To the Editor of the "NortH-Cuina Dany News"
Sim—At a few hours' interval I have read in your today's issue:—
In_ private conversation. Marshal Petain is said to have shown scme pessimism and expressed the doubt Whether the French people would accept his new policy. and in today's "Noon Bulletin" a report of some "Anti-Darlan demonstrations in Beauva The answer. loudly given by the French population in Beauvais is eloquent enough and should put at rest any doubts the Marshal is reported to have expressed on the subject, if he ever had any. The matter might well be left at that, if other political points which recently turned up did not require some clarification in the minds of a good many ex-patrioted Frenchmen.
In a recent radio message the Marshal asked: all Frenchmen to follow him "sur la route de Vhonneur, jusqwou bout" The reason is, as usual, that entire unanimity and di: cipline of the French people is necessary if France is to be saved. The appeal, in its military brevity, is touching and there are no sacrifices that most Frenchmen have not made and are ready to make again to reach that goal, especially when the appeal comes from the old Marshal. to whom there are practically no Frenchmen refusing that, respect due to his personality and past services.
I wonder what honour the old Marshal can possibly perceive on such a road and in such company even when it is invested with the pompous name of "collaboration." or even with the no less pompous but more misleading one of "New Order." Are the traitorous labours of all our "Quislings" what renders the road more honourable?
And "collaboration" at what price? That we are not allowed to know. The greatest discretion surrounds the ~.....dealings (add the epithet at your choice) of Messrs. Darlan. Otto Abetz, de Brinon and lesser lights in Paris. No discussion is permitted, no information, even neutral. is given or wanted. Maybe if we are "sages" we shall be allowed to see later on. to see the utter moral and economical degradation to which the French people will have been led, eyes covered. at the end of the road of the "New Order." degradation to screen which so many pains are taken at present, Another point which also requires clarification for 'a good many of us is the following:—Recently German planes have used Syrian airports in the course of military operations against British troops. How is this made to agree with a previous declaration: "We are. in honour, bound not to fight against our ex-Allies?"
like a good many others, understand that helping to fight is equivalent to fighting, otherwise there would have been in said declaration a reservation, a distinquo unworthy of the Marshal as we all know him. Or have the British naval attacks at Mers-el-Kebir and Dakar, the reputed anti-British sentiments of Admiral Darlan. cancelled this solemn promise? If so, why not proclaim it openly?
Why did the General High Commissioner in Syria, after having tried to pass the whole affair sous silence, advance the ridiculous excuse thal "sixteen German planes, out of a number in transit over Syria. were compelled to make a forced landing?" Tu other times 'a functionary, however high his rank, not having more self-respect and courage than to utter such a shameful lie (I wanted to write "error." but let us be frank and call things by their names) would have been discharged immediately. Since he has not been, is it that he was acting "under order?"
That it wag a lie was clearly shown by the subsequent explanation that "the terms of the armistice convention have granted the German Air Forces the use of all French airfields." This. no doubt, refers to terms in the same category as those concerning Alsace-Lorraine and the North Departments. terms which have never been published so far as I know. However, the airfields in question being situated in Syria, one would have thought that they were not included in the term "French airfields." If they were. what about, all the other airfields in Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco. Senegal, and in fact all other French colonies and protectorates? No reason that they be not, included also Then I understand why some other countries. which had remained friendly to us even after our defeat. begin to open their eyes and act, accordingly.
We Frenchmen are told, are given to understand, semi-officially if not officially. that if we behave well towards Germans (nothing said about 'Italy specially). in' other words if we accept to "collaborate" without too much grumbling, France will be permitted to retain its colonial empire nearly intact, that is to say minus only the ante-last-war German colonies. as the Cameroons, which are to be returned to the previous owners. the populations, of course. getting just as much consideration as cattle are used to.
On the other side we can read daily. in the German papers. elaborate reports of the opening of new colonial schools in German (I think three since last June. not counting one in Brussels) staffed with all kinds of Herren Professoren, These new schools, we are told. are organized and staffed with German thoroughness, with the best, colonial experts to be found. and should be able to turn out a good many hundreds of new selected young administrators within as short a time as possible. Well, if our colonies are left to us. we would like to know which colonies these young administrators are going to administrate. The ex-British colonies, to be sure. But here I am afraid they are not taken as yet. Looking at Italian Somaliland (Abyssinia has now been restored to its rightful owners), it would seem that the "acquiring" business is going the other way, the wrong way, and that it is the British who are taking care of it, Or has a "deal" been struck between our Quislings and the Germans at the expense of smaller victims, Belgium and Holland, for instance? The French people refuse to be party to such dirty business to "save" their own colonies. It savours too much of robbing the feebler man.
Well. pour revenir à nos moutons, I mean coming back to our colonies. or more properly to the colonies which we will be permitted to retain. we have a glorious example under our very eyes, not so far from us. in Indochina and Tonkin. The colony is left to us, officially, for the present at least, about under the same çonditions in which a snake does not devour its victim at a gulp, because he cannot conveniently do it. So we may retain, in a kind of semi-partnership. for so long as it will please the dominant, partner, all expenses and troubles attached to the administration, but, on the condition only that most of the profits go into the dominant partners through "freely" ((why not joyously?) subscribed so-called "commercial conventions" Yes, the same kind of free decision offered at, midnight in a deserted street to the unarmed passenger by a gunman.
Before closing let me add that j whatever may be said or thought of them, Hitler and his henchmen. be they still in Germany or sampling a breath of Scotch air in the hope that it may be more wholesonie than the "home" brand. as Herr Hess is doing, have never been Quislings. they never were "quitters." They never, in the most sombre times. ae knowledged defeat. They never thought that it was by bleating like sheep. with a kind of sadistic satisfaction, in season and out of season. "Mais après tout, il ne faut pas oublier que nous avons ete vain cus" or in "collaboration" with their conquerors that they would and could reinstate Germany. In energy left only in Britain or in such occupied countries in Europe as Norway. Belgium. Holland, Greece. Czechoslovakia. Poland, whose populations, though subjugated momentarily, perfor to suffer the worst treatment rather than freely "col-elaborate?" Luckily we know that it is not so and that no amount of official leading" will be able to change French blood to water. even if the last drop of it has to be sacrificed. Monsieur lo Marechal, chest non, avec regrets pour votre personnel, mais sans hésitation-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.