Our leading hope in Algiers in recent weeks had been General Juin, the French Military Commander. His relations with Mr. Murphy had been intimate, although the actual date had not been imparted to him. A little after midnight on the 7th Murphy visited Juin to tell him that the hour had struck. A mighty Anglo-American army, sustained by overwhelming naval and air forces, was approaching, and would begin landing in Africa in a few hours. General Juin, although deeply engaged and loyal to the enterprise, was staggered by the news. He had conceived himself to possess full command of the situation in Algiers. But he knew that Darlan’s presence completely overrode his authority. At his disposal were a few hundred ardent young Frenchmen. He knew only too well that all control of the military and political government had passed from his hands into those of the Minister-Admiral. Now he would certainly not be obeyed. Why, he asked, had he not been told earlier of zero hour? The reasons were obvious, and the fact would have made no difference to his authority. Darlan was on the spot and Darlan was master of all Vichy-French loyalties. Murphy and Juin decided to ask Darlan by telephone to come to them at once. Before two in the morning Darlan, roused from slumber by the urgent message from General Juin, came. On being told of the imminent stroke he turned purple and said, “I have known for a long time that the British were stupid, but I always believed that the Americans were more intelligent. I begin to believe that you make as many mistakes as they do.”
Darlan, whose aversion to Britain was notorious, had for a long time been committed to the Axis. In May 1941 he had agreed to grant facilities to the Germans both at Dakar and for the passage of supplies to Rommel’s armies through Tunisia. At the time this treacherous move had been stopped by General Weygand, who commanded in North Africa, and who succeeded in persuading Pétain to refuse this German demand. Hitler, at that time fully preoccupied with the impending Russian campaign, did not press the matter, despite contrary advice from his naval staff. In November of the same year Weygand, deemed unreliable by the Germans, was relieved of his command. Although nothing more was heard of the Axis plans to use Dakar against us, the Tunisian ports were later opened to Axis shipping, and played a part in feeding Rommel’s armies during the summer of 1942. Now circumstances had changed, and with them Darlan’s attitude, but whatever thoughts he might have nourished of aiding an Anglo-American occupation of North Africa he was still bound to Pétain in form and in fact. He knew that if he went over to the Allies he would become personally responsible for the invasion by Germany of Unoccupied France. The most he could be prevailed upon to do therefore was to ask Pétain by telegram for liberty of action. In the hideous plight in which he had become involved by the remorseless chain of events this was his only course.
Soon after 1 a.m. on November 8 British and American landings began at many points east and west of Algiers under the direction of Rear-Admiral Burrough, R.N. Most careful preparations had been made for guiding the landing-craft to the chosen beaches. In the west leading units of the British 11th Brigade were completely successful, but farther east the ships and craft carrying the Americans were driven some miles from their planned positions by an unexpected tidal set, and in the darkness there was some confusion and delay. Fortunately we gained surprise and opposition along the coast was nowhere serious. Mastery was soon complete. An aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm, observing friendly signals from the ground, landed at Blida Airfield, and with the co-operation of the local French commander held it until Allied troops arrived from the beaches.
The most severe fighting was in the port of Algiers itself. Here the British destroyers Broke and Malcolm tried to force an entrance and land American Rangers on the mole so as to take over the harbour, occupy the batteries, and prevent the scuttling of ships. This brought them under the point-blank fire of the defending batteries, and ended in disaster. The Malcolm was soon crippled, but the Broke entered the harbour at the fourth attempt and landed her troops. Later she was heavily damaged while withdrawing, and eventually sank. Many of the troops were trapped ashore and had to surrender.
At 5 p.m. Darlan sent a telegram to his chief, saying, “American troops having entered into the city, in spite of our delaying action, I have authorised General Juin, the Commander-in-Chief, to negotiate the surrender of the city of Algiers only.” The surrender of Algiers took effect from 7 p.m. From that moment Admiral Darlan was in American power, and General Juin resumed control of his command under Allied direction.
