Vichy's Double Bind: French Collaboration between Hitler and Mussolini during the Second World War 100936829X, 9781009368292

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VICHY’S DOUBLE BIND

Vichy’s Double Bind advances a significant new interpretation of French collaboration during the Second World War. Arguing that the path to collaboration involved not merely Nazi Germany but Fascist Italy, it suggests that the Vichy French government was caught in a double bind. On the one hand, many of the threats to France’s territory, colonial empire and power came from Rome as well as Berlin. On the other hand, Vichy was caught between the irreconcilable yet inescapable positions of the two Axis governments. Unable to resolve the conflict, Vichy sought to play the two Axis powers against each other. By exploring French dealings with Italy at diplomatic, military and local levels in France and its colonial empire, this book reveals the multi-dimensional and multi-directional nature of Vichy’s policy. It therefore challenges many enduring conceptions of collaboration with reference to Franco-German relations and offers a fresh perspective on debates about Vichy France and collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. K a r ine Va r l ey  is Lecturer in French and European History at the University of Strathclyde, having previously lectured at Durham University and the University of Edinburgh. She is a graduate of the Universities of Cambridge, Leeds and Royal Holloway, London. She has published widely on nineteenth- and twentieth-century European history, including Under the Shadow of Defeat: The War of 1870–71 in French Memory (2008) and (ed. with Marco Maria Aterrano) A Fascist Decade of War: 1935–1945 in International Perspective (2020). Her research has been supported by grants from the British Academy, Carnegie Trust and Royal Society of Edinburgh.

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NEW STUDIES IN EUROPE A N HISTORY Edited by PETER BALDWIN, University of California, Los Angeles HOLLY CASE, Brown University CHRISTOPHER CLARK, University of Cambridge JAMES B. COLLINS, Georgetown University KARIN FRIEDRICH, University of Aberdeen MIA RODRÍGUEZ-SALGADO, London School of Economics and Political Science TIMOTHY SNYDER, Yale University The aim of this series in early modern and modern European history is to publish outstanding works of research, addressed to important themes across a wide geographical range, from southern and central Europe, to Scandinavia and Russia, from the time of the Renaissance to the present. As it develops the series will comprise focused works of wide contextual range and intellectual ambition. A full list of titles published in the series can be found at: www.cambridge.org/newstudiesineuropeanhistory

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V IC H Y ’ S D OU BL E BI N D French Collaboration between Hitler and Mussolini during the Second World War K A R I N E VA R L EY University of Strathclyde

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Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8EA, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 103 Penang Road, #05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467 Cambridge University Press is part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a department of the University of Cambridge. We share the University’s mission to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781009368292 DOI: 10/1017/9781009368346 © Karine Varley 2023 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press & Assessment. First published 2023 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data names: Varley, Karine, author. title: Vichy’s double bind : French collaboration between Hitler and Mussolini during the Second World War / Karine Varley, University of Strathclyde. other titles: French collaboration between Hitler and Mussolini during the Second World War description: Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, ny Cambridge University Press, 2023. | Series: New studies in European history | Includes bibliographical references and index. identifiers: lccn 2022059797 (print) | lccn 2022059798 (ebook) | isbn 9781009368292 (hardback) | isbn 9781009368346 (ebook) subjects: lcsh: France – History – German occupation, 1940–1945. | France – Politics and government – 1940–1945. | World War, 1939–1945 – Collaborationists – France. | France – Foreign relations – 1940–1945. | France – Foreign relations – Italy. | France – Foreign relations – Germany. | Italy – Foreign relations – France. | Germany – Foreign relations – France. classification: lcc d802.f8 v285 2023 (print) | lcc d802.f8 (ebook) | ddc 940.53/44–dc23/eng/20230111 lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022059797 lc ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022059798 ISBN 978-1-009-36829-2 Hardback Cambridge University Press & Assessment has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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Contents

Acknowledgements page vii Introduction

1

Pa r t I   Di pl om ac y a n d P ol i t ic s 1 Sowing the Seeds: From the Abyssinia Crisis to the Armistice

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2 Pivoting between Alignments: July to December 1940

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3 Playing Rome against Berlin: December 1940 to March 1942

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4 Compliance and Defiance: April 1942 to September 1943

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5 The Absence of Collaborationism

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The Depreciation of Laval 17 Growing Rifts 19 Armistice Negotiations 25 Conclusion 30

Reorientations after Mers-el-Kébir 34 Rapprochement with Rome 37 Bargaining with Berlin 45 Conclusion 50 Impasse 53 Collaboration and Misdirection 62 Conclusion 74 Dividing but not Ruling 78 Shattered Illusions 83 Final Machinations 91 Conclusion 96 The National Revolution 101 Kindred Spirits 107 Collaborationism 112 Conclusion 115

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Pa r t I I   L o c a l E nc ou n t e r s 6 The Menace Within: July 1940 to November 1942

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7 Annexation by Stealth: Italian Occupation from June 1940 to November 1942

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8 Confronting Italian Occupation: November 1942 to September 1943

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The Italian Presence 122 Obstruction and Defiance 127 Multi-layered Responses 132 Conclusion 139

Italianisation 142 The Response from Vichy 151 Conclusion 158

The Arrival of the Occupiers 161 Violence and Repression 166 Vichy’s Double Bind 175 Conclusion 184

Conclusion

Bibliography 195 Index 214

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Acknowledgements

Over the course of my research and writing, I have gained insights not just from academic colleagues but from those who lived through this period as well. Many of their recollections echo throughout this book. In Corsica, I was invited to attend the commemorations for Jean Nicoli and to meet surviving members of the resistance. One of the leaders of the Communist resistance in Bastia, Léo Micheli, and the Amis de la Résistance en Corse provided me with advice and assistance when I first began this project. I am grateful for the two grants from the British Academy and the grant from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland which enabled me to undertake numerous trips to the archives. I am also grateful for the assistance of staff at the Archives Diplomatiques, Archives Nationales and the Archives Départementales of Corse-du-Sud, the Alpes-Maritimes, Savoie, Haute-Savoie as well as the Musée de la Résistance en Alta-Rocca in Corsica. While working on a related Royal Society of Edinburgh Networking Grant with Rogelia Pastor-Castro, I presented some of the research relating to this book at events hosted by Ambassador Sir Peter Ricketts at the British Ambassador’s Residence in Paris and Ambassador Jean-Pierre Jouyet at the French Ambassador’s Residence in London. I am grateful to the two embassies for hosting these events. I have also benefited from being able to present at many seminars and conferences, including ‘France and the Second World War in Global Perspective, 1919–45’ and ‘Italy’s Decade of War: 1935–45 in International Perspective’ which I coorganised at Strathclyde. I have also presented aspects of this research at the annual conference of the Society for the Study of French History, ‘Embassies in Crisis’ at the British Academy and at the Imperial War Museum, London. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp relief the value of the many conversations and collaborations I have had at such events and over the course of my research. I am grateful to Marco Maria Aterrano, Ludivine Broch, Alison Carrol, Richard Carswell, Emile Chabal, Rachel Chin, Phil Cooke, Hanna Diamond, Charlotte Faucher, Luca vii

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Fenoglio, Richard Hammond, Laure Humbert, MacGregor Knox, Nicola Labanca, Daniel Martin, Chris Millington, Emre Ozer, Pamela Pilbeam, Peter Jackson, Simon Kitson, Andrew Knapp, David Lees, Emanuele Sica, Brendan Simms, Andrew Smith, Brian Sudlow, Martin Thomas, Daniel Thomson and Olivier Wieviorka. I first became fascinated by the history of Vichy when writing my undergraduate dissertation at Cambridge. Years on, I remain indebted to the inspiring supervision of Chris Clark, which not only fired my interest in this subject but which spurred me on to pursue an academic career. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the original manuscript. This book has often felt like a family enterprise. As ever, my parents, Jocelyne and Brian Varley, merit a special mention. Over the years, they have contributed more than their fair share, acting as regular sounding boards and taking me to some of the more remote areas of Corsica that witnessed clashes between the resistance and the occupying forces. My sister, Cendrine, attended the seventieth-anniversary commemorations for the liberation of Corsica on my behalf. I am also grateful for the insights and assistance of Pauline and Eugene Veronese. Like so many of their generation, my grandparents lived through and fought in the Second World War. My English grandmother, Enid Varley, worked for a shipping firm in Hull, while my French grandmother, Renée Michelozzi, lived just a few miles from Vichy. My grandfathers fought in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. John Varley served in the Royal Corps of Signals in the British Army. My Corsican grandfather, Louis Michelozzi, joined the maquis and, after fighting in the liberation of Corsica, went on to serve in the 1ère Division Blindée. It is to my grandparents’ memory that this book is dedicated.

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Introduction

Between 1940 and 1944, the Vichy French government actively aided the German war effort and voluntarily helped to implement Nazi policies by collaborating with Hitler’s government. When it came to Fascist Italy, however, the contrast could scarcely have been greater. Despite Mussolini’s government being allied to Berlin, Vichy treated it entirely differently. Throughout the Second World War, the head of the Vichy government, Marshal Philippe Pétain, never met Mussolini. There were no dramatic images to match the fateful handshake between the French leader and Hitler in October 1940. There was no headline-grabbing announcement of a new relationship of collaboration between France and Italy either. Nor did Vichy’s second-in-command, Pierre Laval, ever publicly state that he wished Italy to win the war. Vichy’s propaganda did not extol the virtues of an Italian-dominated new Europe. Nor did it call upon French workers to volunteer their labour for Italian factories. Vichy never even accepted that Italy had defeated France in June 1940 or that it had the right to occupy French territory. Nevertheless, between June 1940 and September 1943, Vichy had to deal with not just one Axis government but two. This book is about the choices faced by the Vichy government during the Second World War. It explores how, contrary to appearances, Vichy’s path to collaboration involved not merely Berlin but Rome as well. When war erupted in September 1939, Italy was not ready. Mussolini, therefore, reluctantly adopted a position of non-belligerency. With the Fascist regime ideologically geared towards war and expansion, however, it was only a matter of time before Mussolini joined the military action. As German forces invaded France in May 1940, bringing military collapse and chaos within the government and country, Mussolini decided to seize the opportunity. On 10 June 1940, he declared war against France and Britain. Despite making only minimal military gains against French forces, the Italians secured a seat alongside the Germans at the victors’ table a few weeks later. The German armistice terms divided France into multiple 1

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zones that included a large area of German occupation in the north and an unoccupied area in the south. In the armistice terms signed at the Villa Incisa outside Rome, meanwhile, Italy gained a small occupation zone in south-eastern France. More significantly, however, with Hitler leaving the implementation of the armistice terms across the Mediterranean and the Levant in Rome’s hands, Italian military and civilian officials gained a foothold in the very areas to which the Fascist regime laid claim. Between July 1940 and November 1942, Rome engaged in a concerted campaign of attempting to annex its zone of occupation in south-eastern France and seeking to undermine French colonial authority in North Africa and the Levant. When Axis forces moved into the rest of France following the Allied landings in North Africa, Italy significantly expanded its occupation zone to span eleven departments. From November 1942, around four million people in south-eastern France and Corsica were subjected to an increasingly violent and repressive occupation that only ended with the Italian surrender in September 1943. The Vichy government that was born out of the defeat of 1940 has become a byword for some of the darkest days in French history. After the liberation, its persecutory policies and willing collaboration in Hitler’s plans to recast Europe along Nazi lines shattered into paroxysms of national soul-searching, which continue to this day. Instead of focusing attention inwards, however, this book analyses Vichy’s outward interactions. Placing Italy at centre stage, it argues that Fascist claims over French territory and desires to see French power permanently diminished meant that in a different but no less troubling way, the vexations that loomed over France and its colonial empire were Italian as well as German. The Fascist policy of prestige compelled Rome to be more determined to assert its demands over France than Berlin. And whereas Berlin deemed it expedient to mask its true intentions towards France while the conflict continued, Rome did not. As a consequence, Vichy faced not just a double threat but a double bind. Vichy’s double bind operated on multiple levels. On one level, it lay in the escalating demands of Berlin and Rome that went beyond the terms of the June 1940 armistices. In another, more complex sense, it saw Vichy caught between the fundamentally irreconcilable yet inescapable positions of the two Axis governments. Rome’s attempts to extend its claims over France meant that Vichy faced a secondary set of demands that were incompatible with those from Berlin. Unable to resolve the conflict between the German and Italian positions, Vichy sought to exploit it. At periodic junctures between June 1940 and September 1943 and at different

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levels of administration, Vichy attempted to set one Axis government against the other. In reality, however, instead of playing a double game between Rome and Berlin, Vichy found itself caught in a double bind. Its attempts to benefit from the irreconcilability of Axis approaches foundered upon its inability to escape the demands with which, as a defeated state, it was confronted. Offering the first wide-ranging analysis of Vichy’s dealings with Fascist Italy between 1940 and 1943, this book challenges the tendency to focus upon encounters with the Nazis in much of the scholarship on France during the Second World War. It does not seek merely to fill a gap in the historiography but rather to argue that the Italian dimension invites us to ask fresh questions and to revise our understanding of some of the key arguments and concepts developed by historians of Vichy. It suggests that Italy presented a set of challenges that had far-reaching consequences for Vichy’s pursuit of collaboration, its response to occupation and its domestic and foreign policies more broadly. Over decades, scholars have nuanced models of collaboration by exploring the ambiguities of actions taken from the state to the individual level, as well as motivations ranging from pragmatic, opportunistic and limited cooperation to committed, wide-ranging, ideological collusion.1 However, their understandings have remained framed in terms of a two-way relationship between the French and German authorities. The implications of being drawn into Nazi policies mean that for all their complexity, historians’ analyses have tended to emphasise the consequences of French actions over the significance of their motivations. The corollary to such an approach has been to define collaboration by casting a wide net that includes a range of actions and intentions within an overarching picture of cooperation and collusion. It has meant that if historians have argued that some degree of accommodation with the Germans was unavoidable, the picture remains one in which willing ideological collaboration with the Nazis sits at the extreme end of the spectrums of action.

1

Jean-Pierre Azéma and Olivier Wieviorka, Vichy 1940–1944 (Paris: Perrin, 2000); Marc Olivier Baruch, Servir l’Etat français: L’administration en France e 1940 à 1944 (Paris: Fayard, 1997); François Broche and Jean-François Muracciole, Histoire de la collaboration: 1940–1945 (Paris: Tallandier, 2017); Philippe Burrin, Living with Defeat: France under the German Occupation, 1940–1944, trans. Janet Lloyd (London: Arnold, 1996); Stanley Hoffmann, ‘Collaborationism in France during World War II’, Journal of Modern History, 40:3 (1968), 375–95; Simon Kitson, Vichy et la chasse aux espions nazis 1940–1942: Complexités de la politique de collaboration (Paris: Autrement, 2005); Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940–1944 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972).

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By contrast, this book suggests that analysing French dealings with Italy reveals the multi-dimensional and multi-directional nature of Vichy’s policy. Far from being merely a Franco-German relationship, collaboration was shaped by the trilateral relations between Vichy, Berlin and Rome. Italian actions served variously to aggravate and advance Vichy’s relations with Berlin. At the same time, French relations with Italy drove Vichy to take measures whose consequences obscured the real nature of their intentions and motivations. At its most extreme, the involvement of Italy as a third actor turned French policy intentions and consequences on their head. Thwarting Italian claims over France became a motive for Vichy to collaborate with Berlin, while seeking concessions from Berlin became a motive for Vichy to collaborate with Rome. The incorporation of Italy, therefore, reveals at once the unsatisfactory nature of models of collaboration as a bilateral relationship between France and Germany and the inadequacy of linear models of French policy that posit collaboration in its various forms as being at the extreme end of a spectrum of choices and actions. In order to develop an understanding that incorporates the role played by Italy in shaping and complicating French policy, this book, therefore, emphasises the significance of motive as much as consequence in Vichy’s actions. In so doing, it advances an interpretation of Franco-Italian relations as one that distinguishes between acts of compliance and acts of collaboration. Unlike with Germany, Vichy had no sustained policy of collaborating with Italy; its compliance was restricted to limited domains, and there was little ideological imperative towards collaborationism. The broad evolution in French relations with Italy was such that in the period between June and November 1940, Vichy actively sought rapprochement with Rome to counter German domination. Between December 1940 and March 1942, Vichy engaged in opportunistic compliance and limited collaboration with the Italian authorities. Finally, between March 1942 and September 1943, Vichy’s relations with Rome were characterised by opposition and reluctant compliance rather than collaboration. The pattern that emerges from examining French engagements with the Italian authorities from the diplomatic level down to the local level in France, Corsica, French North Africa and the Levant was that opportunistic collaboration was rare, acts of limited compliance more c­ ommon and obstruction the dominant position. With strong cultural and historical connections, Italy seemed a more obvious candidate than Germany for French rapprochement and collaboration. However, Vichy’s attempts to make common cause with Rome

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foundered upon Mussolini’s territorial claims and political demands. As a consequence, whereas the narrative of Franco-German relations was one of Vichy drawing ever further into the Nazi orbit, with Italy, the trajectory was in the opposite direction. This book, therefore, challenges concepts of the relationship between state collaboration and ideological collaborationism that have been constructed with reference to Franco-German relations. If French proponents of collaboration constructed a rationale in which defeat by Germany would be mitigated by willing engagement in a Nazi-dominated Europe, they saw no compensatory value in an Italian victory. In the absence of any sustained collaboration with Italy, and with little to nourish the aspirations of those sympathetic to Fascist ideology, the relationship between state collaboration and ideological collaborationism with Fascist Italy was virtually the mirror image of that with Nazi Germany. Exploring French encounters with Italy, therefore, significantly transforms our understanding of Vichy’s wider wartime engagements. What emerges is a picture in which Vichy was less pliant and more opportunistic than previously depicted, but more constrained in its ability to act as well. Ultimately, the tragedy was that between Germany and Italy, Vichy was caught in a double bind from which it was unwilling and unable to break free. This book necessarily builds upon as well as challenges the rich body of scholarship on Vichy, Fascist Italy and the Second World War more broadly. In particular, it owes a debt to the path-breaking work of Robert Paxton, whose study of Vichy continues to influence how historians understand French collaboration with Nazi Germany decades after it was first published.2 This book also returns to the work of Stanley Hoffmann, whose analysis of the different types of collaboration has proved similarly enduring.3 By incorporating the Italian dimension of Vichy’s undertakings, this book reassesses Hoffmann’s model of the relationship between state collaboration and ideological collaborationism. Philippe Burrin’s notion of ‘accommodation’ provides a third focus for critical engagement.4 It incorporates behaviours ranging from pragmatic opportunism to more ideologically driven collusion. Yet while the notion of ‘accommodation’ might have broader applicability, its conception in relation to the German occupation means that it cannot so easily be applied to Franco-Italian interactions. The work of historians such as Marc Olivier 2 3 4

Paxton, Vichy France. Hoffmann, ‘Collaborationism’, pp. 378–9. Burrin, Living with Defeat, pp. 2–4, 461–3.

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Baruch, Simon Kitson and Denis Peschanski on how the defence of sovereignty led Vichy to make ever-increasing concessions to Berlin is a fourth central theme explored in this book.5 By incorporating the Italian dimension into its analysis, this book suggests that Vichy regarded French sovereignty in pragmatic terms, treating it as a kind of currency that could not only be saved, but bought and exchanged between Berlin and Rome at fluctuating rates. This book aims to contribute towards the relatively neglected study of Vichy’s foreign relations. Since the publication of Jean-Baptiste Duroselle’s wide-ranging and unsurpassed analysis of French diplomacy during the Second World War, the subject has tended to be overlooked in favour of other avenues of research.6 This book adopts a different approach to that taken by Duroselle, however. It seeks to capture the complexity of French relations with Germany and Italy and how they were conducted not just through conventional diplomatic routes but through the armistice commissions, local authorities and unofficial intermediaries. Shaped not just by government policies, ideological imperatives or even domestic and international pressures, French relations with the Axis were determined by the actions of individuals and communities at a local level as well. When compared with the vast array of scholarship on French collaboration with Nazi Germany, the ways in which Vichy engaged with the Italian government and military authorities remain under-explored. Many of the leading studies on Franco-Italian relations and their wider international context end in 1940 or focus on Italian rather than French policy.7 The most significant study of Franco-Italian relations between 1940 and 1943 is Romain Rainero’s work on the Italian Armistice Commission for France.8 Containing many insights into the workings of the French and 5

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Marc-Olivier Baruch, Le régime de Vichy 1940–1944 (Paris: Tallandier, 2017), p. 52; Denis Peschanski, ‘Vichy Singular and Plural’, in Sarah Fishman, Robert Zaretsky, Ioannis Sinanoglou, Leonard V. Smith and Laura Lee Downs (eds.), France at War: Vichy and the Historians (Oxford: Berg, 2000); Kitson, Vichy et la chasse, pp. 170–82. Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, L’Abîme 1939–1944 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1986). Exceptions include: Dominique Chassard, Vichy et le Saint-Siège: Quatre ans de relations diplomatiques juillet 1940–août 1944 (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2015) and Michael S. Neiberg, When France Fell: The Vichy Crisis and the Fate of the Anglo-American Alliance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021). William I. Shorrock, From Ally to Enemy: The Enigma of Fascist Italy in French Diplomacy, 1920–1940 (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1988); Reynolds M. Salerno, Vital Crossroads: Mediterranean Origins of the Second World War, 1935–1940 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002); H. James Burgwyn, Italian Foreign Policy in the Interwar Period 1918–1940 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997); H. James Burgwyn, Mussolini Warlord: Failed Dreams of Empire, 1940–1943 (New York: Enigma, 2012). Romain Rainero, La commission italienne d’armistice avec la France: Les rapports entre la France de Vichy et l’Italie de Mussolini (10 juin 1940–8 septembre 1943) (Paris: Service Historique de l’Armée, 1995).

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Italian delegations, it remains an essential work of reference on this subject. Rainero explores French as well as Italian sources, but having been published through the Service Historique de l’Armée de Terre, the book’s scope is limited to the material held in its archives. By contrast, Massimo Borgogni’s research engages with French and Italian diplomatic sources, but in turn, it neglects the daily negotiations between the French authorities and the Italian Armistice Commission.9 While Enrica Costa Bona explores Franco-Italian relations in a broader chronological framework, her work focuses principally on Italian policy and is based upon published diplomatic sources.10 This book, therefore, seeks to take a broader perspective, engaging with a wider variety of archival sources and focusing upon French rather than Italian policy. Research into the experiences of the Second World War in France continues to flourish with fresh approaches and new enquiries into previously neglected groups, but still tends to deal with the German occupation.11 Among the somewhat smaller body of scholarship that does explore the Italian occupation, local studies and research on the Italian occupying forces have led the way.12 More recently, however, historians have turned to focus on the experiences of French populations and the actions of local French authorities as well. Jean-Louis Panicacci has published a wideranging analysis exploring the ‘ambiguities’ of the occupation in areas with strong cultural and historical connections with Italy.13 Emanuele Sica, meanwhile, has explored the significance of cultural proximity in 9

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Massimo Borgogni, Mussolini e la Francia di Vichy: Dalla dichiarazione di guerra al fallimento del riavvicinamento italo-francese (giugno 1940–aprile 1942) (Siena: Nuova Immagine, 1991), and Massimo Borgogni, Italia e Francia durante la crisi militare dell’Asse (1942–1943): L’ombra di Berlino sui rapporti diplomatici fra Italia fascista e Francia di Vichy (Siena: Nuova Immagine, 1994). Enrica Costa Bona, Dalla guerra alla pace: Italia-Francia: 1940–1947 (Milan: F. Angeli, 1995). See, for instance, Shannon Fogg, The Politics of Everyday Life in Vichy France: Foreigners, Undesirables and Strangers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Thomas J. Laub, After the Fall: German Policy in Occupied France, 1940–1944 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Daniel Lee, Pétain’s Jewish Children: French Jewish Youth and the Vichy Regime, 1940–1942 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); Ludivine Broch, Ordinary Workers, Vichy and the Holocaust: French Railwaymen and the Second World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016); Jacques Semelin, La survie des Juifs en France 1940–1944 (Paris: CNRS, 2018); Eric Alary, Nouvelle histoire de l’occupation (Paris: Perrin, 2019); Alya Aglan, La France à l’envers: La guerre de Vichy (1940–1945) (Paris: Gallimard, 2020). An exception to this tendency is Chris Millington, France in the Second World War: Collaboration, Resistance, Holocaust, Empire (London: Bloomsbury, 2020). Domenico Schipsi, L’occupazione italiana dei territori metropolitani francesi, 1940–1943 (Rome: Stato Maggiore Dell’Escerito, 2007); Hélène Chaubin, La Corse à l’épreuve de la guerre 1939–1943 (Paris: Vendémiaire, 2012); Pierre Giolitto, Grenoble 1940–1944 (Paris: Perrin, 2001); Christian Villermet, A noi Savoia: Histoire de l’occupation italienne en Savoie, novembre 1942–septembre 1943 (Les Marches: La Fontaine de Siloé, 1991). Jean-Louis Panicacci, L’occupation italienne: sud-est de la France, juin 1940–septembre 1943 (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2010).

