Raymond Dronne, who the day before had trimmed his beard to look his best for his entry into Paris, was by then a dirty, unkempt mess following a difficult day of combat and hurried movement. He and his men had encountered enemy resistance as they moved toward the western approaches to Paris, which the Germans were still guarding in force. Weather also played a role as the morning of August 24 opened with heavy thunderstorms that did not taper off until the afternoon. Having been told by Gerow’s staff not to expect serious resistance, and having been warned not to fight a pitched battle with the few heavy weapons he had on hand, Dronne paused and radioed to Leclerc for advice. He did not want to stop his drive so close to Paris, but he also knew that he was not prepared for a large set-piece battle. The confusion so endemic to battlefields throughout history made it difficult for Dronne or any of the other Allied commanders to get a clear sense of the situation they were facing; in the haste to push toward Paris as quickly as possible, many staff officers did not even have accurate maps or reliable information on German positions. Leclerc assessed Dronne’s predicament and ordered his entire division to change its route of march. Instead of approaching Paris from the west, by way of Versailles, he ordered his men to take the Orléans-Paris road, thus redirecting the advance into the city. Now it would come from the south, not the west, in the hopes of avoiding the strongest German positions.24
The decision infuriated an already irate Gerow. Still fuming at what he saw as Leclerc’s insubordination days earlier, he was incensed to learn of the changes Leclerc had ordered. The new route of march for the French cut directly across the approach routes that the U.S. Fourth Infantry Division was supposed to use. Leclerc’s orders thus tossed aside all of the careful supply and logistical details that the Americans had developed. Moreover, Leclerc’s change of direction meant that the leading artillery and armor elements of the U.S. Army could not offer meaningful support if the French got bogged down in combat.
Leclerc’s decision was most likely the result of his inexperience and lack of familiarity with the American staff system. It did, however, prove to be the correct one, as German positions south of the city were deeper, but weaker, than those to the west. Nevertheless, Gerow concluded that the only explanation for this kind of open defiance must lie in Leclerc’s desire to make a statement of independence from his American chain of command. He thought Leclerc was trying to deliberately slow down the American approach to the city in order to keep the Yanks as far away from the liberation as possible. Delaying the U.S. Army’s advance, however, would only give the Germans time to destroy the city and the communists time to put themselves in power. In Gerow’s eyes, Leclerc, whom he called “that miserable man,” was willing to gamble with the liberation of Paris to thumb his nose at his American commanders. Unable to sympathize with Leclerc’s point of view, Gerow sent a message to Leclerc telling him that Allied units would go into Paris “with the French division or without it.” Gerow later claimed that only his pressure on Leclerc forced the French to move closer to Paris, although in reality Leclerc paid little attention to the directive. Gerow never forgave Leclerc for making the change and blamed the French commander’s decision for delaying the eventual Allied liberation of the city. It is clear, however, that his anger at Leclerc made it impossible for Gerow to assess the situation logically and impartially.25
Omar Bradley was less emotional than Gerow, but he, too, was angry. He considered Leclerc’s insubordination and change of approach without consulting the Americans to be a poor way to repay their (admittedly tardy) change of heart about Paris. Neither he nor Gerow accepted Leclerc’s argument that German resistance on the western approaches to the city was tougher than expected. Both American generals assumed that the French were spending too much time celebrating with the townspeople they were liberating. They also suspected that Leclerc’s men were not using all necessary force to get to Paris as quickly as possible. Leclerc may not have wanted to fight a pitched battle on the outskirts of Paris, but he had the means at his disposal to do so; Bradley had emphasized that the restriction on the use of airplanes and artillery applied only to Paris itself, not the suburbs. Leclerc could have used heavy weapons to punch through the western German defenses rather than attempting to skirt them. Bradley failed, however, to understand that Leclerc’s men might have a natural reluctance to fire on buildings—not out of concern for their architectural or artistic value, but because their countrymen might be inside.
