The Union Nationale Des Combattants. 1933-1939 Chris Millington Cardiff
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The French veterans and the Republic: The Union nationale des combattants. 1933-1939 Chris Millington Cardiff University 1 UMI Number: U585181 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U585181 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Since Antoine Prost’s three volumeLes anciens combattants et la societe frangaise, 1914-1939 (1977), subsequent histories of the period have largely accepted the benign role of French Great War veterans during the interwar period. This thesis re-examines the history of the veterans’ movement. Were the veterans integral to French democracy? Did they reject political extremism in favour of a peaceful and Republican civic action? Can one judge their associations to have been an important obstacle to the development of a French fascism? What influence did the culture of the Great War, widely held to have been important in Germany and Italy at the time, have on French veterans? These questions are addressed in a detailed study of the Union nationale des combattants (UNC) from 1933 to 1939. Through the examination of the association’s political discourse and militant action, the thesis argues that the UNC challenged the democratic claim of elected representatives to lead France. The association’s plans for reform of the state would not have left parliamentary democracy intact. The UNC undertook militant political action that endorsed illegality and mirrored that of anti-Republican extra-parliamentary leagues. Ultimately, the association was one of many actors that contributed to the destabilisation of the French regime in the years before the defeat in May 1940. 2 Contents Acknowledgements 4 List of illustrations 5 Abbreviations 6 Introduction 7 Chapter One: 6 February 1934: The veterans’ riot 24 Chapter Two: The Combatants’ Republic 62 Chapter Three: The UNC and the extreme right 104 Chapter Four: Youth versus Age: The Jeunes de l’UNC 144 Chapter Five: The language and culture of war in UNC discourse 182 Conclusion 215 Bibliography 223 3 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the School of History and Archaeology (HISAR) at Cardiff University, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Institute of Historical Research, the Scouloudi Foundation and the Society for the Study of French History for the generous financial support that made this PhD possible. I am grateful to the staff of the Archives nationales, the Bibliotheque nationale, the Centre des archives contemporaines, Sciences-Po, the departmental archives of the Rhone, the Arts and Social Studies library at Cardiff University and HISAR for their help throughout my research. Thanks must go to the staff, members and president Hugues Dalleau of the Union nationale des combattants. I was granted unrestricted access to the association’s archives and for this I am grateful. In particular I would like to thank Michel de Muizon, Marite Gaudefroy and Marite Masse, who were always ready to help and made my time at the UNC an enjoyable one. I thank Hugues de La Rocque for granting access to his grandfather’s archives. There are several people without whom this thesis would not have been completed. I am especially grateful to those who have read and commented on my work and helped me to develop my arguments. Special thanks go to Kevin Passmore who has provided excellent supervision, kind support and guidance throughout. I have enjoyed many conversations about my work with Caroline Campbell and I thank her for commenting on whatever I sent her (and for all those lunches at the AN). I also thank Alison Carrol, Richard Hopkins, Michelle Perkins, Martin Simpson and Louisa Zanoun for their advice and encouragement. David Uhrig offered invaluable translation services and a place to stay in Paris. I am indebted to my family and especially my parents, Ron and Jean Millington, who have always offered me their love, support and generosity. I thank Rich Millington who was happy to read and proof-read my work without complaint and who found that French history is not that bad after all. Finally, I would like to thank Alexandra Owens. Her support has been unwavering throughout good times and moments of self-doubt. I am especially grateful for her patience during the long absences that research entails. She has provided help with my work and endured many monologues on the history of French veterans. For all these reasons and more, it is to Alexandra that I dedicate this thesis. 