THE RECONSTRUCTION OF FRANCE: MARSHAL PETAIN'S POLICIES, 1940-1942, AS EVALUATED BY AMERICAN JOURNALISTS AND SCHOLARS By EDELTRAUT LUISE ..BILGER Master of Arts Oklahoma State University Stillwater, Oklahoma 1976 DiplOme d'Etudes Approfondies Universit~ Paul Val~ry Montpellier, France 1978 Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate College of the Oklahoma State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May, 1984 THE RECONSTRUCTION OF PETAIN'S POLICIES, 1940-1942, AS EVALUATED BY AMERICAN JOURNALISTS AND SCHOLARS Thesis Approved: Dean of the Graduate College ii 1200575 . ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to the foreign correspondents, political scientists, and historians who graciously agreed to an interview on their views of Marshal P~tain as a statesman: Charles Collingwood of CBS; Joseph Harsch, Senior Editorial Writer for~ ~hristian Science Monitor; Dr. Philip Whitcomb, former AP Chief in Paris; Prof. Stanley Hoffmann, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Prof. Peter Merkl, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA; Prof. Lowell Noonan, California State University at Northridge, Los Angeles, CA; Prof. Philip Bankwitz, Trinity College, Hartford, CT; Prof. H. Stuart Hughes and Prof. Judith M. Hughes, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA; Prof. Richard Kuisel, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY; Prof. Peter Novick, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Prof. Robert Paxton, Columbia University, New York, NY; Prof. Jacques Szaluta, United States Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, NY; Prof. Nicholas Wahl, New York University, New York, NY; Prof. Eugen Weber, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA. The interviews with Dr. and Mrs. Erdely and with Mrs. Grechowicz will always remind me of a wonderful summer day on Cape Cod. Thank you! iii My thanks go also to Maitre Jacques Isorni for his help, his interest in my work and his encouragement, and to Count Ren~ de Chambrun for generously sending me a copy of his "Notes and Remembrances." I am especially indebted to Mrs. Paul Ghali for giving me information on her husband's life and career. Because of her thoughtfulness and appreciation of her husband's work his papers are now available to researchers. I would also like to thank the librarians at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin at Madison, at tne research libraries of l:he Christian Science Monitor and .'l'.he Chicago Daily Tribune, and at the Houghton Library at Harvard for their friendly help. To my committee my thanks for their advice and their suggestions. Special thanks to Prof. Anctr~ Martel, Director of the Center for Military History and Defense Studies at Montpellier, France, for his efforts in serving on a distant student's committee. I am especially grateful to my major adviser, Prof. Douglas Hale, for his painstaking efforts in improving the dissertation's organization and style. To my husband I owe a great debt for his patience, generosity, and tolerance. Many thanks to Martin and Audrey, Eva, Monika, Burkhard ,and Andrea for their encouragement and optimism, I really needed it. To Andrea, who has been a competent, tolerant, and good-humored typist: Danke, Kleini! iv The generous financial support of my research by the Kaltenborn Foundation is gratefully acknowledged. My appreciation to M&M PRODUCTIONS for the final version of the dissertation. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION •• 1 II. THE ARMISTICE •• . 20 Events Leading to the Armistice. • ••• 20 French Considerations ••••••.••••• 23 The American Reaction •••••••••••• 41 Journalism As The First Draft of History •• 77 Endnotes. • • • • • • • • • • • 96 III. THE FALL OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC •••• • •• 105 The Fall of the Third Republic and the American Historians. • • • • • 131 Contemporaries and Historians Compared ••• 141 The Trial of the Third Republic at Riorn ••• 145 Endnotes. • • • • • • ••••••• 158 IV. THE NATIONAL REVOLUTION. • 163 American Journalists and the National Revolution. • • • • • • • • • • • • • 169 The Scholars' View. • • • • • • 192 The Contemporaries and the National Revolution •.•••••••••••••• 198 The American Historians and the National Revolution. • •••••••••••• 200 Contemporaries and Historians Compared ••• 205 Endnotes •••••••••••••••••• 208 v. CONCLUSION •••• • 213 A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY. • 222 APPENDIX A - BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS •••••••••• • • 237 APPENDIX B - "DICTATORSHIP OR DEMOCRACY FOR FRANCE?" 