Eleven Days in August

by Matthew Cobb

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  From the late morning onwards, the men and machines of the 2e DB began to assemble along the five-kilometre route from the Champs-Elysées to Notre Dame. Amid the noise of manoeuvring armoured vehicles and the jostling crowds, Captain Gallois managed to track down General Leclerc. They had not spoken since Leclerc had ordered Dronne to head for Paris two days earlier. The general greeted the younger man laconically: ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘There you are. Well, that didn’t go too badly.’10

  Around fifty half-track armoured vehicles were parked in a neat line across the whole width of the place de l’Etoile, facing down the Champs-Elysées, leaving a gap in the centre through which de Gaulle and the rest of the cortège would pass. Shortly before 15:00, de Gaulle arrived. After reviewing the troops, he went to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, directly underneath the Arc de Triomphe. Flanked by North African soldiers in fine red fezzes, the Free French leader laid a wreath of pink gladioli wrapped in a tricolour ribbon. There was a continuous clack-clack from the press cameras – the photographers seemed to be the only people who were not carried away by the immensity of the moment. Standing just behind de Gaulle was Georges Dukson, the FFI fighter from Gabon who had been wounded at Batignolles a few days earlier and had been dubbed ‘The Lion of the 17th’ by the press.11 His arm still in a sling, Dukson, along with other notable fighters, had apparently been invited to the ceremony.12 De Gaulle took time out to complain to COMAC hardman Jean de Vogüé that a group of FFI fighters were not standing precisely in line.13 But the FFI men were perfect examples of discipline compared to the joyous chaos that reigned behind the massive circle of policemen and firemen stationed around the circumference of the place de l’Etoile. Crowds of people were shouting and cheering; there were British, American and French radio cars, with reporters standing on top of them shouting ‘Go ahead’ into their microphones; there was even a woman in Alsatian traditional costume – surely it must have been Jeanne Borchert again.14

  Ignoring the crowd, de Gaulle turned to face down the Champs-Elysées. Accompanying him, slightly behind, were key members of the government – Parodi, Luizet, Flouret, Le Troquer, and two leaders of the Free French armed forces, General Leclerc and General Koenig. Georges Bidault, the President of the CNR, was in the front row, while on de Gaulle’s right were CNR members who, strikingly, represented political parties rather than Resistance organisations. Behind them came de Vogüé and Valrimont of COMAC, along with members of the CPL, led by the communist André Tollet.15 The CPL delegation included Léo Hamon, his enjoyment of the day spoilt by the boot nails that poked through into his feet – his battered shoes needed re-soling.16 Hamon walked alongside Marie-Hélène Lefaucheux, who wore black clothes and hat. Above the noise of the crowd Hamon told her that he was thinking of her husband who had been deported on the Pantin train. Visibly moved, Madame Lefaucheux explained she felt the parade was like a film without one of the main actors.17 Most of these names and faces are now forgotten, and even at the time, few of them were known to the public. The crowds were not cheering the men of the Provisional Government, they were not cheering the anonymous leaders of the Resistance, they were cheering the idea and the reality of liberation, and the presence of the one man they had all heard of – General Charles de Gaulle.

  De Gaulle – taller than any of the others, his height exaggerated by his military cap or kepi – wore a modest dress uniform, with no medals or ribbons except a small Free French cross of Lorraine. In contrast, the Prefect of the Seine, Flouret, had ribbons galore on his smart new uniform, while Le Troquer, wearing a bow tie and carrying his homburg hat in a gloved hand, looked as self-important as ever. Parodi and Bidault were frankly shabby – pale and gaunt, wearing ill-fitting suits, their threadbare appearance revealing the reality of four years of life underground during the occupation. Photo-hungry press photographers pushed their way to the front, jostling each other and the Free French leaders, desperate to get ‘the’ picture of de Gaulle and his comrades framed by the massive arch, with the vast billowing folds of the tricolour flag filling the sky.18 As a grim-faced de Gaulle set out past the cheering crowds, he was preceded by four clanking Sherman tanks that clouded the air with their stinking exhaust, and by a gaggle of motorcycle outriders and jeeps, some of them weighed down by newsreel camera crews.