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leading Italian forces to eschew the more violent type of occupation seen elsewhere.14 Rather than treat the Italian occupation in isolation, however, this book draws connections and comparisons with the challenges of the German occupation. It takes a different approach to Panicacci and Sica by focusing upon how local French officials and the Vichy government dealt with the often-conflicting demands of the Italian occupying forces and the German authorities. Most of this book is not concerned with the Italian occupation of southeastern France and Corsica. The Villa Incisa armistice brought an Italian presence to a much wider area of French metropolitan and colonial territory beyond the areas under occupation. From July 1940, Rome sent officials to monitor the implementation of the armistice terms, establishing control commissions across south-eastern France, Corsica, French North Africa, Syria, Lebanon and French Somaliland. This book, therefore, extends its focus beyond the responses to occupation and beyond metropolitan France. It examines the interactions between local French and Italian authorities against a complex backdrop of colonial tensions, rising nationalism, and in the case of French North Africa, the provocations of the German presence as well. In this sense, it echoes the expanding outlooks of many historians in exploring the experiences of the French colonial empire during the Second World War.15 With the notable exception of the scholarship on anti-Semitic policies in Tunisia, research into the interactions between French and Italian authorities in the areas under the jurisdiction of the Italian Armistice Commission remains limited.16 In his examination of the struggles over competing French, Italian and German policies towards Jews in France and Tunisia, Daniel Carpi tackles some of the questions addressed in this book.17 Indeed, Carpi is one of the few 14 15

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Emanuele Sica, Mussolini’s Army in the Riviera: Italy’s Occupation of France (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016). Jacques Cantier and Eric T. Jennings (eds.), L’Empire colonial sous Vichy (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2004); Sarah Ann Frank, Hostages of Empire: Colonial Prisoners of War in Vichy France (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021); Ruth Ginio, French Colonialism Unmasked: The Vichy Years in French West Africa (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006); Eric T. Jennings, Vichy in the Tropics: Pétain’s National Revolution in Madagascar, Guadeloupe, and Indochina, 1940–1944 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001); Martin Thomas, The French Empire at War, 1940–45 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998); Martin Thomas, Fight or Flight: Britain, France and Their Roads from Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). The Italian presence in the French colonies in North Africa is explored in Romain H. Rainero, La politque arabe de Mussolini pendant la seconde guerre mondiale, trans. Jean Louis Riccioli (Paris: Editions Publisud, 2006); Christine Levisse-Touzé, L’Afrique du Nord dans la guerre (Paris: Albin Michel, 1998). Daniel Carpi, Between Mussolini and Hitler: The Jews and the Italian Authorities in France and Tunisia (Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 1994).

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Introduction

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historians to have explored in depth the ways in which Vichy attempted to play the Italian and German authorities off against one another. In its emphasis upon Vichy’s relations with Italy, this book contributes towards a move away from the more traditional Germanocentric approaches towards the Second World War in Europe. It underscores the significance of the Mediterranean region not just for France and Italy but for Germany, Britain and the United States in the wider outcome of the war. In exploring Fascist expansionist ambitions in the Mediterranean, this book draws on the scholarship that emphasises Mussolini’s dominant role in shaping a foreign policy that was driven by ideology.18 Indeed, it was Fascist ideology that led Mussolini to adopt a more intransigent position towards Vichy and the future of France than many of his political and military advisors as well as his German counterparts. By highlighting the threats posed by Rome’s intervention and demands, as well as the harsh and often violent nature of the Italian occupation, this book contributes towards the scholarship that has sought to refute myths of a fundamentally humane Italian army led by a comparatively benign Fascist regime.19 It also engages with a connected area of research emphasising the importance of anti-Semitism in Fascist policy and within the Italian army.20 This book is grounded in significant primary research. It engages with the extensive records of the French delegation to the Italian Armistice Commission in Turin and the Armistice Service authorities in Vichy held by the Archives Nationales in Paris. These archives have been largely overlooked by historians and have never been the subject of systematic research. Yet with most of the negotiations between Vichy and Rome being 18

19

20

Davide Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire: Italian Occupation during the Second World War, trans. Adrian Belton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); MacGregor Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, 1939–1941: Politics and Strategy in Fascist Italy’s Last War (London: Cambridge University Press, 1982); MacGregor Knox, Hitler’s Italian Allies: Royal Armed Forces, Fascist Regime, and the War of 1940–1943 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Bruce Strang uses the term ‘mentalité’, rather than ideology, in G. Bruce Strang, On the Fiery March: Mussolini Prepares for War (Westport: Praeger, 2003). See, in particular, Angelo Del Boca, Italiani, brava gente? (Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 2005); Filippo Focardi, Il cattivo tedesco e il bravo italiano. La rimozione delle colpe della seconda guerra mondiale (Rome: Laterza, 2013); Davide Rodogno, ‘Italiani brava gente? Fascist Italy’s Policy Toward the Jews in the Balkans, April 1941–July 1943’, European History Quarterly, 35:2 (2005), 213–40. For an overview of the debates, see Patrick Bernhard, ‘Renarrating Italian Fascism: New Directions in the Historiography of a European Dictatorship’, Contemporary European History, 23:1 (2014), 151–63; Roberta Pergher, ‘The Ethics of Consent – Regime and People in the Historiographies of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany’, Contemporary European History, 24:2 (2015), 309–15. Michele Sarfatti, The Jews in Mussolini’s Italy: From Equality to Persecution (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2007); Jonathan Steinberg, All or Nothing: The Axis and the Holocaust, 1941–1943 (London: Routledge, 1990); Joshua D. Zimmerman (ed.), Jews in Italy under Fascist and Nazi rule, 1922–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

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10

Introduction

conducted through the armistice delegates at Turin and with disputes over Italian encroachments upon French sovereignty playing out between Italian armistice officials and French authorities at a local level, these collections are indispensable. They contain not just French documents but the extensive correspondence emanating from the Italian government and armistice authorities as well. This book also engages with the records of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs held at the Archives Diplomatiques in Paris. Incorporating an analysis of French relations with the Italian civil and military authorities at a local level as well, it draws on research conducted in the areas that fell under the jurisdiction of the Italian Armistice Commission and that were held under Italian occupation, including the Archives Départementales of the Alpes-Maritimes, Savoie, Haute-Savoie and Corsica.21 Finally, to situate Vichy’s double bind within a wider international context, this book draws upon published diplomatic documents from Italy, Germany, the United States, the Holy See and Britain, as well as British Foreign Office records held at the UK National Archives. The structure of this book is divided into two sections, following a thematic and chronological approach and reflecting the duality of the tensions between decisions made in Vichy and those taken at a local level. The first section explores relations between France and Italy at a state level and in ideological terms, analysing the wider implications for Vichy’s engagements with Germany. Chapter 1 looks at the breakdown in Franco-Italian relations in the lead-up to war and how the relatively moderate nature of the Italian armistice terms sent mixed signals about Mussolini’s ambitions towards France. Chapter 2 covers the evolution in Vichy’s policy between July and December 1940. It explores how this period saw Vichy pursuing rapprochement with Rome to counter the domination of Berlin while also using collaboration with Germany to counter the dangers from Italy. Chapter 3 examines how the collapse of negotiations with Berlin and the growing vulnerability of Italian forces in Libya culminated in a brief but significant experiment in military collaboration between France and Italy in the winter of 1941 to 1942. Chapter 4 covers the period following the full occupation of France in November 1942. It analyses the ways in which Vichy dealt with the often conflicting demands of the German and Italian authorities. Chapter 5 examines the ideological dimensions of Vichy’s relations with Rome, focusing upon the attempts to create an alternative vision to collaboration with Nazi Germany and the absence of collaborationism with Fascist Italy. 21

The Archives Départementales du Corse du Sud cover the whole of Corsica, predating the division of the island into two departments in 1976.

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Introduction

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The second section shifts the focus to the local level and to the daily interactions between the French authorities, Italian control commissions and the Italian occupying forces in mainland France, Corsica, French North Africa, French Somaliland and the Levant. Chapter 6 explores how the Italian control commissions threatened French authority. It analyses how the responses of Vichy and the local French authorities were sometimes very different to their treatment of the Germans. Chapter 7 deals with Rome’s attempted annexation of the areas occupied by Italian forces following the armistice of June 1940. It assesses how French authorities’ opposition to Italian actions was constrained by Vichy’s response to the de facto German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. The final chapter deals with the Italian occupation of south-eastern France and Corsica between November 1942 and September 1943. It examines how local French officials responded to Italian forces’ efforts to assert their authority with growing repression and Vichy’s attempts to exploit conflicting Italian and German occupation policies. Over eighty years on, the history of Vichy is still the focus of vigorous scholarly and public debate. It endures as a contentious subject because many of the uncomfortable questions about France’s past continue to resonate today. Indeed, in recent years, the resurgence of populism and anti-Semitism has made Vichy a more contested subject than in previous decades.22 Yet while its policies were rooted in a reactionary conservatism that challenged many of the ideals of the Revolution of 1789, its ideology was heterogeneous. The political culture that made the Republic was also that which spawned Vichy. It, therefore, cannot simply be written off as an aberration in French history. The Vichy government’s willing collaboration with the policies of the Nazi regime and its ready alignment with the Axis implicate it not just in a ‘Franco-French’ trauma but in a European one as well. Through a blinkered perspective of misaligned priorities, Vichy chased hollow victories. It attempted to set Rome against Berlin not out of any principled opposition to Nazi policies but because it wanted to assure France’s status within a German-dominated continent. In turn, it willingly ingratiated itself with Berlin not merely to thwart Rome’s demands but in the delusion that collaborating with the Germans was preferable to yielding to the Italians. 22

See Laurent Joly, La falsification de l’Histoire: Eric Zemmour, l’extrême droite, Vichy et les juifs (Paris: Grassnet, 2022).

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https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009368346.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Part I

Diplomacy and Politics

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chapter 1

Sowing the Seeds

From the Abyssinia Crisis to the Armistice

Reporting on the state of relations between Berlin and Rome and the implications for French foreign policy in late April 1939, André FrançoisPoncet concluded that: ‘The German has little regard for his ally; he suspects him of remaining ready to betray him. The Italian complains about the air of superiority with which his associate regards him. He attributes that to a desire for domination and hegemony’.1 As ambassador to Italy and former ambassador to Germany, François-Poncet’s analysis was at once insightful and deceptive. On the one hand, he shrewdly gauged the tensions between the two governments; on the other hand, however, he overstated their significance. This chapter suggests that two key dimensions of French policy towards Italy before July 1940 presaged that which was developed by Vichy in the period thereafter. The first was an underestimation of the significance of ideology in driving Mussolini’s actions. The second was an overestimation of the French ability to control and manipulate the Italian government. The two strands led inexorably and erroneously to a belief that the French government might be able to drive a wedge between Mussolini and Hitler and that the former might be induced to act as a moderating force on the latter. Although Vichy saw itself as heralding a rupture with the Third Republic, many of its chief foreign policy protagonists spanned both periods. Key figures within the government, including Marshal Philippe Pétain, Pierre Laval, Etienne Flandin and Paul Baudouin, had had experience in international affairs before the war. Significantly, as foreign minister in the 1930s, Laval had made a name for himself as the architect of French rapprochement with Italy. Many of the country’s leading diplomats remained in post under Vichy as well. On the Italian side, there was still greater continuity; those who shaped Italy’s foreign policy, including 1

André François-Poncet, Au Palais Farnèse. Souvenirs d’une Ambassade à Rome 1938–1940 (Paris: Librairie Artheme Fayard, 1961), pp. 103–4.

15

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Sowing the Seeds: From the Abyssinia Crisis to the Armistice

Mussolini, Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano and Marshal Badoglio, scarcely altered their views of France before and after the establishment of the Vichy government. In the years leading up to the war, Franco-Italian relations underwent significant swings from closeness in the face of the German threat to rupture and fragile fluidity following the Abyssinia crisis. Despite Italy having fought alongside France during the First World War, its transformation into a Fascist state, the tensions over the Versailles peace terms and the ongoing disputes over Tunisia meant that if the Quai d’Orsay recognised its significance as a counterbalance to Germany, it remained imbued with ‘systematic Italophobia’.2 Only the need to respond to changing circumstances and the growing threat from Hitler changed diplomats’ perspectives. In 1935, France signed an important set of political and military accords with Italy which it hoped would create a counterweight to Germany and Britain. However, the Italian invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935 brought a new, antagonistic tone to the relationship. Thereafter, Fascist foreign policy became increasingly driven by ideology. The regime’s divisions with the western democratic powers grew ever sharper as it drew closer into the Nazi orbit. Nevertheless, within the Italian government and army, views on France remained split. Under the leadership of Marshal Badoglio, Italian military commanders maintained contact with their French counterparts and continued to regard Germany as the common enemy as late as 1939.3 Within the government, Ciano and former foreign minister Dino Grandi contested Mussolini’s approach towards France as well. Ultimately, however, despite wielding significant influence, Ciano’s control over the direction of foreign policy was limited and Mussolini invariably prevailed.4 By the time the French government came to seek negotiations to avert war, Mussolini’s views on France had become so soured as to preclude any talks and any real prospect of cooperation after the armistice. This chapter begins by examining how the fallout over the Abyssinia crisis left an indelible mark on Franco-Italian relations, shaping Mussolini’s perceptions of the French government and weakening Laval’s influence in Rome for the duration of the war. It then explores how Mussolini’s ideological ambitions brought growing rifts between Paris and Rome 2

3 4

Pierre Guillen, ‘Franco-Italian Relations in Flux, 1918–1940’, in Robert Boyce (ed.), French Foreign and Defence Policy, 1918–1940: Decline and Fall of a Great Power (London: LSE/Routledge, 1998), p. 150. Shorrock, From Ally to Enemy, p. 273. Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, p. 47; Strang, On the Fiery March, p. 13.

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The Depreciation of Laval

17

as European tensions mounted. The final section analyses how French responses to the Italian entry into the war and the armistice terms laid the foundations for Vichy’s treatment of the Axis.

The Depreciation of Laval As the main architect of the Franco-Italian accords signed in 1935, Laval might have seemed the best-placed French politician to appeal to Mussolini and prevent Italian belligerence when the hour came in 1940. Indeed, Laval believed that he alone could have brought about such an outcome.5 In reality, however, the Abyssinia crisis significantly depreciated Laval’s value as an asset in Franco-Italian relations. Far from being respected in Italian political circles, he was held in contempt, given a wide berth by Italian diplomats and dismissed as a ‘parliamentarian’.6 Laval’s approach towards Italy was based less on any sense of cultural or historical affinity than strategic calculations about the position of France in an increasingly tense Europe. Ideology was not his primary concern either. Before the outbreak of the war, he was more alarmed by the threat posed by German domination than the threat from Communism. On becoming foreign minister in October 1934 and then prime minister in June 1935, the growing danger presented by Nazi Germany led Laval to prioritise attempts to secure rapprochement with Italy. Yet, despite claiming to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on 16 March 1938 that it was his life’s mission to secure an agreement between France and Italy as ‘Latin cousins’, Laval’s interest in Italy was only ever pragmatic.7 With Hitler making good on his promises to revise the peace terms of 1919 and to reassert Germany’s position in Europe, despite its scepticism, the Quai d’Orsay began to pave the way for a future agreement between France and Italy, cultivating favourable French public opinion towards the neighbouring state through a series of political and cultural initiatives.8 With Mussolini’s regime unleashing a wave of hostile propaganda, officials needed to reassure the French people and to win over those on the centre right who were concerned about dealing with a Fascist power. Officials, therefore, emphasised 5 6 7 8

Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1968), pp. 165–6. Guariglia to Ciano, 24 May 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 4, p. 439. Warner, Pierre Laval, pp. 140, 144. On the attempts to develop cultural ties between France and Italy during this period, see Catherine Fraixe, Lucia Piccioni and Christophe Poupault (eds.), Vers une Europe latine. Acteurs et enjeux des échanges culturels entre la France et l’Italie fasciste (Bruxelles: PIE Peter Lang, 2014).

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Sowing the Seeds: From the Abyssinia Crisis to the Armistice

the countries’ shared Latin culture, Catholicism and experiences in fighting alongside one another in the First World War, creating a narrative of solidarity between the two states that went far beyond Laval’s pragmatism. The accords signed between Laval and Mussolini in January 1935 sought to resolve areas of tension between the two countries as well as to bring cooperation in areas of shared interest. The agreement included terms relating to the German threat to the independence of Austria and German rearmament, as well as clauses involving the French cession of territory at the southern Libyan border and in Eritrea. Most significantly, however, in return for Mussolini yielding ground on the contested issue of the rights of Italians in Tunisia, Laval agreed to a set of secret protocols granting major concessions to Italy on Abyssinia. The January accords paved the way for further agreements. Under the terms of a military pact signed in June 1935, the two governments resolved to engage in close cooperation and military support in the event of German mobilisation against France or of a disturbance between Austria and Germany.9 The Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 2 October 1935 and the subsequent international uproar changed everything. Nevertheless, Laval was determined to ride the storm and uphold the French position. As an important new ally and a Locarno signatory, the French government’s belief that Italy represented a useful counter to a rising threat from Germany remained unchanged. It also made military sense not to break with Italy. On 3 October, Chief of Staff General Gamelin warned that in the case of a future war against Germany, not having to confront Italian forces was worth seventeen divisions to the French army. If French forces had to prepare to defend North Africa and the Alps against a possible Italian invasion at the same time as facing a German assault, they would find themselves stretched and vulnerable.10 In a secret deal with the British Foreign Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare on 7–8 December 1935, Laval, therefore, pushed through an agreement that effectively conceded Italian rule over most of Abyssinia. When the deal was leaked to the press, however, the international scandal forced Laval to resign from office in January 1936. Above all, however, it was Mussolini’s response to the Abyssinia crisis that irredeemably embittered relations between the two states. The precise detail of what Laval had agreed with Mussolini, when the two met in January 1935, was unclear because the talks were conducted in private with 9 10

Anthony Adamthwaite, France and the Coming of the Second World War, 1936–1939 (London: Frank Cass, 1977), p. 33. Ibid, p. 34.

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Growing Rifts

19

no written record. Mussolini came away from the meeting convinced that Laval had agreed to give Italy a free hand in Abyssinia and that France would turn a blind eye to Italian actions, whereas Laval maintained that he had not made any such promise.11 There might have been a genuine misunderstanding or there might have been some element of duplicity on the part of one or both of the interlocutors; but in the subsequent fallout, Mussolini came to view the actions of Laval and the French government as treachery. The final blow to Franco-Italian rapprochement came from the Popular Front government which was elected on an anti-Fascist platform in June 1936. Its introduction of sanctions against Italy on 19 June 1936, followed by its decision to recall its ambassador in October 1936 and tensions over the Spanish Civil War, brought relations to a new low.

Growing Rifts Even before the Spanish Civil War, however, Mussolini’s foreign policy had become increasingly ideological in character. The Italian invasion of Abyssinia heralded a major shift in the domestic and external orientation of the Fascist regime.12 Powered by social Darwinist notions of race, the expansionism that lay at the heart of Mussolini’s vision combined with a fresh emphasis on the values of war and violence.13 Inaugurating an ideologically driven ‘Fascist decade of war’, the Abyssinia crisis gave rise to a new international landscape that was to have grave consequences not just for France but also for Europe and the wider world.14 Mussolini’s desire to escape the ‘imprisonment’ of the Mediterranean, advancing Fascist domination into North Africa and the Middle East and remodelling Italy into an imperial power, threatened the colonial interests of the western democracies.15 Nevertheless, even though the pursuit of such goals brought 11 12

13 14

15

Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, France and the Nazi Threat: The Collapse of French Diplomacy, 1932–39, trans. Catherine E. Dop and Robert L. Miller (New York: Enigma Books, 2004), p. 94. See Massimiliano Fiore, Anglo-Italian Relations in the Middle East, 1922–1940 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010); Robert Mallett, Mussolini in Ethiopia: The Origins of Fascist Italy’s African War, 1919–1933 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Giorgio Rochat, Le guerre italiane 1935–1943. Dall’impero d’Etiopia alla disfatta (Torino: Giulio Einaudi, 2005); G. Bruce Strang (ed.), Collision of Empires: Italy’s Invasion of Ethiopia and Its International Impact (London: Routledge, 2016). Strang, On the Fiery March, pp. 28–31. Marco Maria Aterrano and Karine Varley, ‘Introduction: A Fascist Decade of War? The Impact of the Italian Wars on the International Stage, 1935–45’, in Marco Maria Aterrano and Karine Varley (eds.), A Fascist Decade of War: 1935–1945 in International Perspective (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020), pp. 1–10. Simon Ball, The Bitter Sea: The Struggle for Mastery in the Mediterranean, 1935–1949 (London: Harper Press, 2009), p. 10; Alexander De Grand, ‘Mussolini’s Follies: Fascism in Its Imperial and Racist Phase, 1935–1940’, Contemporary European History 13:2 (2004), 127–47; MacGregor Knox, Common

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Sowing the Seeds: From the Abyssinia Crisis to the Armistice

Mussolini closer to Hitler, Fascist ideology did not make an alliance between Rome and Berlin inevitable. The set of protocols that became known as the Rome–Berlin Axis signed on 25 October 1936 represented a clear signal of Mussolini’s intentions but was not yet a full alliance. Confronted with the new international environment, French military planners warned that they did not have the resources to deal with threats in the Mediterranean and Europe at the same time. In early February 1938, Gamelin issued a report arguing that with the Mediterranean being a vital connecting route to both the French and British colonial empires, it was Italy, rather than Germany, that represented the most immediate danger to the country’s security.16 When the Popular Front collapsed two months later, Georges Bonnet, therefore, sought to repair damaged relations with Italy. The French government’s decision in early October 1938 to send an ambassador to Rome after two years without diplomatic representation represented a significant conciliatory gesture. The appointment of André François-Poncet, one of the country’s most senior diplomats, was intended to send a signal of the importance Paris attached to restoring relations with Rome. However, when he arrived in Italy on 7 November 1938, FrançoisPoncet was met with a frosty reception.17 Matters came to a head when he visited the Chamber of Deputies on 30 November 1938. Ciano was in the midst of a relatively mundane speech when he mentioned Italy’s ‘natural aspirations’. Suddenly, around fifteen Fascist deputies shouted ‘Nice, Savoie, Corsica, Tunisia’. In the weeks that followed, the Fascist press subjected François-Poncet to daily diatribes of ‘extraordinary virulence, hatred and vulgarity’, which left him ‘stupefied’.18 Having already determined to toughen his stance after the Sudeten crisis two months earlier, Daladier responded to the provocation by publicly signalling that appeasement was over. Touring Corsica and North Africa to popular acclaim in early 1939, Daladier sought to reassure the territories in question that they would not become France’s Sudetenland. As he addressed crowds in Algiers on 6 January 1939, he vowed not to cede so much as an acre of French territory.19 Nevertheless, French officials sought to maintain diplomatic channels with the Italians as ‘vacillating

16 17 18 19

Destiny: Dictatorship, Foreign Policy, and War in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 146; Robert Mallett, Mussolini and the Origins of the Second World War, 1933–1940 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003), p. 5. Adamthwaite, France and the Coming, pp. 227–9. François-Poncet, Au Palais Farnèse, pp. 10–16. Ibid, pp. 38–9. AD Papiers Rochat 19, ‘Daladier à Alger’, 6 January 1939. See also Daniel Hucker, Public Opinion and the End of Appeasement in Britain and France (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 90–1.

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Growing Rifts

21

and uncertain friends’.20 Moreover, despite his uncompromising public position, in early February 1939, Daladier agreed to send Paul Baudouin as an unofficial emissary to Rome. As director-general of the Bank of Indochina, Baudouin’s involvement in the Djibouti–Addis Ababa railway had led him to establish contacts with senior Italian government figures, including Ciano. He was, therefore, instructed to convey the message that while the French government would not cede any territory, it was willing to engage in negotiations. The mission was so secretive that even FrançoisPoncet was not informed, only finding out by chance when he happened to spot Baudouin at the railway station in Rome. However, the initiative collapsed when news of Baudouin’s trip was leaked to the press on 9 February. Newspapers rounded on the government, accusing it of returning to the kind of discredited back-door diplomacy that had resulted in the Munich agreement.21 Over the course of 1939, ministers and diplomats oscillated between believing that rapprochement with Mussolini was desirable and achievable and believing that it was hopeless and in vain.22 Many French officials continued to believe that Mussolini was a moderating influence upon Hitler who had played a decisive role in bringing the German dictator to the negotiating table at Munich in September 1938.23 They failed to appreciate that this was simply Mussolini’s way of reasserting his usefulness to Hitler.24 They also failed to pay sufficient heed to Mussolini’s pronouncement to the Fascist Grand Council in early February 1939. Described by G. Bruce Strang as Mussolini’s equivalent to Mein Kampf, the speech outlined a vision of Fascist foreign policy that called on Italy to take the French Alps, Corsica and Tunisia and to break free from its ‘Mediterranean prison’.25 Only François-Poncet seemed to understand the ideological imperatives behind Mussolini’s position, informing the Quai d’Orsay that Italian neutrality could only ever be temporary because the whole aim and trajectory of the regime was directed to war. Condemning Baudouin’s secret mission as having worsened Italian demands, François-Poncet warned that Mussolini was only interested in securing total victory over France. By 20

21 22 23 24 25

Phipps to Halifax, 19 December 1938, DBFP, ser. 3, vol. 3, pp. 479–88; AD Papiers Rochat 19, Bonnet, Chambre des Députés, 19 December 1938; AD Papiers Rochat 19, ‘Contacts FrancoItaliens avant et après l’échange des notes des 17 et 26 novembre 1938’. Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, ‘La mission Baudouin à Rome’, in Jean-Baptiste Duroselle and Enrico Serra (eds.), Italia e Francia (1939–1945) vol. 1 (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1984), pp. 358–64. François-Poncet, Au Palais Farnèse, p. 99. Adamthwaite, France and the Coming, p. 255. Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, p. 49. Strang, On the Fiery March, pp. 213–4.

