William Tyler
Towards and Into Despair: 1918-1940

William Tyler - Towards and Into Despair: 1918-1940

- I’m going to start by repeating what I said last week, what I’m going to talk about, I’m talking about the French history from 1914, World War I through to 1940, the first full year of the Second World War. Now, I did put a blog on, but I don’t know whether any of you received it. It doesn’t matter. You can get my own blog by going on the internet and reading what I put there. So I’m talking about 1914 to 1940 and Margaret MacMillan, whom we all agreed last time was Canadian and a very great historian, in her book called “The War That Ended Peace,” which is a book about the causes of the first World war, not just with France but across the whole of Europe. She writes in the end, this little few sentences. “On the 4th of August, 1914, what Theodore Roosevelt called ‘That great black tornado’ broke over Europe like a sudden summer storm. The war caught many by surprise, but there was little attempt at first to escape from it. For some Europeans, there was relief that the waiting was over. Comfort even as their societies pulled together.” Now that’s very, very much the case in France. The left and the right in France and remember, France always has an extreme left and extreme right as well. They did join together in this national crusade against the invading Germans. They also welcomed the war because what has been sticking in the French throat since the end of the Franco-Prussian war in 1871, is that they’d lost the province of Alsace-Lorraine and its capital city of Strasbourg to the Germans. So they wanted revenge for World War I.

They wanted to recapture Alsace-Lorraine, and they did so on a tide of nationalism. And at the beginning, as Margaret McMillan tells us, it looked as though that might happen and she writes this, “In those first weeks of the war, it looked as though Europe might just be spared its doom. If Germany defeated France quickly, Russia might well decide to make peace in the east and Britain might reconsider its commitment to fight. Even if the French people decided to fight on as they had done in 1870, they would in the end be obliged to capitulate. As the German forces pass through Belgium and Luxembourg on their way to northern France, the German war plans appear to be unfolding as they should.” But not quite because Belgium resisted and Belgium had large fortifications, for example, at Liege, they didn’t take Liege until the 7th of August. That’s three days after the invasion had begun. Then they were left with 12 more of these fortifications in Belgium to take. “The German army on the right wing, which was to swoop to Huy at war, to river Meuse, towards a channel, and then swings out towards Paris and bring victory for the German army, was weaker and slower than had been planned.” But why? Well, the Germans had made a classic mistake. They’d opened the war on two fronts.

Against France in the west and against Russia in the east and although the tsarist army was certainly not up to the standard of the German army, it managed to break through into German lands itself and the lands it broke into were Prussian, Prussia and Prussia is the very heart, remember the emperor Germany is also King of Prussia, and this just stuck in the gullet of the high command of the Germans, both military and political, and they decided that they would redraw some of the troops on the western front to push the Russians out on, out of Germany on the eastern front, which they did succeed in doing, but in succeeding to push Russia out, they were unable to push the Anglo-French forces out of Northern France and unlike 1870 and unlike 1940, Paris did not fall and as we know, it then developed into this horrific war of attrition, of trench warfare. It was something very strange and very new. It moved from a speech made by Clemenceau, the French politician and he remarked one day after the war had begun, that is to say on the 5th of August, 1914, he said this, I need to change my glasses for this if you don’t mind. I’ve got very small print that my ordinary glasses won’t pick up and Clemenceau said on the 5th of August “And now to arms,” or at least, sorry, “All of us, now to arms all of us. I have seen weeping among those who cannot go first. Everyone’s term will come. There not be a child of our land who will not have a part to play in this enormous struggle. To die is nothing, we must win and for that we need all men’s power. The weakest will have his share of glory.

There come times in the lives of nations when their passes over them a tempest of heroic action.” Well that sounds in the light of what is to come, so dated. It sounds so 19th century, because by 1918 when the war ends, there are 2 million French dead, many wounded, and much of northern France turned into a desert. In particular its industrial base, that is France’s industrial base. 1914 saw the battle of the Meuse which, but sorry, the battle of a Marne, put my other glasses on. This is driving me mad today. 1914 saw the battle of the Marne and Germans were held back, held back so that they could not take Paris and never did take Paris in the first war. In April, 1915 at Ypres, the first battle of Ypres, the Germans used gas for the first time and that reminded us that this is a new type of war, the first technological war. There’s submarines, there’s aircraft, there’s tanks, and there is most of all machine guns and of course gas. Gas must be a dreadful thing to face coming towards you from the enemy. This was a war out of the worst imaginations of the science fiction writers in the first decade of the 20th century. The New York Times reported on the gas used at Ypres in April, 1915 and it goes like this, “The Gassiest vapour, which the Germans used against the French divisions near Ypres last Thursday, contrary to the rules of the Hay Convention,” the rules on how to conduct war, which the nations had hoped would be the beginning of a modern age, introduced a new element into warfare. The attack of last Thursday evening was preceded by the rising of a cloud of vapour, greenish-gray and iridescent, mustard gas. That vapour settled to the ground like a swamp mist and drifted towards the French trenches on a brisk wind.

