Eleven Days in August

by Matthew Cobb

  64 Dupuy (1945), pp. 40–1.

  65 AN 72AJ/62/IV/2, p. 182

  66 Groult & Groult (1965), p. 303. The quote is from Mallarmé’s poem ‘Brise Marine’.

  67 Patin (1994), pp. 93–5.

  68 Brasillach (1955), p. 290–1.

  69 Model & Bradley (1991), p. 267.

  70 B-176, p. 5.

  71 A-956, p. 16.

  72 B-729, p. 21.

  73 Model & Bradley (1991), p. 267.

  74 AN 72AJ/45/I/6O. General Barton and General Gerow of the US Army both apparently passed through Paris during the day. According to Blumenson (1961), p. 617, Barton disturbed Leclerc at the Préfecture while the Free French general was having lunch. Leclerc, irritated, sent Barton to the Gare Montparnasse, ‘where he found General Gerow already taking charge of the enormous responsibility of Paris’. This information is based on a conversation with Barton in 1954. Strikingly, Barton (1951) makes no mention of this. I have been unable to find any verification of what, if anything, Barton and Gerow did on this day. Gerow may have formally held responsibility for Paris according to SHAEF, but General Koenig was the Free French Military Governor of Paris, and everything that happened on 25 August underlined the fact that the Free French were in command of the capital, not SHAEF.

  75 Sylvan et al. (2008), pp. 109–10.

  76 von Choltitz’s memoirs can be taken to imply that he was taken to Britain on the evening of 25 August (von Choltitz, 1969, p. 257). However, this contradicts the evidence in General Hodges’ diary that he was questioned in France on 27 August (Sylvan et al., 2008). In his 1949 account of events von Choltitz states that he spent ‘days’ being interviewed by various American staff officers and travelling through Normandy to Cherbourg (von Choltitz, 1949, 15–26 October 1949). For details of the prison camp at Trent Park, see Neitzel (2007) and chapter 2 n. 16.

  77 Lyon (1948), p. 23. Lyon – the T-Force commander – called their journey to Paris ‘hazardous’. The hazards he described included French people offering wine, tossing apples and tomatoes as well as ‘the ever present danger’ of ‘getting lost’ (p. 22).

  78 Lyon (1948), p. 24.

  79 Lyon (1948), pp. 35–6.

  80 Massu (1969), p. 152.

  81 Vilain (1945), p. 23.

  82 Massu (1969), p. 155.

  83 Boegner (1992), p. 296.

  84 Mesnil-Amar (2009), pp. 132–3;

  85 Chaigneau (1981), pp. 233–6; for the fate of the deportees, see pp. 250–1.

  CHAPTER 17

  1 Cumberlege (1946), p. 197. The best accompaniment to this chapter is to watch the last four minutes of La Libération de Paris (1944), from 26:45 onwards. This covers the parade and shows some of the sights and the sounds I have tried to describe.

  2 Squadron-Leader John Pudney reported from a friend’s office: ‘The housekeeper explained to me that she was not at her best. She had got drunk when she heard the BBC statement that Paris was free. She sobered up enough to see the Germans still across the road at their HQ, got drunk again from exasperation, and finally had such a hang-over for the liberation that she couldn’t enjoy it at all.’ Pudney (1944b).

  3 Details in this paragraph from: Pyle (1944), p. 316; Tuffrau (2002), pp. 109–10; de Saint-Pierre (1945), p. 118; Lankford (1991), p. 175; AN 72AJ/62/IV/2, p. 198. Later on, Bruce popped into Guerlain’s perfumery on the rue Saint Honoré, where Monsieur Guerlain gave him a bottle of Shalimar, to mark the liberation.

  4 Tuffrau (2002), p. 112.

  5 L’Humanité 26 August 1944.

  6 Blumenson (1961), p. 619; Dansette (1946), pp. 412–413. A similar invitation was made to the British.

  7 Blumenson (1961), p. 620. Lieutenant-Colonel Harold Lyon, who was in command of T-Force and was a stickler for military protocol, described the parade as ‘unauthorized’ (Lyon, 1948, p. 30).

  8 Blumenson (1961), pp. 620–1.

  9 See Fenby (2010) for a description of the significance of this parade in de Gaulle’s life.

  10 AN 72AJ/61/I/17, p. 42. Later that day, Gallois reflected on the tumultuous week he had just experienced, and wondered whether the coming days could be as remarkable. It seems unlikely that anything else in his life turned out to be as amazing.

  11 Roy (1944), pp. 61–2. Dukson, with his white sling, can be made out just above the bending figure of de Gaulle on the left-hand page of the photograph of the wreath-laying ceremony reproduced in Conte (1984). US newsreel of the ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe can be seen at www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUVu9lOTkN4 [accessed July 2012]. See also La Libération de Paris (1944), at 26:45. Dunan (1946) is the sole source for Dukson’s life.