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Sowing the Seeds: From the Abyssinia Crisis to the Armistice

seeking to engage in negotiations with the Italians and offering to make concessions, France appeared weak and risked ‘being eaten like an artichoke, leaf by leaf’.26 Over the next few months, however, officials engaged in a variety of initiatives that not only revealed their growing desperation but also their lack of understanding of Mussolini’s position. Attempts to prize Mussolini away from Hitler by emphasising the cultural connections between France and Italy underestimated his ideological affinities with the German dictator. Efforts to exploit internal divisions within the Italian government and army over closer relations with Germany had no success either.27 A seemingly more promising avenue of rapprochement developed from economic talks after Italy honoured its commitment to non-belligerence following the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. Within just a few days, the French and Italian governments signed a secret economic accord by which Rome agreed to provide France with explosives, anti-tank mines and aircraft, in return for benefiting from a favourable exchange rate and French stock market prices. With Ciano requesting that the talks be conducted ‘without the knowledge of the Germans’, the accords gave French officials hope that Italian non-belligerence might yet be transformed into neutrality.28 In reality, however, the fact that Italy continued to export material to France as late as 24 May 1940 was no indication of its military and diplomatic orientation. While the French government and the Quai d’Orsay blundered from one failed diplomatic initiative to the next, it fell to François-Poncet to articulate a more nuanced understanding of the Italian position and of the impact of the French démarches. In a telegram to the Quai d’Orsay in early November 1939, he warned that Italian non-belligerence weighed heavily upon Mussolini as a humiliation for a regime ideologically geared towards war.29 In late March 1940, François-Poncet warned that Mussolini was moving ever more decisively towards Hitler. Citing senior Italian diplomatic sources, he warned that Mussolini might seek to use negotiations as a pretence for humiliating France.30 Any attempt to win Mussolini over with concessions would potentially provide him with an opportunity to claim offence that he would seek to exploit as an affront 26 27 28 29 30

AD Papiers Rochat 19, Telegram from François-Poncet, 16 February 1939. Shorrock, From Ally to Enemy, p. 273. Georges Bonnet, Défense de la paix. Fin d’une Europe (Genève: Editions du Cheval Ailé, 1948), p. 382. AD Papiers Rochat 19, Telegram from François-Poncet, 6 November 1939. AD Papiers Rochat 23, Telegram from François-Poncet, 29 March 1940; AD Papiers Rochat 19, Telegram from François-Poncet, 8 April 1940.

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Growing Rifts

23

to Italian honour.31 Diplomats, therefore, needed to tread a careful line; while an Italian public hostile to war and to Nazi Germany represented a significant asset for the French, it could not be taken for granted. Officials must, François-Poncet cautioned, avoid creating any controversy or threat that might allow Mussolini to rally public opinion against France. Above all, they needed to avoid Italian actions inciting them to respond in such a way that Rome could claim was an act of provocation.32 As Daladier’s administration was replaced by that of Paul Reynaud on 21 March 1940, French policy towards Italy continued to be characterised by inconsistency and indecision. One strand of opinion within the government held that Rome should be presented with an ultimatum and compelled to declare its position.33 The second, dominated by proponents of appeasement, maintained that the French government should seek to purchase Italian neutrality by ceding territories. The third proposed to encourage Italian neutrality by dispatching an established Italophile from the French political elites to deal with the Fascist government.34 The German invasion of France on 13 May 1940 sharply heightened the prospects of Italian entry into the war. Appointed foreign minister five days later, Daladier panicked. Adopting a dual approach, he offered Rome concessions while insisting that Italy’s best interests lay with France, rather than Germany. The eleventh hour appeals to Italy served only to strengthen Mussolini’s resolve in maintaining his allegiance with Germany. Officials warned Daladier that offering concessions to the Italian government when Mussolini had already decided to join the war on Germany’s side risked damaging French credibility, but to no avail.35 Ill-judged French démarches sought to convince the Italians that German domination would threaten the European balance.36 Such approaches failed to realise that Mussolini preferred to align with a powerful ideological ally rather than a weakened ideological foe and that his foreign policy sought precisely to destroy the old balance.37 As Belgium capitulated and the Dunkirk evacuation of British and French forces began, late on 27 May 1940 Daladier suggested making a 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

Attitude of Italy, 8 April 1940, DDF 1940, vol. I, p. 410. AD Papiers Rochat 23, Telegram from François-Poncet, 2 May 1940. Pierre-Etienne Flandin, Politique Française 1919–1940 (Paris: Editions Nouvelles, 1947), pp. 356–7. Duroselle, L’Abîme, p. 17. AD Papiers Charles-Roux 1, Note, 29 May 1940. Guariglia to Ciano, 18 May 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 4, p. 378; Guariglia to Ciano, 30 May 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 4, p. 499; TNA FO 371/24310, ‘Possible Offer of Separate Peace with Italy’, 24 May 1940. Knox, Common Destiny, p. 142.

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Sowing the Seeds: From the Abyssinia Crisis to the Armistice

secret offer to Mussolini, including the cession of the French Somali coast and concessions on the Djibouti–Addis Ababa railway, revisions to the Libyan border and a French–Italian condominium in Tunisia.38 Having opposed making concessions when the country had been in a position of relative strength in 1938 and 1939, Daladier’s strategy of offering concessions when France was at its most vulnerable at once robbed the government of its negotiating position and reinforced Italian suspicions. In a final attempt to break the impasse, on 8 June, Reynaud invited the Italian ambassador to the Quai d’Orsay. Guariglia merely responded by reaffirming his government’s commitment to the Axis. At a time when German victories were on the verge of overturning the old democracies to create a new European order, there was little incentive for the Fascist government to side with the French Republic.39 German military success provided Mussolini with the opportunity he sought to launch a parallel war that would enable Italian forces to move into North Africa and the Balkans and so even out the balance of power within the Axis.40 Upon witnessing the rapid collapse of the French army, despite not being militarily prepared to engage in conflict, on 10 June 1940, Mussolini declared war on France and Britain.41 While it came as little surprise, it was widely seen as cynical opportunism. Even Hitler condemned it as the ‘worst declaration of war in this world’.42 The weak performance of the Italian army against French forces in the Alps only added insult to injury. Having taken over as the new head of the French government, with Italian forces still not ready for action, on 17 June, Pétain declared that he wished to enter negotiations for an armistice. Hitler informed Mussolini that not having contributed towards the campaign, Italy would not be able to participate in the negotiations as a victor. Against the opposition of Badoglio, General Graziani and Ciano, Mussolini ordered his forces to launch an immediate offensive in the Alps.43 In three days of fighting 38 39 40

41

42 43

François Charles-Roux, Cinq mois tragiques aux affaires étrangères, 21 mai-1er novembre 1940 (Paris: Plon, 1949), pp. 8–11. Guariglia to Ciano, 8 June 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 4, pp. 605–6. John Gooch, ‘Mussolini’s Strategy, 1939–1943’, in John Ferris and Evan Mawdsley (eds.), The Cambridge History of the Second World War, vol. I, Fighting the War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), p. 137. On the French defeat, see Julian Jackson, The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Philip G. Nord, France 1940: Defending the Republic (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015). Christian Goeschel, Mussolini and Hitler: The Forging of a Fascist Alliance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), p. 184. Ray Moseley, Mussolini’s Shadow: The Double Life of Count Galeazzo Ciano (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), p. 107.

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Armistice Negotiations

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between 21 and 24 June, 300,000 Italian soldiers vastly outnumbered the fewer than 100,000 French forces that confronted them. Having the advantage of fighting a defensive campaign and spurred on by their anger at the Italian ‘stab in the back’, French soldiers mounted a stiff resistance. By the time the fighting had ended, Italian soldiers had only reached as far as the town of Menton in the south and had fared even worse in the north, advancing only four kilometres into French territory.44

Armistice Negotiations The armistice negotiations that followed the French ceasefire with Germany brought the weakness of the Italian position into sharp relief. The timing had caught Mussolini by surprise, coming only seven days after the Italian declaration of war and before Italian forces had even begun their campaign.45 He had an ambitious set of demands, including the demobilisation of the French army and the occupation of south-eastern France, Corsica, Tunisia, French Somaliland and other strategic areas, as well as factories and military bases in France and the French colonial empire. He also sought possession over the French naval fleet, aircraft and rail rolling stock.46 Yet when it came to the final deal, Mussolini had to scale down his demands significantly. Hitler made it clear that he planned to impose less stringent terms. Meeting in Munich on 18 June, German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop told Ciano that his government wanted to avoid pushing the French too hard in case they decided to hand the fleet over to Britain.47 News of General de Gaulle’s call to resistance on BBC radio that same day also raised fears that the French government might flee to North Africa to continue the fight.48 Having contributed little to the French defeat, Mussolini, therefore, had to postpone his claims in the hope that the war would soon be over and that he would secure them in the final peace agreement. From the start of the negotiations on 21 June, the French government maintained that it did not accept Italian claims of victory and would, therefore, not countenance any illegitimate Italian demands.49 44 45 46 47 48 49

Sica, Mussolini’s Army, pp. 23–4. Galeazzo Ciano, Diary, 1937–1943 Complete and Unabridged (London: Phoenix Press, 2002), p. 363. Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire, p. 25. Ciano, Diary, p. 363. Burgwyn, Mussolini Warlord, p. 16; Ciano, Diary, p. 363. Henri Michel, ‘Les relations franco-italiennes (de l’armistice de juin 1940 à l’armistice de septembre 1943)’, in Henri Michel (ed.), La guerre en méditerranée 1939–1945. Actes du colloque international tenu à Paris du 8 au 11 avril 1969 (Paris: Editions du CNRS, 1971), pp. 487, 491.

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Sowing the Seeds: From the Abyssinia Crisis to the Armistice

By contrast, while it viewed the German terms as harsh, the French government accepted them as the unfortunate but justified consequence of an overwhelming military defeat. Unaware of the Italian demands and fearing the worst, General Huntziger told the German armistice delegation at Rethondes that France would not allow itself to be ‘dishonoured’ by punitive Italian conditions because ‘although Italy had declared war on France, she had not waged war on France’.50 If the Italians attempted to impose ‘merciless’ terms, the French government would walk away from the negotiations and France would resume the fight. Its army might be crushed still further by German forces, but it remained a viable military power with its navy and air force intact.51 Indeed, France would rather face the threat of a further German assault and more onerous peace terms, Huntziger maintained, because ‘honour was of greater importance than life’.52 For some historians, including Romain Rainero and Robert Paxton, the approach taken by Huntziger during the armistice negotiations saw the Germans being complicit in a French strategy of seeking to gain an advantage over the Italians.53 Indeed, they suggest that Huntziger came away from Rethondes convinced that General Keitel shared his and the French government’s ‘contempt’ towards the illegitimacy of any Italian claims.54 As evidence of Huntziger’s strategy of treating the German government as a future ‘privileged interlocutor’, and of German collusion, Rainero draws on a German document that quoted Huntziger apologising for his intemperate comments about Italy, but stating that he believed that the German delegates shared his opinion about the Italians. The fact that Keitel articulated his respect for Huntziger’s conduct during the negotiations is interpreted by Rainero as further evidence of German complicity.55 French records of the incident present a somewhat different picture. Huntziger’s claim that the German delegation shared his view of the Italians was not, as Rainero claims, made to German officials, but was 50 51 52 53 54

55

Record of second day’s negotiations at Compiègne, 22 June 1940, DGFP, ser. D, vol. IX, p. 668; Report, first day at Rethondes, 21 June 1940, DDF 1940, Les armistices, p. 90. AD Papiers Baudouin 1, ‘Conseil des Ministres, 22 juin 1h30 du matin – Commentaire aux réponses allemandes’. Armistice negotiations at Compiègne, 21–22 June 1940, DGFP, ser. D, vol. IX, p. 646; Record of second day’s negotiations at Compiègne, 22 June 1940, DGFP, ser. D, vol. IX, p. 668. Rainero, La commission italienne, p. 30. Robert O. Paxton, Parades and Politics at Vichy: The French Officer Corps under Marshal Pétain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), p. 108; Pierre-François Queuille, Histoire diplomatique de Vichy. Pétain diplomate (Paris: Editions Albatros, 1976), p. 34. Rainero, La commission italienne, pp. 30–1.

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rather made in a telephone conversation with General Weygand on the evening of 21 June. According to the German transcript of the secretly monitored conversation, Huntziger claimed that ‘although outwardly the Germans had not shown the slightest reaction’ to his comments about Italy, he ‘had the impression that they shared the French opinion of the Italians’.56 Understood in the context of a conversation with Weygand, Huntziger’s remark was merely a personal observation. The French strategy at Rethondes was not an improvised attempt to capitalise upon a shared contempt for Italian claims of victory but was rather a planned effort to persuade the Germans to soften the Italian terms. Nor were Huntziger’s words an emotional outburst. Rather they had been prepared beforehand by the French diplomat Léon Noël in accordance with the instructions of the French government.57 Officials had mistakenly believed that the German delegation would shape the Italian terms. Expecting to be confronted with demands for a significant Italian occupation zone and parts of France’s colonial empire, they, therefore, made a calculated plea that cited Hitler’s desire for a ‘just’ peace and appealed to notions of military honour.58 The failure of the German delegation to react to Huntziger’s comments was merely a measure of their limited jurisdiction and ignorance of the Italian terms.59 It was only after the negotiations had finished that Keitel expressed his personal feelings. With tears in his eyes, he shook Huntziger’s hand and declared his ‘profound esteem’ and ‘sympathy as a soldier’.60 The French strategy of playing the Germans against the Italians, therefore, did not begin at Rethondes. The episode did, however, hint at the delusion that was to become characteristic of French attempts to divide the Axis powers. If the negotiations at Rethondes sealed the overwhelming domination of Germany over France that was to shape relations between the two countries for the rest of the war, the negotiations with Italy inaugurated an ambiguous relationship that was also to endure for the rest of the conflict. Because the two armistices were tied together, the French 56 57

58 59

60

Record of a telephone conversation between Huntziger and Weygand at Compiègne, 21 June 1940, DGFP, ser. D, vol. IX, p. 654. Le Diktat de Rethondes et l’Armistice Franco-Italien de juin 1940 (Paris: Flammarion, 1954), p. 77; Plenary meeting at Rethondes 22 June at 10 am, DDF 1940: Les armistices, p. 111. Paul Baudouin, Neuf mois au gouvernement avril-décembre 1940 (Paris: La Table Ronde, 1948), p. 202. Armistice negotiations at Compiègne, 21–22 June 1940, DGFP, ser. D, vol. IX, pp. 646–7. Plenary meeting at Rethondes, 22 June, 10 am, DDF 1940: Les armistices de juin 1940, pp. 111–2; Record of second day’s negotiations at Compiègne, 22 June 1940, DGFP, ser. D, vol. IX, p. 669; Memorandum by Weizsäcker, 22 June 1940, DGFP, ser. D, vol. IX, p. 679. Final exchanges after signature of armistice, 22 June 1940, DDF 1940: Les armistices, p. 122.

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Sowing the Seeds: From the Abyssinia Crisis to the Armistice

government was under pressure to approve the Italian terms as quickly as possible. On being presented with the draft Italian armistice on arriving at the Villa Incisa near Rome on 24 June, however, the French delegation were relieved to find that the demands were much less onerous than they had feared.61 The tone of the negotiations with the Italians was, therefore, markedly more conciliatory than it had been with the Germans. Indeed, one observer noted that the atmosphere verged on being rather more cordial than befitted such sombre circumstances.62 Marshal Badoglio, who recalled the camaraderie he had shared with French soldiers during the First World War, declared to French officials that he hoped that France would soon recover, because it was a ‘great nation’ with a ‘great history’.63 Several of the delegates made no secret of how they held each other in high esteem. Badoglio stated that he considered General Parisot a ‘friend’, having become acquainted with him during his days as French military attaché to Rome.64 Indeed, Ciano suspected that the two men had probably shared their disdain towards Germany in the past.65 For his part, Ciano also displayed signs of friendship, spontaneously shaking hands with Huntziger and exchanging pleasantries with Noël, whom he had known for many years.66 The atmosphere was due in part to French relief at the conditions and Italian embarrassment at the circumstances of their meeting. However, there was also undoubtedly a sense from each side that despite being wartime enemies, their interlocutors were not so different from them. After the years of political, diplomatic and military tensions that had led up to the war, the face-to-face meeting was a reminder of the cultural affinities between the two nations. The Italian armistice comprised many demands that paralleled those imposed by Germany. The terms included disarming French troops in France, Africa and Syria, demilitarising naval bases and fortifications, surrendering weapons, disarming the fleet, agreeing that the French government would not engage in any activities harmful to Italy and liberating Italian prisoners of war. Crucially, however, what made the armistice palatable was that unlike Germany, Italy would have only a very small zone of occupation, comprising around 841 square kilometres around Menton and 61 62 63 64 65 66

Charles-Roux, Cinq mois tragiques, p. 101; Baudouin, Neuf mois, p. 209. Baudouin, Neuf mois, p. 208. AN AJ41 5, ‘Convention d’Armistice avec l’Italie – Négociations et Textes’. Pietro Badoglio, Italy in the Second World War: Memories and Documents, trans. Muriel Currey (London: Oxford University Press, 1948), p. 23. Ciano, Diary, p. 365. Le Diktat, p. 95; Albert Kammerer, La vérité sur l’armistice: Ephéméride de ce qui s’est réellement passé au moment du désastre (Paris: Editions Medicis, 1944), p. 326.

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Armistice Negotiations

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the mountains of Savoie and would receive no occupation indemnities.67 Significantly, whereas ‘collaboration’ between French administrative services and German military authorities was written into Article 3 of the German armistice, with Italy claiming no occupation rights, no equivalent condition was written into the Italian armistice.68 Most of the twenty-six articles of the Italian armistice were agreed upon between the two parties with little or no modification. Any areas of contention were quickly resolved with Italian concessions. On Article 9, the French government opposed demands for the demobilisation and disarmament of their forces in North Africa, Syria and the coast of French Somaliland, insisting that it would be damaging to French rule and dishonourable for an army that had not seen action.69 Badoglio accepted an amendment stipulating that the Italian authorities would take into account the problems of maintaining order and French colonial authority.70 French negotiators also managed to secure concessions on Article 21, which stated that all Italian prisoners in France must be immediately freed and handed over to the Italian authorities and that the Italian government had the right to demand the return of all Italian citizens residing in France. A similar clause had initially been included in the German armistice, but following French protests of an affront to the traditions of the rights of asylum, German negotiators had agreed to modify it so that it would only apply to those who had sought to incite war against Germany or committed political acts against it.71 What made the demand so significant in the Italian case was that it would potentially have affected around 900,000 Italian citizens living in France, including the anti-Fascist refugees who had fled Italy during the 1930s. Once again, Badoglio sympathised with French concerns, claiming later that he considered the clause ‘such an ignominious condition’ that he ‘did not hesitate for a moment’ in amending it to relate solely to Italian prisoners of war and Italians imprisoned for political or military reasons.72 Despite the relatively moderate terms, not all of France’s political and military leaders welcomed the notion of an armistice with Italy. Just as there had been those who opposed the armistice with Germany, anger at 67 68 69 70 71 72

The armistice between France and Italy is reprinted in Rainero, La commission italienne, pp. 378–82. Franco-German Armistice of 22 June 1940, DDF 1940: Les armistices, p. 124. AN AJ41 5, ‘Réponse du Gouvernement Français’, Rome 24 June 1940, 11.30 am. AN AJ41 5, Plenary meeting at Villa Incisa, 24 June 1940, 3.40 pm. German responses to French proposals, Council of Ministers 2 pm 22 June, DDF 1940: Les armistices, p. 114. Badoglio, Italy in the Second World War, p. 23; AN AJ41 5, Telegram from Huntziger to Weygand, 24 June 1940 between 5.30 pm and 7.10 pm.

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Sowing the Seeds: From the Abyssinia Crisis to the Armistice

the nature of Mussolini’s declaration of war spurred many senior ­military ­figures to want to continue to fight against Italy, including General Weygand, General Noguès, Admiral Esteva and General Legentilhomme.73 Facing the Italians in North Africa, Noguès was among the most reluctant to agree to an armistice. Admiral Esteva, the commander of the French fleet at Bizerte, also wanted to continue, wiring the French government on 23 June to say that the navy would not accept any cessions to Italy. As French forces stood firm against the Italian invasion through the Alps, naval commanders seized the opportunity to gain some retribution against Italy while they still had the chance. News of the French aerial bombardment of Trapani and Livorno afforded the French armistice delegation some small gratification during the negotiations.74 By 27 June, however, only General Legentilhomme in French Somaliland was prepared to continue the fight and take on Italian forces in Italian Somalia and Abyssinia.75 By the time the French government moved to Vichy on 1 July, the stage was set for a new regime and domestic and foreign policy alignment with the Axis.

Conclusion While there was nothing inevitable about Mussolini’s decision to declare war, French actions only helped reinforce his position. Behind the various French approaches lay an assumption that once Mussolini realised the true character of Hitler’s ambitions and their consequences for Italy, he would abandon ties with Germany and turn to France.76 Ministers and officials wholly underestimated the significance of ideology as a determining factor in Italian foreign policy. They failed to appreciate how Mussolini’s expansionist ambitions strengthened his dependency on Germany.77 French attempts to prize Rome away from Berlin by warning of the dangers of German domination and by appealing to notions of shared heritage, therefore, held little sway with Mussolini. Deeply mistrustful of the French government’s intentions and feeling betrayed by its actions over Abyssinia, Mussolini was determined to exploit the fall of France to its full. The relatively benign terms of the Villa Incisa armistice were, therefore, at odds with Mussolini’s ambitions towards France and sent misleading signals about Italian intentions. 73 74 75 76 77

Paxton, Parades and Politics, pp. 25–9; AD 9GMII 185, Telegram from Noguès, 18 June 1940. Amiral Auphan and Jacques Mordal, La marine française dans la seconde guerre mondiale (Paris: Editions France-Empire, 1976), pp. 167–8. Paxton, Parades and Politics, pp. 25–9. Shorrock, From Ally to Enemy, pp. 282–3. Costa Bona, Dalla guerra alla pace, p. 14.

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Italy’s military weakness was its Achilles’ heel from the outset. In tacitly recognising this by restricting Italian entitlement to exercise power over France, the armistice terms gave the French government both the fuel and the scope for manoeuvre. The negotiations of 20–24 June 1940, therefore, sowed the seeds of a future French strategy of seeking to play the Germans off against the Italians, but it also marked the start of a French delusion about how much could be achieved from trying to divide the Axis.

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chapter 2

Pivoting between Alignments July to December 1940

Scarcely had the implications of the defeat of June 1940 begun to sink in than the French government began to size up the opportunities of its new situation. With unseemly agility, it immediately began to shift its perspective. As early as 1 July 1940, officials hailed the possibilities that had opened up for France on the international stage. While the country would need a period of internal reflection and rebuilding, its collapse need not entail any ‘abdication’ from its global role.1 Indeed, with its navy and empire still largely intact, France remained a leading power. All that it needed to do to assure its place in the new Europe was to pivot to the Axis. The new direction need not involve any dramatic shift, an internal note insisted, but it would require winning over the Germans and the Italians with displays of loyalty. The problem was, however, that with Axis divisions having been exposed by the armistice negotiations, members of the French government wanted to go further. As officials cautioned against attempts to ‘play Rome against Berlin or Berlin against Rome’, warning that it would only ‘unite the Axis powers more closely’, it was already too late.2 Political manoeuvres to exploit the rifts between the Axis governments had already begun; the repercussions were soon to follow. The months following the June 1940 armistices brought the divergences between German and Italian policies towards France into sharp relief. Whereas Hitler desired a quiescent nation and a complicit regime, Mussolini desired a chastened nation and a diminished world power. The British attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir on 3 July 1940 crystallised these differences. In so doing, however, it also triggered a fundamental shift in French policy orientation. The French government’s anger at the British action and its subsequent willingness to defend its colonial empire against any future threats surprised the two Axis governments. 1 2

AD 9GMII 288, Untitled note, no author, 1 July 1940. Ibid.