The Americans grew angrier and angrier as each report from the front came in to their headquarters. Having been pestered by Leclerc and de Gaulle for so long over the issue of Paris, they simply could not understand why the French were not now moving more quickly. Only the day before, de Gaulle had written to Eisenhower to emphasize that “the great and urgent question is that of Paris. . . . If the Allied forces do not occupy Paris soon, grave disturbances may occur.” Now the same Frenchmen who had made Paris such an issue seemed to be dragging their heels. Such a delay might be disastrous; based on the information that Gallois and Rolf Nordling had brought them, the Americans’ greatest fear remained that the Germans would counterattack once the truce expired at noon the next day. Such an attack would cause widespread damage to the city and its people. The Americans did not know that both sides had effectively stopped honoring the truce already.26
The U.S. generals had political considerations on their minds as well. Gerow’s headquarters had intelligence reports indicating that communist groups were preparing a coup once the truce expired. A civil war inside Paris was the worst-case scenario, as the Allies were ill-equipped to stop it from getting out of hand. Ernie Pyle, the famous American war correspondent, noted the fears among American generals that “another Stalingrad was developing. We could not bear to think of the destruction of Paris, yet at times it seemed desperately inevitable.” Understandably enough, in American eyes, time was therefore the single most crucial factor in Paris’s fate—and they were afraid that it was slipping hopelessly away.27
The Deuxième Division Blindée lost 71 men killed in action and 111 vehicles moving toward Paris, an indication that it did indeed see serious fighting. Pierre Bourdan, one of the division’s tank commanders, recalled the toll that the rapid movement and fighting had taken on men and machines alike. He noted that his men were close to dropping from fatigue in the intense summer heat, but found the will to keep going. They were not initially motivated by the need to help the FFI uprising, about which they had heard only vague rumors. He and his fellow officers thought instead of the songs about their capital that they had sung in London for four long years. Now they had a chance to sing those songs not in English pubs but in Parisian cafés. American fears that they were moving too slowly did not affect the French at all. Bourdan and his men fully understood the urgency of their mission. As they approached the city, they met a group of men from the Resistance who told them how desperate the situation in Paris had become. Although Bourdan and his men had not slept for days, they pushed on so that the enemy would not be able to “inflict on the people of Paris a terrible vengeance” for the appearance of regular forces outside the city. 28
But the Americans could not be placated. Gerow, in particular, sought to embarrass Leclerc by getting an American division into Paris first. Bradley, anxious to get the problem of Paris behind him so that he could resume his pursuit of the German Army, finally agreed that the Allies would not wait for Leclerc’s troops to, in his words, “dance their way to Paris.” Having had his fill of Paris, Bradley wanted results, regardless of whose feelings got hurt in the process. “To hell with prestige,” he told Gerow, “tell the Fourth [Infantry Division] to slam on in and take the liberation.” Gerow gleefully sent a message to the division’s commander, with a copy to Leclerc, stating that “precedence in favor of the French no longer applied.” Gerow ordered the Americans, who had crossed the Seine that morning, to move into the city so quickly that they left without even acquiring decent maps of Paris. They would have to rely on
the hazy recollections of World War I veterans and whatever local scouts they could find along the way.29
French forces had a head start and were now closer to the city. Leclerc urged his men forward, motivated more by the urgency of saving Paris than a rivalry with Gerow. Focused on the liberation, Leclerc kept one of his columns, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Paul Girot de Langlade, on the western approach, using the road from Versailles. It faced a potential problem of crossing the Seine, if the Germans had demolished the bridges, but it also promised to distract the Germans and keep them from redirecting additional forces to the south. Three other columns took the southern approach, using parallel roads that permitted some mutual support. These columns would not face the problem of a major river crossing and were therefore likely to arrive quickly. The U.S. Fourth Infantry Division, meanwhile, turned to the east in order to prevent massive traffic jams on the roads south of the city. The Americans were to assemble to the south of Orly airfield, then turn north and enter Paris by its southeastern gates.