Its effect on the French was a violent nausea and faintness followed by an utter collapse. It is believed that the Germans who charged him behind the vapour met no resistance at all as the French at the front being virtually paralysed, those who were not dead.“ The following year, war continues, 1960 and saw some of the worst fighting for France of the whole war in the battle of Verdun, but out of that battle in the defence of Verdun, stood one extraordinary French general by the name of Petain and after the war they erected a huge, more than life size model, no statue of Petain on the battlefield at Verdun, but for us, for us today, Petain name is surrounded by infamy, ‘cause Petain, the hero of Verdun becomes the leader of Vichy, fascist France during World War II and I’ll say much more about Petain next time. 1917, dawns and there’s still no end in sight. The terrible suffering of French soldiers led to mutinies among some 40,000 French troops and before anyone asked, there was also mutinies amongst British troops and the horror of that is that some of these men, well, pretty well all of the men who began to mutiny were suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, which we recognise today, but at the time was shot, French and British. About 40,000 French mutiny.

The French government in Paris made Petain commander in chief, because he was trusted by the men and they thought if they put Petain charge, he would end the mutinies which he did and he improved conditions for many of the men in the trenches and he provided better food, he provided more time away from the French line, from the front line and then finally 1917, sees the arrival of the first American troops to enter the war. A critical moment, because 1917 also saw the withdrawal of Russia from the war once Lenin and the Bolsheviks had seized power in the October revolution of 1917 and so there was no eastern front for the Germans to fight the Russians, but with the arrival of the Americans, the die is cast, why? Not particularly because of the numbers of American troops, but the possibility of even more American troops sailing across to fight in the war, but most importantly of all war material pouring out of American factories and a booster morale amongst the French and British forces who’ve been engaged in this war since August, 1914. It’s interesting to note, and this is something that very often British people don’t note. The American losses, although far fewer than the French and the British losses were nevertheless at the same rate because the Americans were only in the war for just over a year, but their losses in percentage terms were exactly the same. In fact, the Americans had more losses, which were really nothing to do with the war, by the end of 1918 because so many of the boys put on ships to come to Europe to fight died of flu and President Wilson’s promise to the Mothers of America that every boy will be brought home, whether dead or alive meant nothing because they simply sewed the bodies up in the canvas on the ships and dropped them into the Atlantic.

It was dreadful, it was truly dreadful and the reason being that the American boys were all brought to camps on the east coast to train and then be sent to Europe and although they said none of the boys were to leave camp, because of the flu, unbelievably, they said officers could leave camps and the officers left for meals, meet girls or whatever, and they brought the flu back into the camps and the rest, as they say is history. Finally, the war ends in November, 1918. Not because of enormous victory by now, the three allies, France, Britain, and America. Then there’s no taking of Berlin. In fact, Germany imploded behind the scenes, revolution hit the streets. The Kaiser abdicated and the army is forced not technically to surrender, but to sign an armistices. In fact, there’s little difference in the end between the armistices the surrender. France, led by its Prime minister, George Clemenceau, demanded revenge on the Germans. The British Prime minister, Lloyd George pretty well sided at the beginning with Clemenceau. Why should the Germans be shown any, any sort of leniency whatsoever? But the Wilson remember is an academic, the head of Princeton, and like all academics, he’s prepared for the conference. I don’t suppose you’re George Clemenceau prepared before about five minutes before they went in, but Wilson has all of these things written on paper and he’s written 14 points, 14 points to which Clemenceau is reported to have said whether he actually said, it comes in various versions what he said, but on one version he is prepared to say 14 points for goodness sake.

Even God only had 10 commandments and then on another occasion that, he wrote or said, "God gave us 10 commandments and we broke those.” Wilson gives us 14 points. We shall see. In effect at the end there’s a sort of compromise. Wilson’s great idea, the League of Nations have accepted, although of course as all the Americans listening, know Congress refused to endorse it and Wilson ends his days as president, seriously ill. In fact, so Ill that in truth, when we get the first American female president she’ll be the second, because Mrs. Wilson was really running the government and if you went to the White House, say you were a senator or whatever, and you go to the White House for a meeting with the president to ask a very important political question, you’re told to wait a few moments. The president is too busy to see you or too ill to see you and Mrs. Wilson will come out. Mrs. Wilson comes out and you ask her the question and then she goes off probably to have a cup of coffee or something, because she certainly isn’t engaging with her husband who is not able to engage with her and then she comes back and says, the president says, but in fact it means Mrs. Wilson says. So when the American gets its first female president, please, please remember the tremendous Mrs. Wilson and she was tremendous And back in Europe, the French have pretty well gained what they wanted to in the Treaty of Versailles, which he signed, the Germans are humiliated and this is what the rough history of France says about the German humiliation. “The upshot was a series of provisions that left Germany, which had not been invited to participate.”

