From the Capitoline Hill to the Tarpeian Rock? Free French coming out of war (original) (raw)

Abstract

This text explores the return of the Free French to metropolitan territory in 1944-45. The intense emotions provoked by rediscovering the soil of France and their compatriots were succeeded by more mixed and even bittersweet feelings. Very soon, dreams dreamed far away and for many years met the reality of a country deeply wounded by the defeat of 1940 and by the Occupation. The takeover of administrative and political power, and the beginnings of the purges, provoked clashes with the Allies and even more with the metropolitan Resistance, which were essentially quarrels of legitimacy. The violence of the fight for the Liberation mercilessly took its toll. Each and every person who had survived the conflict found the resumption of a personal and intimate life more difficult than expected. Finally, some of the hopes for renovation that had been developed throughout the war began to waver. This led to a frustration tinged with bitterness on which contrasting memories took root. RÉSUMÉ Ce texte évoque le retour des Français libres sur le territoire métropolitain en 1944-45. Aux émotions intenses provoquées par les retrouvailles avec le sol de France et avec les compatriotes, ont succédé des sentiments plus mitigés, voire doux-amers. Très vite, les rêves nourris au loin et des années durant se sont heurtés à la réalité d'un pays profondément meurtri par la défaite de 1940 et par l'Occupation. La prise en mains des rênes administratives et politiques ainsi que les prémisses de l'épuration ont donné lieu à des heurts, quelquefois à des affrontements, avec les Alliés et, plus encore, avec la Résistance intérieure, c'est-à-dire à des querelles de légitimité. La violence des combats libérateurs a impitoyablement prélevé son dû. Pour chacune et chacun sur qui le conflit avait imprimé sa marque, la reprise d'une vie personnelle et intime s'est avérée plus difficile que prévu. Enfin, quelques-uns des espoirs de rénovation développés tout au long de la guerre ont commencé à faire long feu. Une certaine frustration teintée d'amertume en a découlé sur laquelle des mémoires contrastées ont pris racine.

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References (139)