  12 According to a contemporary description of the parade published in Le Figaro (reproduced in Campaux, 1945, p. 224), de Gaulle was presented with various FFI fighters who had distinguished themselves during the insurrection, and some of these were invited to join the parade; one of those fighters was Georges Dukson. See plate 32. Photographs of the parade shortly after it set off show Dukson being pushed out of the way by an apparently irritated officer (see for example, the frontispiece in Dunan, 1945, or Bourget, 1979, pp. 232–3), which has led me to suggest that Dukson had simply strolled, uninvited, onto the head of the parade, and that he was subsequently ejected without ceremony (Cobb, 2009a and 2009b). This apparently mistaken interpretation of events is also implied by a hasty reading of Dunan (1945) who writes of Dukson: ‘He was amazingly audacious. He would do anything for a bet. When General de Gaulle walked down the Champs-Elysées, only Georges Bidault, the future Foreign Minister, stood between Dukson and the head of government.’ (Dunan, 1945, p. 262.) Film of the parade near the place de la Concorde shows Dukson happily involved in the march, keeping the crowd at bay, apparently acting as a steward (at 0:28–0:33 in the US newsreel, which can be seen at www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGR7OnqDYII [accessed July 2012]). My current interpretation is that Dukson was invited to be one of the stewards who were ensuring crowd control by forming a human chain at the sides of the parade. However, with his arm in a sling, he was unable to fulfil this function, and by design or accident, he ended up wandering to the very front of the cortège at the beginning of the march, before being moved back to his function on the edge of the parade. At least one of the scenes was captured on film, and can be seen fleetingly, perhaps more than once. One of those incidents is at 1:20:04 on the DVD Eté 44: La Libération (2004). From this angle, the gesture of the officer as he moves Dukson to the side looks positively polite. The fact that even such a minor event remains hard to interpret, despite photographic evidence, underlines the difficulty of historical reconstruction.

  13 Kriegel-Valrimont (1964), p. 15.

  14 Roy (1944), p. 60.

  15 de Gaulle (1956), pp. 310–311; Kriegel-Valrimont (1964), p. 15. The CNR members present were Daniel Mayer (Socialist Party), Joseph Laniel (Alliance Démocratique), Paul Bastid (Parti Radical) and Auguste Gillot (Communist Party) (Noguères & Degliame-Fouché, 1981, p. 565). According to Debû-Bridel (1978), the third member of COMAC, the communist Pierre Villon, was informed too late of the parade (Debû-Bridel, 1978, p. 188). This seems unlikely – he would surely have read his own party’s newspaper. There was also a smart group of Free French officers, including Chaban, who by now had been provided with a proper uniform – see the photograph in Rocheteau (2004), p. 70.

  16 ‘The morally prestigious route was physically painful,’ wrote Hamon, ruefully. AN 72AJ/42/IV/3, p. 32.

  17 AN 72AJ/42/IV/3, p. 32. A photograph of the parade includes Lefaucheux, Hamon and Tollet in the bottom left corner (de Gaulle, 1962, p. 349).

  18 There are several photographs of this boisterous moment, which was typical of the whole parade. See for example Conte (1984).

  19 de Gaulle’s decision to walk down the Champs-Elysées was remarkable, in that this kind of walkabout was completely unheard of. In his diary, Daniel Boisdon called it ‘audacious’ (AN 72AJ/62/III/4, p. 51).

  20 These long paper banners, barred with the tricolour and the words
‘Vive de Gaulle’ or ‘Vive la République’, were given out to people to hold along the length of the parade (Auroy, 2008, p. 335) – see for example Plate 36. ‘De Gaulle au pouvoir’ can be seen on a banner in a photograph in Barozzi (1980) p. 157 and in a series of banners and placards in a colour photograph originally published in Life and reproduced in Fournier & Aymard (2010), p. 127.

  21 Kriegel-Valrimont (1964), p. 15.

  22 Pierquin (1983), p. 135.

  23 BAM VV, 26.8. Despite this major obstacle, a journalist next to Professor Veau breathlessly dictated over the phone an entirely fictitious story about what he could see.

  24 There is an excellent collection of pictures of the march, and of the huge crowds, in Fournier & Aymard (2010).

  25 See for example the photograph in Anonymous (2004), p. 130.

  26 Roy (1944), p. 63; Pyle (1944), p. 316.

  27 de Saint Pierre (1945), p. 123.