They were present, but they weren’t participating as France had done with the defeat of Napoleon, at Vienna in 1814, 15. “The upshot was a series of provisions that left Germany, which had not been invited to participate, feeling betrayed and discriminated against. Its colonies were forfeit to the Allies.” Well, basically that means France and Britain took over German possessions in Africa and in Asia. “Alsace-Lorraine were to be returned to France and the Rhineland,” this area of dispute, “the Rhineland was to be demilitarised. All this was bad enough, but worse was the war guilt clause, which declared Germany the aggressor and thus Germany was made to pay reparations. This was not what the Germans had been led to expect. When the armistice were signed. The huge sum of money required in 1921, was set at $30 billion” in the money of the 1920s, $30 billion. “It was never possible to repay it and it proved a source of fierce resentment in Germany.” Most historians now agree that this harsh peace forced upon Germany by France, supported largely by Britain and America washes its hands of Europe and only once really in the end, the League of Nations, which Wilson really believed, truly believed would prevent war in the future, which of course it did not and of course this ill feeling in Germany provides the soil in which Nazism can grow and Hitler can take power in 1933. Lessons were learned in Britain and in America that, that was not the way to conduct a peace conference or to settle a world war and in 1945 we did quite differently, well at least as regards West Germany and the French had to accept, not basically the British view, but the French had to accept the American view of the structures of West Germany and we supported it.

Money, mainly American money, expertise a lot of British expertise in, for example, in setting up democratic trade unions for example, a former principal of the college I was principal at, a long time ago in Manchester was part of that deification programme, but most importantly was Churchill who argued vociferously for this situation that we must deal differently. Churchill said, “In war, resolution. In defeat, defiance. In victory, magnanimity. In peace, goodwill.” And he used that as the frontispiece for volume two of his history of the second world war and he headed this in war resolution in defeat defiance, in victory, magnanimity, in peace, goodwill. He headed that whole thing in the forward as moral of the work, the moral of the book. Resolution, defiance, magnanimity, goodwill. That’s Churchill. He’d learnt the lesson and the outcome of that was that West Germany became very democratic and when East Germany collapsed, then in the 1990s a unified Germany remained as West Germany had been since 1945, a democratic nation and Germany hadn’t been democratic since the 1920s before the takeover by the Nazis, the Weimar Republic. So the war has ended, and in France and in Britain, but particularly in France, the overwhelming feeling was one, not of huge success, but one of sheer exhaustion. When I was a child in Bristol in the west country, there were still men from the First World War, sat on the streets without arms or without legs, begging, selling nothing really, selling very little, matches mainly or combs anything, with all their medals and I don’t suppose as a child I fully appreciated it, but I do remember on the 11th of November, Armistices day, every year I was taken into the city centre in Bristol where there was a parade because they linked it to the appointment of the new Lord Mayor of Bristol who arrived in a beautiful 18th century golden coach and lots of soldiers, but particularly lots of wounded from World War I.

So even as a child, I became aware of the First World War. People still, in the 1950s were damaged by that war. Those that are fortunate, physically damaged, mentally damaged, but the populations as a whole that had lived through it, damaged in a way that World War II was not viewed and it’s a very difficult question to ask, why? Now after all, very little of Britain was bombed in World War I and my city of Bristol had its mediaeval heart torn out in one night, in 1941 during the blitz, but somehow that pulled people together and there was a spirit of defiance. Whereas in the first war, you simply got a letter informing you that your husband, your son, your nephew or whoever was killed in action on the western front and many young women never married because their young men were no longer there. I have an aunt, a great aunt whose boyfriend was shot on the western front and she was one of those unmarried women left behind by the First World War and I didn’t know that until after she died and I looked back on it and I think how terribly sad, but in France, France had lost 2 million, but more than that it had lost civilians in a way that Britain had not done and it had the northern half of France absolutely mangled by the war. You can still find reports in the press here of ploughing in northern France where they come across a first world war bomb still. It’s, or a body that had never been recovered and if it’s got its dog tag on, they can identify the body and then whether French or British or indeed American, it’s then given an honourable burial, but there are so many missing men from that war and in France, what happened in France? Well, I mentioned the crisis in terms of the industry of France made worse by the great crash of 1929 and then made worse in the early thirties by the economic downturn.

So across the two allied European countries of Britain and France, the late twenties and early thirties were dominated by problems of economics leading to strikes and so forth, leading in Britain to the first labour government and in France, too, many governments unable to control the situation as indeed was the case in Britain. Political instability is the name of the game in France. This is Jenkins history of France and I’ve chosen just to read a paragraph because it’s the quickest way of being able to tell you what was happening and Jenkins write, “A pointer to the political instability of the time in France is the turnover, not only of governments, but of leading personalities. There was the assassination, the so socialist leader, Jean Jaures in 1914, and that of President Doumer in 1932, not to mention the wounding of Clemenceau himself during the peace conference. There were disappearances tinge with scandal. To the memory of the terminal heart attack of President Felix Faure in 1899 due to the immoderate.” I love this, “Due to the Immoderate administrations of his mistress,” what a way to go, but no, no, no, no, no, “To the immoderate administrations for mistress was added the curious case of the disturbed man found wandering along a railway line in bare feet and in his pyjamas in 1920. He said, 'I’m the president of the republic.’” He was, he’d simply lost it and he was Paul Deschanel. So I, if Britain had problems, France had farther greater problems, but Jenkins says, “But a more ominous sign of future instability was the splitting into two of the socialists at their conference at tour, following the setting up by Lenin of the third communist international, Comintern in 1919.

