leclerc-layout_Layout 1 9/29/11 8:16 AM Page iii FREE FRANCE’S LION The Life of Philippe Leclerc, de Gaulle’s Greatest General WILLIAM MORTIMER MOORE Philadelphia & Newbury leclerc-layout_Layout 1 9/29/11 8:16 AM Page iv Published in the United States of America and Great Britain in 2011 by CASEMATE PUBLISHERS 908 Darby Road, Havertown, PA 19083 and 17 Cheap Street, Newbury RG14 5DD Copyright 2011 © William Mortimer Moore ISBN 978-1-61200-068-8 Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-080-0 Cataloging-in-publication data is available from the Library of Congress and the British Library. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, record - ing or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed and bound in the United States of America. For a complete list of Casemate titles please contact: CASEMATE PUBLISHERS (US) Telephone (610) 853-9131, Fax (610) 853-9146 E-mail: [email protected] CASEMATE PUBLISHERS (UK) Telephone (01635) 231091, Fax (01635) 41619 E-mail: [email protected] leclerc-layout_Layout 1 9/29/11 8:16 AM Page v CONTENTS FOREWORD by Martin Windrow vii MAPS xi PREFACE—DEATH IN THE DESERT 1 CHAPTER 1: A TRUE SON OF FRANCE 15 CHAPTER 2: LA CHUT E— THE FALL OF FRANCE 51 CHAPTER 3: DE GAULLE’S MAN IN AFRICA 72 CHAPTER 4: ANNOYING THE ITALIANS 95 CHAPTER 5: CONSOLIDATING, RAIDING, AND PLANNING 125 CHAPTER 6: A VERY ENGLISH FRENCHMAN 158 CHAPTER 7: “A GIGANTIC EFFORT IS REQUIRED OF US” 193 CHAPTER 8: THE 2E DB IN ENGLAND 227 CHAPTER 9: FIRST BLOO D— ALENÇON 252 CHAPTER 10: “MOUVEMENT IMMÉDIAT SUR PARIS” 285 CHAPTER 11: DOMPAIRE AND BACCARAT 323 CHAPTER 12: THE LAST WINTER OF THE WAR 346 CHAPTER 13: A GOOD END TO A GOOD WAR 381 CHAPTER 14: INDOCHINE 405 CHAPTER 15: BACK TO FRENCH NORTH AFRICA 450 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 461 NOTES 463 BIBLIOGRAPHY 492 INDEX 497 leclerc-layout_Layout 1 9/29/11 8:16 AM Page vi In memory of my great uncle, Geoffrey Bles, 1886 –1957, publisher of CS Lewis, Vicki Baum, Maria von Trapp and many others. leclerc-layout_Layout 1 9/29/11 8:16 AM Page vii FOREWORD One of the central and most tragic consequences of France’s defeat, sur - render and occupation in 1940 was the range of practical and moral choices that confronted French soldiers of equal patriotism. The constantly chang - ing complexities of real life seldom offer clearcut moments of decision between courses of action with predictable, black-or-white consequences. The continuum of French politico-military history between 1940 and 1962 shows many examples of individuals choosing–under the practical and emotional pressures of the moment, and often for uncynical motives – paths that would lead them into unanticipated positions. The malign consequences of these choices could spoil (or even end) lives, and created spirals of hatred that lasted for more than the next generation. In the English language there are few accounts of that period that are thorough enough to carry us back beyond the easy conclusions of hind - sight, and thus to correct any hasty tendency to judge the men who shaped it in simplistic terms. This book is one of them–although it must be said at once that one of the author’s advantages, and the reader’s pleasures, is that its subject was as unambiguously admirable as any of the leading figures in French affairs during the 1940s. Philippe de Hautcloque, re - membered by his nom-de-guerre of Leclerc, was not only an honourable and skillful soldier, but also an attractive personality. vii leclerc-layout_Layout 1 9/29/11 8:16 AM Page viii viii FREE FRANCE’S LION Wounded during the Battle of France in spring 1940, he twice escaped German captivity by exercising nerve and physical daring. He was of exactly the class and milieu to which Marshal Pétain’s Vichy regime, estab - lished in late June, should have had its strongest appeal—indeed, the extended de Hautcloque family was itself divided in its loyalites; yet when he was told of General De Gaulle’s broadcast from London, Leclerc unhesitatingly decided to risk everthing for the splendid but then-tiny flag of Free France. By August 1940 he was leading half-a-dozen men on a ‘James Bond’ mission in French West Africa, and by the end of that year he was organizing the first raids against the Italians in southern Libya, in co-operation with the British Long Range Desert Group. For the next two years, drawing upon his early experience of colonial soldiering in southern Morocco, he pursued the often frustrating task of building up a multi- national Free