MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON position of honour and power. I found wide sympathy for General de Gaulle and the Fighting French and a sense of shame that we should seem to be repudiating those who stood by us in the dangerous days. I found much vague admiration for the spirit of the French people. for the stand made by the Churches against Laval's attempted persecution of the Jews, above all for the fine tragedy of Toulon. Yet the dominant impression which I derived was one of utter bewilderment. How came it that the French, who fired upon their own countrymen at Dakar, who resisted ui so sturdily in Syria and Madagascar, should have surrendered Indo- China without a blow? How could one explain why a fleet, which preferred suicide to surrender, should not have preferred escape to suicide? What could be the frame of mind of those officers and officials in North Africa who, after refusing to budge an inch for Giraud, swung completely over on a whispered word from Darlan? What sense or meaning could be found in a situation in which Darlan urged North Africa to attack Germans in the name of Marshal Petain, while the latter fulminated against Darlan as a traitor and an outlaw? What reliance could be placed upon arrange- ments surrounded by such reservations on either side and concluded in such paradoxical circumstances? And, above all, what did the mass of the French people really desire? Such were some of the many unanswerable questions which I was asked.
Some clue to the enigma can, I feel, be found in an admirable little book which has just been published by the Oxford University Press at 3s. 6d. It is called France and is written by Pierre Maillaud Within the narrow space of some 140 pages the author has sought to provide English readers with a summary of the political and cultural developments which have gone to form the modern French mind He rejects as unimportant or incidental such minor symptoms of malady as the corruption of French politics or the influence exercised at crucial moments by timid, treacherous or superficial minds. He seeks rathe- to analyse the deeper organic causes which rendered France unable to resist the sudden crisis of 1940 He defines the two main factors which have gone to form the French genius as lucidity and balance. The latter quality had led them during the last fifty years to attribute undue importance to the balance between agriculture and industry, with the result that their industry was not sufficiently powerful to create a huge war-potential, whereas their agriculture was not sufficiently scientific to create a fully reliant rural population. Their lucidity, which has given so rich a dividend in the cultural field, has in politics produced a realism verging upon the constantly sceptical. A foreign observer might be tempted to suggest that the clear-sightedness of the French is in fact shortsightedness ; they see with extreme clarity the facts of the situation immediately before them ; but the very intensity of their immediate vision blurs the wider distances ; their realism, in fact, is apt to impede their intuition. The premises which M. Maillaud affirms are probably correct: the conclusions which he either draws or implies are illuminating. He suggests, in fact, that in the average French mind some distinction is drawn between "The State" and "The Nation." The individual Frenchman (and most of them are individualists) is by nature sceptical of, and there- fore hostile to, "The State," as represented by the Government, the tax collector and the politician. Yet beyond all this he has an almost mystical faith in "The Nation," and he is prepared to sur- render his reason to any leader in whom the national instinct is thought to be incorporated.
This duality of feeling, this distinction between lucid distrust of the State and mystic faith in the Nation, does in fact suggest an explanation of the problem why reasonable people should have reposed SO unreasonable a confidence in Marshal Petain. M. Maillaud adds the interesting suggestion that the discredit into
which their political institutions had fallen among Frenchmen was due to the fact that French politicians were so obsessed by "the ideas of 1789," that they never realised that these politicial theorems bore little relation to the social and economic problems of the modern world. In other words, the political machinery, the jigs and tools of the parliamentary workshop, were completely out of date. The unreality of the Chamber of Deputies was infinitely more subversive than its slight and occasional corruption. Given such a duality, given the fact that in 1940 there was every reason to distrust the State and no symbol around which faith in the Nation could be organised, a sudden loss of self-confidence is not inexplicable. And M. Maillaud has the courage to indicate why this loss of confidence assumed panic form. Being unable to organise their faith, the French people were left with the lucidity of their reason ; and the facts which this presented to them were grim indeed. The French, during those early summer weeks of 1940, felt themselves to be out- numbered, overpowered, deserted. For centuries France had been expected by Europe to "live dangerously" and to be the champion of western civilisation against the Teutonic tide. That tide had now overwhelmed them ; the bulwark of the Maginot line had collapsed ; England could not possibly hold out for more than a few heroic weeks ; history had come to her final decision ; Trance must surrender to her fate.
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Is it surprising that a feeling of despair, a sense of terrible loneli- ness, should have gripped the French people at that moment? We in this island, separated from Europe by our gigantic moat, seeing reality dimly through the mists of our optimism, did not assess with similar clarity the proportion of stark power which then loomed over Europe. How many of us realise that of those who were mobilised in the First German War, the French lost 73 per cent, and we only 35.8 per cent.? How many of us at the time were lucidly aware that in 1940 France had only 5! divisions against the 150 divisions of which Hitler disposed? How often do we reflect even that the population of France is a dwindling 42 millions, whereas the popula- tion of the Germanic countries approaches nearly twice that figure? Is it surprising that France in 1940 should have supposed that all was over, and that her only hope lay in preserving some relics of her culture and independence from the flood which had engulfed Europe? A few heroes there were who, sacrificing everything, came over to us almost in a mood of suicide. Many brave men and women there were who, over there, refused collaboration and awaited the last word with sullen acquiescence. But is it so surprising that there should have been many patriotic Frenchmen who believed that Germany had in fact won the war, who saw in the policy of collaboration some hope of saving something of France's tremendous heritage, and who looked with faith and gratitude upon the figure of Marshal Petain as the man who symbolised the Nation and who rendered almost respectable the acceptance of defeat?
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Monsieur Maillaud does not seek to justify this loss of self- confidence ; he wishes only to explain it. His book, brilliantly suggestive though it be, does not provide complete answers to the questions which perplex us. He does, however, furnish a reasoned basis for a better comprehension of the French problem as a whole, He does remind us that Europe in the past has taken France too much for granted, and expected her to assume burdens more galling and more heavy than she can rightly be asked to bear. He does provide us with many clues to the Vichy enigma, and, by his distinction between the State and the Nation, he does suggest a solution to the puzzle of French patriotism. But, above all, he convinces us that France is necessary to Europe, and that Europe in the future must be more wise, more unselfish and more confident in her relations with France.
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