The larger go hide off to become the Communist party, French Communist Party. The lesser group remained as a socialist party, but still retained a broad Marxist analysis, but opted instead for a gradualist, reformist, social democratic approach, rather from the revolutionary approach aligned to the fluctuations of policy in Moscow.” Now, if you are listening from Britain, these are far, these two parties are far to the left of the British Labour party of the time and if you are living in America, it doesn’t bear any relationship to American politics between Democrats and Republicans. This is far lefties policy and this split was replicated amongst French unions and there was also a split in the right of the party as well, in the right of French politics. In other words, there were huge splits in France, from the left, which you would’ve thought would’ve been the protectors of the republic and all it stood for from the 18th century and on the right there were still monarch parties. It was not a happy political situation, it wasn’t a happy political situation here in Britain, but in France it was dreadful, but on the other hand, social life was quite different. This is the era of Gay Paree. Now, if you wanted to live it up in the 1890s, then I would’ve gone to Vienna. If I wanted to live it up in the 1920s and thirties. I’d have gone to Paris, Gay Paree, the French call it, The mad years. It was a sense of keep dancing and the memories will fade away. Of course with it that the same thing applies in Britain too. Dancing, the dancing was the in thing of young people and films as well. Now a mainstay of society and films and dancing was a way for an hour or two to forget that I only have one arm, to forget that I had two sibling brothers, who are no longer there.

It was a way of coping and Jenkins writes this of this extraordinary period, the Mad Years of France and he says this, “With the war over and France entering its Annees folles, the mad years, Paris reverted to its dual role as cultural capital and gay Paris. The writers and artists moved from Monmach to Montparnasse. Coco Chanel displayed her fashions, the Moulin Rouge and Folies Bergère featured Ms. Tanguay or the American Josephine Baker and with the increasing availability of radios and gramophone records, the whole country could now hum the latest jazz tune or listen to Lucienne Boyer singing "Parlez‐moi d'amour.” People tried to forget. People tried to forget. Forgetting isn’t always a sensible thing. You need to come to terms with what has happened then having come to terms and done something about it, you can park all those memories in a box. While the first World War was so horrific, it’s very, very difficult, if impossible to convey now what a shock it was to Europe. The states, of course had had the American Civil War Europe simply learned nothing, even though at Sanders the British, the British training plays for officers, the American civil wars taught as it was in France at Sansa officer training for the French and British officers, they had American war taught to them, and yet they never. Think about the trenches outside Gettysburg.

They never thought, the French sent the cavalry in against machine guns at the beginning of the war, as I read at the end of the last talk I gave. They simply wanted to forget and then you add in the economic collapse so that the politicians desperately trying to deal with that and then I’ve written here in short, “France was a country unprepared when Hitler took part in 1933 and the Nazis seized power.” They were unprepared to cope with the drumbeat of war that could be heard in the Chancelleries of Berlin. Jenkins writes this, that France was divided. He says it did not take much to inflame the inbuilt division in post-revolutionary French society. Some supported Nazi-Germany, some certainly did not. France United in August, 1914, is by 1933 disunited. Disunited to an extent that I think even the French at the time had no idea how it would end. A mere seven years later in 1940, Both France and Britain pursued a policy of appeasement and they did so for the best of reasons. We cannot send another generation of our young people to die in a horrific technological war as we did in 1914. We simply cannot do it and we must appease Germany. We must give into Germany. We must concede to Germany, because the alternative is too grim to look at. Now of course we know that appeasement doesn’t work. We know appeasement doesn’t work. It was Kipling who said, “You can pay the dame” thinking about Sax in England, “You can pay the Dane, Danegeld, but you can never get rid of the Dane” and you could never get rid of Nazi-Germany by giving in and there’s a whole series of events. but first of all is the SAAR, S-A-A-R, plebiscite.

In 1935, the British historian H.A.L Fisher wrote, “A country which is determined to have a war can always have it and by 1935, Hitler is determined to have a war. Now, the Treaty of Versailles had put the SAAR under the control of the League of Nations for 15 years,” 1920, plus 15, 1935. “Then the inhabitants, those living in the SAAR could vote where they wanted to go, France or Germany, and they voted overwhelmingly for Germany” and many historians today cite that as the first step to World War II. “Then Germany introduced conscription in 1935, which broke, absolutely broke the terms of the Treaty of Versailles” and France together with Britain did nothing. Appease Germany, they won’t use those troops against us. Then thirdly, there was the Rhineland. Hitler invaded the Rhineland in March, 1936 that again broke the Treaty of Versailles, but he was just testing. He only sent 22,000 soldiers in and they were told if there is any French or British resistance, you are to stop and return to Germany, but there was no French resistance, no British resistance and Germany took the Rhineland. We did nothing. Fourthly, there was Austria in 1938, Hitler simply annex Austria as another part of Germany, not as a separate country, the Anschluss and many of you listening maybe are Austrian-Jews and the horrors of the Holocaust are to come, but they began in 1938.