32

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Pivoting between Alignments: July to December 1940

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As  a  result,  elements within the Italian government and armed forces began tentatively to explore the possibility that Vichy and Rome might be able to forge a new kind of relationship in which France would continue to be treated as the defeated enemy but would work alongside Italy against Britain. For some senior figures in Vichy, visions of the two countries working alongside one another, building on their historical connections and uniting to combat British threats and German domination, held considerable appeal. However, whereas the Mers-el-Kébir episode opened new possibilities for French policy with Berlin, within days, Mussolini had firmly closed the door to any prospect of cooperation between Vichy and Rome. Whereas French relations with Germany quickly moved from being conducted by the officials appointed to implement the terms of the armistice to being directly handled by ministers, relations with Italy did not follow the same pattern. After the signature of the June 1940 agreements, armistice commissions were established for Germany and Italy, the former being based in Wiesbaden, and the latter in Turin. French relations with Germany and Italy were officially transferred from being under the purview of Baudouin as foreign minister to being under Weygand as defence minister, then from 6 September 1940 until 11 August 1941, Huntziger as war minister.3 French delegations were established for each armistice commission, reporting to the Direction des Services de l’Armistice (DSA) under General Koeltz, and attached to the French war ministry.4 The Italian Armistice Commission’s remit spread over south-eastern France, Corsica, French North Africa, Syria, Lebanon and French Somaliland, with Italian delegations being established across French metropolitan and colonial territory, including in Marseille, Lyon, Grenoble, Ajaccio, Casablanca, Algiers, Tunis, Beirut and Djibouti. The complexity of the matters handled by the two armistice commissions meant that from late July 1940, each was split into sections dealing with military matters, the occupied territories, prisoners of war, and political and economic affairs.5 In recognition of the significance of the areas covered by the Italian armistice, Weygand appointed Admiral Henri Duplat as president of the French delegation to the Italian Armistice Commission. Duplat was an 3 4

5

Duroselle, L’Abîme, p. 260. Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, ‘Le gouvernement de Vichy face à l’Italie (juillet 1940–septembre 1943)’, in Jean-Baptiste Duroselle and Enrico Serra (eds.), Italia e Francia (1939–1945), vol. 1 (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1984), p. 83. Maurice Catoire, La direction des services de l’armistice à Vichy (Paris: Editions Berger-Levrault, 1955), p. 14.

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Pivoting between Alignments: July to December 1940

experienced naval commander who knew the Mediterranean and French North Africa well. His deputy, General Henri Parisot, had expertise in dealing with the Italian army during the interwar years and spoke fluent Italian.6 But while French officials sought to broaden the scope of France’s relations with Italy, their Italian counterparts refused to engage in any political discussions. The president of the Italian Armistice Commission, General Pietro Pintor, and to a certain extent also his successor General Camillo Grossi viewed their role in exclusively military terms.7 Most studies of Vichy have tended to see the second half of 1940 as a foundational period in French alignment with Germany. Since the pioneering research of Robert Paxton, historians have focused on how Laval and others in government sought to develop closer relations with Berlin in active pursuit of a new policy of collaboration with the Nazis.8 Historians’ emphasis upon this dimension of Vichy’s activities has, however, served to obscure a second significant strand to French policy during this period. This chapter explores how at the same time as pursuing collaboration with Berlin, Vichy attempted to repair its relations with Rome. While such efforts failed to yield any tangible results, as Vichy orientated itself away from its old alliance with Britain towards seeing a German victory as the best way to secure its ideological ambitions, this chapter suggests that French policy needs to be understood not just in terms of choices between the Allies and the Axis but in terms of choices between the Axis powers. Vichy’s actions between July and December 1940 demonstrate that it was far from inevitable that collaboration should have developed into a policy that related primarily or exclusively to Germany. At the same time, despite seeking closer relations with Rome, when it came to defending its colonies, Vichy looked to the Germans to counter threats from the Italians.

Reorientations after Mers-el-Kébir The British attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir had immediate repercussions for Vichy’s military and foreign policy orientations. Within hours, the Italian High Command joined their German counterparts 6 7 8

Marius Sarraz-Bournet, Témoignage d’un silencieux (Paris: Editions Self, 1948), p. 63. AN AJ41 2314, Note of conversation between Guérin and Liberati, 17 September 1940. Paxton, Vichy France, pp. 51–92. See also Eberhard Jäckel, La France dans l’Europe de Hitler, trans. Denise Meunier (Paris: Fayard, 1968), pp. 139–67; Henri Michel, Vichy Année 40 (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1966), pp. 266–80; Duroselle, L’Abîme, pp. 332–49; Broche and Muracciole, Histoire de la collaboration, pp. 74–105; Warner, Laval, pp. 213–60; Fred Kupferman, Laval (Paris: Flammarion, 1988), pp. 248–64.

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in suspending aerial and naval armistice clauses to enable the French admiralty in North Africa to respond to the British action.9 After Vichy launched a reprisal aerial attack against Gibraltar on 5 July, Badoglio signalled an Italian willingness to assist the French. He requested access to French air bases so that Italy could cooperate with Vichy in its action against British ships and offered to help French forces in defending the Somali coast against British threats.10 Despite the misgivings of Baudouin, Weygand and Duplat, Pétain offered to place an air base at Italy’s disposal in Algeria, while Darlan actively considered a combined Franco-Italian attack on Alexandria.11 For a brief period, it looked as if Vichy and Rome were moving towards genuine military and political cooperation. The French and Italian navies exchanged information and informed each other of planned attacks against British targets. Vichy signalled its willingness to free all Italian prisoners, while Rome agreed to renounce many of the demands it had made in relation to its zone of occupation.12 Italian newspapers subtly altered their treatment of France, becoming almost sympathetic in tone as they reported the events at Mers-el-Kébir. Italian officials became more courteous and conciliatory in dealings with their French counterparts as well.13 One French foreign ministry report even went so far as to suggest that what was happening amounted to a broader movement towards ‘Franco-Italian collaboration against England’.14 While the term ‘collaboration’ meant merely cooperation at this juncture, Mers-el-Kébir was a turning point for Vichy’s relations not just with Britain and Germany but with Italy as well. Baudouin’s chief of staff declared that the episode had freed France from any obligations it might have had towards its former ally and that henceforth foreign policy could be conducted in accordance with ‘purely French interests’.15 The problem was, however, that this soon turned into unrealistic expectations that the Axis would embrace Vichy as a partner and would be willing to make armistice concessions. Having scrupulously respected the armistice terms and formally severed diplomatic relations with Britain, French officials believed that the Axis owed them some recompense. An internal foreign 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

AD 9GMII 198, Telephone message, Italian Armistice Commission to Weygand, 3 July 1940, 7.30 pm. AD 9GMII 198, Duplat to Weygand, 6 July 1940. AN AJ41 2153, ‘La délégation française à la Commission Italienne d’Armistice, 28 juin 1940–31 décembre 1942’; Baudouin, Neuf mois, p. 237. AD 9GMII 203, ‘Note sur les travaux de la Commission d’Armistice Franco-Italienne’, 8 July 1940. AD 9GMII 198, Note by Guérin, 6 July 1940. AD 9GMII 203, ‘Note sur les travaux de la Commission d’Armistice Franco-Italienne’, 8 July 1940. AD 10GMII 473, Note, 5 July 1940.

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ministry note dated 5 July 1940 suggested that with France now ‘free’ to determine its future, diplomats should review areas of policy where the Italian government had shown signs of a ‘conciliatory disposition’ towards France.16 French delegates to the Italian Armistice Commission were to be encouraged to use technical matters to open up a broader dialogue on relations between the two states.17 A few days later, another internal note addressed to Huntziger and Duplat proposed more concrete objectives, suggesting that French officials should press for the cancellation of the armistice terms relating to the disarmament of French military forces and even request the evacuation of Axis forces from areas under occupation.18 But while the Mers-el-Kébir episode became a critical stepping stone in Vichy’s path towards collaboration with Germany, the tentative moves towards collaboration with Italy went no further. A few days later, the Italian government reverted to the intransigence that had characterised its pre-war relations with France. While Berlin never wavered in its view of France as a fallen power, in Rome such views played out differently and had different implications.19 Indeed, the Italian government asserted that any cooperation with Vichy would be inconsistent with the status of France as a defeated nation.20 At the heart of the different German and Italian approaches lay two considerations. The first was that while the armistice terms suited Berlin, they increasingly became a source of frustration to Rome. The Italian government’s agreement to downgrade the demands it had made over France had been predicated on the assumption that the fall of Britain would soon follow and that peace negotiations would begin shortly thereafter. The second area of contention was the issue of the Mediterranean, and in particular, French colonial possessions in Africa. Having witnessed Vichy’s determination to oppose British attacks and having agreed to suspend the armistice terms demanding the disarmament of French forces in North Africa, the German government began to envisage a wider role for France in defending its colonial empire. For the Italian government, however, any concession to French military strength in North Africa threatened the very territorial ambitions that had prompted it to enter the war.21 Rome expressed suspicions about the 16 17 18 19 20 21

Ibid. Ibid. AD 9GMII 198, Note for Huntziger and Duplat, 8 July 1940. Conversation between Hitler and Mussolini, 4 October 1940, DGFP, ser. D, vol. XI, p. 255. Ciano to Mussolini, 7 July 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 5, p. 186; Zoppi to Ciano, 9 July 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 5, p. 196. Borgogni, Mussolini e la Francia, p. 77.

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loyalty of French officers in North Africa, casting doubt on whether they could be trusted to support the Axis against Britain in any future attacks. It was thus Italian rather than French unwillingness that prevented relations between Vichy and Rome from developing any further in early July 1940.

Rapprochement with Rome If Berlin remained unconvinced about collaboration, its willingness to make concessions on French military forces in North Africa gave pro-collaboration elements in Vichy the fuel to stoke their aspirations. By contrast, Rome’s reversion to intransigence left little scope for manoeuvre. The Mers-el-Kébir episode, therefore, widened the divisions within Vichy over the direction of French policy. In part, it was due to the fundamental political divergences within the government, but it was also due in part to the way that policy was devised and conducted. The internal disagreements spanned a range of issues and saw many of the key figures, including Pétain, Laval, Darlan, Weygand and Baudouin, adopting different positions towards the implementation of the armistice terms as well as towards Germany and Britain.22 Indeed, R. T. Thomas goes so far as to suggest that in the autumn and winter of 1940, Vichy simultaneously pursued two foreign policies under two ministers. One related to the Axis and was conducted through the armistice commissions or through Laval’s discussions with German ambassador Otto Abetz, while the other related to Britain and the neutral states and was conducted by Baudouin and the Secretary-General to the foreign ministry, François Charles-Roux.23 In reality, however, the picture was even more confused than Thomas suggests. Hereafter, this chapter will therefore depart from the conventional accounts of Vichy’s engagements with the Axis. For as well as pursuing conflicting policies towards Britain and Germany, Vichy sought rapprochement with Rome in order to counter the dominance of Berlin.24 In a written account produced for the Bureau d’Etudes Chauvel later in the war, Charles-Roux testified how in the months following the armistice, ‘an illusion persisted among the new leadership of the possibility of Franco-Italian détente’ and that there was in Vichy a ‘tendency to desire rapprochement with Rome’.25 Such hopes rested upon the belief that the 22 23 24 25

Azéma and Wieviorka, Vichy 1940–1944, pp. 78–9; Duroselle, L’Abîme, p. 238. R. T. Thomas, The Dilemma of Anglo-French Relations 1940–42 (London: Macmillan, 1979), p. 58. Charles-Roux, Cinq mois tragiques, pp. 171, 296, 338. AD Papiers Charles-Roux 12, Note for Chauvel group, no date.

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reputations of Pétain as a military hero from the First World War and Laval as a key player in negotiating the Franco-Italian accords of 1935 could be exploited to the French advantage.26 Italian military failings and the relatively moderate nature of the armistice terms had lulled many in Vichy into believing that Mussolini’s regime was too weak to assert its claims over France. Despite the failure to capitalise on the Mers-el-Kébir attack, diplomats were encouraged by sources claiming that the Italian government was simply waiting for a French démarche.27 Reports reached Vichy that elements within the Fascist regime were ‘terrified’ of German power and believed that Italy should rebuild relations with France.28 As foreign minister, it was Baudouin who engaged in the most sustained efforts at rapprochement with Rome.29 Seeing collaboration with Germany as an unappealing prospect, he believed that Italy offered opportunities to orientate Vichy’s foreign policy in a direction that better fitted its domestic ideological agenda, especially the National Revolution.30 Rather than engage with Mussolini’s government directly, however, Baudouin sought to create a bloc of Latin and Catholic states into which he hoped to draw Italy. The notion that France, Spain, Portugal and Italy might unite behind their shared cultural heritage to oppose the threat from Communism predated the war.31 Baudouin aspired to take it a step further, emphasising a shared Catholicism that would stand in opposition to ‘pagan’ Nazi values. At a time when Hitler was actively encouraging Franco to enter the war, Baudouin countered with a narrative that portrayed relations with Germany as being contrary to Spain’s heritage and interests. On 8 July 1940, Baudouin told the Spanish foreign minister that the ‘extremely mild Italian peace terms’ were evidence that ‘Italy was not averse to a rapprochement with France, perhaps as a possible future counterpoise to Germany’ as part of a Latin bloc that would include Spain.32 In a telegram to Vichy’s ambassador to Spain, Baudouin carried the cultural argument still further. Inspired by his own religious faith and the values of the National Revolution, Baudouin appealed to a shared Catholicism 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Ibid. AD 10GMII 473, Telegram from Panafieu, 5 August 1940; Telegram from Baudouin to d’Ormesson, 13 August 1940. AD 9GMII 310, ‘Résumé des impressions de M. Gentizon’, 30 August 1940. See also Bova Scoppa to Ciano, 14 August 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 5, pp. 398–401. A fuller discussion of the ideological dimensions of Baudouin’s policy can be found in Chapter 5. On the ideology of the National Revolution, see Debbie Lackerstein, National Regeneration in Vichy France: Ideas and Policies, 1930–1944 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012). TNA FO 371/24311, Events in France, 9–22 June 1940. Ambassador Stohrer in Spain to German Foreign Ministry, 9 July 1940, DGFP, ser. D, vol. X, p. 169.

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to highlight divergences with Germany. Playing upon perceptions of the Nazis as enemies of Christianity, Baudouin suggested that Vichy should exploit Spanish concerns about the ‘spiritual and temporal consequences of a German victory’.33 Baudouin also looked to the Vatican to help improve relations with Rome.34 Using the Holy See’s influence, he sought to emphasise the deep cultural bonds between France and Italy as ‘Latin and Catholic’ countries to persuade the Italian government to moderate its anti-French propaganda and thereby smooth the path to reconciliation.35 For his part, while Laval may have believed that collaboration with Germany offered the route to a stronger position in a Nazi-dominated Europe, he also believed that closer ties with Italy would strengthen France’s hand with the Axis. During the 1930s, Laval had been at the forefront of French rapprochement with Italy; it was therefore not surprising that his attention should have returned to Rome after June 1940. Despite having resigned from the government in 1936, Laval had continued to lobby for closer relations with Italy and was in regular communication with the diplomatic contacts he had developed while in office.36 He was convinced that he remained well regarded in Italian diplomatic circles and that Mussolini wanted to renew ties with France but was thwarted by the Popular Front’s ideological opposition to the Fascist regime.37 Despite Rome’s demands over French territory and the signature of the Pact of Steel with Berlin in May 1939, Laval persisted in his efforts. Like many others on the political centre and right, he believed that Mussolini’s efforts to act as an international intermediary and his attempts to prevent the outbreak of war in 1938 and 1939 were evidence of divisions between Rome and Berlin and that the Italian leader could be persuaded to work with France.38 Even though Mussolini made it clear that he did not wish to deal with any unofficial emissary, Laval maintained that only he could bring the two countries together.39 On 9 June 1940, Count Arduini-Ferretti, an Italian resident in Paris, visited Laval with a series of proposals to convey 33 34

35 36 37 38 39

AD Papiers Baudouin 8, Telegram from La Baume, 14 July 1940. D’Ormesson to Cardinal Maglione, 19 August 1940, Actes et documents du Saint-Siège relatifs à la période de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, vol. 4 (juin 1940–juin 1941) (Vaticana: Liberia Editrice Vaticana, 1967), pp. 113–4; AD 10GMII 473, Telegram from Baudouin, 25 August 1940. Charles-Roux, Cinq mois tragiques, p. 296; AD 10GMII 473, Telegram from Baudouin, 6 August 1940. TNA FO 371/49145, Official record of Pétain’s trial, 14 November 1945. Pierre Laval, Laval parle: Notes et mémoires rédigés par Pierre Laval dans sa cellule (Genève: Les éditions du cheval ailé, 1947), p. 33. Giobbe to Guariglia, 24 May 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 4. p. 439. AD Papiers Rochat 23, Telegram from François-Poncet, 28 March 1940, 2.10 am; Telegram from François-Poncet, 28 March 1940, 3 pm; Guariglia to Ciano, 10 April 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 4, p. 585.

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to the French government. Laval wrongly inferred that the proposals had come from Mussolini himself when in reality they had come from Baron Aloisi, a pro-French former Italian diplomat. Laval offered to take the matter forward, convinced that his intervention could steer Mussolini away from entering the war at the eleventh hour.40 At his trial in 1945, prosecutors seized on Laval’s meetings with Italian officials to allege that he had engaged in ‘intelligence with the enemy’.41 Taking this a stage further, Max Gallo has gone so far as to suggest that the French pursuit of collaboration not only began before the outbreak of war but that it started with Italy, rather than Germany.42 Basing his research on Italian archival sources and on court testimonies, Gallo argues that Laval undermined the Third Republic by seeking Rome’s support for his plans to form a Fascist-style government aligned with Italy.43 The case advanced by Gallo revolves principally around Laval’s meetings with Italian consular official Landini, whom Laval understood to be an intelligence agent.44 The meetings took place at Laval’s villa in March and April 1938, the records of which were signed off by Mussolini personally. Gallo concedes that the talks were not witnessed by any other party and that the only sources pertaining to them are those produced by Landini himself.45 However, while the documentary evidence is not inconsistent with Laval’s pronouncements elsewhere or his contacts with other Italian officials, to suggest that his actions constituted acts of ‘collaboration’ or that they contributed to the defeat of 1940 is to buy into Laval’s over-estimation of his influence during this period. Cut off from reliable sources of information at the Quai d’Orsay, Laval had at best only a very partial picture of French relations with Italy.46 He was in no position to broker a deal with the Italians. As Vichy’s leading minister from July 1940, however, things were very different. Laval’s persistence in seeking closer relations with Rome suggests that contrary to the picture that many historians have built up, he was not immediately willing to align Vichy exclusively with Berlin. As in his dealings with the Germans, Laval approached the Italian government through 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

Warner, Laval, pp. 165–6. F. Kupferman, Pierre Laval (Paris: Masson, 1976), p. 96; Le Procès Laval: Compte Rendu Sténographique (Paris: Editions Albin Michel, 1946), p. 26. Max Gallo, Et ce fut la défaite de 40. La cinquième colonne (Paris: Librairie Académique Perrin, 1980), p. 227. Ibid, pp. 205–7. See, for instance, Fagiuoli to Ciano, 21 March 1939, DDI, VIII, vol. 9. p. 439. Gallo, Et ce fut, p. 204. Jean-Paul Cointet, Pierre Laval (Paris: Fayard, 1993), p. 225.

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his own contacts and intermediaries rather than through official diplomatic channels or through the Italian Armistice Commission. Whereas the relationship he was able to forge with Abetz became central to the development of collaboration between Vichy and Berlin, there was no Italian ambassador in France until 1942.47 Instead, Laval met regularly with the self-proclaimed ‘Italian Abetz’, Mirko Giobbe.48 The chief editor of the Paris-based newspaper Nuova Italia, who was in regular receipt of funds from Rome to help with the secret organisation of Fascists in France, had first encountered Laval in 1935.49 After the signature of the armistice in June 1940, Laval looked to Giobbe to reach Mussolini.50 On being accused of collusion with Italy at his trial in October 1945, Laval sought to downplay the significance of his relationship with Giobbe, claiming that he had never seen him as an intermediary to Rome and had never regarded him in the same terms as Abetz.51 However, according to Giobbe’s post-war testimony, when the two men met in Vichy in early September 1940, Laval insisted that Giobbe was his only Italian confidant. Painting a picture of tension with the Germans, Laval complained that he did not know what Hitler wanted from France or what role he anticipated for it in the new Europe. He, therefore, called upon Mussolini to resume his role as international intermediary and proposed a revival of the FrancoItalian cooperation of 1935. Laval insisted that Italy lay at the heart of his vision of France’s future after the war, stating: ‘I always take the same route; I go via Rome to reach Berlin. That is how I see Europe.’52 In stark contrast with the established narrative of Laval’s efforts to develop closer ties with Berlin, Laval suggested to Giobbe that ‘France and Italy should combine their interests and together counterbalance Germany.’53 While Giobbe’s account might seem like mere anecdotal evidence, it is consistent with Laval’s approach towards Italy before the war and in 1940. It is also supported by accounts from Laval’s other interlocutors. As early as 5 July 1940, Laval had told former Health Minister Marcel Héraud of his plan to use his supposed influence over Mussolini to play 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

On the role of Abetz, see Barbara Lambauer, Otto Abetz et les Français ou l’envers de la collaboration (Paris: Fayard, 2001). Le Procès Laval, p. 27; Le Procès du Maréchal Pétain: Compte Rendu Sténographique (Paris: Editions Albin Michel, 1945), p. 317. Gallo, Et ce fut, p. 114. AD Papiers Laval 1, Confidential note, 10 August 1940. Laval, Laval parle, pp. 32–3. ‘Relations avec l’Italie – Mirko Giobbe, 15 septembre 1949’, Institut Hoover, La vie de la France sous l’occupation (1940–1944), vol. III (Paris: Librairie Plon, 1957), p. 1367. Ibid.

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the Axis leaders off against one another.54 In mid-August 1940, François de Panafieu, the Chargé d’Affaires at Vichy’s embassy to Lisbon used very similar words to those of Laval in describing how the route of French foreign policy must go via Rome.55 Moreover, Giobbe’s account fits with the depictions of Franco-Italian relations that can be found in Laval’s papers from 1940. An unsigned note dated 21 July 1940 claimed that Mussolini had not intended to wage war against France and had only entered the conflict so that the map of Europe would not be dominated by Hitler. The note went on to state that the Vichy government had the ‘sympathy’ of Mussolini and wrongly claimed that it was on his personal insistence that France had been able to retain its naval fleet in order to maintain a balance in the Mediterranean against British threats.56 Another unsigned note from September 1940 asserted that Laval’s comments to Giobbe had been met with ‘great sympathy’ by the Italian foreign ministry and that if Italian claims in the Mediterranean could be settled, Mussolini would be willing to engage in talks about collaboration with France.57 Giobbe’s testimony is also consistent with Laval’s claim at his trial in 1945 that he had always been pragmatic in being driven by the geography of Europe. Ultimately, he insisted, his approach had been about ‘practicing a policy of the encirclement of Germany’.58 In addition to Giobbe, Laval had several other interlocutors with whom he sought to break the deadlock in Franco-Italian relations. Among his unofficial contacts in Paris, he approached an Italian financier to act as an intermediary.59 At the same time, he did not neglect more conventional channels, even if his meetings with Italian contacts were not official. Speaking to Donini Ferretti, a former Fascist official with whom he had been in regular contact in the months leading up to the war, Laval even tried to threaten the Italian government over the consequences of its continued intransigence towards France. Having been the architect of Franco-Italian rapprochement in the 1930s, Laval claimed that he was offended by Rome’s rejection of Vichy’s overtures, warning that it risked pushing him towards pursuing an exclusively German orientation in his foreign policy.60 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

Warner, Laval, p. 200. Bova Scoppa to Ciano, 14 August 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 5, p. 400. AD Papiers Laval 1, Confidential note, 21 July 1940. AD Papiers Laval 1, Declarations, 9 September 1940. Le Procès Laval, p. 56. Charles-Roux, Cinq mois tragiques, p. 297. Donini Ferretti to Orlandini, 2 September 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 5, pp. 556–7.

