FRANCE: The Inheritors

Behind the battle lines in North Africa, from beneath the deadening blanket thrown over all France by Hitler’s occupation of the Vichy zone, emerged the specter of French politics. The week’s events, starting from the innocent assumption of U.S. military men that control of French Northwest Africa had best be given into trusted and experienced French hands, soon threatened to split Allied feelings along the well-known line of Vichy v. De Gaulle.

Shifty Admiral Jean Francois Darlan, ex-collaborating Premier, heir-designate of Marshal Pétain and Commander in Chief of all French sea, land and air forces, had come to Algiers some time before the invasion, ostensibly to visit his sick son. In the Allied attack, the first step toward his country’s liberation under Allied colors, Darlan the opportunist saw the great chance of his career.

Darlan was the man who pulled the strings in Africa. At his command the Vichy armies would fight or lay down their arms. In that fact lay power such as he had never held. Darlan did not hesitate to make use of it.

He ordered the surrender of Algiers, followed this up with the “cease fire” order to all French troops in North Africa. Then, in an announcement broadcast by the Algiers radio, he took over the civil administration of the colonies in the name of Marshal Pétain—and with the approval of the U.S. authorities. He set up his own military command under the stanch old soldier and escapist General Henri Honoré Giraud (TIME, Nov. 16). Still in the name of Marshal Pétain, a virtual prisoner now in his own capital of Vichy, still with the approval of the U.S. commanders, an administration took form in North Africa under this former collaborator with Germany—in the rear of the Allied armies sweeping on toward Tunisia.

Winds in Vichy. Darlan and his acts did not appear to be accepted by the Vichy Government. Marshal Pétain, under sudden and critical pressure, changed his course like a weathervane, finally succumbed in impotence when German armies, at Hitler’s command, swept through Unoccupied France in a 24-hour dash to the Mediterranean.* From Vichy’s radio, now fully under German control, came repeated repudiations of everything Darlan did and the injunction to Frenchmen to obey only Pétain’s orders.

But there was good reason to believe that the Admiral was actually acting on Pétain’s orders. There was a precedent: when General Maxime Weygand was appointed Delegate General of North Africa in January 1941, he carried with him orders from Pétain to defend the empire against aggression as he saw fit, and to ignore contrary orders which—if an attack took place—might be forced out of Vichy under German pressure. Darlan might well have carried similar instructions, which would get him obedience from local authorities. Darlan got such obedience: the men of Vichy rallied at once to his call, placed themselves under his command. This was what the Allied forces needed.

That Darlan was at the same time making use of his powers to assure his own future position in North Africa was beyond question. Needed by the Americans, able to quell Vichy resistance in Africa or unleash civil strife which would tie Eisenhower’s troops down to far-flung police work, the shrewd Admiral was proving a serious and unexpected annoyance.

Clouds in London. The Fighting French under General Charles de Gaulle were at first bewildered, then indignant at the news that their movement, for over two years the recognized rallying point of free Frenchmen, was being ignored while former Vichyites gained control in North Africa. For nearly a week De Gaulle was silent. Then, after conferences with Prime Minister Churchill, he issued a blistering statement:

The Fighting French, he said, “were taking no part whatsoever in, and assuming no responsibility for, negotiations in progress in North Africa with Vichy representatives.” They would accept no decisions made by the British and Americans, “should the negotiations result in arrangements which would in effect confirm the Vichy regime in North Africa.”

A spokesman for De Gaulle said further that the Fighting French were not seeking to “throw a monkey-wrench into the negotiations or to spoil any subtle plan the Americans may have . . . [but] the plain fact is [that] the Allies are treating on a basis of equality with the No. 2 traitor of France.”

Britain appeared to be backing De Gaulle. British censorship passed scorching diatribes against the ex-collaborationist Admiral; the BBC stated frankly that unofficial comment was “critical.” A bevy of diplomatic experts was sent to Africa from London to “clear up the situation.” A British civil liaison officer was attached to Lieut. General Eisenhower’s command to keep the British Government informed of all developments.

In North Africa Eisenhower and his men had a war to fight, an important victory to win. But the question arose: Would France’s resurrection, in the new phase of the war, grow out of Vichy’s seed? As one Frenchman, just come to De Gaulle from his occupied homeland, put it:

“I have not come as a politician, but as a soldier, and I am shocked by the present situation. . . . What do you think would happen if things went badly for the United Nations in North Africa? Darlan, still Commander in Chief, would switch back to the Axis without a moment’s hesitation.”

* Tokyo radio’s comment on the German occupation of all France: “Most friendly, most delightful, most cheerful, most, most wonderful.”