That also broke the Treaty of Versailles and again, France along with Britain did nothing. Then in 1938, France and Britain negotiate with Hitler at Munich, and Hitler was well, he had been stoking up trouble with the Sudeten Germans, in Czechoslovakia. They appeased Hitler, mainly Chamberlain, followed by the French and they said, you can take the Sue Dayton land because it’s German, which of course he did. Then on the 15th of March, 1939, Nazi troops take the whole of Czechoslovakia and the scales fell from the eyes of the politicians in Paris and in London. How do they now stop Hitler? In summer 1935, Hitler begins negotiations with the Russians to keep them out of the war, which he’s intending to fight in the West, instead of which he proposes that they divide Poland between them. This is the final straw. France and Britain declare that they will support Poland, but neither country is in a position to promise that, either singly or together. It’s a hollow promise. The so-called Polish guarantee that France and Britain gave. On the 1st of September, 1938, Germany invades Poland on the 3rd of September, France and Britain go to war with Germany, because of its invasion of Poland. Too late for France and barely enough time for Britain. Too late for France, barely enough time for Britain. In less than a year, France surrendered to the all conquering Germans. The German forces defeated Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands and crossed into France and fight a very short war between the 10th of May, 1940 and the 25th of June, 1940, which we now call French and British alike, The Battle of France. The Germans using modern technology, armoured units pushed through the Arden, which the French had said was impregnable, but they did it.

The Maginot line, which had been constructed by the French, had simply been ignored. They came round the side of the Maginot line. Maginot line was protecting the Atlantic to create a communications and a channel for troops and so on between France and Britain, but they forgot about the Arden, because they didn’t believe anybody could go through it, but the Germans went through it and then of course, in early June, disaster upon disaster, there is the defeat and retreat from Dunkirk, not just British troops, but French troops and Belgium troops and Dutch and so on, but mainly British. This extraordinary, extraordinary thing that happened, the small ships along with the Royal Navy and with all sorts of shipping went out. When I was a child, we used to have family holidays in the west of England on the coast at the seaside resort of Torque and we always went out on one of the trips around the bay on the boat, you know, and but we always had to go on one boat, which was the Skylar, because the Skylar had been at Dunkirk and it had a plaque saying that it had rescued troops from Dunkirks and that was the one we had to go on and as disaster descends upon France, France accuses Britain, first of all, of withdrawing the Spit fire squadrons and that still is a matter of enormous concern by some French people. Of course, from a British point of view, Churchill had no choice. We didn’t have enough Spitfires to defend Britain and so to withdraw the Spitfires from France before they were taken by the Germans made sense.

In fact, I was told the story by one man who was there that he took a split fire up from a French aerodrome to attack the Germans and when he returned to the aerodrome, the aerodrome, had already surrendered to the Germans and of course the French accused the British of leaving France to it at Dunkirk. The British point of view is if we had not been able to withdraw our troops from Dunkirk, Britain itself would’ve fallen and how long would it have been, even if possible, in the 1940s for America to re-concur Britain and France without a European base? It, I don’t know that it was even possible, even if the Americans had wanted to, was it possible. The French army and the French government was collapsing by the minute in front of British eyes, in France itself and in the eyes of the British cabinet in London. The British government was now headed by Churchill from May, 1940 and Churchill, it was who’d organised Dunkirk and Churchill now has a plan, wasn’t his plan, it was a plan of others in the cabinet and he embraced it fully and the plan was to offer for the length of the war, total union between France and Britain, that we would fight side by side to the end and Churchill himself wrote to this, and I’m going to read just two passages from Churchill. The first goes like this, and this is Churchill.

“In these days, the war cabinet were in a state of unusual emotion. The fall and the fate of France dominated their minds. Our own plight and what we should have to face and face alone, seems to take a second place. Grief for our ally in her agony and desire to do anything in human power to aid her, was the prevailing mood. There was also the overpowering importance of making sure the French fleet,” which in the end, Churchill gave orders to be sunk port in Africa for fear that it would go over to the Germans. That’s another incident at Iran that the French can never forgive. “It was in this spirit that a proposal for an in dissolvable union between France and Britain was conceived and it of course, as you well know, came to nothing, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. The final scene in Monsieur Reynaud” the Prime Minister, Monsieur Reynaud’s cabinet was as follows, The hopes, which Monsieur Reynaud had founded upon the Declaration of Union.“ He had supported Churchill and he was presenting this document to keep France in the war, "Was soon dispelled rarely has so generous, a proposal encountered such a hostile reception. The Premier read the document twice to the council. He declared himself strongly for it and added that he was arranging a meeting with me for the next day to discuss the details, but the agitated ministers, some famous, some nobodies, torn by division and under the terrible hammer of defeat were staggered. Some we are told or heard about it by tapping of telephones. These were the defeaters.