  28 Bood (1974), p. 338.

  29 Roy (1944), p. 62.

  30 Tuffrau (2002), p. 113.

  31 Auroy (2008), p. 335.

  32 Lankford (1991), p. 175.

  33 Groult & Groult (1965), p. 303.

  34 AN 72AJ/62/III/4, p. 51.

  35 Boegner (1992), p. 299.

  36 De Beauvoir (1965), p. 597.

  37 AN 72AJ/61/I/14, p. 7.

  38 Tuffrau (2002), p. 113.

  39 Auroy (2008), p. 335.

  40 In film of the parade, ‘1830’ can be seen written on one of the shield-like placards; another placard read ‘1914’ and can be seen in a photograph next to one of the ‘De Gaulle au pouvoir’ banners (Barozzi, 1980, p. 157). According to Colonel de Langlade, as soon as de Gaulle began to march down the Champs-Elysées, a crowd of people swept around the Free French leader: ‘There were two or three hundred people. The women had their hair down and their breasts out [‘leurs mammelles au vent’], dressed in tricolour flags and wearing phrygien bonnets [the symbol of the 1789 revolution]. I had a flashback of the tricoteuses [the women who according to myth sat by the guillotine in revolutionary France, knitting]. The sight was both indecent and grotesque . . .’ (De Langlade, 1964, pp. 224–5.) De Langlade further claimed that both he and his men were ‘disappointed and disgusted’ by the parade, which they had imagined very differently (de Langlade, 1964, p. 225). The minor collaborationist politician Jacques Bardoux also did not like the parade – it was too disorganised, and he also reported there were women with bare breasts (‘des filles dépoitraillées’) (Bardoux, 1958, p. 369). René Courtin complained: ‘Behind, there was an indescribable throng of official cars, reporters’ cars, and various lorries, too often covered with women.’ (Courtin, 1994, p. 45.) In his memoirs published in 1956, de Gaulle writes: ‘Some people with minor walk-on roles joined the cortège of my comrades, even though they had no right to. But no one paid them any attention’ (de Gaulle, 1956, p. 311). However, given de Gaulle’s acerbic style, this could be referring to virtually anyone except the Free French.

  41 Spanish exile Victoria Kent, excited by the sight of the tanks of La Nueve, wrote in her diary: ‘The heat is overwhelming, but the earth is not dark: it glows red, white and blue. The dark earth has been blown away by the wind: today the streets are red, white and blue . . . The sky is no longer the colour of lead: silver aeroplanes, under a new light, are twinkling over the beautiful Arc de Triomphe, wishing everyone welcome and spreading an indefinable calm, based on safety and confidence.’ Kent (1947), p. 211. According to Dansette (1946), there was a huge banner in the Spanish republican colours (violet, yellow and red), stretched across the Champs-Elysées (Dansette, 1946, p. 422). I have found no evidence of the presence of this banner; it does not appear on any of the hundreds of photographs of the parade.

  42 A cursory comparison of any photographs from the 26 August parade and from Pétain’s five months earlier (see prelude) shows that there were many, many more people there for de Gaulle – compare Plate 1 and Plate 33.

  43 Auroy (2008), p. 336.

  44 Pyle (1944), pp. 316–217.

  45 Tuffrau (2002), p. 115.

  46 Auroy (2008), pp. 337–8.

  47 Galtier-Boissière (1944), p. 284.

  48 Cumberlege (1946), pp. 199–201. The full report is remarkably atmospheric. A similar French radio recording of the gunfire can be heard at 2:30 here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyKtQyIAzJU [accessed July 2012].

  49 Ratcliffe (2011), p. 345. This sentence is not given in the earliest publication of this letter to Wodehouse’s friend, W. Townend, written on 30 December 1944 (Wodehouse, 1953, pp. 117–119). Wodehouse had been caught up in the fall of France and had notoriously made some humorous broadcasts on German radio that were later seen as evidence of Nazi sympathies (Sproat, 1981 and 1999). Wodehouse moved to Paris from Berlin in 1943 because his wife was frightened of the air-raids; the couple moved into the Hotel Bristol on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in September. According to the director of the Bristol, Monsieur Vidal, Wodehouse was ‘a particularly quiet man’ who did not discuss politics or the war, and ‘did not speak to many people’ (NA KV/2/3550, p. 46). According to his statement to Major Cussen of MI5 on 9–12 September 1944, while in Paris Wodehouse completed Joy in the Morning, and wrote Full Moon, Spring Fever and Uncle Dynamite (NA KV/2/3550, p. 43). As might be expected of Wodehouse, none of these books give the slightest hint of the circumstances under which they were written. In the same 30 December letter to Townend, Wodehouse recognised his detachment from events: ‘I always think it such a pity that experiences happen to the wrong people. I don’t suppose, for instance, that I shall ever make anything of life in Paris during the liberation, whereas if you had been here then you would have got a wealth of material.’ (Wodehouse, 1953, p. 117).