  And so Charles de Gaulle walked into history for a second time.19 The first occasion had been four years earlier, on 18 June 1940, when he had entered a BBC studio in London to make his first broadcast to France. Now, in the heart of the French capital, at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier – a location of the greatest significance for a military man – de Gaulle reached the end of that long road. In so doing, he began another phase in his life and that of France, one heralded by the well-prepared printed banners that had been handed out to the crowd, reading: ‘Vive de Gaulle’, ‘Vive la République’, ‘De Gaulle au pouvoir’ (‘All power to de Gaulle’).20 As Valrimont commented acidly: ‘The Free French Delegation had done its work well.’21

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  Initially irritated by the noise and the disorder, de Gaulle softened as he realised the scale of the event. Even today, it is hard to grasp the sheer numbers of people who were there – it must have been the largest gathering in the history of France. As de Gaulle wrote in his memoirs twelve years later, describing the vast crowds lining the Champs-Elysées: ‘Ah! It is the sea.’ Bernard Pierquin, watching from the windows of the Ministry of Health on the place de l’Etoile, had a similar impression and wrote in his diary: ‘our great General looked so small in the middle of this sea of humanity’.22 Elsewhere in the same building, Victor Veau was not so lucky. The old surgeon had been brought to the ministry in an FFI car and was initially pleased with the vantage-point that had been found for him – a comfortable armchair on a large and airy first-floor balcony. But what with the trees and the crowds and the half-tracks lined up in front of the Arc de Triomphe, he could see nothing.23

  The crowds were immense – over twenty deep on either side of the road, all the way from the Arc de Triomphe to the Hôtel de Ville.24 Children were carried on shoulders, or were pushed to the front where they could see and would be safe.25 Odette Lainville took a folding chair and gingerly balanced at the back of the crowd, just about able to see between people’s heads. One woman had brought along a home-made periscope consisting of a mirror fixed on a stick, while a little old lady turned up with a stepladder.26 All along the route, the buildings were covered with people, thronging at the windows, standing precariously on shop fronts, gathered in clumps on the roofs, clinging onto the chimneys.27 Micheline Bood ended up sitting on a lorry at the end of the avenue de Marigny, with a fantastic view. She was completely swept up in the adoration of the General: ‘I can understand that people become fanatical about him, that you could die for him. He is a superman. The crowd was literally going crazy.’28 Journalist Claude Roy was less impressed, and captured de Gaulle’s strange, slightly diffident manner as he marched down the Champs-Elysées in the heat and the dust, under the bright August sun: ‘It was as though his arms were made of wood. He moved his hands in a funny little way to thank everyone, as if to say yes, there you are, good people, thank you.’29

  Unable to get onto the place de la Concorde because of the crowds, Paul Tuffrau went into the Tuileries and stood on one of the metal chairs he found there, so gaining an excellent view of the parade.30 On the packed pavement just below him was Berthe Auroy.31 Colonel Bruce of the OSS was unable to find any vantage point at all: ‘The crowds were so great that I could see little of it,’ he wrote glumly in his diary, so he wandered off to one of his old haunts in a smart part of town.32 On the rue de Rivoli, Benoîte and Flora Groult stood on a friend’s car in order to get a better view. Gradually, more and more people joined them until suddenly the car collapsed ‘like a broken toy’.33 Daniel Boisdon climbed on top of a 2e DB tank that was in front of the entrance to the Tuileries, facing up the Champs-Elysées. It brought back memories of the 14 July parade in 1919, wh
en he had watched the French Army march down the avenue, led by three marshals on horseback, one of whom was Pétain.34

  Despite the tanks that opened the parade, despite the uniforms that dominated the official cortège, and despite the omnipresence of the armoured vehicles of the 2e DB all along the route, this was not a military event. Marc Boegner, slightly amazed, wrote in his diary: ‘It was nothing like an official parade. At the forefront was the Paris of the barricades, wearing its fighting clothes with rifle, machine gun and revolver.’35 For Simone de Beauvoir, it was ‘a magnificent, if chaotic, popular carnival show’.36