Most were wholly unprepared to receive such far-reaching themes, the overwhelming feeling if the council was to reject the whole plan. Surprise and mistrust dominated the majority and even the most friendly and resolute were baffled.” All those centuries of war with Britain had taken their toll and now this serious proposal from the British cabinet was not really debated at all and instead the French accepted the German terms of surrender. “On the 22nd of June, 1940, a second armistices was signed between France and Germany, like the armistices of 1918.” A new government came into power, a government led by the hero of Verdun Petain, the Vichy government" because it met in the town of Vichy, a fascist government. The third Republic dies. What it didn’t quite as I shall say in a moment, the third Republic dies, is what the history books say and Vichy France takes over, except it doesn’t. Except it doesn’t, because they were only given in broad terms, the south of France, whilst Germans ruled the north of France, including Paris directly under German command. It’s an appalling moment, is this surrender of France? The establishment of a French government, which is a tool of the Nazis and a nasty fascist government. Just think of the Holocaust and the Holocaust in France, Trudy is going to talk to you about, at some point in the near future.

I said the third Republic didn’t really die, why not? Because one general, the only general in the French army who had pushed the Germans back, de Gaulle was flown by the British here to Britain and de Gaulle had been made a minister at the, in the last days of the Third Republic, and he was the only minister of the third Republic to be free to act and de Gaulle acted. He declared himself the leader of free France politically and militarily, here in exile, in London. So it isn’t quite dead, is this idea of the Glory of France, it’s encapsulated in this man, de Gaulle. De Gaulle is an extraordinary figure in 20th century French history and I shall talk a lot more about de Gaulle in the next two, the last two talks of this series. So de Gaulle is here, French troops who escaped mainly from Dunkirk are also here and Britain is left to fight on alone for itself, for France and for the rest of free Europe. Indeed, what Churchill wrote was this. Get the right page. “After the collapse of France, the question which arose in the minds of all our friends and foes was, will Britain surrender too?” This is Churchill writing. “So far as public statements count in the teeth of events I had in the name of his Majesty’s government repeatedly declared our resolve to fight on alone. After Don Kirk on the 4th of June, I had used the expression, ‘if necessary for yours, if necessary alone.’ This was not inserted without design and the French ambassador in London had been instructed the next day to inquire what I actually meant.” He was told exactly what Mr. Churchill said, “We will, if necessary, fight on alone.” Churchill wrote, “What General Reagan called The Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization.

Upon it depends, our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our empire. The whole fury might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad sunlit uplands.” Favourite phrase of Churchills, “But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age, made more sinister and perhaps more protracted by the lights of perverted science. Let us, therefore, he told us in Britain, let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves that if the British empire and its commonwealth lasts for a thousand years, men will still say this was their finest hour.” Churchill knew from that very moment, although of course he never put it in quite those words, but we know that’s what he believed, that we could not win this war. What we had to do was hold on until the United States was persuaded by its President FDR to come into the war as a full ally, only then would we be in a position to free France, except of course that de Gaulle is here in Britain and de Gaulle is determined, as equally as Churchill that this war will be won and is equally clear that it has to be the Americans coming in that enable us to do that, but he has every intention that the French will free the French and that’s a story for next time in 1944, but I want finish, this is Noel Barber’s book.

It’s an old book, but it’s on my book list on the blog. It’s called The Week France fell. I’ve done a separate book list for you on the blog and he talks about how the French kept going and they kept going because they had radio. They weren’t loud radios, but there they are, they’re putting the radio on and Barbara write, “Inspiration soon came in the ringing tones of de Gaulle and magnificent it was, but to the victims of a fearful plague, the clinical promises of eventual recovery are not enough. They need the comforting pat on the back of the family doctor, the consoling words of the village curate, urging them to be in good heart during the pain that will follow, but promising in homely words that they will recover. In short, they need a friend.” de Gaulle is always grand, you see. The people of occupied France found that friend in someone who wasn’t grand, who didn’t play the grand hero, but an ordinary man, an extraordinary ordinary man. The people of occupied France found that friend in Churchill. He pointed out that since their only salvation lay in following the advice that they must, they must resist, which is what de Gaulle said, in any way they could. Churchill says, “Barbara never fores swore his love of France and never put them out of his mind during even the darkest days. In October, 1940 during the German blitz on London, he himself broadcasted to France.” All over France, people listened to Churchill. He had an appalling accent. As bad as mine but he insisted on giving it in French. he said, Churchill and then still in French, he carried on “For more than 30 years in peace and war, I’ve marched with you and I’m marching still along the same road.”

He told them of the blitz, “Deathly,” he inserted a shaft of humour. “We are waiting for the long promised invasion, he boomed, so are the fishes, he said. He promised his French friends at Britain would never stop” and this is the direct quote from Churchill’s broadcast “That Britain would never stop, never weary,” and never give in and finally, like a father giving comfort to an adopted family he loves, Churchill, told them now quietly, he was such a brilliant speaker and he lowers his voice for this final farewell and he said, “Goodnight, sleep to gather strength for the morning.” It’s exactly what you might say to a child. “Goodnight, sleep to gather strength for the morning. For the morning will come, brightly will it shine on the brave and true, kindly upon all who suffer for the cause, glorious upon the tunes of heroes, thus will shine the dawn” he ended. Next time and if you haven’t got the details, I’m not speaking next Monday, because it’s Boxing Day here, day after Christmas day and I’ve been allowed off on Boxing Day. In fact, I’m, be spending it with the grand new children. I shall be back not on the Monday, but I shall be back on the 5th of January, which is a Thursday and then the final talk about France will be the following Monday. So I’m back on Thursday the fifth, and then finally the next Monday brings an end to the French course. So just to make that completely clear, I wonder if I’ve got any, oh, what a surprise. I’ve got lots of questions and lots of comments.