At Oran there was stronger opposition. Regular French units who had fought the British in Syria, and men under naval command with bitter recollections of our attack on the French fleet in 1940, battled with a United States “Task Force”. An American parachute battalion which set out from England to seize the airfields became scattered over Spain in stormy weather. The leading elements pressed on, but their navigation was faulty and they descended some miles from their target.
Two small British warships tried to land a party of American troops in Oran harbour. Their object, as at Algiers, was to prevent the French from sabotaging the installations or scuttling the ships and turn it into an Allied base at the earliest moment. Led by Captain F. T. Peters, R.N., the Walney and the Hartland, both ex-American coastguard cutters transferred to us under Lend-Lease, encountered murderous fire at point-blank range, and were destroyed, with most of those on board. Captain Peters miraculously survived, only to meet his death a few days later in an aircraft disaster while returning to England. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross and the American Distinguished Service Cross. By dawn French destroyers and submarines were active in Oran Bay, but were either sunk or dispersed. Coastal batteries were bombarded and bombed by British naval forces, including the Rodney. Fighting continued until the morning of the 10th, when the Americans launched their final attack on the city. By noon the French capitulated.
The “Western Task Force” reached the Moroccan coast before dawn on November 8. The main assault was near Casablanca, with flanking attacks to the north and south. The weather was fair but hazy, and the surf on the beaches less severe than had been feared. Later it got worse, but by then a firm foothold had been gained. For a time there was severe fighting. At sea a fierce action took place. In Casablanca lay the unfinished new battleship Jean Bart, incapable of movement but able to use her four 15-inch guns. She was soon engaged in a duel with the American battleship Massachusetts, while the French flotilla, supported by the cruiser Primauguet, sailed out to oppose the landing. They met the whole of the American fleet. Seven French ships and three submarines were destroyed, with a thousand casualties. The Jean Bart was gutted by fire and beached, and it was not until the morning of November 11 that Noguès, the French Resident-General, under Darlan’s orders, surrendered. “I have lost,” he reported, “all our fighting ships and aircraft after three days of violent combat.” Captain Mercier, of the Primauguet, longed for the Allied victory, but he died on her bridge in the execution of his orders. We may all be thankful if our lives have not been rent by such dire problems and conflicting loyalties.
Fragmentary news of all this began to come in to General Eisenhower’s headquarters at Gibraltar, and he was now faced with a grave political situation. He had agreed with Giraud to put him in command of such French forces as might rally to the Allied cause. Now there had suddenly and accidentally appeared in the centre of the scene a man who could in fact decide whether any of them would come over in an orderly fashion. The hope that they would rally to Giraud had not yet been put to the test, and first reactions were not encouraging. On the morning of November 9 therefore General Giraud, and a little later General Clark, acting as General Eisenhower’s personal deputy, flew to Algiers. The reception of Giraud by the leading French commanders was icy. The local Resistance organisation, fostered by American and British agents, had already collapsed. Clark’s first conference with Darlan produced no agreement. It was obvious that no one of importance would accept Giraud as Supreme French Commander. Next morning General Clark arranged a second meeting with t
he Admiral. He told Eisenhower by radio that a deal with Darlan was the only solution. There was no time to engage in telegraphic discussions with London and Washington. Giraud was not present. Darlan hesitated on the ground of lack of instructions from Vichy. Clark gave him half an hour to make up his mind. The Admiral at length agreed to order a general “Cease fire” throughout North Africa. “In the name of the Marshal” he assumed complete authority throughout the French North African territories, and ordered all officials to remain on duty.
In Tunisia Darlan ordered the French Resident-General, Admiral Esteva, to join the Allies. Esteva was a faithful servant of Vichy. He followed the cataract of events with mounting confusion and alarm. As he was closer to the enemy in Sicily and on his eastern frontier, his position was worse than that of either Darlan or Noguès. His high subordinates matched him in equal indecision. Already on November 9 units of the German Air Force occupied the important airfield at El Aouina. On the same day German and Italian troops arrived. Depressed and wavering, Esteva clung to a formal allegiance to Vichy, while the Axis forces in Tripolitania were coming from the east, and the Allies hastened from the west. The French General Barré, at first baffled by a problem the like of which, gentle reader, you have not yet been asked to solve, finally moved the bulk of the French garrison westwards and placed himself under the orders of General Giraud. At Bizerta however three torpedo-boats and nine submarines surrendered to the Axis.