4 Illustrations UNC sections created and dissolved 6 May 1933-12 January 1935 52 Results of Action combattante subscription campaign 111 5 Abbreviations ACJF Association catholique de la jeunesse AD Alliance democratique AF Action fran9aise AGMG Association generale des mutiles de la guerre ARAC Association republicaine des anciens combattants CNE Conseil national economique CGSCM Confederation generale des syndicats des classes moyennes DRAC Ligue des droits du religieux ancien combattant FARAC Federation des amicales regimentaires et d’anciens combattants FFCF Fils et Filles des Croix de Feu FIDAC Federation interalliee des anciens combattants FN Federation nationale FNAPG Federation nationale des anciens prisonniers de guerre FNBPC Federation nationale des blesses du poumon et chirurgicaux FNCR Federation nationale des combattants republicans FOP Federation ouvriere et paysanne FR Federation republicaine GRP Groupe de la region parisienne de TUNC JP Jeunesses Patriotes JUF Jeunes de l’UF JUNC Jeunes de l’UNC MSF Mouvement social fran9ais PDP Parti democrate populaire PPF Parti populaire fran9 ais PRNS Parti republicain national et social PSF Parti social fran9ais SDC Semaine du combattant SF Solidarity fran9 aise SFIO Section fran9 aise de l’intemationale ouvriere SPES Societe de preparation et d’education sportive UF Union federale UNC Union nationale des combattants UNMR Union nationale des mutiles et reformes USF Union sportive fran9 aise VN Volontaires nationaux Introduction Historians have argued that the 1930s witnessed the outbreak of an undeclared civil war in France.1 Groups that were often violently opposed to democracy attacked the French Third Republic. Anti-parliamentarianism was not a new phenomenon. In the 1880s, General Boulanger’s movement had threatened to engage the masses in an anti-parliamentary campaign for constitutional revision. The following decade, the flawed conviction for treason of Captain Alfred Dreyfus divided the nation between the generally Republican Dreyfusards and the clericalist and right-wing anti-Dreyfusards. Nationalist intellectuals lent their weight to the cause against the regime. Maurice Barres’s theory of ‘rootedness’ and Charles Maurras’s depiction of the divorce between thepays legal (parliament) and thepays reel (the people) influenced the Republic’s enemies and the right for decades.2 Maurras’s monarchist Action fran9 aise (AF) movement presented the most strident challenge to the Republic at this time. The outbreak of war in 1914 rallied the left and right to the regime in the Union sacree. However, the successful outcome of the war did not appease the Republic’s detractors for long. Left-wing agitation in the strikes of 1919-1920 spread the fear of communist revolution. On the extreme right, militant groups such as Georges Valois’s Faisceau sprang up in response to the electoral victory of the Cartel des gauches in 1924. A growing number of personalities and 'y formations came to express dissatisfaction with the regime. Extra-parliamentary leagues attempted to engage the masses in their campaigns against the Republic, while the business and industrial elites took up the cause of Ernest Mercier’s Redressement Fran9 ais.4 Increasing political confrontation came at a time of economic difficulty for France. As the cost of living 1 Julian Jackson,France: The Dark Years 1940-1944 (Oxford: OUP, 2001), p. 65; RobertO. Paxton,Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order (New York: Knopf & Random House, 1972), p. 243. For a summary o f the period see Samuel Kalman, The Extreme Right in Interwar France: The Faisceau and the Croix de Feu (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), p. 2. 2 Kalman, Extreme Right, p. 14. 3 Kalman, Extreme Right examines the Faisceau in the 1920s. On the Jeunesses Patriotes in the 1920s see volumes I and II of Jean Philippet, Le Temps des Ligues: Pierre Taittinger et les Jeunesses Patriotes, 5 vols (Lille: Atelier National de Reproduction de Theses, 2000). Robert Soucy, French Fascism: The First Wave (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986) looks briefly at the Legion and Action fran?aise and in depth at the Jeunesses Patriotes and the Faisceau. 4 Francis Monnet, Refaire la Republique: Andre Tardieu, une derive reactionnaire, 1876-1945 (Paris: Fayard, 1993), pp. 201-202. On Ernest Mercier see Richard. F. Kuisel, Ernest Mercier: French Technocrat (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1967). 7 increased and the Franc lost value, the government’s use of decree laws drew stinging criticism of the apparently ailing parliamentary regime. Though the Republic weathered these storms, the extent of the challenge it faced during the 1930s was unprecedented. Parliamentary scandals, the onset of the global financial crisis in France and the instability of government coalitions reinvigorated the Republic’s foes. Anti- parliamentarianism, previously the preserve of extremist groups and relatively isolated thinkers, entered the mainstream press and society at large. The riots of 6 February 1934, in which thousands of members of nationalist leagues and war veterans forced the government to resign, polarised French politics.