Q&A and Comments:

Somebody’s written, I’m sure Wendy can read that as well. Saying, “Great to see Wendy in the sunlight.”

I like, I’m please, you like my rather slazy Christmas jumper.

Somebody said, would I do, Yes, I would, when a time arises, it will be appropriate. Oh. Yes.

Hang on. Somebody said, who is this? Martin, hello Martin. Hi. “Surely the French Versailles wanted Alsace-Lorraine back after Britain.” Yes, they did and they got it back. If I said something that was misleading, I didn’t mean to and that was fine. It’s really the reparations, which were the real problem. Although of course Hitler is able to use Alsace-Lorraine as well.

Q: “What percentage of adult French males died?”

A: I hadn’t got that figure in my head Joe, I’m sorry. You you can Google it, I’m sure. I just don’t have that in my head.

Nicholas says, you absolutely right, Nicholas. World War I was the first to be impacted by the use of the railway. In particular on the eastern front, where the Russians were able to deploy so quickly, because of the railway, less so in terms of Northern France and at demand, they sent troops from Paris to the battlefield in Paris, in Parisian taxes but you are right and outside of Europe, yes, the railway is important, for example, in the Middle East.

Q: Why did the US join World War One in 1917?

A: Because of the attacks on shipping, because of the telegram they’d intercepted, which looked as though Mexico might come into the war against America and because finally with the overthrow of the tzarist regime, and before the communists come to power, those who had fled tzarist Russia would now support the war and Roosevelt felt confident, sorry, Wilson felt confident to put the vote, to put the vote to Congress before that Wilson was hesitant.

Yes, Dennis, you are right. People want to read fiction. Pat Barker’s regeneration trilogy is an excellent breed. Absolutely agree with that.

My gods Canadian troops later at Ypres, who urinated into their handkerchiefs to resist poison gas and were able to continue fighting the Germans. Absolutely true and that was one of the things that you could do to prevent the gas getting into your lungs. My god, it sounds appalling and Marilyn.

Q: Oh, why didn’t the vice president assume?

A: Because they didn’t have that sort of, convention is the right word in the States at the time. The vice president would’ve taken over if he died, but there was no way Mrs. Wilson was going to allow him to do that.

Yes, France paid money in 1871.

Why France should have giving up the same in 1918. Yes, yes, yes, all of that is true but it’s the consequences of the harshness of Versailles, which is pointed to one of the other harshness is, of the end of the war, is that Lloyd George blocked, continued the blockade of Germany leading to a huge famine across Germany whilst in World War II we sent food into Germany. The reason that Lloyd George blocked the food was there wasn’t enough food in Britain. The food is coming from the states, and he, it came to Britain and not to Germany and that was a mistake and that mistake was not followed in 1945.

Angino, you’re quite right. It was France who insisted it’s Clemenceau who is at the height of wanting huge reparations against Germany. In the end, Wilson concedes most of Clemenceau’s points, although Clemenceau saying, at one point said, “He wanted to reduce Germany to a agricultural mediaeval state.” In other words, he wanted to destroy German machinery and industry. He was not allowed to do that by Wilson and Lloyd George’s position changed from being supportive of Clemenceau, to being supportive of Wilson because the information he was getting from London was that he was losing political support and that unless he backed the Americans, he was likely to lose votes in the general election.

Yes, you are right about smuts. He was, yes, Carol, you are absolutely right about smuts. He was, an interesting man was smuts. Our enemy in the Boer war and then really so important in World War II as well as World War I, though smuts is interesting.

Angela. Oh, Angela, that’s interesting. She writes, “I never got any further than the first World War, the Imperial War Museum in London. I could never get over the sheer waste for basically no good reason.” Well, the good reason for Britain, which was articulated by an interesting let by George VI, as well as Churchill, was that it was nothing to do with poor little Belgium, which is what most of us learned at school. Absolute nonsense. What we said was, if France fell, Britain would be next. Better to fight in northern France than in the hot fields of Kent. That is why we went to war and that had been British foreign policy since the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, who herself had said words to the effect that if the French Coast is in the hands of the enemy, then Britain will be next. We fought because Germany and France were at war. We had to fight, anything else would’ve let us be, well, France would’ve been defeated because France was politically defeated anyhow. France would’ve been military defeated and there would’ve been nothing to stop the Kaiser invading Britain or offering terms, which were totally unacceptable. So better to fight in France and as it happened, we were able to fight in France, unlike World War II.

Avril, “My great uncle in the Canadian army during the Great War was wounded and received the military cross from George Fifth at Buckingham Palace.” Fantastic. “He carried the shrap.” Yeah, this is some of the awful, “He carried the shrapnel in his body until his passing in 1974.” They did, The medicine of the First World War was not that much better, to be honest than in the Napoleonic Wars.

