Paris After the Liberation: 1944 - 1949 Read Online Free PDF Page A

man and, unlike Napoleon, did little to encourage warmth or loyalty, except in his immediate entourage. Yet this was the source of his strength. His appeal, like Pétain’s, evaded the politics and factionalism which had been the curse of France.
    Spears had observed that the main defeatists were conservatives, yet not all of
vieille France
had surrendered easily. The defence of the cavalry school at Saumur, when a group of lightly armed subalterns fought off a panzer unit until they ran out of ammunition, was just one example. And many members of the aristocracy were to prove in the next few years by their service under de Gaulle or in the Resistance that they held honour above politics. Such decisions split a number of families.
    De Gaulle had accomplished the vital first step: recognition and support from Churchill. On 27 June, Churchill summoned him to Downing Street and said: ‘You are all alone? Very well, then I recognize you all alone!’ The next day de Gaulle received a message through the French Embassy in London – then in a curious state of interregnum – telling him to place himself in a state of arrest in Toulouse within five days. A subsequent court martial in Clermont-Ferrand condemned him to death
in absentia
for desertion and for entering the service of a foreign power. De Gaulle sent back a message rejecting the sentence as null and void. He would discuss the matter ‘with the people of Vichy after the war’.
    Among the few who joined de Gaulle was André Dewavrin, who soon began to organize the Gaullist intelligence service, the BCRA (Bureau Central de Renseignement et d’Action). Dewavrin, best known by his
nom de guerre
of Colonel Passy, had many enemies, particularly among the Communists. They put it about that he was a former member of the Comité Secret d’Action Révolutionnaire, whose members were known as
cagoulards,
or the ‘hooded ones’. This organization was dedicated to the suppression of Communism, by assassination if necessary. Dewavrin always strongly denied that he had been a member.
    Nevertheless, he did recruit two other
cagoulards,
the half-Russian Captain Pierre Fourcaud and Maurice Duclos. It was Duclos who suggested that the members of the BCRA take their code-names from Paris métro stations, a customary precaution in the Cagoule. The idea was adopted, so Dewavrin’s code-name of ‘Passy’ for his clandestine activities is cited as evidence of a
cagoulard
past.
    The presence of
cagoulards,
however few, in de Gaulle’s ranks provoked a great deal of suspicion among liberals, socialists and, of course, Communists. There were also whispers that Passy’s subordinates used brutal methods on anyone suspected of attempting to infiltrate the Gaullist organization.
    The other important figure to declare his allegiance at this time was Gaston Palewski, later de Gaulle’s
chef de cabinet
and most trusted adviser. Palewski, an outstanding young member of Marshal Lyautey’s staff in Morocco, had first known de Gaulle, then a colonel, in 1934. The young man was so impressed by this extraordinary soldier that he resolved to serve him as soon as the call came.
    De Gaulle’s supporters, however much courage and talent they possessed, were still very few in number. The only significant military figure to endorse him in the summer of 1940 was General Catroux, while the troops of Free France amounted to no more than a couple of battalions, mostly evacuees from Dunkirk or from the expeditionary force sent to Norway. A number of officers and sailors had managed to escape metropolitan France, individually or in small groups. Although the trickle of volunteers continued, de Gaulle’s only hope of building an army lay overseas in the colonial forces of the Levant, French West Africa and, most significantly, North Africa. The future leadership of France would be decided there.
    Like collaboration, the resistance which grew up in France had degrees of commitment and took many forms. It