  1. French Forces, i.e. the French Committee for National Liberation's Army. In other words, the Free French will be considered in this article as they were defined in the document issued on 29 July 1953 by the French Ministry of the Armed Forces -See Muracciole, Les Français libres, 26.
  2. In other words, the members of Free France's committees in the world won't be considered hereafter -those for whom the notion of homecoming in metropolitan France does not make sense -nor the soldiers of the colonial troops whose homecoming took place in their original colonies on routes that did not necessarily pass by the hexagon -which also was a source of disillusions -and according to specific temporalities.
  3. Piketty, "Combatant Exile during World War II. "
  4. About these characteristics, see notably Muracciole, Les Français libres, 26-37.
  5. Piketty, "Exilés Combattants. "
  6. On the notion of 'sortie de guerre' applied to the Second World War, see, for example: Bessel and Schumann, Life after Death; Bessel, Germany 1945; Biess and Moeller, Histories of the Aftermath; Cabanes and Piketty, "Sortir de la guerre;" Cohen, In War's Wake; Lowe, Savage Continent; Shephard, The Long Road Home.
  7. It is, for example, striking that Crémieux-Brilhac's remarkable La France Libre. De l'Appel du 18 juin à la Libération ends on 26 August 1944.
  8. This was not always the case. Let us consider, for example, the Spaniards of the Second Armoured Division: as former members of the Spanish republican armies, they knew that any homecoming was impossible for them. See, for example, Piketty, "Combatant Exile during World War II. "
  9. On that still rather new, and very promising, topic, see for example Biess, Homecomings; Cabanes and Piketty, Retour à l'intime au sortir de la guerre; Fishman, We Will Wait;
  10. Grossmann, Jews, Germans and Allies; Moore and Hately-Broad, Prisoners of War, Prisoners of Peace; Piketty, Résister; Piketty, "Retour à l'intime;" Zahra, The Lost Children.
  11. For our particular topic, see first and foremost Biess, "Feelings in the Aftermath. " More broadly, see Bourke, "Fear and Anxiety;" Bourke, Fear. A Cultural History; Corbin, Le village des cannibales; Febvre, "La sensibilité et l'histoire. Comment reconstituer la vie affective d'autrefois?"; "Forum: History of Emotions;" Frevert, Emotions in History -Lost and Found; Plamper, "The History of Emotions;" Plamper, The History of Emotions; Reddy, The Navigation of Feeling; Rosenwein, "Worrying about Emotions in History;" Rosenwein, "Problems and Methods in the History of Emotions;" Stearns and Stearns, "Emotionology: Clarifying the History of Emotions and Emotional Standards. "
  12. "Emotional communities […] are precisely the same as social communities -families, neighbourhoods, parliaments, guilds, monasteries, parish church memberships -but the researcher looking at them seeks above all to uncover systems of feeling: what these communities (and the individuals within them) define and assess as valuable or harmful to them; the evaluations that they make about others' emotions; the nature of the affective bonds 15. See, for example, Piketty, Français en résistance; Piketty, Résister.
  13. See, for example, Bourdan, Carnet de retour, 36; Gabriel Brunet de Sairigné's letter to his parents, 16 August 1944 in Piketty, Français en résistance, 520; Girard, Journal de Guerre 1939-1945, 271; Jacob, La statue intérieure, 195-8.
  14. Oulmont, Pierre Denis, 369-70.
  15. For a sensitive evocation of the situation that the Free French discovered, see René Pleven's letters to his wife Annette, then in the United States -René Pleven, "Correspondance (1939- 1945)" in Piketty, Français en résistance, 1085-91.
  16. See for example Guy Hattu's letter to his mother, July 1944 in Hattu, Un matin à Ouistreham, 6 juin 1944, 216-20.
  17. Also known as the '1st Free French Division' . Formed on 1 February 1943 in Libya, it was initially composed of 7000 men, all Free French of the very first hour who had fought in Eritrea, Syria, Egypt and Libya. On 1 August 1943, General Diego Brosset took charge of the division. He, too, was a pioneer of Free France. After a great deal of training and the integration of former fighters from the interior resistance and former soldiers of the French Army in Africa, it reached 18,000 men. Engaged in Italy in April 1944, the division fought from Naples to Tuscany via Rome. It landed in Provence in mid-August 1944.
  18. Girard, Journal de Guerre, 244-5.
  19. Bourdan, Carnet de retour, 29.
  20. Jacob, La statue intérieure, 123.
  21. Gabriel Brunet de Sairigné's letter to his parents, 16 August 1944 in Piketty, Français en résistance, 520.
  22. He then was Secretary for the Colonies.
  23. Bougeard, René Pleven, 31.
  24. Personal archives of Mrs Françoise Andlauer, René Pleven's daughter.
  25. Diary of Diego Brosset, 20 August 1944, in Piketty, Français en résistance, 383, 385.
  26. Jacob, La statue intérieure, 125. 30. See n. 22.
  27. About this, see, for example, the remarkable book written by Mark Smith on the US Civil War: The Smell of Battle. And more broadly Smith, Sensing the Past.
  28. See, for example, General Brosset's aforementioned words (n. 28). Or, on a different point of view, Roberts, What Soldiers Do.
  29. Jacob, La statue intérieure, 123.
  30. Bourdan, Carnet de retour, 65-152.
  31. Quoted in Roberts, "Photographier les G.I., " 269.
  32. Girard, Journal de Guerre, 246.
  33. Repiton-Préneuf, 2ème DB. La Campagne de France, 4.
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  35. Which, soon, would face the same process of 'sortie de guerre'. See Piketty, "De l' ombre au grand jour, " 149-63.
  36. Whose number had progressively grown to some 200,000 at the beginning of 1944 -See Marcot, "Combien étaient-ils ?, " 339-42.
  37. See for example Diary of Diego Brosset, 6 and 11 September 1944, in Piketty, Français en résistance, 391-4. See also Farge, Rebelles, soldats et citoyens, 201-11.
  38. He was notably in charge of the Police and the Gendarmerie, martial law, imprisonments and judgments.
  39. Interview with Professor Philippe Vial, whom I thank here for lending me his notes. 46. He was 35 years old.
  40. Rosenwein, "Worrying about Emotions in History, " 842.
  41. Brossolette, "Saluez-les, Français !" in Brossolette Résistance (1927-1943), 131-4.
  42. Vernant, Entre mythe et politique, 26-7.
  43. For a broad picture of these losses and a comparison with those of the Allies and of the interior resistance, see, notably Muracciole, Les Français libres, 279-88.
  44. Buis, "Presentation, " XXXVII.
  45. See, for example, Diary of Diego Brosset, 14 September 1944, in Piketty, Français en résistance, 394-5.
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  47. See Muracciole, Les Français libres, 281-2.
  48. See, for example, the "Rapport du général Brosset, commandant la 1 ère DFL, sur le moral des troupes en ligne" en date du 3 novembre 1944, in De Lattre de Tassigny, Reconquérir 1944-1945, 68-71.
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  52. Of which he had taken the name as a pseudonym when becoming a Free French.
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  55. See Horne, "Introduction, " 45-53 in Horne, "Démobilisations culturelles après la Grande Guerre, " dossier in 14-18. Aujourd'hui. Today. Heute.
  56. About some of these issues, see for example Delaporte, "Traumatismes psychiques" and Marquis, "Troubles psychiques (en sortie de guerre). "
  57. only 1038 individuals were made 'companions of the Liberation' , i.e. members of the Order or the Liberation. See, for example, Piketty and Trouplin, Les compagnons de l' aube.
  58. Quoted in André Verrier's obituary published in Ouest-France soon after the latter's death (29 December 2013).
  59. Oulmont, Pierre Denis, 371.
  60. She belonged to the 1st MDI.
  61. Old friends from before the Free French adventure. She would face the same discrepancy with her husband, whom she would quickly leave.
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  65. Muracciole, Les Français libres, 301-2.
  66. Muracciole, Les Français libres, 301.
  67. Muracciole, Les Français libres, 301.
  68. A typical 'source effect' .
  69. Françoise Andlauer's testimony to the author, 6 November 2012. 83. Gary, L'Orage.
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  71. Diary of Diego Brosset, 3 November 1944, in Piketty, Français en résistance, 408.
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  73. See, for example, Piketty, "Reconnaissance, économie morale de la. "
  74. See notably Piketty and Trouplin, Les compagnons de l' aube.
  75. These considerations can be found in many testimonies given and memoirs written by Free French.
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  77. Hence nicknamed the "Grande Muette. "
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