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Despite their cajoling and their threats, the efforts of Baudouin, Laval and French diplomats came to nothing. Their failure was due to two main problems. The first was Vichy’s inability to understand that Mussolini viewed France through the prism of Fascist ideology. The entire notion of seeking to appeal to Rome as a counterweight to Berlin was wholly at odds with everything Mussolini had said and done before and after the armistice. It revealed a level of misunderstanding that could scarcely have been further removed from the true nature of Italian plans. The appeals to cultural solidarity foundered against Mussolini’s desire to use the fall of France to satisfy his ambitions for territorial gain and hegemony in the Mediterranean.61 The intervention of the Holy See and even the Pope meant little as the Italian government quashed notions of a Latin bloc.62 In early October 1940, a foreign ministry review concluded that Mussolini’s foreign policy paid little heed to Italian public opinion.63 Thus, Charles-Roux warned a fortnight later, Vichy’s appeals to the traditional connections between France and Italy were destined to fail because ‘the word “Italy” no longer means “the Italian people”: it now only signifies Mussolini’.64 The second reason for Vichy’s failure was that Rome viewed Laval more as a liability than an asset. A handwritten note found in the private papers of Laval on his arrest in December 1940 suggested that he was viewed with suspicion and even contempt. It claimed that Italian officials regarded Laval as being ‘too crafty’ and that the propaganda attacks against him came directly from Mussolini, who maintained that the former French prime minister had ‘conned’ him in failing to support Italy over the Abyssinia crisis in 1935.65 Far from being highly regarded, Laval was scorned as a product of parliamentary democracy, out of step with the new European order and unable to ‘speak the new language of relations with Germany and Italy’.66 At a time when Mussolini still anticipated the 61 62

63

64 65 66

Borgogni, Mussolini e la Francia, p. 77. Bova Scoppa to Ciano, 14 August 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 5, pp. 398–401; AD 10GMII 559, D’Ormesson to Baudouin, 19 August 1940; AD 10GMII 559, Telegram from Baudouin, 20 August 1940; D’Ormesson to Cardinal Maglione, 9 September 1940, Actes et documents du Saint-Siège, pp. 143–5. AN AJ41 2298, ‘Après trois mois d’armistice Franco-Italienne’, 1 October 1940. On the broader relationship between Italian public opinion and the Fascist regime in the pre-war years, see Paul Corner, The Fascist Party and Popular Opinion in Mussolini’s Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), especially pp. 252–62. Charles-Roux, Cinq mois tragiques, p. 364. AD Papiers Laval 1, ‘Résumé des conversations avec Volpi, Giannini, Delcroix, Boriani, Bosco, Confalonieri’, 16–25 November 1940. AD 10GMII 473, Conversation with Rulli, 17 October 1940.

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rapid defeat of Britain and an Axis victory shortly thereafter, Rome dismissed Laval’s démarche as being at best premature and at worst contrary to Fascist ambitions.67 Mussolini’s intransigence towards Vichy manifested itself most acutely in the actions of the Italian Armistice Commission in Turin. In the months following the armistice, French officials found their attempts to advance relations with Rome being systematically thwarted. As one report complained, French efforts were ‘lost in the sands of an indifference’ directly instructed by Mussolini.68 Rapprochement was also frustrated by a wave of anti-French propaganda churned out by the Fascist press.69 One particularly vituperative article published in August 1940 claimed that the ‘arrogant’ French people looked down on the Italians as ‘cowards’, ‘barbarians’, ‘traitors’, ‘beggars’, ‘clowns and actors covered in useless feathers’.70 More worrying for French officials, however, was the propaganda that sought to paint France as a country that had not accepted its defeat and remained a threat to Italy. Diplomats grew increasingly concerned that Rome’s hostility was a ploy to lay the ground for future Italian aggression.71 Dissatisfied with the armistice terms and impatient with German indifference, Mussolini began to appear a more direct threat than Hitler. As French officials came to the realisation that their attempts to secure closer relations with Rome had yielded little, separate but not unconnected negotiations with the German government began to bear fruit. In a wide-ranging assessment of the international situation in mid-October 1940, Charles-Roux concluded that the weakness of Italy’s position in the war gave its government a greater appetite for exploiting the French defeat than was the case with Germany. The corollary to such reasoning was that ‘it would seem less fanciful to turn to Germany to moderate Italy than to Italy to moderate Germany.’72 Less than a fortnight later, Laval and Pétain met Hitler at Montoire and inaugurated a new policy of collaboration with Nazi Germany. 67 68 69

70 71 72

AD 9GMII 187, ‘Extrait du journal La Nuova Italia du 5 septembre 1940, “Tour de France 1940, Vichy étape sans réalisme”, Mirko Giobbe’; ‘Relations avec l’Italie’, in La vie de la France, p. 1368. AN AJ41 2298, ‘Après trois mois d’armistice Franco-Italienne’, 1 October 1940; see also AN AJ41 2298, ‘Position de l’Italie’, 7 September 1940. AN AJ41 2299, Duplat to Weygand, 23 July 1940; AN AJ41 2298, ‘Après trois mois d’armistice Franco-Italienne’, 1 October 1940; AN AJ41 2298, ‘Les conversations franco-allemandes et la presse italienne’, 2 November 1940; AN AJ41 2302, Minutes of a meeting, 16 December 1940. AN AJ41 432, ‘Italiens n’oubliez pas’, August 1940. AN AJ41 2299, ‘Intentions de l’Italie’, 13 August 1940. AD Papiers Charles-Roux 3, Handwritten note, no date.

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Bargaining with Berlin The Montoire meetings of late October 1940 were the culmination of months of discussions between French and German officials.73 They were part of a wider shift in German views of Vichy after its defence of Dakar and their timing owed more to German willingness to talk than to any French actions. Pétain had already laid the foundations for the new policy orientation in a radio broadcast on 11 October, in which he outlined how France’s future would depend upon its relations with Germany and raised the prospect of a new kind of ‘peace of collaboration’.74 There was thus a growing momentum behind Vichy’s move towards Berlin. That did not, however, mean that it was inevitable that collaboration should have developed into a policy that related exclusively to Germany. Indeed, Pétain had also signalled Vichy’s continuing openness to negotiations with others, stating: ‘France is prepared to seek this collaboration in all domains with all its neighbours’.75 The resignation of Charles-Roux and Baudouin in opposition to the new policy of collaboration and Laval’s assumption of the foreign affairs portfolio have led historians to characterise Vichy as being fixated upon Germany. Yet even after Montoire, Laval did not abandon the hope of agreement with Rome. Two days after Pétain’s meeting with Hitler, Giobbe approached Laval on behalf of Mussolini, asking if he had any message he wished to convey to the Italian leader.76 Laval responded by reassuring Mussolini that he still regarded rapprochement with Italy as the cornerstone of France’s future in the new Europe.77 Seeking to separate the two strands of Vichy’s policy, Laval told Giobbe that the new relationship with Germany had not developed ‘because of the Duce’s refusal’ to engage with France, but rather had come as ‘a complete surprise’ to him.78 Laval also personally lobbied members of the Italian Armistice Commission as late as mid-November 1940, going so far as to suggest that Vichy might be willing to meet some of Rome’s territorial claims.79 Italian responses to Montoire encouraged Laval not to give up hope. Giobbe described Mussolini as having the air of ‘a rejected lover who regrets his capriciousness’ after being 73 74 75 76 77 78 79

Paxton, Vichy France, pp. 51–80. ‘Message du Chef de l’Etat’, Le Temps, 12 October 1940. Ibid. Abetz to Foreign Ministry, 26 October 1940; DGFP, ser. D, vol. XI, p. 402. ‘Relations avec l’Italie’, in La vie de la France, p. 1368. Ibid. Borgogni, Mussolini e la Francia, pp. 181–2; Berdardini to Maglione, 27 November 1940, Actes et documents du Saint-Siège, p. 275.

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‘shut out’ of the ‘Franco-German flirtation’.80 Speaking informally to their French counterparts, Italian diplomats expressed increasing concern about the consequences of German hegemony over Europe.81 With the war lasting longer than expected, some suggested to Laval that they would soon be forced to ‘prepare in silence’ for rapprochement with France.82 However, Mussolini continued to oppose not merely the notion of collaboration between Rome and Vichy but collaboration between Vichy and Berlin as well. Just five days before Hitler met Pétain at Montoire, Mussolini warned against any dealings with Vichy, insisting that the French people were bent on revenge against the Axis.83 The Italian press repeated the message in several articles in the days that followed.84 But Mussolini’s mistrust was not limited to Vichy. He also suspected that the Nazis might have been willing accomplices, secretly acquiescing in Vichy’s plots to thwart Italian territorial demands. Above all, he was concerned that through collaboration, Vichy might replace Italy as Germany’s main partner in the Axis. Reporting to Ciano, the Italian Chargé d’Affaires at Berlin suggested that German ‘benevolence’ was a sign of desire for closer relations with France.85 With the Italian nightmare of Franco-German rapprochement at Italy’s expense seeming to become reality, Ciano began to fear that Rome would be left with nothing more than a ‘cup of hemlock’.86 Despite seeking rapprochement with Rome as a potential counterbalance to Berlin, few in Vichy regarded the Italian government as a benign potential partner. Their concerns were twofold. The first was the fear that encroachments upon French sovereignty in the Italian zone of occupation might lead to territorial annexation by stealth. More pressing, however, was the need to retain a strong military force capable of protecting the French colonial empire from Italian claims. From the outset, Vichy saw protecting sovereignty over the French colonial empire as being critical to France’s continued status as a major global power.87 Vichy, therefore, attempted first to exploit the differences between the Axis governments and second 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87

‘Relations avec l’Italie’, in La vie de la France, p. 1368. AD 10GMII 473, Letter, no author, 15 November 1940; Wladimir d’Ormesson, De Saint Pétersbourg à Rome (Paris: Plon, 1969), pp. 202–3. AD Papiers Laval 1, ‘Résumé des conversations avec Volpi, Giannini, Delcroix, Boriani, Bosco, Confalonieri’, 16–25 November 1940. Mussolini to Hitler, 19 October 1940, DGFP, ser. D, vol. XI, p. 331. AN AJ41 2298, ‘Intentions de l’Italie’, 17 October 1940; ‘Résumé d’un article de Mirko Giobbe’, 21 October 1940; Duplat to Huntziger, 21 October 1940. Zamboni to Ciano, 6 November 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 6, p. 40. Ciano, Diary, p. 391. Robert Frank, ‘Vichy et le monde, le monde et Vichy: perceptions géopolitiques et idéologiques’, in Jean-Pierre Azéma and François Bédarida (eds.), Le Régime de Vichy et les Français (Paris: Fayard, 1992), p. 103.

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to use its new relationship with Berlin to thwart Italian ambitions. Over the course of the autumn of 1940, the French government secured German intervention against Italian demands on numerous occasions. Vichy’s strategy centred upon using British threats against French colonies as a cloak for opposing Italian threats as well. During the late summer and autumn of 1940, the Italian Armistice Commission placed increasing pressure on Vichy, demanding not just the delivery of war matériel under the terms of Article 10 of the armistice, but insisting on the demobilisation of most of the French forces in the Levant as well.88 Having agreed to suspend armistice requirements for immediate demobilisation following the Mers-el-Kébir attack in July, a few weeks later, the Italian Armistice Commission sought their reapplication. On 6 September, Italian officials went a step further, insisting that French forces in North Africa should be limited to just 30,000 men.89 Since early July, however, Vichy had argued for an increase in the armistice army from 100,000 to 150,000 in response to British threats.90 Despite acknowledging that the dangers were real, Rome opposed any concessions, seeing any French military revival in North Africa as a direct threat to Italian interests. Vichy, therefore, turned to the Germans to override obstruction by the Italians. The German Armistice Commission shared Italian suspicions that Vichy was seeking to exploit external threats to strengthen its position against Axis intervention.91 However, the French defence of Dakar on 20 September 1940 convinced Berlin that French forces would be crucial to maintaining the security of North Africa. With the German government backing an increase in the size of the armistice army and warning that any Italian threats to France’s colonies risked fuelling support for de Gaulle, Rome and Berlin found themselves in direct disagreement.92 Vichy not only exploited these differences but aligned itself with the Germans in opposition to the Italians. Already in early and mid-September 1940, Huntziger had complained to von Stülpnagel that Italian demands to reduce the armistice army threatened to create a crisis of disorder across North Africa and the Levant.93 After Dakar, Berlin forced an Italian climbdown, compelling Badoglio to agree on an increase in French forces in 88 89 90 91 92 93

Burgwyn, Mussolini Warlord, p. 102. AN AJ41 2153, ‘La Délégation Française à la Commission Italienne d’Armistice Commission, 28 juin 1940–31 décembre 1942’. Ibid. Meeting between Huntziger and von Stülpnagel, 12 September 1940, DFCAA, vol. 1, pp. 274–80. Meeting between Mussolini and Hitler, 28 October 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 5, p. 771. Huntziger to von Stülpnagel, 5 September 1940, reproduced in General M. Vernoux, Wiesbaden 1940–1944 (Paris: Editions Berger-Levrault, 1954), p. 65; Meeting between Huntziger and von Stülpnagel, 12 September 1940, DFCAA, vol. 1, pp. 274–80.

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Pivoting between Alignments: July to December 1940

North Africa and insisting that the Italian Armistice Commission cease its opposition to Vichy’s requests.94 Despite Italian warnings that the French authorities could not be trusted, Ribbentrop maintained that the Axis must not undermine Vichy’s prestige in its colonies.95 As a consequence, despite Hitler assuring Mussolini of his support, Berlin insisted that Rome postpone any territorial demands that might harm the French position in North Africa.96 A pattern thus emerged whereby French officials elicited the support of the Germans in response to the Italians. The records of the German Armistice Commission are replete with examples of French calls for German intervention against Italian demands and German compliance. In response to Huntziger’s objections to the imposition of Italian customs officials along the Mediterranean coast in mid-September 1940, the German economic representative at Wiesbaden suggested that while he could not openly countermand a decision authorised by Hitler, he was privately willing to convey French objections to Marshal Keitel, admitting in confidence that he did not support cooperation with the Italians.97 In early November 1940, meanwhile, German officials agreed to intervene on behalf of Vichy over Italian violations of French sovereignty in the transportation of matériel between France and North Africa.98 Writing about his experiences at Wiesbaden, General Vernoux later recalled that in contrast with the Italians, German officials tended to trust the French and were, therefore, more willing to accede to their requests.99 Vichy’s most significant attempt to use German intervention against Italian threats in North Africa came in early December 1940. In a meeting with General Warlimont, Laval, Huntziger, Darlan and Yves Bouthillier affirmed Vichy’s determination to reconquer the African colonies that had switched to supporting the Free French, proposing a spring offensive to recapture Chad.100 Brandishing the threat of British reprisals, they insisted that only a firm German commitment to the integrity of the French empire 94

Meeting between Keitel and Badoglio, 14–15 November 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 6, p. 98. Ibid, p. 104. 96 Zamboni to Ciano, 20 November 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 6, p. 143. 97 Meeting between Huntziger and Hemmen, 12 September 1940, DFCAA, vol. I, p. 271. 98 Minutes of armaments sub-commission, 8 November 1940, DFCAA, vol. II, pp. 317–8. Other examples of German intervention on the French behalf include: Doyen to von Stülpnagel, 5 November 1940, DFCAA, vol. II, p. 322. 99 Vernoux, Wiesbaden, p. 77. 100 On the wider response of Vichy to the rallying of Chad to the Free French, see Géraud Létang, ‘Traque impériale et répression impossible? Vichy face aux Français Libres du Tchad’, European Review of History/Revue européenne d’histoire, 25:2 (2018), 277–94. 95

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would enable them to quell de Gaulle’s claims to be defending the colonies against future Axis annexation.101 However, Laval had not just the British and the Free French in his sights, but the Italians as well. He insisted that the greatest obstacle to Vichy’s ability to recapture the lost African colonies and to resist any future British attacks was Italy. In a carefully crafted plea that sought to place the onus on Berlin and to present Vichy as the loyal supplicant, Laval called on German officials to block Italian demands over North Africa.102 The appeal appeared to pay off. Writing to Hitler a couple of days later, General Jodl warned that further obstruction by the Italians risked a ‘stiffening of the French attitude’ against plans to recapture Chad.103 Robert Paxton has suggested that Laval’s quest for Berlin’s assurance on the integrity of the French empire was an implicit acceptance that henceforth Germany, rather than Italy, would be the leading Axis power in French North Africa. In return for approving the arrival of German control commissions in North Africa, Vichy gained Berlin’s agreement on the expansion of the armistice army.104 To be sure, the suggestion that Vichy took a calculated risk in accepting the German presence would seem to be supported by Laval’s insistence to the American Chargé d’Affaires that Berlin had no colonial aspirations in the region and therefore posed no threat to Vichy.105 In reality, however, there was no deal between Vichy and Berlin. The German government simply sent its officials to Africa without seeking Vichy’s consent. Hitler remained suspicious of the loyalty of the French colonies. Since early autumn, Berlin had expressed concerns about the Italian ability to control French activity in North Africa and to hold the British back in the Middle East. On 5 October 1940, German officials informed their Italian counterparts of their intention to introduce mixed German–Italian control commissions to West and Equatorial Africa, including Morocco.106 It was only in early January 1941 that French officials were notified of the imminent arrival of the Germans in Casablanca. Yet despite complaining that they had not been informed, many welcomed the development.107 The Montoire talks had 101 102 103 104 105 106

107

Paxton, Vichy France, pp. 86–7. Abetz to Foreign Ministry, 11 December 1940, DGFP, ser. D, vol. XI, pp. 839–40. Warner, Laval, p. 251. Paxton, Vichy France, p. 82. Murphy to Secretary of State, 9 December 1940, FRUS, General and Europe, vol. II, p. 415. Representative of Foreign Minister with German Armistice Commission to Foreign Minister, 5 October 1940, DGFP, ser. D, vol. XI, pp. 262–4; Representative of Foreign Minister with German Armistice Commission to Foreign Minister, 12 October 1940, DGFP, ser. D, vol. XI, p. 290. Doyen to von Stülpnagel, 15 January 1941, DFCAA, vol. III, pp. 475–6.

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Pivoting between Alignments: July to December 1940

fuelled Vichy’s aspirations of a new, more equitable relationship with the Germans. Such thinking was, however, based on a delusion. Berlin failed to grant the expected concessions on occupation costs, the return of prisoners and the demarcation line. The arrival of German armistice officials in North Africa did not so much strengthen Vichy’s position as damage to French sovereignty still further. Nevertheless, many in Vichy had come to believe that the new relationship with Berlin would be at the expense of Rome. Opposing the threat from the Italians had become an incentive for collaborating with the Germans.

Conclusion The Italian treatment of France in the months following the armistice was shaped by four main considerations: an ideologically driven refusal to engage in collaboration, an inability to pursue policy independently from Germany, injured pride and a deep suspicion of rapprochement between Vichy and Berlin. Mussolini’s visions of a new Roman empire may have held France to be racially and culturally superior to other areas of Europe and Africa, but Fascist ideology gave France no privileged status.108 Wounded pride only aggravated the suspicions of the Italian government towards its enemies as well as its supposed ally. By contrast, because the Mediterranean was not an area of direct ambition for Hitler in 1940, greater German flexibility towards Vichy’s requests to suspend the demobilisation of its armed forces in North Africa allowed members of the French government to develop delusions about collaboration. Misleadingly encouraging noises from Abetz combined with Hitler’s change of heart over France’s ability to defend its empire after the Dakar attack opened the way for a new Franco-German relationship. For Mussolini, however, unresolved demands over France precluded any easing of hostility. For its part, Vichy’s policy towards Italy during this period was driven by multiple and sometimes conflicting considerations. On the one hand were those such as Baudouin, who opposed collaboration with the Nazis and who believed that cultural and historical connections made Italy a more natural partner for France than Germany. On the other was Laval, who also maintained that improved relations with Italy would benefit France by limiting Germany, but who viewed collaboration with the Nazis in more opportunistic terms. At the same time, explorations into the possibilities of collaboration with Rome did not mean that it was not seen as 108

Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire, pp. 301–2.

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a threat to French sovereignty, territory and colonial possessions. Even though the Villa Incisa terms might have been less stringent than feared, unrelenting Italian pressure, intransigence and hostility towards France convinced many in Vichy that collaboration with Berlin might offer a means of countering the threat from Rome. Vichy, therefore, adopted different strategies for different challenges and policy areas. Confronted by German domination over much of Europe, Laval, Baudouin and others in the foreign ministry looked to Rome as a potential partner. At the same time, however, unsatisfied Italian claims over France led Vichy to seek to use collaboration with Berlin to obstruct Rome’s demands. With Germany not considered a direct threat to French colonial interests, Laval believed that the introduction of German officials into North Africa was a price worth paying to thwart Italian ambitions. The problem was, however, that while Vichy may have thought it was playing a double game between Germany and Italy, in reality, it was caught in a double bind.

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chapter 3

Playing Rome against Berlin December 1940 to March 1942

Writing to General Huntziger in April 1941, Admiral Darlan suggested that the tensions between Vichy and Rome were due to the Italians being as sensitive about their wartime position as the French. As a consequence, instead of fostering greater understanding, face-to-face encounters were merely making their misunderstandings all the greater.1 Indeed, it was in dozens of meetings ranging from mundane administrative concerns to critical diplomatic and military matters that the intractable nature of Vichy’s double bind became increasingly apparent. The Montoire encounter with Hitler in October 1940 might have seemed like a success to many within the Vichy government, but the new policy had swiftly unravelled, revealing French delusions about collaboration. If Laval had been quick to seek to reassure Mussolini of his enduring loyalty to Italy despite the new relationship with Germany, the Duce’s hostile response showed that Vichy would find little consolation in Rome either. Italian intentions towards France were far from benign and relations between the two states were far from clear-cut. Quite simply, rapprochement with Rome was to be no easy alternative to faltering relations with Berlin. In most of the scholarship on Vichy, the period between late 1940 and early 1942 is characterised in terms of Darlan’s efforts to intensify collaboration with the Nazis.2 Culminating in the Protocols of Paris in May 1941, Peter Jackson and Simon Kitson have described the phase under Darlan as one of ‘proactive collaboration’ with Berlin, while Jean-Pierre Azéma and Olivier Wieviorka go still further in depicting Darlan’s approach as one of ‘frenzied collaboration’ aimed at securing a Franco-German entente.3 1 2 3

AN AJ41 65, Darlan to Huntziger, 16 April 1941. See, for instance, Broche and Muracciole, Histoire de la collaboration, pp. 163–93; Duroselle, L’Abîme, pp. 359–85; Paxton, Vichy France, pp. 101–35. Peter Jackson and Simon Kitson, ‘The Paradoxes of Foreign Policy in Vichy France’, in Jonathan Adelman (ed.), Hitler and His Allies in World War II (London: Routledge, 2007), p. 114; Azéma and Wieviorka, Vichy, p. 79.

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By  examining the Italian dimension to Vichy’s relations with the Axis, however, this chapter advances a fresh interpretation of this period. Far from being shaped exclusively by its engagements with Berlin, Vichy’s policy aimed to negotiate a path between the two Axis governments, seeking to play one against the other. Having failed to secure any kind of rapprochement with Rome in the autumn of 1940 and following months of talks with German officials, the French government had embraced collaboration with Berlin. Yet Vichy had not closed the door to the possibility of working with Rome. The collapse of the Protocols of Paris negotiations between Vichy and Berlin and the growing vulnerability of Italian forces in Libya brought a new phase in French relations with Italy, culminating in a brief but significant experiment in military collaboration. The period marked a high point in the confidence of Vichy and of Darlan in particular in their ability to manipulate Berlin and Rome to the French advantage.

Impasse Pétain’s decision to dismiss Laval on 13 December 1940 caused relations between Vichy and Berlin to stall for several months but it did not signal any rejection of collaboration.4 After several months of impasse, on 10 February 1941, the anti-British Admiral Darlan stepped into Laval’s shoes, but it took an uprising in Iraq in late April 1941 to break the deadlock. For the Nazis, the Iraqi rebellion represented an opportunity to strike a blow against Britain. However, in order to support the rebels, Berlin needed French help to transport weapons to Iraq as well as access to French air bases in Syria. For Vichy, German demands for assistance opened up a shift in the balance of power, raising new opportunities for negotiations.5 But while Vichy wanted to bargain for political concessions, Berlin was interested only in military collaboration. The Franco-German talks that followed led to the signature of the Protocols of Paris on 28 May 1941. In return for small German concessions on the occupation costs and the release of French prisoners of war, Darlan agreed to allow the Germans to use Syrian airfields and to use the Tunisian port of Bizerte as a supply route for Rommel’s forces in Libya.6 4 5 6

Duroselle, L’Abîme, p. 360; Jackson, Dark Years, p. 175; Paxton, Vichy France, p. 93. Benoist-Mechin, De la défaite au désastre. I Les occasions manquées juillet 1940–avril 1942 (Paris: Albin Michel, 1984), p. 68. Paxton, Vichy France, pp. 117–8.

