1940 June 22 | France Capitulates, The Center Did Not Hold
Now – Forever Rethondes
When does a country die? When it loses its territory, its people, its institutions, its leaders? All of it? Part of it?
France is a 1000 years litany of implosions, of losses, of separations: sliced by Carolingian infighting, partly sold to the Vikings, split up during the Hundred Years War, up to, but not limited to, giving up territories to Germany in 1871.
And yet, even with its hosts defeated, its kings prisoners, its cities, fields and woods gone, its spirit went unbroken, its soul endured for 1000 years.
On the 21st of June 1940, 2 commanders in chief, a President, a Prime Minister, 23 ministers, 14 under-secretaries, 414 parliamentarians and 235 senators chose to live.
And France died.
It was not that it lost territories, armies, government. It is that the mediocre politicians and self-conceited officer corps killed what 1000 years of France had meant: cultural, military, industrial, technological prestige. All of it cored out, exposed, ridiculed. Too old, too slow, too arrogant.
France. A historical curio from now on.
“Learn to obey to know how to command”, the mantra of gerontocracy: trust your elders, the riper the better. France June 1940: the quivering voice of self-serving memories speaks on the radio, a pathetic old man lost in a coat too big for him.
Only remains what you think France really stands for; a certain idea of France.
Then – July 1940, Bangbel, Cameroon
Suzanne turns over the two-sided sheet of paper that was now the “newspaper”, still incredulous weeks later. With newspapers reaching Bangbel at random intervals, it felt like the war had been over in just three editions. Whether in 1871, or 1914, there had been at least months of intense manoeuvres and fights. This time, not quite. How? Any French pupil learnt to read, write, count and that the Germans came charging through at Sedan. So, surely… Well, they drove around the impregnable Maginot Line. At Sedan. Again.
Ah yes, but this time, they had tanks. So did France … They were the best, she had read somewhere.
Suzanne has been drilled in worshipping the ley saints of the Republic, Foch, Joffre, Saint Cyr and the officer corps. Their memoires was the only book she carried with her on the Tanganyika in ‘29. In April, everyone waited for the Germans to attack. She had kept the French magazines of May 1940, with Gamelin and Weygand twirling their moustaches with obvious self-satisfaction. When the Germans finally obliged, they overran the Netherlands, and just blew up the Belgian fortresses, in a day. That was supposed to last a few weeks, but, at least, that sprung the clever strategic trap set by the French and the British, who now just had to race their best armoured divisions North to cut them off. But, on the next news sheet, civilians were swamping the roads, German dive-bombers screamed overhead and our troops were trapped… in Dunkirk.
By the 10th of June, the Best Army in the World had collapsed. And France capitulated on the 22nd of June.
Oh, they could call it an armistice, that sounded better, more benign.
“They Shall Not Pass” Pétain, the new prime minister from an old war, keeps justifying the decision. In every speech, in every article, every interview, whispers, insinuations, that it may all be for the best, just another challenge the French people have to overcome. Together. Behind him. A defeat they actually may deserve: the conscripts just did not have what it took to fight. Some did, but anyway the Army never truly got the budgets it needed. And don’t start him on the moral corruption! That is where they lost her.
Suzanne’s France was the country that had perfected for millennia the suicidal charge and the glorious defeat. By nature, there could not be any redeeming value in surrender.
Every company in Cameroon had tried to keep their employees informed, but they had hardly had the time to write anything down before the whole debacle was over. But, they all had to act against the swirling rumours, with facts, explanations. If the French Army had been exposed as a sham, what about French authorities? Or French companies? So, they pieced together the rare shreds of information, sound bites of angry officers rallying London, snippets from rare travellers, information shared with administrators in confidence, foreign newspapers, radio broadcasts…
And built a probable chain of events and consequences to share with their employees.
And so, for Cameroon, consensus was that metropolitan conscripts did just gave up, especially the artillery. The saviours of 1914 had failed. Then, they were 5th columnists. And communists, obviously. Sabotage took place across armament factories, naturally: shells exploded in field guns, grenades failed. And every time, a little paper would come fly down from these duds about Peace and the 3rd Internationale.