In Alexandria, where the French naval squadron had been immobilised since 1940, parleys took place without effect. Admiral Godefroy, its commander, persisted in his loyalty to Vichy and refused to recognise the authority of Darlan. In his view, until the Allies had conquered Tunisia they could not claim that it was in their power to liberate France. Thus his ships continued in idleness until in the fullness of time we conquered Tunis. At Dakar the Vichy Governor-General Boisson accepted Darlan’s order to cease resistance on November 23, but the units of the French Navy there refused to join the Allies. Only after the completion of our conquest of all North Africa did the battleship Richelieu and her three cruisers rally to our cause.
The Anglo-American descent in North Africa brought an immediate sequel in France. As early as December 1940 the Germans had drawn up detailed plans for the occupation of the free zone of France. These were now put into force. Hitler’s main object was to capture the principal units of the French Fleet, which lay at Toulon. General Eisenhower was just as anxious to lay his hands on this great prize, but while he was negotiating with Darlan, and Darlan was sending messages to Vichy, the Germans were marching rapidly towards the Mediterranean coast and occupying the whole of France. This simplified the Admiral’s position. He could now maintain, and his word would be accepted by local officials and commanders, that Marshal Pétain was no longer a free agent. The German move also struck Darlan’s vital nerve. As in 1940, the fate of the French Fleet was again in the balance. He was the only man who could save it. He acted decisively. On the afternoon of November 11 he telegraphed to Metropolitan France that the Toulon fleet was to put to sea if in danger of imminent capture by the Germans.
Admiral Auphan, the Minister of Marine at Vichy, wished to stand by Darlan, but he was powerless in the face of Laval and of the attitude of the French commanders at Toulon. Admiral de Laborde, the Commander of the French Mediterranean Fleet, was fanatically anti-British. On hearing the news of the landings he wished to put to sea and attack the Allied convoys. He rejected Darlan’s appeals to come over, and when the Germans arrived at the perimeter of the French naval base an agreement was made whereby a free zone round the harbour was to be garrisoned by French troops. Attempts were made to put the port in a serious state of defence. But on November 18 the Germans demanded the withdrawal of all French troops from the zone, and the following day Auphan resigned.
The Germans now planned a coup de main against the Fleet. The operation took place on November 27. The courage and resource of a few officers, including Laborde, who rallied at last, made possible the wholesale scuttling of the Fleet. One battleship, two battle-cruisers, seven cruisers, twenty-nine destroyers and torpedo-boats, and sixteen submarines were among the seventy-three ships which sank in the port.
Less than a month afterwards, Admiral Darlan was murdered. On the afternoon of December 24 he drove down from his villa to his offices in the Palais d’Été. At the door of his bureau he was shot down by a young man of twenty named Bonnier de la Chapelle. The Admiral died within the hour on the operating table of a near-by hospital. The youthful assassin had under much persuasion worked himself into an exalted state of mind as the saviour of France from wicked leadership. He was tried by court-martial under Giraud’s orders, and, much to his surprise, was executed by a firing squad shortly after dawn on the 26th.
