6 - “The Wisdom of a Great Leader”

Summary

The armistice logic combined a short war, Britain’s rapid capitulation, and the quick conclusion of a Franco-Axis peace to liberate French POWs. “L’homme providentiel,” Pétain, was embraced as “a substitute for politics and a barrier to revolution.” The Armistice transferred responsibility for defeat to the Republic and its combat-shy “citizen soldiers,” liberated the professional army from the tyranny of the levée, and transformed surrender into a collective rather than individual act. Vichy wagered that collaboration would place France in a position to play a major role in Hitler’s New Europe. The three departments that comprised Alsace-Moselle were incorporated into the Reich. But it also sealed the status of France as a second-tier power. Despite the armistice and the fact that many French soldiers remained incarcerated in Germany, France retained considerable latent military power, that included a 100,000-man Armistice Army, roughly the same number in French North Africa, a considerable air force sans avions, and a significant navy. However, rather than prepare clandestinely for la revanche as many of its supporters believed, Vichy’s energies were directed into collaboration. A paramilitary Chantiers de la Jeunesse, designed to build the character so lacking in French youth, was stood up, as well as various organizations like the LVF that provided a vehicle for recruiting Frenchmen to serve in German forces. The armistice, not the British attack at Mers-el-Kébir, took Vichy and its navy down the path of collaboration.