No, countries are sovereign. France was not a country. France does not cease to exist as a country when it changes sovereign governments. It ceases to exist when it loses it’s sovereignty and is occupied by a foreign power. Such was the case in 1940.
Sure, but that war was ended by an armistice. Darlan was a military officer, not a politician.
It seems obvious to us NOW, but at the time, cooperation with the Germans seemed logical. France signed an armistice. They’d agreed to end the war with Germany, and one of the conditions was that the French navy would remain in a sort of suspended animation.
What Darlan allegedly “expected,” “decided” and “considered” is of no consequence. What Darlan DID is what matters. He should be judged by his actions.
This is interesting, but irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Darlan did not surrender to the Germans. His government did.
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It ceases to exist when it loses it’s sovereignty and is occupied by a foreign power. Such was the case in 1940.
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With due respect, you don’t know what the word “country” means.
Both , actually: "In February 1941, Darlan replaced Pierre-Étienne Flandin as “Vice President of the Council” (prime minister). He also became Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of the Interior, and Minister of National Defence, making him the de facto head of the Vichy government. On 11 February he was named Pétain’s eventual successor, in accordance with Act Number Four of the constitution. In January 1942, Darlan assumed a number of other government posts."
Well, let us judge his actions. He ordered the French in North Africa to resist, even tho he had been discussing a separate surrender with the Allies for months. By chance, he was taken prisoner by a pro-Allied group in Algeria on the nite of the invasion. For two days, he refused to surrender North Africa unless given high Office in the French government. This caused over 1000 Allied casualties and over 3000 French, not to mention the sinking of a number of ships.
Enlighten me, then.
I’m particularly interested how a definition of “country” exists that does not include sovereignty, yet would allow that country to go to war, define “acts of war” against it, and charge or define “traitors” against it.
Well, no. It was not. France remained a sovereign nation state following the signing of the armistice on 22 June 1940. Yes, a large section of the homeland was occupied but French State and the French Empire continued as a recognised entity with an effective government.
After June 1940 the country of France continued to exist and the government in Vichy could claim the allegiance of all members of the French armed forces, both at home and across the empire. Whether a soldier or sailor likes his government is not normally considered an excuse for deciding to ignore their orders. At the end of the war the victorious Allies introduced the idea that military personnel were responsible for their own actions and had a duty to a higher concept of what was a legitimate order but this was not around in 1940. Yes, some people so disliked Petain and the armistice that they decided to remain in Britain and eventually formed the “Free French” but legally that made them traitors to their country. If Britain had made a deal with Hitler in the summer of 1940 - unlikely but not impossible - they would certainly not returned home as heroes.
Well, yesbut- the winners get to write the History books, and the French tried and convicted many Frenchmen of Treason for collaborating with the Nazis.
Thank you. So Vichy France was Darlan’s country, he considered an attack on Vichy France an “act of war”, and he became a traitor to that country in 1942. That’s all I wanted to get straight.
And who recognized the Vichy govt as legit?
Queen Wilhelmina and the Dutch government succeeded in escaping from the Netherlands before the surrender, where they formed a government-in-exile. The Allies recognized that government as legit. The Nazis recognized the Reichskommissariat Niederlande.
So, the Dutch resistance (which was more effective than the French)- your idea is that those guys were traitors- and thus the guys who joined the Nederlandsche SS were patriots? :rolleyes:* The Queen* was a traitor?
The point is- The Vichy government wasn’t legit. It was forced by gunpoint. Those who rebelled against it- the * La Résistance française* and the Free french in exile- were the patriots. Those who collaborated with the Nazis were traitors.
It is mysterious as we know the British Fleet would have fought on even if the Island had fallen. What the French did seems idiotic. The Navy could have fought with the Free French but chose or better with the UK but instead they did what they did.
It was a dismal act and in many ways worse then the initial surrender.
The US, for one. We sent Admiral Leahy as ambassador. Canada. Australia. The Soviet Union. Most of the world. The Vichy government were bastards. But they were recognized by most countries as the legitimate French government until they were taken over by the Germans in 1942.
Something else to remember is the difference between the French case and the Dutch case, in that, in the case of the Netherlands, like you said, Queen Wilhelmina and the Dutch government escaped from the Netherlands and formed a government in exile. That didn’t happen in France. Most of the French government stayed in France. De Gaulle was the only member of Renaud’s government to successfully get to the UK, and he had just been a minister for ten days at that point. When Renaud resigned, the President made Petain Premier constitutionally. While Petain would go on shortly after to unconstitutionally end the Republic and set up a dictatorship, he had, until that moment, been acting as a constitutionally authorized head of government.
Do I actually have to point out that there are dictionaries online? Or to point out that English-speaking people routinely refer to non-sovereign countries as countries?
Here’s the first sentence in the Wikipedia entry for Scotland: “Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain.”
No duh. But that’s not how YOU used it. Show me where an “act of war” was committed against the country of Scotland, or someone was charged with treason against the country of Scotland, and you can then claim you weren’t referring to sovereignty.
So in other words, you admit you were entirely incorrect in asserting “the Allies had to sink most of the remaining ships during the Naval Battle of Casablanca”. You are really stretching credulity beyond the breaking point in your effort to crucify Darlan in stating that Admiral Auphan ordered the scuttling, not Darlan. I don’t suppose you happen to know why? Because:
Horseshit. The French at Casablanca opened fire because they were being invaded. The Allies had not been talking to Darlan for months, the deal with Darlan was brokered on the fly because the Allies had pinned their hopes on Henri Giraud being able to rally the Vichy French in North Africa behind him, and unfortunately to the Vichy French forces in North Africa he was nobody and had no authority. Regarding your allegations of months the Allies spent talking to Darlan and that Darlan ordered the resistance at Casablanca:
Darlan had nothing to do with the scuttling. He had absolutely no authority over the French Fleet at that time.
As for negotiating with Darlan:
He’d been talking with the Allies since** Nov 1941. **
Note that the book goes on to say that Darlan only started negotiations once he saw the Allies might be winning. (Earlier he’d tried to seduce the Nazis).
It’s true the Allies had pinned their hopes on Giraud, but that’s only because they couldn’t get Darlan to commit to anything until they actually held him at gunpoint.
In any case, Darlan was the Commander at Casablanca and all of French North Africa. He had given general orders to resist.
Note that many French did not obey those orders but came over and treated the Americans as friends and liberators. Once given the order to stop resisting they gave in gladly. They only opened fire due to Darlans general orders. The Buck stopped with Darlan. He was in command, the responsibility was his.
He could have simply given orders to not resist the Americans- an order he gave quickly once the Allies agreed to his demands for personal aggrandizement. Why- if the French were just “resisting an invasion” did Darlan order that said resistance stop- once the Allies gave into his demands for personal aggrandizement? “OK, I’ll order my men to stop fighting, once you give ME what I want personally!”