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Playing Rome against Berlin: December 1940 to March 1942

Behind Darlan’s actions were two considerations. The first was the belief that the protocols represented an opportunity to forge a new relationship with Berlin in which Vichy would be rewarded for collaborating and would be entitled to demand ‘spectacular’ concessions to appease hostile French public opinion.7 The second was the opportunity to push for the long-sought strengthening of defences in North Africa. Darlan argued that the German use of Bizerte left French North Africa vulnerable to reprisals from Britain and that France required the reinforcement of the armistice army not as compensation but as a means of defence against the threat.8 The problem was, however, that making significant concessions had the effect of aggravating rather than improving Vichy’s relations with Berlin. Darlan had fallen into the trap of failing to gain any firm commitment from Berlin that it would give anything in return. Historians continue to debate the reasons the French government never ratified the protocols, but on returning to Vichy with little to show for his actions, Darlan faced stiff opposition from senior ministers, as well as Weygand and Pétain. Under pressure for having made such a poor deal and having committed France to significantly greater levels of collaboration with Germany, Darlan attempted to claw back some credibility by making wildly exaggerated additional political demands on 6 June 1941. The German government summarily rejected them along with any attempt to link military terms with political demands. Despite the collapse of the negotiations, Axis forces continued to press their respective governments for assistance from France. The German campaign against the Soviet Union, which began on 22 June 1941, made the need to use French resources in North Africa all the greater. British control over the Mediterranean effectively paralysed German efforts to transport supplies to the Afrika Korps via Tripoli and Benghazi, placing forces under increasing strain.9 Berlin, therefore, issued fresh demands for France to deliver 20,000 tonnes of food per month to the Libyan border, as well as 400 lorries and artillery to ease the pressure on the Axis armies. On 3 July, Vichy agreed to transport camouflaged supplies from Italy to Bizerte on Italian cargo ships, and goods to Gabès on French railways.10 Ministers were keenly aware that German vulnerability in the Mediterranean 7 8 9

10

Duroselle, L’Abîme, p. 286. Hervé Coutau-Bégarie and Claude Huan, Darlan (Paris: Fayard, 1989), p. 410. On the supply lines clashes between Britain and the Axis in the Mediterranean, see Richard Hammond, Strangling the Axis: The Fight for Control of the Mediterranean during the Second World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021). Coutau-Bégarie and Huan, Darlan, pp. 426, 433.

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presented them with opportunities to exploit. However, they could not agree on how to measure the weight of German military demands against the value of their own demands for political concessions.11 It was the loss of Syria in early July 1941 that transformed Vichy’s political calculations, however. The attack by British and Free French forces came in part as a response to the assistance that Vichy had provided the Germans in Iraq, highlighting the heavy price France was to pay for engaging in collaboration. Facing considerable domestic pressure to change course, on 14 July Darlan wrote to the German government. Arguing that the loss of Syria had weakened the French colonial empire and had heightened public fears about the dangers of collaboration, Darlan issued a set of significant new demands.12 Once more, however, they were met with outright rejection by Hitler.13 Despite this, Darlan and the under-secretary for Franco-German relations, Jacques Benoist-Méchin, refused to give up, maintaining that German vulnerability in the Mediterranean would eventually force Berlin to revive the negotiations. They, therefore, ordered officials to go ahead with the delivery of heavy artillery to the Afrika Korps and the transportation of 400 lorries to Axis forces in Libya.14 It was all to no avail, however; Vichy’s relations with Berlin remained deadlocked. Meanwhile, away from the glare of international diplomacy, negotiations continued, as did French assistance to the Axis. The German and Italian High Commands, who were more acutely aware of the desperate military situation in Libya and the strategic importance of the Tunisian ports than the politicians, decided to adopt a more pragmatic approach.15 German and Italian officials agreed that Axis demands must not risk pushing France towards armed conflict with Britain. They, therefore, proposed that in exchange for Vichy ceding merchant ships, arms, supplies for Axis forces and the manufacturing of war matériel in the free zone, they would offer France concessions on military reinforcements in North Africa.16 This time it was Vichy who rejected the deal, with Darlan refusing to separate military from political negotiations.17 Nevertheless, Vichy continued to provide assistance to Axis seaplanes and Italian ships, as well as rescuing sailors, providing information about British ships and 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Benoist-Méchin, De la défaite, p. 238. Coutau-Bégarie and Huan, Darlan, p. 435. Duroselle, L’Abîme, p. 289. Coutau-Bégarie and Huan, Darlan, p. 448. Meeting between Anfuso and Warlimont, 25 August 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, p. 502. Coutau-Bégarie and Huan, Darlan, pp. 463–4. AN AJ41 41, Beynet to Darlan, 27 November 1941.

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Playing Rome against Berlin: December 1940 to March 1942

submarines, transporting scrap iron and phosphates to Italy, searching for lost German aircraft and ceding canons, lorries and tug boats to German forces.18 Vichy’s assistance would have been even greater, had it not been for the opposition of a handful of French officials in North Africa. Having vowed to defend the French colonial empire against any foreign incursion, Weygand refused to allow German forces to use Bizerte and, together with local French officials, sabotaged the delivery of lorries, clogged up repair shops, forbade mechanics from accessing local supplies of spare parts and offered defective vehicles as replacements.19 In the months that followed, Vichy continued to seek improved relations with Berlin, bowing to German pressure and removing Weygand from his post as delegate-general for French North Africa on 18 November 1941. The gesture eased tensions and opened the way for tripartite negotiations between French, German and Italian representatives nine days later. Yet it was soon clear that there remained significant differences between Vichy and Berlin. The German and Italian Armistice Commissions announced that they were willing to resume discussions about implementing the terms of the Protocols of Paris. They were prepared to consider Vichy’s demands for the military reinforcement of French West Africa and the release of prisoners in return for Axis use of French neutral shipping in the Mediterranean, the delivery of supplies and vehicles to German or Italian forces in North Africa and the production of munitions.20 However, the French insistence upon political concessions which had led to the collapse of the Protocols of Paris negotiations remained a stumbling block.21 Vichy’s position was essentially unchanged, as indeed was that of the German government.22 As a result, the talks were suspended on 21 December 1941. Bilateral talks between Pétain and Göring at St Florentin on 1 December 1941 also collapsed into a deadlock. While Vichy hoped to normalise relations with Berlin and to secure a wide-ranging political agreement, the German government was only interested in securing military assistance for Rommel’s forces in Libya. Having yielded to German pressure in dismissing Weygand, Pétain expected significant political concessions in return. He, therefore, presented a series of demands that scarcely differed from those that had led to the collapse of the Protocols of Paris negotiations. 18 19 20 21 22

Henri Michel, François Darlan. Amiral de la Flotte (Paris: Hachette, 1993), p. 226. Maxime Weygand, Recalled to Service: The Memoirs of General Maxime Weygand, trans. E. W. Dickes (London: Heinemann, 1952), p. 342. AN AJ41 41, Tripartite negotiations at Wiesbaden, 27 November 1941. Liberati to Pietromarchi, 5 December 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, p. 837. AN AJ41 41, Minutes of meeting, 21 December 1941, 10.30 am.

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But while the predicament of the Afrika Korps may have weighed heavily upon Göring’s thoughts, the German position was far from being so weakened as to compel him to accede to the demands. While the Protocols of Paris negotiations revealed Darlan’s efforts to secure France’s position alongside Germany, they also demonstrated that he envisaged no such relationship with Italy.23 Even where Rome might have been an indirect beneficiary of the agreement, French officials insisted on dealing wholly and exclusively with Berlin. They refused to sell lorries to Italy, meaning that they had to be bought by Germany and subsequently sold on to the Italians.24 French officials also insisted that they would only grant German forces access to Tunisian ports and would not extend the offer to Italy.25 This left Mussolini particularly piqued, as it meant his forces being dependent upon the Germans in an area under Italian jurisdiction.26 Darlan’s approach was in direct conflict with that of Pétain. While negotiations were underway with Berlin, Pétain sought to open an unofficial dialogue with Rome, keeping his efforts a secret even from Darlan.27 The explanation for Darlan’s focus on the Germans lies in significant part in the increasingly provocative actions taken by the Italians. In North Africa, persistent Italian attempts to ‘reinterpret their rights as victors’, armistice violations and the relentless pressures exerted on the local authorities were, French officials believed, part of a campaign of deliberately seeking to aggravate relations.28 Darlan and Weygand meanwhile suspected that Rome was seeking to weaken the armistice army.29 At the same time, in the Italian zone of occupation, French officials were facing mounting pressure from forced Italianisation and attempts to bring about annexation by stealth. In such actions and attitudes were constituted the core dilemmas of Vichy’s double bind. The problem was that the growing crisis in Italy was not playing out as many in Vichy had anticipated. Far from being drawn towards France, the wider difficulties being experienced by Italian forces in early 1941 served to exacerbate Italian intransigence and hostility. Setbacks in the offensive in Greece and reverses in Libya had damaged Mussolini’s prestige, leading him to dismiss several ministers, including Ciano, and 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Conversation between Hitler and Darlan, 11 May 1941, DGFP, ser. D, vol. XII, pp. 772–8. Conversation between Ribbentrop and Mussolini, 13 May 1941, DGFP, ser. D, vol. XII, p. 801. Rainero, La Commission italienne, p. 144. Costa Bona, Dalla guerra alla pace, p. 77. Meeting between Confalonieri and Ménétrel, 3 May 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, p. 75. AN AJ41 65, Meeting between Duplat and Grossi, 1 April 1941. AN AJ41 65, Darlan to Huntziger, 16 April 1941.

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to clamp down on dissent. The regime’s vulnerability domestically and internationally caused Mussolini to be still more determined to project an outward image of defiance. Tensions between the Axis governments did not play out as Vichy expected either. During the Protocols of Paris negotiations, the German government had willingly accommodated Darlan’s refusal to engage with the Italians.30 Indeed, Ribbentrop begged Ciano not to intervene, while Hitler warned Mussolini that Italian territorial demands risked undermining the talks.31 Yet contrary to French expectations, despite Italian officers being humiliated by German contempt for their methods, military doctrines and organisation, relations between the two countries’ armed forces remained strong.32 And notwithstanding Italian military failings, relations between Berlin and Rome had not cooled as French officials had expected either. Vichy, therefore, found itself not only unable to exploit the tensions between the two Axis governments but having to defend itself against the unmasking of its strategy as well. In a heated exchange in February 1941, one Italian diplomat defiantly declared to French officials: ‘You are seeking to play Germany against Italy, to somehow protect yourselves against Italian appetites with a German guarantee. That game will bring you nothing because of the close relations between the Duce and the Führer. […] All you are doing is increasing Mussolini’s irritation towards you.’33 The Protocols of Paris alarmed the Italian government, seeming to threaten Italy’s territorial demands, its interests in Africa and its status as Germany’s first ally.34 Indeed, Rome’s ambassador to Berlin, Dino Alfieri, reported that warmer Franco-German relations were fuelling a shared antipathy towards Italy.35 Italian efforts to obstruct the negotiations, therefore, intensified, with Rome renewing its warnings to Berlin not to trust Vichy.36 Within weeks, however, the Italian government began to change its approach. Basing his work primarily upon Italian sources, Rainero has argued that the shift in the Italian policy was in no small measure due to General Arturo Vacca Maggiolini’s appointment as president of the Italian 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

Vacca Maggiolini to Cavallero, 20 June 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, p. 282; Pietromarchi to Ciano, 15 July 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, p. 362. Meeting between Ciano and Ribbentrop, 2 June 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, pp. 194, 198. John Gooch, Mussolini’s War: Fascist Italy from Triumph to Collapse, 1935–1943 (London: Allen Lane, 2020), pp. 198–213. AD 10GMII463, Note for Minister, 10 February 1941. Costa Bona, Dalla guerra, p. 79. Alfieri to Ciano, 21 May 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, pp. 152–3. Liberati to Vacca Maggiolini, 23 July 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, p. 390; Telegram from German Ambassador to Italy to Foreign Ministry, 26 July 1941, DGFP, ser. D, vol. XIII, p. 220. For earlier warnings, see AD 10GMII463, Note for Minister, 10 February 1941.

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Armistice Commission.37 In August 1941, Vacca Maggiolini proposed that France should be granted a new status as non-belligerent so that Rome and Vichy might embark upon a new, permanent and constructive relationship which would serve to counter German military and political strength. Having hitherto acted as a brake on collaboration, Italy would henceforth be in a position to accelerate and overtake Germany in its relationship with France.38 Yet while Mussolini agreed with Vacca Maggiolini’s diagnosis of the problems in Franco-Italian relations, he did not endorse his proposed solutions.39 The records of the French delegation to the Italian Armistice Commission suggest that the shift in Italian policy began in late June 1941.40 With pressure mounting on Italian forces in Libya and the Balkans, and unable to sustain the cost of its occupation forces in France, Rome was increasingly desperate for access to French finance. The Italian government calculated that occupying French territory was costing 15 million francs per day.41 With no occupation costs written into the Italian armistice terms, Italy was compelled to shoulder the fi ­ nancial ­burden itself. This was compared to the 400 million francs per day that France paid Germany which, despite relating to a much larger occupying army and being at an unfavourable exchange rate, would have been sufficient to pay for an army of 18 million men.42 Whereas Berlin had the power and authority to make demands of France, Rome did not. Unable simply to force Vichy to pay occupation costs, the Italian government offered to renounce Article 10 in return for credits worth 10 billion lire which would be divided into matériel, machinery, transport, French francs and other foreign currencies.43 The Italian Armistice Commission was compelled not only to enter into negotiations with their French counterparts but to launch a charm offensive as well. After months of opposition to any rapprochement, Rome suddenly ordered officials in Turin to end their hostility, to emphasise the close cultural connections between the two Latin countries and to tell French officials that Italy felt closer to France than it ever had to Germany.44 Italian 37 38 39 40 41 42

43 44

Rainero, La commission italienne, p. 188. Vacca Maggiolini to Mussolini, 13 August 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, pp. 460–4. Fracassi to Pietromarchi, 20 August 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, p. 479. AN AJ41 42, ‘CIA – Abandon de l’article X (Livraison matériel)’, 30 June 1941. AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to Darlan, 6 December 1941. Marcel Boldorf and Jonas Scherner, ‘France’s Occupation Costs and the War in the East: The Contribution to the German War Economy, 1940–4’, Journal of Contemporary History, 47:2 (2012), p. 295. AN AJ41 2149, Memorandum for Duplat, 23 August 1941. AN AJ41 2152, Duplat to Darlan, 8 September 1941; AN AJ41 65, Gross to Darlan, 4 October 1941; Liberati to Ciano, 6 September 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, p. 549.

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officials proposed secret talks with their French counterparts, with Vacca Maggiolini even suggesting that he might go undercover to meet Darlan face-to-face in France.45 To save face in public, however, the Fascist regime intensified its anti-French propaganda campaign. Mussolini delivered his first anti-French speech since 10 June 1940 and the Italian government reprinted a collection of openly hostile articles for distribution among occupying forces in south-eastern France.46 The contrast between the Italian government’s public pronouncements and the reality of its need for negotiations opened up a credibility gap that exposed the weakness of its position and confirmed what many French officials had believed all along. However, their ability successfully to exploit Italian vulnerability was far from certain. Unlike with Germany, the negotiations with Italian officials were not led by Darlan or any other senior government figure. Instead, under Admiral Duplat, the French delegation to the Italian Armistice Commission in Turin handled the talks. From the outset, Duplat understood and sought to exploit the Italian modus operandi, basing his approach on the belief that while ‘the German imposes, the Italian negotiates. […] The Germans play a hard game because they have the means to impose the method that they prefer by temperament; the Italians are more willing to use underhand methods because of their inferiority complex and because of their temperament.’47 Thus whereas Darlan had issued an unrealistic set of demands to Berlin in June and July, Duplat tested how far officials could exploit Italian weakness and then set his demands accordingly.48 Concluding that the military matériel that fell under Article 10 was worth significantly less than the 10 billion lire the Italian government was now seeking, French officials considered calling for an end to the Italian occupation, a reduction in the demilitarised zone and a significant scaling down of the Italian control commissions in North Africa.49 Duplat insisted that Vichy would be ‘fools’ simply to hand over large sums of money to Italy after Berlin had offered to make concessions during the Protocols of Paris negotiations.50 45 46 47 48 49 50

Fracassi to Pietromarchi, 20 August 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, p. 480; Confalonieri to Ciano, 23 September 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, p. 598. AN AJ41 2299, Duplat to Darlan, 4 November 1941. AN AJ41 41, Duplat to Pucheu, 30 October 1941. See, for instance, AN AJ41 192, Duplat to Huntziger, 1 July 1941; AN AJ41 2152, Memorandum for Vacca Maggiolini, 3 October 1941. AN AJ41 42, ‘CIA – Abandon de l’article X (Livraison matériel)’, 30 June 1941; AN AJ41 42, ‘Propositions italiennes relatives à l’Article X de la convention d’Armistice’, 19 July 1941. AN AJ41 42, ‘CIA – Abandon de l’article X (Livraison matériel)’, 30 June 1941; AN AJ41 2152, Duplat to Darlan, 8 September 1941; AN AJ41 2152, Duplat to Darlan, 5 October 1941.

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When the Rome Protocols came to be signed on 22 November 1941, however, they appeared to signal that Vichy had once again come away worse off. While French officials had managed to reject Italian demands for 15 million francs per day to cover the occupation costs in return for the renunciation of Article 10, they agreed to compensate Italy for the value of matériel worth 2.6 billion francs, albeit having negotiated a reduction from the original 5 billion francs demanded.51 However, the French negotiating strategy had more long-term goals. By yielding ground on Article 10, Vichy sought to create the conditions that would bring ‘rapprochement between Italy and France […] for the rational reorganisation of western Europe’.52 It was, in other words, a return to the vision heralded by Baudouin and Laval in 1940, in which alignment with Italy would seek to diminish the domination of Germany over a post-war Europe.53 With relations with Berlin foundering, the Rome Protocols signalled a much broader transformation in Vichy’s strategy and revealed a more flexible outlook than has previously been suggested by historians who have focused upon French relations with Germany. The shift was not simply a case of Darlan turning to Italy as a kind of ‘Plan B’. While his approach might have been primarily based upon pragmatic calculations of French interest, he may also have been influenced by foreign ministry reports suggesting that Mussolini’s antipathy towards France was not shared by many of his officials. Speaking privately with their French counterparts, Italian diplomats and even senior Fascists periodically raised concerns about the domination of Germany over Europe, reviving calls for a ‘Latin union’ with France.54 With anti-German sentiment growing among the Italian population, officials increasingly called for the Fascist government to abandon its territorial claims against France in order to remove one of the main barriers to improved relations between the two states.55 By autumn 1941, some were even going as far as to suggest that Rome was seeking to extricate itself from its alliance with Berlin.56 French armistice officials also noticed a palpable détente in meetings with 51

52 53 54 55 56

AN AJ41 2152, Duplat to Darlan, 5 October 1941; AN AJ41 42, ‘Note au sujet de l’abandon de l’article X moyennant contre-partie adéquate’, 18 October 1941; AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to Darlan, 6 December 1941. See also Borgogni, Mussolini e la Francia, pp. 268–70. AN AJ41 192, ‘Séance du 8 novembre 1941 – Réunion Sous-Commission – Article X – Exposé de M. Leroy-Beaulieu’. AN AJ41 2149, Memorandum for Duplat, 23 August 1941. AD 10GMII 470, Telegram from La Baume, 28 April 1941; AD 10GMII 470, French Consul at Salonica to Darlan, 11 July 1941; AD 10GMII 471, Note by Nac, 17 January 1942. AD 10GMII 470, ‘Note relative à la situation présente de l’Italie’, 22 September 1941. AD 10GMII 470, Note, 1 October 1941.

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their Italian counterparts as Turin’s charm offensive began to pay off.57 The picture with which Darlan was being presented, therefore, suggested that rapprochement with Rome was becoming a credible and potentially advantageous option for Vichy. The French government’s response to the apparent transformation in the Italian position was most clearly manifested at the funeral of General Huntziger on 15 November 1941. Historians have tended to focus on how Pétain and Darlan sought to use the attendance of senior German officials to press the case for reopening negotiations.58 However, the two men also used the occasion to engage in a concerted effort to win around the Italians.59 As secretary-general to the foreign ministry, Charles Rochat was dispatched to speak with Baron Confalonieri of the Italian Armistice Commission, while Darlan took Vacca Maggiolini to one side to tell him of his keen wish to meet Mussolini so that the two men might broker some sort of agreement.60 Most significantly, however, Pétain intervened directly, taking the highly unusual step of inviting Vacca Maggiolini to his apartments for a private meeting. According to Vacca Maggiolini, Pétain began by expressing his high regard for the Italian officers with whom he had served during the First World War and his personal esteem for Mussolini, whom he had met in 1928. After criticising the foreign policy ‘mistakes’ committed under the Third Republic, the marshal went on to articulate his fondness towards Italy, his strong desire for rapprochement between the two countries and his belief that it was their destiny to get on.61 The warmth of Pétain’s words echoed the sentiments he had conveyed to Italian officials in early May 1941, when he had expressed reservations about extending collaboration with the Germans beyond the parameters agreed at Montoire.62 As he reported back to Rome, Vacca Maggiolini was left in no doubt about Vichy’s ‘strong desire to be friends with Italy’.63

Collaboration and Misdirection With the shift in the Italian position having been driven by military and financial pressures, Mussolini initially remained indisposed towards any 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

AN AJ41 65, Gross to Darlan, 4 October 1941. Paxton, Vichy France, p. 126; Rainero, La commission italienne, p. 224. Borgogni, Mussolini e la Francia, p. 279. AD 10GMII 473, Note for political director, 17 October 1941. Vacca Maggiolini to Cavallero, 17 November 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, pp. 776–7. Meeting between Confalonieri and Ménétrel, 3 May 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, p. 75. Vacca Maggiolini to Cavallero, 17 November 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, p. 777.

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political negotiations and declined Darlan’s invitation to talks.64 By 2 December 1941, however, his position had changed. Italian forces in Libya were facing mounting pressure from the British naval blockade in the Mediterranean. With military supplies and reinforcements unable to reach Axis forces, Rommel ordered a withdrawal to the Gazala line. Without access to adequate transport routes for their infantry and equipment, the Italian forces were left in an extremely vulnerable position. Only the use of French-controlled ports in Tunisia could potentially ease the crisis. Transporting supplies through Tunisia offered the chance of significantly reducing the distances that needed to be covered by sea and therefore significantly reducing the losses inflicted by the British. Whereas it was 444 kilometres or 32 hours by sea from Sicily to Tripoli, it was only 140 kilometres or 10 hours by sea from Sicily to Cap Bon.65 Under mounting pressure, Mussolini initially threatened to take the Tunisian port of Bizerte by force. It was, however, an empty threat: Italy did not have the military capability to take such action.66 With Hitler adamant that Vichy should not be pressured over Bizerte until the Axis had regained control over the central Mediterranean in case it provoked British intervention, the only option left to Mussolini was to engage in negotiations.67 Abandoning his earlier intransigence, Mussolini now decided that he would be willing to make ‘significant concessions’ to France.68 The shift in Mussolini’s position gave Darlan the opportunity he needed to attempt once more to improve relations with Rome. Having failed to secure a meeting with Mussolini, he managed for the first time to arrange to meet Ciano at Turin on 10 December 1941. In a sign of the significance the Italian government now accorded its relations with Vichy, Ciano took great efforts to welcome the French delegation, arranging a special train for Darlan and a full ceremonial greeting at Turin station. Accompanied by French and Italian armistice officials, Darlan attended a dinner at the Hotel Principi di Piemonte, a venue normally reserved for only the most important guests of the Italian government.69 Lunch was served amidst 64 65 66 67 68 69

Conversation between Ribbentrop and Ciano, 28 November 1941, DGFP, ser. D, vol. XIII, pp. 826–8; Von Mackensen to Foreign Minister, 7 December 1941, DGFP, ser. D, vol. XIII, p. 975. ‘Notes récapitulatives sommaires sur la rencontre avec le Duce dans l’après-midi de noël 1941’, 25 December 1941, in Rainero, La commission italienne, p. 517. Military Attaché in Italy to Army General Staff, 2 December 1941, DGFP, ser. D, vol. XIII, pp. 934–5. Ribbentrop to Embassy in Italy, 7 December 1941, DGFP, ser. D, vol. XIII, p. 967; Liberati to Pietromarchi, 5 December 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, p. 837. Military Attaché in Italy to Army General Staff, 2 December 1941, DGFP, ser. D, vol. XIII, pp. 934–5. ‘Le voyage à Turin de l’Amiral Darlan’, Le Temps, 12 December 1941.