French brigade in this remote and fly-blown pre-Saharan backwater, and sending it into battle in realistic increments. It was a task that demanded, and revealed, all his energy and intelligence, and the charis - matic powers of leadership that enabled him to forge an effective group of subordinates from a wide spectrum of backgrounds, from Catholic aristo - crats like himself to brawlers like the future paratroop general Jacques Massu. When, in January 1943, Leclerc led his brigade northwards to join British Eighth Army in Tripolitania, this proud Frenchman even managed to cement a tolerably good relationship with the blindly undiplomatic General Montgomery. He was unshaken in his loyalty to De Gaulle during the intensely difficult period following the Anglo-American landings in French Morocco and Algeria, which led to bitter hostility between the ‘Gaullists of the first hour’ and Vichy’s French African Army. In August 1944 it was Leclerc’s 2nd Armoured Division that was given the honour of liberating central Paris, and by VE-Day his prestige among the Fighting French was unrivalled, despite the more senior command held by Jean de Lattre at the head of troops who had mostly only got back into the war on the right side in early 1943. While Leclerc was as decisive as any successful officer must be, one of his rarer qualities was the ability to change his opinions when they were contradicted by experience on the ground. He displayed this quality most strikingly during his senior command in French Indochina in 1946. Unlike leclerc-layout_Layout 1 9/29/11 8:16 AM Page ix Foreword ix General De Gaulle, his experience of soldiering in co-operation with the British and Americans in World War II had not left Leclerc with the for - mer’s often paranoid suspicion of the ‘Anglo-Saxons’, and he was able to work constructively with Admiral Mounbatten in 1945. Nevertheless, he was at first unable to share British scepticism about the recreation of the pre-war white colonial empires in Asia, and he landed in Saigon deter - mined to achieve as much as he could for De Gaulle. He achieved a good deal, despite his inadequate military resources; but he also proved himself open to arguments and analysis from a number of quarters, both French and Indochinese. It takes a most unusual soldier to move beyond the aggressively patriotic instincts that have served him well in the past, and to develop a clear-eyed, long-term view of the political dimensions of his theatre of operations– and this, while men under his command are actually fighting and dying. That Leclerc’s heartfelt advice to his successor Emile Bollaert—‘Negotiate; above all, negotiate’—was in the end to come to nothing condemned France (and after her, the United States) to decades of costly sacrifices, for no eventual reward. Leclerc’s premature death in late 1947 robbed France of an intelligent, faithful and upright servant, whose prestige might have given weight to advice that a succession of weak governments would sorely need during the 1950s. The author’s research into a life lived among the movers and shakers of a period of great complexity has been admirably deep and wide, and he presents his clear, fair-minded and balanced conclusions in an extremely readable text, full of insights into the characters and relationships that shaped the events that he unfolds. This book is the work of a fine historian and a fine writer. MARTIN WINDROW Author of The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam leclerc-layout_Layout 1 9/29/11 8:16 AM Page x x leclerc-layout_Layout 1 9/29/11 8:16 AM Page xi MAPS leclerc-layout_Layout 1 9/29/11 8:16 AM Page xii xii FREE FRANCE’S LION leclerc-layout_Layout 1 9/29/11 8:16 AM Page xiii Maps xiii leclerc-layout_Layout 1 9/29/11 8:16 AM Page xiv xiv FREE FRANCE’S LION leclerc-layout_Layout 1 9/29/11 8:16 AM Page xv Maps xv leclerc-layout_Layout 1 9/29/11 8:16 AM Page xvi xvi FREE FRANCE’S LION leclerc-layout_Layout 1 9/29/11 8:16 AM Page xvii Maps xvii leclerc-layout_Layout 1 9/29/11 8:16 AM Page xviii xviii FREE FRANCE’S LION leclerc-layout_Layout 1 9/29/11 8:16 AM Page xix Maps xix leclerc-layout_Layout 1 9/29/11 8:16 AM Page xx xx FREE FRANCE’S LION leclerc-layout_Layout 1 9/29/11 8:16 AM Page 1 PREFACE DEATH IN THE DESERT Madame la Générale Thérèse Leclerc de Hauteclocque knew her hus - band was wilting with exhaustion. It had been almost nine years since he last spent Christmas at home; nine years during which he never stopped at the business of war and she barely saw him.