253 APPENDIX C - TEXT OF THE FRANCO-GERMAN ARMISTICE AGREEMENT • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 258 vi TABLE Table Page I. American Foreign Correspondents in France ••• 59 vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Henri Philippe Petain was born on April 24, 1856, at Cauchy-A-La-Tour in the Pas-de-Calais. A farmer's son, he was educated at a Catholic high school, at the military academy of St. Cyr, and at the Ecole Super ieure de Guerre, where he later taught. Petain's unorthodox views, which stressed the effectiveness of artillery fire power and objected to the one-sided, offense-oriented doctrine of the time, caught the attention of the young instructor's superiors. However, his independent and bluntly forthright personality hampered his military career, and he was promoted to General only in 1914 when he was fifty-eight years old. His wartime achievements earned him the title "Victor of Verdun" and praise for his firm but humane suppression of the mutinies within the French Army in 1917; he succeeded in restoring French morale and the army's fighting capacity which it demonstrated during the spring offensives in 1918. In recognition of his leadership he was honored with the title "Marshal of France" after the Armistice of 1918. In 1920, he was appointed Vice-President of the High Council of War and Commander-in-Chief in case of war. Subsequent positions included: the office of General 1 2 Inspector of the Army in 1922, the assignment to command the French troops in Morocco against the uprising of Abd-el-Krim in the Rif in 1925, and, in 1931, the appointment as General Inspector of Air Defense. P~tain was seventy-eight years old when he entered the field of politics for the first time, serving for eight months in 1934 as Minister of War in Doumergue's cabinet. From then on, until the outbreak of World War II, Petain gave many lectures and wrote articles on French defense. They turned around one theme: Hitler's threat to France. As Minister of Defense, Petain declared that a larger defense budget was imperative because of the German rearmament. In 1935, he wrote in the Revue ..de..s. ~ Mondes that recent discoveries in the sciences and new technology in transportation had inspired a totally new concept of warfare: Blitzkrieg. Quoting a German military journal, he pointed out that the Germans considered it the preferred tactic of attack for the future. He then analyzed the state of French military capability and recommended changes to adapt it to the new challenge. P~tain did not stop at military considerations. Known as a realist who had always taught that patriotism was no substitute for fire power, he was nonetheless acutely aware of the importance of morale and the power of strong motivation. In his opinion, France was still war-weary and with good reason after her heavy losses in World War I. The country was deeply shaken in its self-confidence: in 3 spite of the fact that France was better off materially than either Germany or Italy, she lacked their faith in the future and was content to accept the status quo. Such a mentality was no match for aggressive totalitarian adversaries, and this was no time for indulging in dreams of peace. Petain therefore proposed a program to motivate the French people. The school system was his first target. Since the end of World War I, the teachers had turned to pacifism and even anarchism, he charged, and there were those who did not hesitate to display open hostility toward the state. It was necessary to reorient the schools, since, as he put it, long before its armies meet on the battlefield, a nation's destiny has been decided in classrooms and lecture halls. Nationalism and civic duty were not only to be taught in schools. The war of the future would be total war, and every citizen would need the motivation which formerly had only been expected from soldiers. He went so far as to recommend intensive indoctrination by the media to reach citizens beyond the school age. Petain did not underestimate the seductive power of the totalitarian doctrines which appealed to all those who were suffering under the abuses of capitalism and longed for social justice. Fascism and Nazism, with their emphasis on Blut .l.l.D.d Boden, on the individual's ties to native soil, to community, and country, also attracted those who felt lost in an urban, industrialized environment. French education 4 had neglected the social nature of man in favor of developing the potential of the individual. Again P~tain called for a change. Only a nation of citizens who felt secure in being members of their community, profession, and nation and were united in patriotism could stand up to the challenge of totalitarian aggression. P~tain had recognized the strengths of the totalitarian systems and wanted to use similar methods to increase France's chances of survival in a confrontation which he considered inevitable. His views found an echo among many Frenchmen who watched Germany's power and national unity and resolve grow while France became more factionalized and torn by class hatred. The Third Republic proved incapable of providing strong leadership, and by 1935 P~tain's name became for some the symbol not only of past victory but also of a new France. Gustave Herv~, publisher of the newspaper L£ Victo.Lt.e, wrote a series of articles which were later collected in a booklet entitled~ .ne.e..d P~tain CC'est Petain gu'il nous f.a.1.lt.).