Few men have paid more heavily for errors of judgment and failure of character than Admiral Darlan. He was a professional figure, and a strong personality. His life’s work had been to recreate the French Navy, and he had raised it to a position it had never held since the days of the French kings. He commanded the allegiance not only of the Naval Officer Corps but of the whole Naval Service. In accordance with his repeated promises, he ought in 1940 to have ordered the fleets to Britain, to the United States, the African ports, anywhere out of German power. He was under no treaty or obligation to do so except assurances which he had voluntarily given. But this was his resolve until on that deadly June 20, 1940, he accepted from Marshal Pétain’s hands the office of Minister of Marine. Then, perhaps influenced by motives of a departmental character, he gave his allegiance to Marshal Pétain’s Government. Ceasing to be a sailor and becoming a politician, he exchanged a sphere in which he had profound knowledge for one where his chief guide was his anti-British prejudices, dating, as I have mentioned, from the Battle of Trafalgar, where his great-grandfather had fallen.
In this new situation he showed himself a man of force and decision who did not wholly comprehend the moral significance of much that he did. Ambition stimulated his errors. His vision as an Admiral had not gone beyond his Navy, nor as a Minister beyond immediate local or personal advantages. For a year and a half he had been a great power in shattered France. At the time when we descended upon North Africa he was the undoubted heir of the aged Marshal. Now suddenly a cataract of amazing events fell upon him.
We have recounted the stresses which he underwent. All French North and West Africa looked to him. The invasion of Vichy France by Hitler gave him the power, and it may be the right, to make a new decision. He brought to the Anglo-American Allies exactly what they needed, namely, a French voice which all French officers and officials in this vast theatre, now plunged in the war, would obey. He struck his final blow for us, and it is not for those who benefited enormously from his accession to our side to revile his memory. A stern, impartial judge may say that he should have refused all parley with the Allies he had injured, and defied them to do their worst with him. We may all be glad he took the opposite course. It cost him his life, but there was not much left in life for him. It seemed obvious at the time that he was wrong in not sailing the French Fleet to Allied or neutral ports in June 1940; but he was right in this second fearful decision. Probably his sharpest pang was his failure to bring over the Toulon fleet. Always he declared it should never fall into German hands. In this undertaking before history he did not fail. Let him rest in peace, and let us all be thankful we have never had to face the trials under which he broke.
CHAPTER XX
THE CASABLANCA CONFERENCE
AMERICAN military opinion, not only in the highest circles, was convinced that the decision for “Torch” ruled out all prospect of a major crossing of the Channel into Occupied France in 1943. I had not yet brought myself to accept this view. I still hoped that French North Africa, including the Tunisian tip, might fall into our hands after a few months’ fighting. In this case the main invasion of Occupied France from England would still be possible in July or August 1943. I was therefore most anxious that
the strongest build-up of American power in Britain which our shipping would allow should proceed at the same time as “Torch”. This idea of being able to use our left as well as our right hand, and the fact that the enemy must prepare himself against blows from either, seemed wholly in accordance with the highest economy of war. Events would decide whether we should thrust across the Channel or follow our luck in the Mediterranean, or do both. It seemed imperative, in the interests of the war as a whole and especially of aiding Russia, that the Anglo-American armies should enter Europe either from the west or from the east in the coming year.
There was however a danger that we might do neither. Even if our campaign in Algeria and Tunisia prospered swiftly, we might have to content ourselves with capturing Sardinia or Sicily or both, and put off crossing the Channel till 1944. This would mean a wasted year for the Western Allies, with results which might be fatal, not indeed to our survival, but to a decisive victory. We could not go on losing five or six hundred thousand tons of shipping a month indefinitely. A stalemate was Germany’s last hope.
Before we knew what was going to happen at Alamein or to “Torch”, and while the terrific struggle in the Caucasus seemed undecided, the British Chiefs of Staff were weighing all these issues. The Planners under them were also busy. Their reports were in my opinion unduly negative, and from both sides of the Atlantic we were reaching a sort of combined deadlock. The British Staffs favoured the Mediterranean and an attack upon Sardinia and Sicily, with Italy as the goal. The United States experts had given up all hopes of crossing the Channel in 1943, but were most anxious not to be entangled in the Mediterranean in such a way as to prevent their great design in 1944. “It would seem,” I wrote in November, “that the sum of all American fears is to be multiplied by the sum of all British fears, faithfully contributed by each Service.”
The Second World War Page 83