  Among the besuited politicians and the smart officers at the front of the official cortège, one man stood out alongside de Gaulle, although he barely came up to the General’s shoulder: Georges Dukson, who appears to have been the only black man on the parade. Dukson’s presence was noted by one observer in terms that were neither politically correct, nor entirely accurate: ‘An FFI escort of honour surrounds General de Gaulle; we can see a big black devil, his arm in a sling, who played an important role in the fighting in the 17th arrondissement, having killed several Germans and been involved in the capture of a tank.’37 Paul Tuffrau saw him, too: ‘Everyone applauded a surprising black man, who wore an enormous tricolour scarf covered in ribbons and waved to everyone.’38 From her position at the western end of the rue de Rivoli, Berthe Auroy saw ‘a negro, running along the road, bizarrely dressed, covered with tricolour scarves. He smiled at the crowd and waved, getting a terrific response.’39

  Behind the governmental contingent there were groups of FFI fighters marching in a more or less coordinated fashion and carrying home-made placards – ‘The Red Army on the barricades of Clichy’ read one. Then came dozens of jeeps creaking under piles of passengers, and even a lorry festooned with flags and carrying a big banner reading ‘Liberation’, accompanied by people holding placards marking the main dates in French history.40 And all the time, there were the cheering, yelling, shouting crowds.

  *

  The afternoon was extremely hot and sunny, and the fevered, slightly dream-like atmosphere was reinforced by two Piper Cub aeroplanes circling above the demonstration, repeatedly swooping dangerously low over the crowd. They carried US newsreel crews who filmed the amazing event, providing an additional spectacle for the population.41 When the parade reached the place de la Concorde, the scale of the event was almost overwhelming. There were tens of thousands of people, hanging from the massive ornamental lampposts, climbing all over the huge statues, perched on the shiny tanks of the 2e DB and on the blistered wreck of the Panzer that had been destroyed the previous day. Having arrived at the end of his walkabout, de Gaulle was almost submerged by the crowd, which pressed around him, and a way was forced through to an open-top car. With Parodi seated at de Gaulle’s side, the car weaved through the milling thousands on the place de la Concorde and then drove down the rue de Rivoli, the pavements thick with people, heading towards the Hôtel de Ville, where tens of thousands more Parisians awaited him.42 Berthe Auroy was disappointed – all she saw of de Gaulle was a quick flash of a kepi as the car zoomed past. ‘It’s not very nice of the General not to take the time to salute the crowd,’ she complained to the person next to her.43 For journalist Ernie Pyle there was no reason to be critical: ‘the kissing and shouting and autographing and applauding were almost overwhelming. The pandemonium of a free and loveable Paris reigned again. It was wonderful to be there . . . it was already hard to believe that there ever had been a war; even harder to realize there still was a war.’44

  But as de Gaulle left the place de la Concorde, everyone soon realised that the war was indeed still going on. All of a sudden, there was the sound of gunshots, apparently coming from the Hôtel Crillon. Along with the rest of the vast crowd by the place de la Concorde, Paul Tuffrau dived to the floor; a young girl and her mother were on top of his legs; by his neck a woman sobbed with fear. The men of the Leclerc Division fired back, first with rifles then with heavy machine guns, shooting at the windows of the Crillon and the Navy Ministry. On the other side of the Tuileries, too, the crowd was cowering, and Tuffrau saw a woman, covered in blood, being carried away on a stretcher.45 A few metres away, Berthe Auroy flattened herself against the wall of the Tuileries. Children around her cried, ‘Mummy, I’m frightened!’ Berthe managed to get into the gardens and then ran towards the Louvre, crouching from tree to tree, occasionally diving to the floor when the shooting became intense.46

  Jean Galtier-Boissière was in the Tuileries when the firing broke out and the crowd panicked: ‘We were all lying face-down on the grass. Women were shaking with fright, children were crying. I got up and could clearly see machine-gun fire coming from three windows of the Pavillon de Marsan [the north-west corner of the Louvre], sweeping across the rue de Rivoli and the terrace of the Tuileries.’47 When FFI fighters opened fire on the Pavillon, fighters on the other side of the river, near the Gare d’Orsay, joined in the shooting. FFIers near Galtier-Boissière, thinking they were under attack, fired back at their comrades. It was chaos.

