Thursday 17 June 2010

Seventy Years On II

The Vichy regime’s enactment of, in particular, anti-Semitic legislation unbidden by the Germans can only be deplored, as can its decision to fight with the Axis rather than simply to withdraw from the War. But when it comes down to the Armistice itself, what else were the French supposed to do in 1940?

In the neoconservative world of perpetual early adolescence, there may have been some sort of third way. But in the real world, there was not. There was the option of doing what they did. Or there was the option of France’s incorporation into the Third Reich, which would thus have acquired the French Empire on every continent. Which would have been preferable? Clearly, the option taken.

To the end of the War and beyond, many of the French regarded Pétain as fighting Hitler from Vichy as surely as de Gaulle was fighting Hitler from London. That view may not have been entirely right, but it was certainly not entirely wrong.

Pétain’s name was never abominated like that of Laval, who really did want France to be run from Berlin. Thanks both to Pétain (who instead wanted to restore the monarchy, an institution always reviled in practice by Fascists) and to de Gaulle (who was also later to consider most seriously such a restoration), Laval never got his wish.

Leaving aside the question of whether Hitler ever had the slightest intention of invading Britain, and if he did then he inexplicably ignored the open goal in 1943, imagine if such an invasion had in fact taken place and then been, as it certainly would have been, successful at least to the extent of capturing London, which is geographically peripheral within its country just as Paris is.

Churchill or whoever might have fled to somewhere or other, although heaven knows where – if Britain had fallen, then America would immediately and understandably have reached the most cordial terms with Germany, with which she was not at war when any such possibility existed.

But if he had ever come back in triumph to a country still legally independent and possessed of her Empire, then that would have been thanks to those who had stayed on and secured that state of affairs, not least against the Laval-like domestic elements that would have wanted incorporation into, and thus also the surrender of the Empire to, the Reich.

It was only thanks to Pétain that there was still a France, as such, for de Gaulle or anyone else to liberate. Had much the same circumstances ever arisen here, then to have done much the same thing would have been infinitely preferable to the only alternative available, not in an ideal world, but in the real world.

There would have been no question of fighting with the Axis, since the War would have been over; the Soviet Union would have come to terms perfectly easily, having started the War as part of the Axis anyway.

Nor would legislation mining the rich seam of French anti-Semitism have been enacted here, since the new government would have been a bulwark against those who wanted it as surely as against those who wanted to go to war against Stalin.

It would have been only thanks to say, Chamberlain, that there would still have been a Britain, as such, for Churchill or anyone else to liberate.

Such things are lost on the neocons of the world, of course. If they were not, then they would not hold the views that they do on Yugoslavia, or Rwanda, or Afghanistan, or Iraq, or so very many other places and subjects.

But grown-ups have no excuse.

11 comments:

  1. Break Dancing Jesus17 June 2010 at 16:51

    More promotion of fascism from a silly little fantacist with a Napolean complex.

    You will be apologising for Victor Emmanuel III next. Oh come to think of it, you have.

    Thank god we have a political system that keeps the likes of you out of it.

    By the way my magnum opus "The Fuhrer of Suburbia" is getting a lot of interest in the publishing houses of London. Keep supplying me the material!

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  2. "In the neoconservative world of perpetual early adolescence

    ...

    But grown-ups have no excuse."

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  3. You wrote: "Leaving aside the question of whether Hitler ever had the slightest intention of invading Britain, and if he did then he inexplicably ignored the open goal in 1943, imagine if such an invasion had in fact taken place."

    You then wrote: "If Britain had fallen, then America would immediately and understandably have reached the most cordial terms with Germany, with which she was not at war when any such possibility existed."

    America declared war on Germany in 1941. You contradict yourself.

    "It was only thanks to Pétain that there was still a France, as such, for de Gaulle or anyone else to liberate."

    France was never going to physically move anywhere. Hitler wasn't going to take out a gigantic erasure and physically remove it from the face of the Earth if Vichy didn't collaborate.

    I would recommend actually reading a couple of history books, then maybe come back to revisit this post.

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  4. Oh, I have read an awful lot of them. I mean proper ones, not silly Churchillolatry (seventieth anniversary of the Lancastria today, but the cult still cannot permit it to be marked).

    I do not see the contradiction to which you refer.

    As for your second, you are very silly or very stupid. If you can, grow up.

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  5. Have you read John Laughland's History of Political Trials?

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  6. Oh, numerous times. Superlative. An invaluable resource.

    We are mercifully living through the beginning of the end of the Soviet-style use of the cult of the War, based on totally false ideas as to why we fought it, as the cover for all the things that in fact resulted from our involvement in it: loss of global role, economic and cultural dependence on the United States, collapse in moral standards, and so on.

    Will BDJ or Roland Hulme be able to live in a Britain which has moved beyond these things by moving beyond the myths surrounding their root cause?

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  7. The German Navy regarded any scheme to invade Britain with contempt and was fully prepared to refuse to participate in that mass suicide, even if that had brought down the regime.

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  8. I have not previously seen anybody saying Hitler could have successfully invaded Britain in 1943. He did not have air cover; he did not have the ships or barges to hand or indeed a navy; he did not even have the troops since they were being turned into mincemeat at the battle of Kursk; & of course having broken their codes we would have known where & when they were coming. I enjoy alternate histories but they have to be viable.

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  9. The German Navy was always of much the same mind.

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  10. David, I LOVE the way you call me silly, stupid and a twit but SPECTACULARLY fail to address the contradiction that I and Neil Craig pointed out.

    History is open to interpretation - but that interpretation needs to be backed by evidence. Otherwise it's just the whimsical mutterings of an intellectual lightweight.

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  11. You haven't read the post. You have both read something that you wanted to be there.

    The interesting, though unsurprising, matter is that it is the same thing in both cases.

    The Cult of the War is coming to an end.

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