  50 Dubois (1944), p. 103.

  51 Dubois (1944), p. 104.

  52 Bood (1974), p. 339.

  53 Lyon (1948), p. 31.

  54 Jacobs (n.d.), p. 40. T-Force headquarters was chaotic. British intelligence officer Malcolm Muggeridge hoved up there and found a scene of ‘great confusion’ (Muggeridge, 1973, p. 210).

  55 Some French historians have devoted a surprising amount of attention to this decision, presumably because of the affront it represented to the Catholic Church, and the potential politico-religious tensions it implied. See for example Dansette (1946), pp. 415–421; Aron (1959), pp. 444–7. For a first-hand account of why the decision was taken, and what exactly was involved, see Closon (1974), pp. 232–5.

  56 Cumberlege (1946), pp. 201–204; Crang (2007) reproduces the broadcast and also a later document by Reid describing the event and how he managed to get the recording to London (Crang is Reid’s grandson). The dramatic recording – including the alarming break in transmission – can be heard at news.bbc.co.uk/media/audio/40176000/rm/_40176183_9061_25_08_1944gaulle.ram [accessed July 2012].

  57 Courtin (1994), p. 46.

  58 See the photograph in Barozzi (1980), p. 180.

  59 Cumberlege (1946), p. 203.

  60 Courtin (1994), p. 46.

  61 See photographs of these incidents in Fournier & Aymard (2010), pp. 146–7.

  62 Manchester Guardian 12 September 1944.

  63 BAM VV, 26.8

  64 Cumberlege (1946), p. 204.

  65 Bood (1974), p. 339.

  66 Bourget (1984), pp. 455–6 and Giolitto (2002), p. 358. Roger Stéphane describes how he ordered Mansuy’s arrest on 25 August, and how the captive was executed in cold blood the next day (Stéphane, 2004, pp. 19–22). Aron (1959), p. 441, perhaps basing himself on Stéphane’s account, also states that Mansuy was arrested on 25 August. Favreau (1996), pp. 484–5 covers the alternative versions of Mansuy’s capture and death.

  67 Hazard (1998), p. 395. At the Ministry of Finance, which occupied much of the north side of the Louvre, the Budget Director, Roland Dagnicourt, was killed by gunshot, although whether this was from a sniper or was ‘friendly fire’ was never known (Courtin, 1994, p. 47).

  68 Laborie (1994), p. 383.

  69 d
e Gaulle (1983), p. 297.

  70 de Gaulle (1956), p. 315. For an analysis of this change of view, and for how the Communist Party changed its presentation of the shootings in a rather different way from de Gaulle, see Laborie (1994), pp. 381–5. Strikingly (and Laborie does not note this), the shootings do not feature in the extensive coverage of the parade in the thirty-minute newsreel La Libération de Paris (1944). Luizet later told his close friend General de Boissieu that he thought the shooting was a genuine attempt on de Gaulle’s life and that it was the work of ‘dissident elements in the CNR’ – in other words, the communists (de Boissieu, 1981, p. 259). At the time, Daniel Boisdon was convinced that there were snipers trying to kill de Gaulle, and that they were thwarted by the size of the crowd, which acted as a kind of human shield. He heard that a man and two women were responsible for the firing in Notre Dame (AN 72AJ/62/III/4, p. 52). Albert Grunberg thought that the people responsible for the firing were far-right elements: ‘The enemy within wants to start a civil war. Let’s put an end to their games, by a thorough and exemplary purge.’ (Grunberg, 2001, p. 351.)

  71 Lankford (1991), p. 177. The ‘finally evaded him’ is telling.

  72 AN 72AJ/61/I/14, p. 7.

  73 Christienne & Plancard (n.d.), p. 62. In a dramatic story (Barat, 1945, pp. 87–9) which is impossible to verify, at nightfall, Dogue of the ‘Victoire’ hit-squad was sent up on the roof of a building in Saint-Germain to find a rooftop sniper. There was no one up there, but they did find an empty cartridge. To try and trick the sniper, most of the group left, making as much noise as possible, leaving Dogue, his comrade Canard and the group’s leader up on the roof. Long after midnight there was a noise from near one of the chimneys, a series of bricks was removed, and then a man’s head appeared. The group fired two shots and there was a terrific noise as the man fell back into the chimney and down into the building. The FFI men dashed downstairs and smashed down the door of the apartment below and found a wounded man lying in a pool of blood. His gun was nearby, along with a stock of ammunition and a large sum of money. It is not known who he was, what he was hoping to achieve, or even if he existed.