I wonder whether, Catherine says, “I wonder whether the first World War had a greater effect on the British people because there was no imminent danger of invasion and occupation. Instead, our boys were sent to contain the German army in the mud of Flanders. The losses and casualties were so great, the price for Britain elusive.” That’s a very good point. We would have to argue.

Peter, “The Maginot line was built, between the two wars and de Gaulle was actually involved with the, with pushing that project forward. General Pershing, that is the American commander in chief from 1917 to the end of war, told the victors that they should march through Berlin triumphantly to reinforce the victory. Otherwise, the Germans would say they’d been stabbed in the back and had not lost the war.” That’s true. I met a lady, ooh, about 10 years or more ago, whose father knew Marshal Foch. Now, at the end of the war, Marshal Foch was in charge of the Allied armies of Britain and France. The British generals were subservient to Foch. Pershing refused to be subservient of Foch. The idea was that Britain and America would serve under Foch. Pershing refused to serve, the British accepted it, mainly because the British politicians really didn’t have much time for Hague. So Foch led it. Now, I met a lady whose father was a personal friend of Foch and asked Foch “Why did you let press on to Berlin?” And his answer, according to this student of mine was, “There have been too many deaths already” and that’s the answer that Pershing would’ve been told. We cannot do it. Now remember that Pershing’s only been in the war a year. He’s not gone through with his army the four years and more that the British and French had gone through. They simply couldn’t go on, but the outcome is exactly as you say. They talk about the stab in the back, but in the back is the way the Nazis portrayed the German revolutionist over through the Kaiser, they said, and the Nazis played it, these are socialists and Jews that made Germany lose the first war and not a surprising accusation from the Nazis.

“You mentioned that France was not prepared for World War II, I do not think England prepared as well.” Well, we had those who want to be supportive of Chamberlain say he bought us a year and 1938 to 39, without that year, we would’ve been in a terrible state, but it was Churchill that really made the difference. Churchill appointed Macmillan to look at supplies and MacMillan later prime minister went into the war office or wherever he was, and the civil servant came in and very super silliously he said, “Oh, prime minister, where would you like us to begin?” And Macmillan putting down his copy of that day’s times and drinking his cup of tea, said to the senior civil servant, “Bring me Mr. Lloyd George’s box from the First World War.” Oh, prime Minister. Oh, rather, “Oh, minister, I don’t think we can find it.” And so Macmillan said, “Go and find it and bring it.” So very reluctantly, the senior civil servant went away and a couple of hours later, he comes back with this big box from World War I with all the notes that Lloyd George had been used when Minister of Munitions and the civil servant says, again, really super silliously to Macmillan, “Well sir, there it is. What do you want me to do with it?” And Macmillan in that fantastic voice of his said, “Implement it, dear boy. Implement it.” And that was it and Macmillan went on reading the Times. I love Macmillan.

Q: Oh, “what happened to the Czech Germans at the end of the war?”

A: That’s quite a different story and I can’t really go down there. It’s not, I can’t do it in a sentence or two, many Germans stayed, many got out, Czechoslovakia is formed, but it is a client state of Russia. That’s another story for another day.

No, Edward VIII had nothing to do with Britain. Edward VIII, remember, Shelly is the king. He has no political power. The fact that he was pro Nazi is because of Mrs. Simpson was pro-Nazi. He was pro-German, after all, he is German, but the Nazi bit comes from Mrs. Simpson. Remember, they spent some of their honeymoon with Hitler at Berchtesgaden when Edward inspected an SS on a guard. It’s a dreadful story. I’ll have to talk about Edward VIII and Mrs. Simpsons sometime.

Q: What was the phoney war?

A: The phoney war is before, is 1939 September through until the invasion of Norway when we send troops to Norway to face the Germans in Norway, before that, it’s a phoney war because nothing much happens and then it all lets loose in 1940.

Q: “Could you repeat the Kipling quote?”

A: Oh, dear, you would ask me to do that because I was quoting from, I was quoting from memory and I would sooner quote the real thing. Just give me a second and I’ll see if I can find it quickly. Yeah, oh dear. I can’t remember the title. It’s not there under Dan.

Oh, very quickly. Look here, Danegeld, here we are. This is Kipling. You know that the Danes, the sax, the the Vikings, the Danish Vikings said, “If you pay us money, we will go away.” It’s called Danegeld, geld, gold. Danegeld.

“It is always a temptation said Kipling to an armed and agile nation to call upon a neighbour and to say, we invaded you last night. We are quite prepared to fight, unless you pay us cash to go away.” And that is called Asking for Danegeld and the people ask it explain that you’ve only to pay him the Danegeld and then you’ll get rid of the Dane. It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation, a part for looking important and to say.

“No, we know we should defeat you. We’ve not the time to meet you. We will therefore pay you cash to go away” and that is called Paying the Danegeld, but we proved it again and again, that if once you have paid the Danegeld, you never get rid of the dane and it ends by saying, “The nation that pays it is lost.” It’s called Danegeld. I couldn’t remember the exact title. I dunno why, but I couldn’t.

Thank you and I wish you a happy, all the best for this holiday season as well, everyone listening.