LIE TO VICHY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 119, 22 May 1942, Page 4

LIE TO VICHY

BLAME FOR CRISIS

REYNAUD ABSOLVES BRITAIN

A line of Axis propaganda which finds support in certain circles, notably at Vichy, is to place blame on Britain for the fall of France. Mr. Mai lory Browne, London correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor, provides an interesting contribution to discussion on the subject by referring to a letter written by M. Paul Reynaud, former French Prime Minister, and published recently.

M. Reynaud's letter, which was dated April 5, 1941, is clearly destined to become a historic document. It refutes specifically Vichy's allegations that Britain let France down at the time of the crisis. M. Reynaud is now in prison at the Portalet fortress with Georges Mandel.

Printed in Britain in the French anguage newspaper France, the letter may well explain why M Reynaud was not tried at Riom at the same time as Edouard Daladier Leon Blum, and others. For it contains vigorous counter-charges against Marshal Petain himself.

Tank Plan Refused Recalling that he had laid before the Chamber of Deputies in 1935 a project calling for the building up in France of a motorised army based on tanks and armoured cars, M. Reynaud wrote:—•

"The French people know that my plan was refused in France and adopted in Germany. You know better than any other man how my plan was opposed because you had just publicly sponsored a book in which it was said that 'As for tanks, which are said to be likely to mean short wars in the future, they are a signal failure.'"

Taking up point by point the Vichy charges against his stewardship as Prime Minister in May and June, 1910, M. Reynaud denies that it was the British Government which pressed France to continue the war in North Africa. "This decision was taken by me," M. Reynaud says. "It derived from the mutual promise of Allies not to abandon one another."

M. Reynaud denies the favourite Vichy thesis that General Maximo Weygand, then the French commander, wrote to him on May 29 and June 7 urging him to conclude an armistice. On the contrary, he says. General Weygand wrote him on June 10 that he was "far from having lost hope."

He denies Vichy charges that "Winston Churchill at the Supreme War Council held on June 11 at Briare refused fresh assistance from English aviation." On the contrary, he says: "Churchill promised to take up the matter as soon as he got back to London."

M. Reynaud also denies a statement made by Marshal Petain to the effect that "for weeks our soldiers waited vainly for English fighter planes." The truth is, M. Reynaud states, that "we received in response to my daily requests important assistance from the R.A.F."

The former French Prime Minister denies, too, charges by Marshal Petain that President Roosevelt had replied "in an evasive way" to his appeal of June 14 wh*n he urged immediate American aid.

"The importance of his reply and generosity which inspired it are disregarded by such an attitude," M. Reynaud said. He declared that President Roosevelt in his reply on June 15 pointed out that the American Government had in rccent weeks been furnishing aeroplanes and artillery t especiallv French 75's, and munitions of ail sorts, and promised to continue this assistance as long as France continued to fight. M. Raynaud termed the message "singularly courageous considering the date at which it was sent."

Franco-British Union

Finally M. Reynaud denies Vichy propaganda to the effect that the offer of Franco-British union made by Mr. Churchill on June 16, 1940, would have "lowered France to the rank of a Dominion." This offer, M. Reynaud says, envisaged the principle of a union which I was on the point of accepting. For my part I prefer to collaborate with our allies than with our enemies.'

M. Reynaud puts himself on record as having wanted to follow the example of the Netherlands rather than conclude an armistice. '.'As soon as the high command declared the struggle had become impossible, I proposed to cease fighting on French soil, following in this the example of Holland. This would have been done if I had not been obliged to resign, overthrown by a coalition led by yourself, General Weygand, and a majority of the Cabinet Ministers to whom our high military authorities were saying: 'In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken.'"

Praise for de Gaulle M. Reynaud puts blame for the French collapse on the military high command in France, who persistently maintained that the unbroken front of fortifications running from Switzerland to the North Sea would be impregnable.

Declaring that General Charles de Gaulle, Free French leader, had constantly affirmed on the contrary that an armoured corps could easily break through such fortified line, M. Reynaud reveals that he himself predicted that the German Army would come through Holland and Belgium and attack the French frontiers in the north at a point where the French Superior War Council refused to strengthen France's fortifications.

M. Reynaud emphasises the resistance with which the French High Command was stubbornly opposed in all efforts by General de Gaulle and himself to build up a big corps of tanks and armoured vehicles.

My own recollections of many speeches I heard M. Reynaud make in the French Chamber of Deputies, books he wrote supporting the thesis of a mobile offensive army rather than the Maginot Line, many personal contacts with him, ending with a long interview in Paris in December, 1939, all confirm the tenor of statements M. Reynaud makes in this letter to Marshal Petain.

It clearly strengthens the theory that the crucial weakness in France was the Maginot Line mentality of the high command. M. Reynaud as a politician would naturally want to shift the blame on to the shoulders of the military leaders.

But just as among French generals, General de Gaulle saw the danger signal and tried to give warning, so it is important to put on record that among French politicians M. Reynaud, too, saw the situation correctly and tried to warn the French Chamber and people and did his best to remain faithful to the alliance with Britain.