That one, she did not really believe. And yet, these days? If it what was not outright outrageous, who knew…
A wall and 12 bullets. That’s what all these Socialists, these Pacifists, deserved for their tried and tested snivelling ways. Here, in Cameroon, they had German spies and local agitators. But as well, while there had been truly heroic sacrifices during the campaign, she was proud, they were all very proud of the behaviour of “their” guys, the Colonial Troops. “Their” guys had been among the rare ones that had held: Moroccans, Algerians, Senegalese, they had shown the Boches what fighting meant and kept the proud French traditions.
She catches herself. Onwards now.
The moustachioed generals just fought the last war with the mentality, the weapons and the tactics of the last war. There had been ambitious youngsters, show-offs keen to prove themselves, from what she had read in the press. Like this General Le Gaulle. Or De Gaulle. He had called to fight on to the last man since the 18th of June. He speaks on the English radio. That did sound more like it. But, what was France now? Cameroon was still just an territory France administered? So, were they German now or… Suzanne reads once again in the last edition of l’Éveil du Cameroun, on the Armistice and the conditions, and the innocently disapproving paragraph about the French General in London.
But if not for him, that would be it for France.
What was that guy Marechalissimo Pétain about? Short, of course. A requirement for that type of job. His programme? The National Revolution! As if. Sounds like a plagiarism of any of the other Conducators. And the endless platitudes and self-flagellation: France has sinned, it needs to go back to the past, to its countryside. Bringing back the province, the wooden clogs, the forks and haybales, the songs and the binious. It make sense if you signed off the Northern half of the country. And promised to feed the Germans. So, blame Parisian decadence away!
Suzanne does not need to be told about Quaint France, she knows it quite well. The damp mulch, the receptions at the sous-prefecture, the whispers behind closed shutters and streets under the grey skies.
She puts the sheet down.
OK, what do we need? Cameroon depends on France for so much of the food that stocks are estimated by the CEM to last 2 or 3 months maximum. That means September. Rationing has started, I have the cards. Wine card for us, milk card for the kids. 20 bottles of wine per family per month. Well, being in a French territory had its advantages. Maybe the Brits have marmalade and tea, she smirks.
She stands up and strides to the back of the bungalow.
Suzanne stops. She has stocks ready, hidden in plain sight in the old trunks. Discreet, out of the way, and ready to be loaded in a hurry. The truck in Bétaré will pick them up at the first sign. They will converge there and make an armed column. They know the backroads. The Italians or Germans don’t. Can’t. They did draw the maps in 1910, but these are now obsolete, that’s the nature of the Frontier. But the Italians could drive from the North, or the Germans sail from Spanish Guinea.
Anything happens, she grabs Claude and France, and runs to the treeline. François follows with the ready-bag. And the guns. Her Bayard 6.35 is concealed in her belt, he gives her the 16 gauge.
François will have warned Kombo and the villagers to take to the woods. That was the deal they had agreed on: no-one wanted to be there when the Germans came back. Kamerun had been a living nightmare. Then Suzanne, François, Claude, France would wait for the truck column sweeping down from Kissi, Suka, to collect them. Then on to Bétaré, Yaoundé, or anywhere practicable. The trucks were tagged, checked, kept fuelled, the drivers assigned, the men riding shotgun picked. Everyone knew what to do, nothing was to be written.
The bags and trunks are ready. The guns stay at hand. Each man, each woman knows its role to fight their way to freedom.
Suzanne light the two hissing storm-lamps on the patio. They are blacked-out against Italian bombers.
There is a nice summer breeze tonight.
There will be no picture until January 1941.
You read part 30 of Transvaal Blue Skies: the true story of how, early last century, Suzanne moved to Africa and built her laager. This is a series of loose dots weaved in a chronological thread, wrapped into a story to be plucked and observed, heard and remembered, recognised and judged. Suzanne Dulière was my grandmother.
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