Read Paris After the Liberation: 1944 - 1949 for Free Online

its officers and men joined the Resistance.
    Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of Operation Torch was that it managed to achieve a measure of surprise. For several months the whole project had been the subject of numerous overtures to Vichy loyalists within the unoccupied zone and in North Africa. Yet, to his fury, de Gaulle and his followers were allowed no part in it.
    De Gaulle’s relations with Churchill had started to deteriorate rapidly after the ill-fated expedition to seize Dakar from Vichy in September 1940. The British were said to have accused the French in London of loose talk, but in fact they knew that the real problem came from the refusal of de Gaulle’s headquarters to adopt a modern code system for their signal traffic. French officers refused to believe that the Germans were breaking their codes with ease. Not until 1944, when a British officer broke their code in front of their eyes, did they finally switch to one-time pads. The result was that the British and Americans avoided warning de Gaulle’s headquarters of any operations, including those involving French territory. The American government feared that the French colonial army in North Africa might resist the Torch landings, and was keen to prevent this happening. Robert Murphy, Roosevelt’s personal representative, had therefore been seeking a leader who would be acceptable to the mainly pro-Vichy officers stationed there. Various figures, including General Weygand, were considered and approaches made, but with little success. Then an apparently ideal candidate appeared in the form of General Henri Giraud.
    Giraud had become a hero in France after escaping from the prison fortress of Königstein in Germany. A good soldier, he proceeded to Vichy to report to Marshal Pétain, but this represented an embarrassment for Vichy’s relations with the Germans. The Americans recruited him and he was brought out by submarine.
    Admiral Darlan, the commander-in-chief of all Vichy forces, then entered the scene. After being ousted from the premiership by Laval on 17 April 1942, he had made cautious approaches to the Resistance and the American authorities. (The veteran politician Édouard Herriot had said of Darlan just after the armistice: ‘This Admiral knows how to swim.’) Darlan flew to Algiers from Vichy on 5 November, two days before the American invasion, to see his son in hospital. His arrival caused great confusion in the American camp. They did not know whether he would serve their purposes or oppose the landings. Meanwhile their chosen leader Giraud, then in Gibraltar, started to change his mind at the last moment, causing even greater confusion.
    The landings which took place two days later succeeded largely because Admiral Darlan and General Juin in Algiers secured the ceasefire. The deal which the Americans then made with Darlan, who claimed he was still loyal to Marshal Pétain, was satisfactory from a purely military point of view, but it set off a political storm in the United States and in Britain. The greatest anger, not surprisingly, was among the Free French in London and the Resistance of the interior.
    De Gaulle had not been told of the landings on 7 November. He was furious when he heard the news the following morning. ‘I hope the Vichy people will fling them into the sea!’ he yelled. ‘You don’t get France by burglary!’ When the implications of the American deal with Darlan later became clear – that Roosevelt had no scruples about using unrepentant Pétainists – it looked as if de Gaulle faced political oblivion. The new regime in North Africa was nicknamed ‘
Vichy à l’envers
’ – Vichy back-to-front – because Darlan had hardly changed his coat, let alone his views. He still acknowledged Pétain as leader, the Gaullist cross of Lorraine was still outlawed and Jews had to continue wearing the yellow star. But on Christmas Eve 1942 the balance of power in French affairs was fated to change when a young