Even under this limited heading Marshal Petain finds himself in
a most awkWard position. He was himself Vice-President of the Supreme War Council from 192o to 193o, and retained his membership of that Council until the capitulation. He had been made Inspector of Aerial Defence in 1931 and had been Minister of War in the Doumergue Cabinet of 1934. It is difficult, there- fore, for him to dissociate himself from those whom he is accusing. Moreover, some of his published statements prove that he was wholly unaware of the true conditions of modern warfare. It was Petain who publicly asserted that tanks and aeroplanes could be of no offensive importance and who decried General de Gaulle's theories of mobile warfare as " unsound." It was he who shared the responsibility for rejecting Pierre Cot's demands for a too per cent, increase in the French Air Force, and who asserted that it was unnecessary to fortify Sedan since no mechanised army could pass through the Ardennes. It is thus not surprising that he should regard the Riom trials with personal apprehension, and that he should have instructed Monsieur Caous, the President, to hold most of the sittings in secret. Moreover, the reports printed in the French papers, or permitted on the Paris wireless, are meagre and tendentious in the extreme. When Gamelin refused to speak, and exclaimed, " My higher duty is to keep silent," the Paris wireless attacked him for obscurantism. When Daladier asserted that Germany, and Germany alone, was responsible for this war, Monsieur Dieudonne, on the Paris radio, summarised his evidence as follows: " The full patjiculars given by the State Attorney should have stopped M. Daladier from arguing. But he continued to quibble until the President adjourned the sitting." The farce of Riom may prove a protracted farce, but already the Germans are showing impatience. The Berlin wireless has found it necessary to " unmask " the desire of the Vichy Government " to leave aside the crucial point at issue . . . namely, how the leading French politicians could allow themselves to be thrust by England into a war for which not the slightest reason could be found." Warnings are issued that unless France will consent to release herself from " the influence of the warmongers, Jews and Freemasons," and render Rion a " final purification of the atmosphere," then the policy of collaboration must be regarded as having failed and France will find herself " excluded from the benefits of the New Order." In other words, the French people will, like the Greek people, be starved to death. Will Vichy surrender to these menaces and help Hitler to find an alibi? It is this question which renders the Riom trials so fascinating a subject for observation.
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