France, WWII, and the Resistance - Part 1

This will be the first of a multi-part posting dealing primarily with French history, World War II, and French reactions to those events over the past 65 years. This history is everywhere displayed in French cities, with their monuments and plaques honoring those who fought to defeat Germany. Admittedly, as an American, I have a limited perspective and limited standing in presuming to comment on this part of French history. I apologize for the length of this posting, but some background is vital to understanding this part of French history.



Americans typically think of World War II as a ‘good’ war, where the issues were so obvious, clear cut, and black-and-white, that there was no question as to what a nation’s role should be, and what each citizen’s role should be. Before we get too virtuous, we must recall that we played no role in opposing Hitler before the war, and we played a minimal role in opposing Japan’s years-long aggression in China before 1940. Most Americans believed that we should not be trying to ‘play the world’s policeman’, and it was only after we were attacked without warning that we became actively involved.


After the war on the Western Front began in 1940, and the German armies triumphed in a matter of weeks, France was truly traumatized. The reasons for the rapid defeat lay primarily in the poor leadership of the French Armies and Government. There were factions within the French government, as there were throughout the western democracies (i.e. the German-American Bund in the US before the War, and similar organizations in most countries in Europe and the Americas) that saw Germany as a bulwark against the expansion of Russian Communism as personified by Josef Stalin, certainly a man with more blood on his hands at that point than Adolf Hitler. Alone of the Western leaders, Winston Churchill saw that Hitler represented the greater immediate threat to the West, and alliances must be made with all who opposed him. As he said in Parliament, ‘if Hitler invaded hell, I would at least make favorable references to the devil...’, and he was not yet the leader of Britain until after the German offensive in the West began in May 1940.


With the collapse of France and the humiliating armistice with Germany that resulted in the annexation of parts of France to Germany and the occupation of a large part of the rest of the country by the German Army, the ‘realists’ in the French government, which had moved from Paris to the city of Vichy in the unoccupied part of France, believed that Germany would ultimately win in Europe. If that was reality, then it was the government’s duty to secure the best possible conditions for the French people. This was done with some degree of success and most of the French people went on with their lives as best they could. There was no real organized opposition within France at that time.

Map showing areas of occupied and unoccupied France

General Charles De Gaulle, the commander of a French Armored Brigade that had distinguished itself against the German offensive in May 1940, had been brought into the government as Undersecretary of War as the government tried to find a solution to the German offensive. Even before the War he had seen how the nature of war was changing to one of mobility and had publicly advocated reforms in the way the French Army was organized; for this he was essentially stricken from the list of possible candidates for high command.


After the Armistice with Germany, De Gaulle escaped to Britain, and on June 18, 1940, made a radio broadcast to the French people calling on them to refuse to accept defeat and continue the struggle under his leadership. He was ignored by all but a handful French military men, and was condemned to death in abstentia by the Vichy government. The French Communist Party, which liked to claim that it was the true inspiration for the Resistance that eventually developed, had, after the infamous Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939, condemned the war as an imperialist one in which the working classes had no stake. Only after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, did the Communists become a very effective part of the Resistance.

De Gaulle making June 18, 1940 radio announcement.

De Gaulle’s thesis was always that Vichy was not the legitimate government of France and that France must regain her independence or would no longer be a great nation. Through the exercise of his formidable intelligence and will, he slowly welded together an effective resistance organization within France and an effective Free French military organization. This took years to accomplish, but he continued to insist on his vision of a reborn France and, by the summer of 1944, there were French Divisions fighting alongside British and American units and a unified Resistance organization within France. How this was accomplished, and the truly remarkable individuals who risked literally everything to rebuild French honor and strength, will be the story of future postings.