Not all of Bradley and Gerow’s concerns about the French approach were entirely unfounded. All four French columns experienced delays caused by the delirious reception of locals, who showered them with food, wine, and flowers as they moved forward. Irwin Shaw, an American reporter who had found a unit of the Deuxième Division Blindée willing to let him come along, reported that their vehicles were “banked with flowers. . . . We had a small store of tomatoes and apples and bottles of wine that had been tossed to us as we slowly made our way through the crowds.” The celebrations were understandable, but they caused delays at a time when speed was most needed. In most cases, French troops were able to explain their need to move quickly, but, inevitably, in some places they had difficulty moving through the cheering and adoring crowds. In a few places, the crowds slowed the French troops enough to make them inviting targets for German artillerists, although a few German shells were usually sufficient to sweep cheering civilians off the roads for at least a little while.30
Back in Paris, word spread like wildfire that French troops were in the suburbs. Paris had lived on rumors for four years, but these rumors were different. In a few places, telephone lines still connected the suburbs to the city, allowing elated relatives to call family members in Paris and report that they had seen French soldiers with their own eyes. Word of mouth thus spread the thrilling news through the city more quickly and effectively than any radio broadcast could have done.
All of this excitement notwithstanding, both sides inside Paris were feeling the desperation of their situations. Because of the uprising and the barricades, Choltitz could not communicate with his officers; nor could he safely move forces through the city to help his beleaguered garrisons. His staff had even told him not to leave the Hôtel Meurice, because they could not ensure his personal safety. German headquarters continued to urge him to hold the city, but gave him no resources and no real strategic guidance. A maniacal Hitler is supposed to have ordered a staff officer to send a message to Choltitz that read, “Is Paris Burning?” Choltitz later stated that he never saw such a message, and it is likely that the entire episode is apocryphal. Despite its later fame and use as a title of a feature film, there is no evidence that the words ever left Hitler’s mouth. Whether Hitler said the words or not, Choltitz surely did not need yet another rambling message from Berlin to tell him what to do. Believing himself to be completely isolated and facing utter defeat, he had already determined to act independently of higher headquarters.31
Choltitz’s situation was even worse than he realized. Neither he nor anyone in German Army Group B headquarters knew that elements of the Deuxième Division Blindée were just twenty miles away. With American airpower dominating the skies, the Germans could not observe Allied movements. Obsessed with building a new defensive line east of the city, they had failed to pick up on radio signals that would have indicated an Allied movement. Leclerc’s shift from the western approaches to the southern ones also likely disguised the movement of Allied forces.
Leclerc wanted the lead column of the French advance to be that of Colonel Pierre Billotte, one of de Gaulle’s favorite officers. He and his men were to enter the city through the southern Porte de Gentilly, one of the historical entrance gates into the city, and move immediately toward the Hôtel Meurice to obtain Choltitz’s surrender, ideally ending the battle for Paris with a minimum of bloodshed. Billotte, however, ran into stiff German resistance west of Fresnes that he was unable to overcome before nightfall. Billotte wisely decided not to launch a night attack into a city he had yet to reconnoiter. Instead, he gathered his men and prepared to enter Paris early the next morning.32
Dronne made better progress, fighting his way toward the Porte d’Italie, one of the southern gates to the city just east of the Porte de Gentilly. His men compared themselves to crusaders seeing Jerusalem’s walls as the goal of their long odyssey from Africa to Paris came into view at long last. Dronne then had with him three American-made Sherman tanks, six armored personnel carriers, and a handful of jeeps. He and his men had encountered stiff German resistance as well as delays caused by the ecstatic reception of locals. Not knowing where Billotte’s forces were, he wanted to ensure a French presence in the city before nightfall to secure at least one of the city’s gates, provide a morale boost to the people of Paris, and begin to gather intelligence to send back to Leclerc. He also had in the front of his mind the fearful example of Warsaw, a fate from which he hoped the arrival of the Deuxième Division Blindée could save Paris. Near the prison at Fresnes, Dronne met with General Alain de Boissieu, one of de Gaulle’s closest confidants. Boissieu gave him clear and unmistakable orders to “head directly to Paris and enter it. Do not let anything stop you and go any way you wish. Tell the Parisians and the Resistance not to lose courage, that tomorrow morning the entire division will be in Paris.”33
