PETAIN'S POLICY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 118, 21 May 1941, Page 7

PETAIN'S POLICY

LIGHT ON THE ARMISTICE

"If we leave France we shall never find her again," said Marshal Henri Philippe Petain on June 11 at Chateau dv Muguet, just south of the Loire River, after Mr. Winston Churchill and Mr. Anthony Eden had come from England by air to discuss the military situation with Paul Reynaud, then the French Premier, reports the Vichy correspondent of the "New York Times."

Subsequent events show that this phrase has served as a basis for the Marshal's entire policy. It occurs in a volume of more than 400 pages entitled "Petain,"' about to be published in Paris. Advance proofs have beeravailable to this correspondent.

The book is written by ' General Auguste-Maria-Emile Laure, long associated with the^ Marshal and now his secretary general. It is described as th e only authoritative biography of the Marshal, who steadfastly refuses to write his memoirs. It is but natural that in a book on a soldier written by another soldier many chapters should be devoted to problems of tactics and strategy, with special reference to the Battle of Verdun and other outstanding phases of the World War. THE MARSHAL'S STAND. There are many references to United States action, but no revelation of new facts. There is further confirmation of the determination that the American Expeditionary Force should remain autonomous. It is shown nevertheless that in 1917, when military and political leaders diverged in their views on the prosecution of the campaign. Marshal Petain took a definite stand with the words. "We must await the Americans." and would not depart from it. The chapter on more recent events —those leading to the armistice of June. 1940, are brief, much too brief, most readers will think. Nevertheless, they make it clear that the situation was then almost desperate.

While in Spain as French Ambassador, Marshal Petain had striven to be posted on the progress of the war, but had found General Maurice Gustave Gamelin, Allied Generalissimo, very reticent, Moreover, the Marshal, after correspondence with Edouard Daladier, Premier and Minister of War at the time, had begun to lose confidence. He looked upon the Allied advance into Belgium in reply to the German offensive in May as a grave error.

"We are victims of the neutrals," he said.

According to General Laure, Mr Churchill on his fateful visit on June 11 went no further than to promise, "If you can hold until September we can bring you a few divisions," with the suggestion that in the meantime France might wage guerrilla warfare. Two days later the Cabinet decided that a request for an armistice should remain dependent on M. Reynaud's appeal to President Roosevelt to enter the war. tf