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great splendour and press photographers and cine cameras were invited to record the occasion. French officials received the finest Italian hospitality, being offered a variety of drinks and cigarettes while the talks between Ciano and Darlan were conducted behind closed doors.70 The precise nature and scope of the talks are difficult to establish since no officials were permitted to attend and no minutes of the meeting were ever produced. According to Ciano’s summary of the meeting, Darlan repeatedly expressed his hostility towards the British and his faith in an Axis victory.71 He ruled out the use of Tunisian ports to transport matériel to Libya on the grounds that it would provoke British reprisals and would be difficult to justify to French public opinion.72 The two men did, however, agree to establish a direct liaison between their governments by reopening the Italian embassy in Paris. The aim was to foster closer political relations beyond the jurisdiction of the armistice commissions and to parallel the structure of contacts with Germany’s ambassador Otto Abetz and consul-general Krug von Nidda.73 Rome’s subsequent appointment of the senior diplomat Gino Buti to its embassy in Paris was seen by French officials as a signal of the significance the Italian government now ascribed to its relationship with Vichy.74 The meeting between Ciano and Darlan paved the way for the most important development in Franco-Italian relations since the armistice. A fortnight later, French officials signed a set of accords in which they agreed to allow Italy access to ports in Tunisia and agreed to transport food, lorries and other supplies to ease the pressure on Italian forces in Libya.75 Although in practice the shipments were relatively modest and lasted only a few weeks, they represented a major development in Vichy’s relations with Rome. By agreeing to transport motorised vehicles to aid the Axis campaign in Libya, Darlan explicitly engaged Vichy in military collaboration with Italy.76 In so doing, he granted the Italian government the very concessions Vichy had refused to give the German government 70 71 72 73 74 75

76

Sarraz-Bournet, Témoignage, pp. 84–5. Meeting between Ciano and Darlan, 10 December 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, pp. 862–3. Conversation with Admiral Darlan, 10 December 1941, Count Galeazzo Ciano, Ciano’s Diplomatic Papers, Malcolm Muggeridge (ed.), trans. Stuart Hood (London: Odhams Press, 1948), p. 469. Meeting between Ciano and Darlan, 10 December 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, p. 863. AD 10 GMII 473, Note from office of Sarrien, 19 February 1942. AN AJ41 43, Duplat to Darlan, 25 December 1941; AN AJ41 43, ‘Procès-verbal des réunions à Rome par les délégués italiens et les délégués français pour l’organisation des transports pour la Libye par la France et la Tunisie’, 15–26 January 1942; AD 9GMII 278, Darlan to Duplat, 10 February 1942; AN AJ41 43, Duplat to Vacca Maggiolini, 11 February 1942. AN AJ41 43, Duplat to Vacca Maggiolini, 11 February 1942.

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after the collapse of the Protocols of Paris negotiations.77 He also agreed to violate Vichy’s neutrality in the Mediterranean, despite his assurances to the contrary to the British and Americans.78 Unlike the new policy of collaboration with Germany that was decreed at Montoire in October 1940, the new policy with Italy came without fanfare and indeed, Vichy insisted upon the strictest secrecy. Behind Darlan’s decision, however, lay three key objectives. The first was a desire to exploit Italian weakness to gain concessions on the armistice terms; the second was a return to the strategy of seeking to use Rome to counterbalance Berlin; the third was the need to use the threat posed by Britain and America to gain concessions on French military defences in North Africa. In agreeing to grant Italy terms that were virtually identical to the second part of the Protocols of Paris, Darlan sought on the one hand to send Rome a signal of French intent while on the other, avoiding confrontation with Berlin. Just as he had, with German collusion, excluded Rome from the Protocols of Paris negotiations, so with Italian collusion, he now excluded Berlin. Even before his meeting with Ciano, Darlan sought to keep the Germans ignorant of French actions, refusing German requests for a copy of the Rome Protocols.79 The German government was not informed of the secret shipments of supplies either. Even when Berlin discovered what had been agreed, French officials continued to insist upon dealing exclusively with the Italians.80 No doubt anticipating the ‘vexed’ response of German officials on learning of the deal, Darlan’s strategy of keeping Berlin in the dark helped at once to build a rapport with the Italians and to minimise the impression of a deliberate rebuff to the Germans.81 Far from the dogmatic vision of collaboration with the Germans that many historians have portrayed, Vichy’s dealings with the Italians in late 1941 suggest that it remained fundamentally opportunistic in its approach. 77

78

79 80 81

AN AJ41 41, ‘Négociations indépendantes des conversations tripartites à Wiesbaden et attitude de l’Allemagne à la suite de la suspension (21 décembre) des dites conversations tripartites’, 21 December 1941. Rainero, La commission italienne, p. 134; AN AJ41 2153, ‘La délégation française à la Commission Italienne d’Armistice, 28 juin 1940–31 décembre 1942’; Paxton, Parades and Politics, p. 314; Duroselle, L’Abîme, p. 385. AN AJ41 42, Bourragué to Darlan, no date; AN AJ41 42, Duplat to Darlan, 27 April 1942. AN AJ41 43, Duplat to Darlan, 8 February 1942; AN AJ41 43, ‘Participation allemande aux transports’, 10 February 1942. AN AJ41 41, ‘Négociations indépendantes des conversations tripartites à Wiesbaden et attitude de l’Allemagne à la suite de la suspension (21 décembre) des dites conversations tripartites’, 21 December 1941; AN AJ41 43, Coded telegram, French Admiralty to DFA – DFI – DSA, 16 January 1942.

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Despite the collapse of talks between Pétain and Göring on 1 December 1941, French officials continued to engage in simultaneous but entirely separate negotiations with the German and Italian governments on precisely the same matters. When Göring unexpectedly summoned General Juin to an urgent meeting on 20 December, French officials assumed it to be a sign that German desperation had finally driven Berlin to accept negotiations with Vichy. In Libya, Rommel’s troops were facing the threat of being forced back into Tunisia where, under international law, Vichy would have to disarm and intern them.82 On the eastern front, meanwhile, German forces were suffering grave difficulties as the Russian winter set in. Göring, therefore, issued Vichy with two demands. The first was for France to supply camouflaged shipments of food to Axis forces in Libya via Bizerte, as it had pledged in the Protocols of Paris. The second was the demand for assurance on whether French troops would fight alongside Axis forces to halt the British advance at the Tunisian border. Juin responded by seizing the opportunity to call for the suppression of the Italian armistice terms that limited French forces to nine battalions in Tunisia and the demilitarised southern border with Libya and requested new equipment and fuel. Yet when Juin raised the issue of the political concessions that Berlin had failed to deliver in the Protocols of Paris negotiations, Göring peremptorily dismissed the matter.83 Nevertheless, five days later, Darlan yielded to Göring’s requests and even offered to separate Vichy’s demands for political concessions from the negotiations on the use of Tunisian ports. However, in issuing what German officials considered excessive military conditions, Darlan’s actions implied a lack of sincerity in his desire for agreement. Indeed, his demands included complete French military freedom in Africa and the western Mediterranean, the liberation of French forces in North Africa, the remilitarisation of southern Tunisia, Luftwaffe protection for French shipments in the western Mediterranean and German fuel for the transportation of supplies to Axis forces.84 As a consequence, the German government refused even to respond to the demands. By then, however, the French strategy of talking simultaneously to Berlin and Rome had paid off: Vichy had concluded an agreement with the Italian government and therefore no longer needed to court the German government. 82

83 84

Albert Kammerer, La passion française. De Mers-el-Kébir à Toulon (Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1951), p. 341; see also Robert L. Melka, ‘Darlan Between Britain and Germany,’ Journal of Contemporary History, 8:2 (1973), p. 79. AN AJ41 41, ‘Compte-rendu de mission du Général Juin’, 23 December 1941. AN AJ41 41, Memorandum, 22 December 1941; Benoist-Méchin, De la défaite, p. 349.

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With the talks with the Germans having once again collapsed, Darlan’s decision to grant Rome the very concessions that he had so long withheld from Berlin became a more overtly political manoeuvre that sought to play the Axis partners off against each other. At a time when Axis forces were under severe pressure in Libya and on the eastern front, French officials believed that they could manipulate German resentfulness over the agreement with Italy to their advantage.85 Writing to Darlan on 17 January 1942, Duplat suggested that Vichy should seek to exploit the situation, because ‘the sensitivity, indeed even the jealousy, of Germany has been awakened’.86 If Vichy found itself in an advantageous position in relation to Germany, its position in relation to Italy was even stronger. Italian forces’ mounting need for French assistance in Libya boosted Vichy’s power to demand concessions. Despite French officials agreeing on 16 December 1941 to transport supplies through Tunisia, three days later, the Italian economic delegation made fresh demands for the transportation of 1500 tonnes of diesel oil to Libya and for space on French ships travelling to North Africa.87 By 24 December, the crisis had grown still more urgent; General Cavallero, the Italian army chief of staff, telephoned Duplat begging for supplies to be sent to Libya as soon as possible, warning that without them, his forces would collapse within hours. Later that evening, General Gelich pleaded with Vichy to send food and fuel as well.88 French officials were, therefore, confident that the balance of power had tipped decisively in their favour. Determined to exploit this, Darlan steadfastly opposed granting the Axis direct use of Tunisia’s ports, despite Mussolini’s repeated threats to take them by force. As Duplat explained to Darlan on 2 January 1942, the shipments of supplies had altered Franco-Italian relations considerably, offering Vichy significant opportunities to exploit its ‘advantageous position’.89 If Vichy’s decision to collaborate with Germany had been taken from a position of weakness and delusion, its decision to collaborate with Italy was taken from a position of strength and opportunism. With Italian forces desperate for French assistance, the strong position in which Vichy found itself from late 1941 to early 1942 should have brought it significant gains. Yet the French government somehow came away having secured nothing substantive. This has led Henri Michel to brand the 85 86 87 88 89

AN AJ41 43, Braxmeyer to Duplat, 18 January 1942. AN AJ41 41, Duplat to Darlan, 17 January 1942; see also AD 9GMII 278, Michelier to Bourragué, 3 March 1942. AN AJ41 43, Telegram from French delegation at Turin to DSA, 19 December 1941, 1 pm. AN AJ41 43, Duplat to Darlan, 25 December 1941. AN AJ41 2153, Duplat to Darlan, 2 January 1942.

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meeting between Ciano and Darlan as being ultimately a ‘failure’, resulting in ‘unilateral concessions’ from Vichy with little to show in return.90 As had been the case with the Protocols of Paris and the Rome Protocols, the French strategy assumed the need to give ground to generate a climate of goodwill before any demands could be made. The problem was, however, that while French officials might have been involved in negotiations with the Italians, many of the areas in which they really wanted concessions were in the hands of the Germans. They, therefore, sought to turn the Italian government into their advocate. Viewing Italy through preconceptions of weakness, the prevailing view among French officials was that the Italians could be easily manipulated into doing Vichy’s bidding. Indeed, Duplat told Darlan that his interlocutors were flattered by all the attention they were receiving from Vichy, having long suffered from an inferiority complex towards France.91 Initially, the French strategy seemed to work. Rome even seemed willing to collude with Vichy’s manoeuvres against Berlin. The Italian agreement to work with Vichy broke with German directives, leading Enrica Costa Bona to suggest that Rome might have seen it as revenge for being excluded from the Protocols of Paris talks.92 However, even though the weakness of the Italian military position had compelled Mussolini to turn to diplomatic and political avenues, he was not prepared to compromise Italian prestige. Thus while he proposed offering Vichy significant concessions, he expected Germany to shoulder the burden. His suggestions included reducing the occupation costs that France paid to Germany from 300 million to 200 million or even 100 million francs per day, releasing as much of the territory under occupation as possible without compromising Axis military security, allowing Paris to be France’s capital city once again and returning French prisoners of war. Refusing to relinquish any of his own territorial claims, he was only willing to go so far as to consider allowing France to rearm its forces in North or West Africa.93 Nevertheless, encouraged by offers from Italian officials and even from Mussolini to lobby Berlin on Vichy’s behalf, Duplat issued a wide-ranging set of demands.94 In a memorandum approved by Pétain on 6 January 1942, 90 91 92 93 94

Michel, Darlan, pp. 243, 255. AN AJ41 2150, Duplat to Darlan, 24 December 1941. Costa Bona, Dalla guerra, p. 114. Rainero, La commission italienne, p. 249; Jean-Louis Aujol, Le Procès Benoist-Méchin (29 mai–6 juin 1947) (Paris: Editions Albin Michel, 1948), p. 82. AN AJ41 41, ‘Négociations indépendantes des conversations tripartites à Wiesbaden et attitude de l’Allemagne à la suite de la suspension (21 décembre) des dites conversations tripartites’, 21 December 1941; AN AJ41 43, Coded telegram, French Admiralty to DFA – DFI – DSA, 16 January 1942.

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he argued that the secret shipment of supplies to Axis forces in Libya potentially exposed French North Africa to British attacks.95 He, therefore, not only reissued the demands for military reinforcements that Juin had made to Göring on 22 December 1941 but attached significant political demands as well. The document called for French sovereignty to be re-established in the occupied zones, the return of the government to Paris, the easing of the demarcation line restrictions and the release of 100,000 functionaries, agricultural workers and technicians. In return, Vichy offered to allow supplies to be transported to Libya through Tunisia, to harmonise the French economy with Axis needs and to resist any British attacks against Tunisia.96 The demands may have been ambitious, but they reflected Vichy’s confidence in its negotiating position. Indeed, Mussolini broadly welcomed the memorandum, stating that it offered scope for future talks.97 The opportunism that underpinned Vichy’s engagement in military collaboration with Italy was manifested in the fact that scarcely any of the shipments ever made it to Libya. Indeed, the limited efforts of the French authorities led Italian officials to suspect that Vichy had never really been committed to the initiative.98 The shipments were beset by difficulties from the outset. The supplies were transported from Italy to Marseille in camouflaged Italian trains, disguised as ordinary goods shipments between S. A. Ambrosetti and Gondrand Frères of Marseille.99 The main difficulty remained the issue of crossing the Mediterranean and getting the goods across the land to where they were needed in Libya. While the French authorities reported sending over 4000 tonnes of wheat, 500 tonnes of olive oil and 500,000 gallons of wine per month, Vacca Maggiolini complained that by 7 February 1942, only 56 lorries and 6 tonnes of supplies had made it to Tunisia.100 From there, they had failed to advance further: crossing the sandy terrain in Tunisia wore down the lorries’ tyres and consumed significant amounts of petrol.101 Vichy’s great gesture of collaboration with Italy had thus come to little.102 95

Barattieri to Pietromarchi, 13 January 1942, DDI, IX, vol. 8, pp. 133–5. Memorandum, 4 January 1942, in Hervé Coutau-Bégarie and Claude Huan, Lettres et notes de l’amiral Darlan (Paris: Economica, 1992), pp. 451–5. 97 Meeting between Mussolini and Vacca Maggiolini, 14 January 1942, DDI, IX, vol. 8, p. 161. 98 AN AJ41 43, Italian Armistice Commission to Duplat, 12 February 1942. 99 AD 9GMII 278, Chief engineer of south-eastern Paris, 2 January 1942; AN AJ41 43, ‘Procès-verbal des réunions à Rome par les délégués italiens et les délégués français pour l’organisation des transports pour la Libye par la France et la Tunisie’, 15–26 January 1942. 100 AD 9GMII 278, ‘Ravitaillement de l’Axe en Libye’, no date; AN AJ41 41, Vacca Maggiolini to Duplat, 7 February 1942. 101 AN AJ41 43, Darlan to Huntziger, 14 February 1942. 102 Vacca Maggiolini to Duplat, 12 February 1942, DDI, IX, vol. 8, p. 291. 96

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To make matters worse, the initiative met with strong opposition from within Vichy, transport and dock workers and from French officials in North Africa. Some workers wrote offensive comments on the packaging of the goods, which were then discovered by Italian forces in Libya.103 Two of the most senior critics of the initiative, Admiral Esteva, the governorgeneral of Tunisia, and Admiral Auphan, confined their dissent within government circles. However, French officials in North Africa and a career diplomat close to Pétain leaked crucial information about the shipments to the American ambassador and to British naval authorities in Malta.104 One of the most embarrassing leaks was a letter from Esteva to Darlan expressing dissatisfaction at the deal and complaining that the shipments would have a very negative impact upon the people of French North Africa.105 Still more damagingly, French officials sent secret information about the shipments to the British and American media.106 Newspapers ran reports on the assistance Vichy was providing the Axis while American and BBC radio broadcasts asked local populations to provide further intelligence on the nature and timings of the shipments.107 Italian officials criticised the French for systematically breaching security, but the French also blamed the Italians for their lack of discretion.108 The ochre-coloured lorries the Italians had secretly transported across the Mediterranean were being driven in full sight of the Allies across the desert.109 One French official in Maktar complained that it was impossible to quell the questions being asked by local people as they witnessed twenty lorries passing through each day.110 Another reported that residents of Rouhia were growing increasingly angry at the sight of lorries transporting petrol to Axis forces in Tripolitania.111 Despite the repeated calls for secrecy, detailed information about the shipments was published in widely circulated bulletins for the Italian armistice delegates.112 103 104 105 106 107

108 109 110 111 112

AN F60 1725, ‘News Digest no. 779 – Attacks against France’, 20 March 1942. AN AJ41 43, Vacca Maggiolini to Duplat, 11 February 1942; Kammerer, La passion, p. 360. AN AJ41 43, Vacca Maggiolini to Duplat, 11 February 1942. Kammerer, La passion, p. 359. AN AJ41 43, Beyne to Darlan, 4 February 1942; AN AJ41 43, Coded telegram, 5 February 1942; AD 9GMII 278, Darlan to Duplat, 10 February 1942; AN AJ41 43, Duplat to Vacca Maggiolini, 11 February 1942. AD 9GMII 278, Vacca Maggiolini to Duplat, 1 January 1942; AN AJ41 43, Vacca Maggiolini to Duplat, 11 February 1942. Bernard Costagliola, La Marine de Vichy: Blocus et collaboration (Paris: Tallandier, 2009), p. 256. AD 9GMII 278, Civil Controller of Maktar to Esteva, 31 December 1941. AD 9GMII 278, Defence Ministry to Darlan, 24 January 1942. AD 9GMII 278, Gross to Esteva, 17 January 1942.

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The secret French shipments of supplies via Tunisia ended on 3 March 1942.113 They had been a costly venture for Vichy, blowing apart its pretence of neutrality in the Mediterranean. The Americans and British had long been monitoring French shipping in the region for any suspicious activities.114 Since a deal had been signed between US Chargé d’Affaires Robert Murphy and Weygand in February 1941, the American government had agreed to send supplies to French North Africa to ease the burden of the British naval blockade. Any French breach of neutrality, therefore, risked the suspension of the US shipments as well as British attacks. Coming just three days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and being followed shortly afterwards by German and Italian declarations of war against America, the shift in Vichy’s position heralded by the Ciano-Darlan talks coincided with a period of intense turmoil in US foreign relations.115 American ambassador Leahy, therefore, requested formal reassurance from Vichy that France remained neutral and warned that Washington would regard any Axis use of French bases in North Africa or the French fleet as ‘active military assistance to an enemy of the United States’.116 Neither Darlan nor Pétain mentioned the agreement with the Italian government and indeed officially confirmed French neutrality on 12 December 1941.117 When questioned by Leahy again in early February 1942, Darlan and Pétain continued to deny that Vichy was providing military assistance to the Italians.118 The American and British governments were, therefore, outraged to discover that they had been wilfully deceived.119 Under pressure from Washington and reasoning that collaboration with Italy was not worth risking the cancellation of the Murphy– Weygand agreement or Allied military reprisals, Darlan agreed to British 113 114 115 116 117 118

119

AN AJ41 43, Meeting between Leroy-Beaulieu, Giannini and Vacca Maggiolini, 3 March 1942. TNA FO 371/31918. Vichy supplies for Axis forces in Libya, 8 February 1942; FO 371/31919, Supplies sent to Libya via French North Africa, 7 March 1942. Neiberg, When France Fell, pp. 136–7. See also Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman, Hitler’s American Gamble: Pearl Harbor and Germany’s March to Global War (New York: Basic Books, 2021). William D. Leahy, I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman Based on His Notes and Diaries Made at the Time (London: Victor Gollancz, 1950), p. 84. Ibid. AD Papiers Rochat 60, Visit of Leahy to Pétain, 10 February 1942; AD 9GMII 278, Telegram from Lagarde, 14 February 1942; AD 9GMII 278, Foreign Service of the United States – AideMémoire, 26 February 1942; AD Papiers Rochat 60, ‘Rapports franco-américains’, no date; Leahy to Secretary of State, 6 February 1942, FRUS, Europe, vol. II, pp. 126–7; Leahy to Secretary of State, 9 February 1942, FRUS, Europe, vol. II, pp. 128–9. AN AJ41 43, Duplat to Vacca Maggiolini, 11 February 1942; AN AJ41 43, Duplat to Vacca Maggiolini, 10 April 1942; AN AJ41 43, Vacca Maggiolini to Duplat, 27 March 1942; Paxton, Parades and Politics, p. 314; Leahy, I Was There, p. 97; TNA FO 371/31918, Leahy message from US President to Pétain, 24 February 1942.

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and American demands not to accede to any further Axis requests to use French bases in North Africa.120 By placing Vichy in a precarious position between the Axis and the Allies, Darlan sought to use the risk of British and American reprisals to press Rome and Berlin for concessions on the demilitarisation of North Africa.121 The military dangers were certainly real; indeed, it was the torpedoing of French ships by British submarines on 1 and 14 March 1942 that finally brought an end to the secret shipments.122 For Darlan, however, it was a matter of maintaining the credibility of the Allied threats as a negotiating tool. He wanted to strengthen French forces in North Africa against the risks posed not just by the Allies but above all against the long-standing threats posed by Italian designs on Tunisia. On 8 January 1942, he, therefore, issued fresh demands for military reinforcements as a measure to deal with the specific dangers arising from the shipments.123 The plan failed to yield any tangible results, however. The easing of pressure on Axis forces in Libya and an over-estimation of Mussolini’s goodwill towards France meant that Darlan had overplayed his hand.124 Mussolini withdrew his offer to act as Vichy’s intermediary and Italian officials refused French requests to press the Germans to open political negotiations.125 Meeting in Rome on 28 January 1942, Göring and Mussolini shared their astonishment at Darlan’s demands. Göring asserted that they were tantamount to ‘blackmail’, while Mussolini warned that they showed Vichy’s lack of sincerity towards collaboration.126 Having failed to gain any real returns for the significant risks it had incurred, Vichy’s decision to end the shipments was a tacit admission that the strategy of seeking to use collaboration with Italy to play the Axis governments off against one another had once again come to nothing. The wider significance of this episode has been overlooked or underestimated in much of the scholarship. Some historians have viewed the 120 121 122 123 124 125

126

Leahy, I Was There, pp. 98–104. AN AJ41 41, Darlan to Presidents of French delegations at Wiesbaden and Turin, 8 January 1942; AN AJ41 43, Darlan to Duplat, 10 February 1942; AN AJ41 43, Darlan to Huntziger, 14 February 1942. AN AJ41 43, Meeting between Leroy-Beaulieu, Giannini and Vacca Maggiolini, 3 March 1942; Kammerer, La passion, p. 359. AN AJ41 41, Darlan to Presidents of French delegations at Wiesbaden and Turin, 8 January 1942. Ciano, Ciano’s Diary, p. 485; William L. Langer, Our Vichy Gamble (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1947), p. 207. AN AJ41 41, ‘Négociations indépendantes des conversations tripartites à Wiesbaden et attitude de l’Allemagne à la suite de la suspension (21 décembre) des dites conversations tripartites’, 21 December 1941; Vacca Maggiolini to Cavallero, 12 February 1942, DDI, IX, vol. 8, p. 293. Meeting between Mussolini and Göring, 28 January 1942, DDI, IX, vol. 8, pp. 228–33.

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shipments through the prism of Vichy’s relations with Germany, neglecting the fact that the agreement was made with Rome and that twothirds of the troops benefiting from the supplies were Italian.127 Some have suggested that Pétain and Darlan agreed to assist the Axis because they feared that German forces might simply take the Tunisian ports by force.128 However, Hitler had effectively ruled out the seizure of Tunisia in early January 1942 after Abetz warned that any such move risked pushing the French fleet and colonies in North and West Africa to defect to the Allies. Moreover, after his meeting with Göring on 20 December 1941, in early January 1942, Juin had ordered French commanders in North Africa to defend Tunisia against any Axis attack. When Darlan found out two months later, he immediately demanded the destruction of all copies of Juin’s orders for fear they might bring damaging repercussions if they fell into German hands. He did not, however, reprimand Juin, which suggests that he endorsed the decision that French forces should defend Tunisia against the Axis.129 An alternative explanation for the shipments advanced by some historians is that Darlan wished to prevent an Axis collapse in Libya which would have brought the front line of the fighting to the Tunisian border.130 If that were the case, however, the levels of French assistance were strikingly insufficient and wrongly targeted. Even if the fears of a surprise Axis seizure of the Tunisian ports were real, they do not in themselves explain why Darlan opted to assist the Italians rather than the Germans. The decision to send supplies to Libya can, therefore, only be understood in the wider context of Vichy’s relations with Italy. With Darlan usually presented as having led Vichy further down the path of collaboration with Berlin than Laval had done in 1940, his engagement with Rome might seem at odds with his broader attempts to secure France’s future alongside Nazi Germany. One explanation is that the German failure to defeat Britain in 1940 and the Axis setbacks in Greece and Libya caused Darlan to question the likelihood of an Axis victory. However, any such misgivings were short lived, after the momentum swung back to Germany’s favour in the spring of 1941.131 Moreover, if the prospects of a German victory were growing less likely, Darlan was also aware that the likelihood of an Italian victory was even slimmer. If an Axis 127 128 129 130 131

See, for instance, Paxton, Vichy France, p. 128. Duroselle, L’Abîme, p. 338; Kammerer, La passion, p. 355. Aujol, Procès Benoist-Méchin, pp. 457–9, 582. Burrin, Living with Defeat, p. 125; Kammerer, La passion, p. 355; Melka, ‘Darlan’, p. 79; CoutauBegarie, Darlan, p. 511. Frank, ‘Vichy et le monde’, p. 109.