  The confusion was captured by BBC reporter Robert Dunnet who was on the place de la Concorde as the firing broke out, and carried on broadcasting throughout:

  . . . there’s been some shooting broken out from the – one of the buildings – I think it’s in the neighbourhood of the Hôtel Crillon, just following the passage of General de Gaulle, and there’s smoke now rising from the building and the people – there’s a great crowd – has broken out [confusion, voices – French and English] . . . the tanks are firing back – the tanks massed in the square are firing back at the hotel, and I’m standing looking just straight across at it – smoke – smoke rising, and whoever opened up on the crowd from the hotel is [several voices speaking in French] . . . [sound of gunfire] . . . It’s rather difficult to place where all the fire is coming from. I certainly can hear bullets going past at the moment – that peculiar whistling noise they make – and still these men with the Red Cross flags stand up on this balustrade, right out in the open, holding up their flags and waving, smiling – ‘People, just take it quite easy, it’s all going to be all right.’48

  Eventually, the firing ceased and calm returned, although many people were injured. The event might have been put down to overexcited FFIers and the widespread fear of ‘les tireurs des toîts’, except that at the same time there was another outbreak of shooting, higher up the Champs-Elysées. A cheery-looking bald man in his mid-sixties was walking his dog on the grass when there was a burst of firing and the crowd rushed for shelter in the Marigny theatre, sweeping him along with them. As he cowered inside the theatre foyer, a dead woman was brought in and laid down beside him. The man was P. G. Wodehouse, who was living in the nearby Hôtel Bristol. As he later told a friend: ‘It was all very exciting, but no good to me from a writing point of view.’49 Watching from his window, Swiss journalist Edmond Dubois saw a woman collapse, blood pouring from her neck.50 As the firing became more intense, the crowd became completely panic-stricken, and Dubois’ apartment building was soon full of passers-by sheltering from the gunfire.51 As soon as the shooting started, Micheline Bood hurried to her nearby home, furious that the day had been ruined by the snipers. She stomped up to the very top of her building and stuck her head out of the window, convinced that the firing was coming from next door. To her shock, she found herself face to face with a young man armed with a revolver – and wearing an FFI armband. He had been sent up to deal with the source of the shooting, but found nobody.52

  It was not only the French who were trigger-happy. The T-Force headquarters at the Petit Palais was hit by gunfire from a US armoured car, which opened fire with its heavy machine gun because the gunner saw ‘a gun barrel pushed out from behind the curtains’. Six people were wounded, including three members of T-Force. The commander of the armoured car was immediately relieved of his duties.53 Worried that many people could be hurt if the soldiers began to shoot indiscriminately, Colonel O’Brien of the US A
rmy ran along the ranks of his men, ordering them to hold their fire until it became clear who was doing the shooting.54 It never did become clear.

  The outbreak of firing at the Champs-Elysées and at the place de la Concorde was dramatic enough, but what occurred at Notre Dame was even more spectacular. The end-point of the parade was due to be a celebratory Mass in the great Gothic cathedral. Parodi had made the arrangements, and had decided that the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Suhard, would not be involved. The Archbishop’s conciliatory attitude towards Vichy – including welcoming Pétain in April, and celebrating the funeral Mass for Henriot in July – had not been forgotten by the Resistance.55 As soon as de Gaulle arrived in front of the cathedral, shots rang out and the soldiers began to fire back, aiming up at the bell towers. The whole thing was recorded by the BBC journalist Robert Reid, whose microphone was briefly but dramatically disconnected in the panic.56 Eventually Leclerc and the other officers managed to restore order – there was no clear source of gunfire – and the Mass went ahead, without the organ or any lights, as there was no electricity.