At 8:45 p.m., Dronne entered Paris through an undefended Porte d’Italie. Locals, understandably afraid that his tanks were the vanguard of a German counterattack, at first ran and hid. When they saw the French markings on the unfamiliar shapes of the American Sherman tanks, however, they came rushing out to greet their countrymen. An Armenian-born Resistance member shouted to Dronne and asked him where he wanted to go. Dronne paused. He had been so focused on getting into Paris that he had not given any thought to what he would do once he got there. Billotte was supposed to give him his orders, but Billotte was not there, and he did not want to risk breaking radio silence to find him. Dronne knew that he lacked the combat power to take on any large German forces, but he also knew that staying at the Porte d’Italie would minimize the symbolic and morale value of the French entry.34
Thinking quickly, Dronne told the man that he would go to the Hôtel de Ville, for him the “symbol of Paris’s freedoms.” With darkness rapidly falling, his new Resistance guide offered to steer him around barricades and known German positions. They went east of the Place d’Italie, then along the Rue Baudricourt and the Rue Nationale, to meet up with the Boulevard de l’Hôpital. Along the way, they picked up an Alsatian girl in full Alsatian dress who leaped on the hood of Dronne’s command vehicle and refused repeated pleas to descend. After they had crossed the Seine at the Pont d’Austerlitz, the Alsatian girl finally jumped off his vehicle, and Dronne pushed on without any opposition along the Quai Henri IV and the Quai des Celestins. At 9:22 p.m., Dronne arrived at a quiet and nearly deserted Place de l’Hôtel de Ville.35
Soon enough, however, shouts of joy shattered the silence. Word that tanks driven by French soldiers were in the heart of Paris had spread like wildfire. Church bells, including those in Notre Dame, began to ring in wild celebration. One Parisian thought the sight of the handful of tanks was “a hundred times more moving than the solemn victory parade of 1919.” Dronne’s arrival unleashed a storm of emotions and symbolically linked the FFI fighting inside the city with the regular forces fighting outside.
Jean Dutourd, a policeman who had fought in the Préfecture
de Police, ran to the Hôtel de Ville upon hearing the news of the arrival of French tanks. He later wrote that Dronne “was welcomed like a prince, like Napoleon arriving from the island of Elba. He was more than a soldier; he was a symbol. In his person, La France Combattante joined hands with La France Résistante: Free France with slave France. From that moment on, there were no longer two Frances, but a single nation that was in the process of being reborn, that once again was going to be indivisible.” Dronne’s presence in Paris, and the promise of a reunified France fighting for a common purpose that he symbolized, had electrified the city. A journalist from the Resistance newspaper Action said that the ovation for Dronne was so loud that he expected the windows of the Hôtel de Ville to begin bursting. 36
Dronne’s arrival had important political ramifications as well. Georges Bidault, representing the political arm of the Resistance, and Alexandre Parodi, representing the provisional government, rushed to the Hôtel de Ville to meet Dronne. Bidault embraced Dronne and announced, “My dear captain, in the name of the ununiformed soldiers of France, I embrace you as the first uniformed soldier of France to enter Paris!” Now de Gaulle and his representatives in Paris had on their side a symbol of the French Army to complement Luizet’s control of the police. In the eyes of the Gaullists, Dronne was not a revolutionary bandit like the members of the FFI, but a real soldier, a representative not only of what France had been but of what it would be again. He was another powerful link, along with Luizet, Parodi, and Yvon Morandat in the Hôtel Matignon, between de Gaulle and the levers of official power. Political power and military power in Paris were now both loyal to de Gaulle, a man who had yet to set foot in the capital. Tired and a bit overwhelmed by the scene before him, Dronne was the only man in the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville not smiling. What he really wanted was not an official reception but a meal, a bath, and a chance to trim his now scraggly beard.37
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