler” was possible.

  That morning, Weygand had issued another appeal to his troops:

  The safety of the nation demands of you not only your courage but all the persistence, all the initiative, all the fighting spirit of which I know you are capable.

  The enemy has suffered heavy losses. He will soon reach the limits of his effort.

  We have reached the final quarter hour. Hold fast.

  The cabinet resolved to leave Paris for Bordeaux the very next day. For the members of the government, June 10 would be long, momentous, and in the words of de Gaulle, “a day of agony.”

  EXODUS

  Everywhere there was retreat. The French armies were in full retreat from the Germans. The government was about to retreat from Paris. Civilians were abandoning their towns and villages as well as the capital. In Norway, the collapse of the Allied armies in France forced their evacuation from Narvik. On the morning of June 10, Norway formally surrendered.

  At the daily briefing, Reynaud asked Weygand how long it might be before the Germans were in Paris. “In 24 hours, if the Germans know how weak we are,” Weygand answered. “But it will probably be a little longer. They will probably encircle Paris first rather than attack directly.”

  Later that afternoon, as the Germans surrounded Paris on three sides and approached even nearer to the capital, and as the ministries hurriedly prepared to relocate, Mussolini added to France’s miseries—Italy declared war on France. Reynaud addressed the nation by radio that evening:

  We are in the sixth day of the greatest battle in history.

  For six days and five nights, our soldiers, flyers, and the Royal Air Force have faced an enemy with force superior in number and in armaments. In this war, which is no longer a war of fronts but of deep points of support, our armies have maneuvered in retreat.

  They have only abandoned each point of support after having inflicted severe losses. The kilometers gained by the enemy are littered with destroyed tanks and downed planes …

  The trials that await us are heavy. We are ready. Our heads do not bow.

  It is at this precise moment, while France, wound
ed but valiant and still standing, struggles against German conquest, when she fights for the independence of all people as well as for herself, is the moment when Mr. Mussolini chooses to declare war. How to judge this act? France has nothing to say. The world that watches us will judge …

  In the course of its long, glorious history, France has met many difficult trials.

  It is then that she has astonished the world. France cannot die.

  In his last act before leaving Paris, Reynaud cabled a message to President Roosevelt. Reynaud knew that Roosevelt’s hands were tied by the US Congress, which limited how far the president could go in committing America to aiding the Allies. Nonetheless, Reynaud felt that a declaration by the United States that indicated greater future involvement was the one action that could prolong the fight. At this stage, he had nothing to lose by asking.

  Mr. President:

  I wish first to express to you my gratitude for the generous aid that you have decided to give us in aviation and armament.

  For six days and six nights our divisions have been fighting without one hour of rest against an army which has a crushing superiority in numbers and material.

  Today the enemy is almost at the gates of Paris.

  We shall fight in front of Paris; we shall fight behind Paris; we shall close ourselves in one of our provinces to fight and if we should be driven out of it we shall establish ourselves in North Africa to continue the fight and if necessary in our American possessions.

  A portion of the government has already left Paris. I am making ready to leave for the front. That will be to intensify the struggle with all the forces which we still have and not to abandon the struggle.

  May I ask you, Mr. President, to explain all this yourself to your people to all the citizens of the United States saying to them that we are determined to sacrifice ourselves in the struggle that we are carrying on for all free men.