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defeat had been Darlan’s abiding consideration, a more logical decision would have been simply to refuse to assist both German and Italian forces in Libya, thereby hastening their collapse. That Darlan was prepared to risk repercussions from Britain and the United States and to pull further from Vichy’s stated position of neutrality towards working with the Axis suggests that however much he might have questioned a future German victory, these doubts did not determine his decision to engage in collaboration with Italy. The cessation of the shipments ended French military collaboration with Italy. In the months that followed, relations between the French and Italian governments returned to the kind of impasse that had prevailed before the Rome Protocols.132 Unlike with Germany, Vichy did not extend its collaboration with Italy into any other domains. It was thus not the case, as Stanley Hoffmann has argued in relation to Germany, that it was merely a ‘short step from involuntary collaboration for reasons of state to voluntary collaboration for that reason’.133 Vichy did not seek to anticipate future Italian needs as it did with Germany and did not become drawn into further engagement with Rome. Rather, Vichy’s actions turned out to be more limited than planned.

Conclusion The implications of this episode in French–Italian relations necessitate a reconception of Vichy’s tools of negotiation with the Axis. Historians focusing primarily or exclusively upon relations between France and Germany have often argued that Vichy’s ability to exert influence after the armistice rested on controlling its empire and navy and its ability to threaten to walk away from collaboration. However, Stanley Hoffmann, Robert Paxton and Robert Frank have suggested that the reality of Vichy’s political choices made these diminishing assets. Vichy’s determination to cling on to notions of sovereignty and the desire to preserve the regime from the threat posed by the Allies resulted in it making ever more concessions.134 Jean-Pierre Azéma and Olivier Wieviorka, meanwhile, have highlighted how the contradictions of Vichy’s foreign policy effectively prevented the regime from being able to exploit its assets. Basing its internal and external outlook on the belief in a German victory, Vichy was 132 133 134

AN AJ41 2151, Duplat to Darlan, 6 March 1942; AN AJ41 65, Darlan to Bridoux, 16 April 1942. Hoffmann, ‘Collaborationism’, p. 378 (Italics in the original). Ibid; Paxton, Vichy France, pp. 374, 381; Thomas, Dilemma of Anglo-French, p. 31.

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‘waiting for Godot’, anticipating a peace treaty that would never come, but on which it had ‘gambled its soul’.135 While Azéma and Wieviorka’s striking characterisation of French policy might ring true in terms of Vichy’s relations with Berlin, it does not take into consideration Vichy’s relations with Rome. Vichy’s assets had greater currency as bargaining tools with Rome than with Berlin. The French navy and colonial empire, especially in North Africa, were of direct interest to the Italian government both in the long and short term. Moreover, while Vichy needed the final peace terms to ensure its continuing existence against the threat posed by the Allies, Rome needed them just as much, if not more. Mussolini had entered the war with the aim of securing his ambitions in the Mediterranean and his territorial claims over France. The failure to achieve these objectives would have represented a significant political blow for the Fascist regime and for Mussolini in particular. When the perspective is widened and Vichy’s relations with Italy are taken into account, its broader stance on collaboration becomes a more opportunistic response to the circumstances with which it was confronted. In other words, it was a policy born both of necessity and of opportunity. If Vichy’s relations with Berlin are taken in isolation from its dealings with Rome, a divergence emerges. For Azéma and Bédarida, Vichy showed itself to be at once ‘stupidly cynical’ and ‘incurably naïve’ in believing that loyal collaboration with Germany would be rewarded with significant returns.136 By contrast, in its relations with the Italian authorities in 1941 and early 1942, the French government showed itself to be flexible and even pragmatic. While there may have been some naivety in Vichy’s belief that it could manipulate Berlin or Rome to its advantage and while it may have been overly confident in its ability to prevail over Italian weakness, after repeated opposition from Mussolini the French government was more cautious and more demanding in its dealings with the Italians than with the Germans. Vichy was, however, engaged simultaneously in multiple strands of negotiation and taking either in isolation serves to distort the picture. Its focus may have oscillated, but the seemingly contradictory images of its engagements with the German and Italian governments reveal the complexity of a regime whose policies were forged by competing forces and divergent agendas. A common element in Vichy’s dealings with the Italian and German authorities was its poor negotiating ability. Insofar as Darlan weighed up 135 136

Azéma and Wieviorka, Vichy, p. 55. Ibid, p. 70.

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the price and likely value of concessions and collaboration, his evaluations were misguided. Despite being in a strong negotiating position with the Italians, Darlan repeated the mistakes he had made with the Germans in the Protocols of Paris talks, yielding ground in the misguided belief that this would enable him to secure his political demands. His attempts at misdirection, seeking to manipulate Axis and Allied governments and to deflect from his true intentions failed. Quite simply, as an admiral with no diplomatic experience, he was overly ambitious and overly confident in his ability to conduct complex negotiations. With multiple and contradictory aims, he approached trilateral relations with both Axis governments through bilateral channels but did not have the skills to see them through. Indeed, upon encountering Darlan for the first time in December 1941, Ciano later claimed that he had expected to meet a ‘real admiral’ but had been met with a ‘fake politician’.137 Pétain had no direct hand in the negotiations with the Italians and indeed may not even have been kept fully informed of them. According to Henri du Moulin de Labarthète, Pétain told Darlan on 2 January 1942 that he opposed the secret shipments, although there does not appear to be any evidence to corroborate Leahy’s claim that he sought to abrogate the agreement.138 As a consequence, Vichy’s brief engagement in military collaboration with Italy was opportunistic and voluntary, but it was also poorly conceived and executed. 137 138

Benoist-Méchin, De la défaite, p. 351. Henri du Moulin de Labarthète, Le temps des illusions: souvenirs (juillet 1940–avril 1942) (Geneva: Editions du Cheval Ailé, 1946), pp. 233–4; Leahy to Welles, 4 March 1942, FRUS, Europe 1942, vol. II, p. 145.

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chapter 4

Compliance and Defiance April 1942 to September 1943

The final phase of Vichy’s dealings with Rome before the Italian surrender on 8 September 1943 brought the sharpest divergence in its relations with the two Axis governments. The full occupation of France after 11 November 1942 is usually seen as having effectively terminated the last vestiges of French sovereignty, even if Vichy maintained otherwise. As Vichy’s collaboration with Berlin went from being ‘proactive’ to ‘reactive’, Peter Jackson and Simon Kitson argue, so its foreign policy ambitions diminished from defending the French colonial empire and seeking to position itself alongside Germany to ‘mere survival’.1 The loss of colonies and the naval fleet deprived Vichy of its bargaining chips, reducing it to being on the defensive and having to accept ‘fascistisation’, Jean-Pierre Azéma and Olivier Wieviorka suggest.2 For Robert Frank, meanwhile, the Allied capture of North Africa in November 1942 served to narrow Vichy’s field of vision, leading it to concentrate on anti-Communist ideological pursuits aligned with those of the Nazis.3 And while Robert Paxton highlights Laval’s continuing attempts to negotiate with the Germans in the hope of concessions that might win over the French people, he demonstrates the futility of such manoeuvres as Hitler preferred occupation to collaboration.4 Such characterisations of Vichy derive from its relationship with Germany, however. While the expansion of the Italian zone of occupation after November 1942 also contributed to the loss of French sovereignty, the power relationship between Vichy and Rome evolved very differently from that between Vichy and Berlin. Vichy may have found itself in a weakened position, but so did Mussolini’s government and armed forces. 1 2 3 4

Jackson and Kitson, ‘Paradoxes’, p. 114. Azéma and Wieviorka, Vichy, p. 54. Frank, ‘Vichy et le monde’, p. 111. Paxton, Vichy France, pp. 313, 317, 320–1.

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An extended zone of occupation gave the Italians opportunities to exploit French economic assets, but maintaining thousands of troops on French soil also drained Italian resources. Military defeats on multiple fronts exacerbated the tensions between Berlin and Rome, but the Nazis’ demands to intensify the extermination of Jews crystallised the divergences between the Germans and Italians. Thus far from being submissive to Italian demands, being defensive in its outlook or seeking to harmonise its policies with the ideological agenda of the Fascists, Vichy’s dealings with Italy were marked by defiance. Rome’s determination to assert its independence from Berlin presented Vichy with opportunities to play the Axis authorities off against one another. In its choices about how to do so, however, Vichy was once again found wanting. This chapter begins by exploring how Vichy’s worsening relations with Rome over the course of 1942 intersected with its growing collaboration with Berlin. It then examines the shifts in power between the three governments following the Allied landings in North Africa in November 1942, the full occupation of France and Mussolini’s fall from power.

Dividing but not Ruling The ending of the secret shipments of supplies to Libya meant an end to French military collaboration with Italy. Despite no longer being urgently required by Italian forces, the collapse of the deal soured relations between Vichy and Rome. Having failed to secure any tangible benefit from the initiative, the French delegation to the Italian Armistice Commission had nothing further to offer. But if French officials ended the deal with the same degree of pragmatism that had inspired them to go into the negotiations, the Italian armistice authorities seemed genuinely disappointed.5 As one of the main proponents of the new policy towards France, Vacca Maggiolini had believed in the sincerity of Darlan’s and Pétain’s claims to want to improve relations with Italy. His disillusionment was only aggravated by Rome reverting to its hardened position towards France.6 Attempts by some Italian officials to keep the door open to collaboration foundered against French refusals to make the territorial concessions that Mussolini continued to demand.7 In a meeting on 15 March 1942, one Italian official suggested that if Vichy were to adopt a more flexible 5 6 7

Borgogni, Mussolini e la Francia, p. 325. AN AJ41 2151, Duplat to Darlan, 6 March 1942; AN AJ41 65, Darlan to Bridoux, 16 April 1942. Meeting between Mussolini and Vacca Maggiolini, 14 January 1942, DDI, IX, vol. 8, p. 161.

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position, the Fascist government might be willing to come to some kind of agreement. Just as Pétain had ‘sacrificed’ himself to France in June 1940, he suggested, so the time had come to make ‘territorial sacrifices’ to Italy in the greater national interest.8 Asserting that it was unlikely that a dominant German government would ever agree on terms beneficial to France, the official suggested that his government’s weaker position and Ciano’s favourable disposition towards France could be translated into a mutually beneficial relationship which could be crowned with a Montoire-style meeting between Mussolini and Pétain.9 A few weeks later, Baron Confalonieri of the Italian Armistice Commission followed up the démarche by seeking to present Rome’s territorial claims as nothing more than ‘a few kilometres’ of land.10 The problem was, however, that territory was the one area on which neither government was prepared to compromise, so the proposals went no further. The removal of Darlan from government and the subsequent return of Laval on 17 April 1942 exacerbated relations between France and Italy still further. While most historians reject claims that Laval’s reappointment was simply imposed by Berlin, the move heralded a new phase in Italian suspicions of Franco-German relations. Indeed, Ciano complained that Rome had been kept in the dark over secret manoeuvres to bring back the ‘German stooge’.11 Laval’s return came at a time of intensifying German pressure upon France, to which Vichy responded by intensifying its efforts to collaborate with Berlin. By the spring of 1942, the long duration of the war was taking a considerable toll on German resources. In May, Berlin’s Commissar-General for Labour, Fritz Sauckel, ordered Vichy to send 350,000 French workers to compensate for the labour shortages in German factories. While Laval negotiated a reduction to 250,000 and a deal by which one French prisoner of war would be released for every three skilled workers sent to Germany, the relève scheme brought a significant deepening of collaboration. It was followed shortly thereafter by new policies on policing and the deportation of Jews. The Oberg–Bousquet accords signed on 8 August 1942 saw Vichy agreeing to repressive measures against enemies of the Nazi regime. As Vichy was drawn further into the depths of Nazi policy, from July 1942, the French authorities cooperated in the start of the large-scale deportation of foreign Jews. 8 9 10 11

AD 9GMII 310, Transcript of meeting with ‘CD’, 15 March 1942. Ibid. AD 9GMII 310, Telegram from Pasqualini, 17 April 1942. Ciano, Diaries, p. 511.

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Laval’s compliance with Berlin’s growing demands was predicated upon his continuing belief that the interests of France would best be served by alignment with Nazi Germany. Historians disagree over whether he still anticipated an outright German victory or merely a compromise peace, but either way, his faith in Germany was unwavering.12 His method of negotiating with the Germans also remained unchanged from 1940. Laval believed that making concessions without being granted anything in return would provide evidence of French willingness to engage in collaboration which would subsequently be rewarded by Berlin. On 19 June 1942, he told Albert Speer that if Germany agreed to a broader settlement and to significant concessions in areas that would appeal to the French public, Vichy would agree to an economic and even military alliance.13 Neither the failure to secure his demands nor the turning tide of the war shook Laval’s resolve to go further down the futile path of collaboration with Germany. By contrast, Laval harboured no such delusions about Italy. The absence of any equivalent figure to Otto Abetz to appease Laval’s vanity combined with Mussolini’s antipathy towards France helped maintain Vichy’s attention upon Germany rather than Italy. Moreover, the Italian army’s ongoing difficulties in Libya and on the eastern front seemed only to validate Laval’s belief that they were not worthy allies of the Germans. As a result, Laval scarcely even bothered to pay lip service to the notion that Italy might be among the victors at the end of the war. In one of the most notorious pronouncements of his career, he barely acknowledged the role of Italy. Speaking on the first anniversary of Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1942, Laval proclaimed: ‘I desire the victory of Germany, for without it, Bolshevism would tomorrow install itself everywhere.’14 While he had declared his desire to re-establish ‘normal and confident relations’ with Germany and Italy earlier in the broadcast, his pointed failure to state his desire for an Italian victory or even to mention the Axis was striking.15 The omissions were not accidental. Laval had planned and tested the speech several times in the days leading up to the broadcast, even amending the wording at Pétain’s behest.16 In professing his support for a German victory, Laval was not merely sending a message of loyalty to Berlin but was articulating his low regard for Rome. 12 13 14 15 16

Duroselle, L’Abîme, p. 435; Cointet, Pierre Laval, p. 371. Paxton, Vichy France, p. 314. Pierre Laval, Les discours de Pierre Laval, 1942–1944 (Paris: Fondation Josée et René de Chambrun, 1999), p. 24. Ibid. Cointet, Pierre Laval, p. 381; Kupferman, Laval, p. 338.

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In siding so emphatically with Berlin over Rome, Laval sought to exacerbate Axis divisions over France and to exploit Italian paranoia about Franco-German collaboration. The tensions between the German and Italian armistice commissions had been simmering since 1941, with the latter accusing the former of failing to appreciate the significance of the Mediterranean theatre and failing to exploit its power over the French to consolidate the Axis position in North Africa.17 Matters came to a head in a series of meetings at Friedrichshafen between 10 and 17 June 1942. General Vogl, the President of the German Armistice Commission, called for wide-ranging political and military concessions to be granted to France, arguing that the new Laval government must not be destabilised by being placed under too much pressure. Above all, he claimed, it was Mussolini’s territorial claims that were causing the greatest disagreement. Viewing the matter through the prism of FrancoGerman relations, Vogl argued that Italian demands over Tunisia were damaging the prospects for collaboration with Vichy and should therefore be abandoned. With Mussolini’s government having long asserted its claims over French territory, Italian officials angrily responded with accusations of German betrayal. Vacca Maggiolini accused the Germans of having allowed themselves to be ‘seduced’ by the French and having fallen into Vichy’s trap of turning the two Axis governments against each other.18 As Italian officials reasserted their opposition to strengthening French forces in North Africa, the divisions between Turin and Wiesbaden widened.19 By August 1942, the deterioration in Vichy’s relations with Rome had become palpably connected with advances in its relations with Berlin. By then, the full implications of the new French agreements with Germany were becoming clear, as was the exclusion of Italy. Voicing his frustration, the secretary-general of the Italian Armistice Commission complained that while the French never refused Wiesbaden’s demands, they always refused those from Turin.20 Through the influential diplomatic journal, Relazioni Internazionali, the Italian government alleged that deepening French collaboration with Germany was ‘at base only a manoeuvre to gain a free hand 17 18 19

20

Marras to War Minister, 15 January 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 6, p. 469. Rainero, La commission italienne, pp. 294–8. Vacca Maggiolini to Cavallero, 20 June 1942, DDI, IX, vol. 8, p. 699. AN AJ41 2151, Duplat to Laval, 27 June 1942; AN AJ41 2151, Duplat to Laval, 27 June 1942 (second letter); AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to Laval, 14 August 1942. AN AJ41 2151, Meeting between Lahalle and Gelich, 3 August 1942; AJ41 2149, Duplat to Laval, 6 August 1942.

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against Italy’.21 Officials accused Vichy of attempting to negotiate future peace terms with the Germans that would be detrimental to Italy.22 Even Hitler was becoming more a hindrance than a help to the Italian position, warning Mussolini against reasserting his territorial demands over France.23 While collaboration with Germany was never wholly or primarily motivated by desires to thwart Italian claims and there is no evidence to support Rome’s allegations that the relève scheme was part of any such ploy, French officials continued their strategy of inviting German intervention to overcome difficulties with the Italians.24 In certain matters, such as the military reinforcement of French colonies in Africa, French officials sent their demands directly to the German rather than Italian Armistice Commission in the hope of gaining more favourable results.25 The strategy antagonised the Italian government, but it made political sense. So long as Berlin favoured French forces defending the colonies in Africa and prioritised collaboration in economic and domestic affairs over granting Italian territorial claims, Vichy had scope to exploit the divisions between the Axis governments. Indeed, against Italian opposition, Laval convinced Hitler to permit the reinforcement of French forces in West Africa in September 1942, along with the liberation of 3000 prisoners of war and the release of weapons that had been held in storage since the armistice.26 Yet while Laval may have made a political decision to align more closely with Berlin than Rome, it was not a choice wholly of his own making. It was also a direct response to Mussolini’s renewed hostility towards Vichy. Indeed, Italian military and political weakness drove Rome away from Vichy even more than it drove Vichy away from Rome. Difficulties transporting supplies across the Mediterranean continued to beset Italian forces in Libya, and despite already being militarily and economically overstretched, the Italian government faced mounting pressure from the Germans to make a greater contribution to the Axis war effort. With the prospect of an Allied landing looking increasingly likely and lacking faith in the loyalty of the armistice army, Mussolini began to plan for the occupation of southern France, Corsica and French North Africa.27 Moreover, 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

AN F60 1725, ‘Rome Complains of Vichy Hostility’, The Times, 22 September 1942. AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to Laval, 6 August 1942; AD 10GMII 471, Garnier to Lagarde, 8 August 1942; AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to Laval, 14 August 1942. Alfieri to Ciano, 5 August 1942, DDI, IX, vol. 9, p. 30. AD 10GMII 471, Garnier to Lagarde, 8 August 1942; AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to Laval, 11 August 1942. AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to Laval, 6 August 1942. Warner, Laval, pp. 311–4. Gooch, Mussolini’s War, pp. 325–7.

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far from welcoming Laval’s return, Mussolini scorned him as the exhausted product of a defunct parliamentary regime, while officials were piqued at his failure to mention Italy in his speeches.28 Confalonieri told French officials that he not only regarded Vichy as a ‘ghost government’ but that he had ‘no confidence’ in Laval either.29 Italian suspicions of Laval helped strengthen the case for Vichy focusing upon Germany, as did observations of Berlin’s domination over Rome. Gone were the delusions of 1940 when French officials presumed that Laval would be an asset in Vichy’s relations with Rome.30 Nevertheless, French armistice officials cautioned against unduly aggravating Italian sensitivities, arguing that Vichy should keep its options open by seeking a modus vivendi with Rome instead.31 In the final act of Vichy’s dealings with Mussolini’s government, it was advice that was to become particularly pertinent.

Shattered Illusions From early November 1942, everything changed. The relative stability that Vichy had endured since the armistice was suddenly torn apart. After months of planning and preparation, on 8 November 1942, British and American forces launched Operation Torch to capture North Africa from the Axis and from Vichy. As thousands of men poured into Morocco and Algeria, Hitler declared that Germany would support France if Vichy declared war on the United States and if French forces resisted the landings. Mussolini issued a similar but more mistrustful statement, promising assistance only if Vichy genuinely joined the struggle against the Allies and collaborated ‘loyally’ with the Axis.32 Initially, Laval sought to maintain what he considered to be a neutral stance, ordering the defence of French North Africa without German aerial assistance and telling ministers that he did not want to engage in military collaboration.33 The following day, he was summoned to Munich. Believing he was heading to a one-to-one meeting with Hitler, Laval instead found himself confronted by a room full not just of German officials but of Italian officials as well. In the 28

29 30 31 32 33

Meeting between Mussolini and Vacca Maggiolini, 31 March 1942, DDI, IX, vol. 8, p. 460; Vacca Maggiolini to Cavallero, 25 April 1942, DDI, IX, vol. 8, p. 534; Buti to Ciano, 24 May 1942, DDI, IX, vol. 8, p. 610; Vacca Maggiolini to Cavallero, 7 June 1942, DDI, IX, vol. 8, p. 660. AD 9GMII 310, Transcript of Baron Confalonieri, 15 March 1942. AD 10GMII 471, Garnier to Lagarde, 8 August 1942. Ibid; AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to Laval, 11 August 1942. Ciano, Diaries, p. 561. Marc Ferro, Pétain (Paris: Fayard, 1987), p. 434.

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subsequent confrontation, Laval’s deluded rationale for collaborating with the German government was abruptly shattered, and his vision of France replacing Italy as Germany’s first ally was resolutely destroyed. Aware of the Axis forces’ critical need to access Tunisian ports, Laval believed, even amidst the crisis, that he could use Hitler’s demands to bargain for assurances against Italian territorial claims. He, therefore, tried to drive a wedge between the Axis partners, threatening grave consequences if the use of Bizerte and Tunis was followed by broader Italian demands for Tunisia, Nice or Corsica.34 Hitler refused to be drawn in, however, insisting that Berlin and Rome would not be driven apart and that Vichy had no choice but to accept their conditions.35 Hearing that Darlan had made a deal with the Americans, Hitler launched into a violent diatribe against the French betrayal, claiming that Vichy had revealed collaboration to be nothing more than a thin veil of deception. Even then, however, Laval persisted in trying to invoke Hitler’s support against the Italian government. When Ciano interjected to state that Italian forces were indeed going to occupy Tunisia, Nice and Corsica, Laval told him to ‘shut up’.36 As the room fell silent in shock, Laval retorted that France had been defeated by Germany, not Italy. Unaware that Hitler had already taken the decision to occupy the whole of France, on returning to Vichy, Laval blamed Rome for the collapse of what he believed had been the promise of an alliance with Germany. Laval informed ministers that his harsh treatment in Munich had been the fault of the Italians who had ‘blackmailed’ the German government because they were ‘petrified of a Franco-German entente’.37 Yet while Laval’s continuing loyalty to Berlin might have been a measure of his delusion and ignorance, it was also a measure of the gravity of French concerns about the new threat posed by Italy. At 11.30 pm on 10 November, representatives of the German and Italian governments at Vichy had issued a joint message to Pétain demanding that the French government allow Axis forces to land in Tunis and Bizerte. This was followed by a letter from Hitler to Pétain stating that Axis forces had been ordered to move into the unoccupied zone of southern France. Even though the overwhelming majority of the new occupying forces were German, for Vichy, it was the arrival of the Italian army that caused particular concern. For whereas Hitler had 34 35 36 37

F. W. Deakin, The Brutal Friendship: Mussolini, Hitler and the Fall of Italian Fascism (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962), pp. 70–1. Ciano, Diaries, p. 561. René de Chambrun, Pierre Laval devant l’histoire (Paris: Editions France-Empire, 1983), p. 173. Warner, Laval, p. 341.

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provided Pétain with assurances that the action was not directed against France or the Vichy government and that it would end as soon as the threat from the Americans and British had subsided, Mussolini issued no such guarantees.38 The arrival of Italian forces into the southern zone reopened French wounds about the illegitimacy of Italy’s victory and aggravated concerns about the threat posed by Italian territorial claims. On being woken with the news by Abetz at 4 am on 11 November, Laval vigorously voiced his objection.39 Seven hours later, at the symbolic time of 11 am on 11 November, Pétain issued a formal protest to Marshal von Rundstedt against the arrival of Axis forces to the southern zone. He demanded that no Italian troops should be stationed in Nice. The following day, Laval threatened to go public with his opposition and issue a press release.40 Duplat, meanwhile, warned Vacca Maggiolini that while the French people were pained by German occupation, they would greet an extended Italian occupation with even greater hostility.41 As an internal French foreign ministry note warned, the presence of Italian soldiers in the very regions claimed by Mussolini raised acute political concerns not seen with the German occupation.42 In contrast with the spirit of Hitler’s letter to Pétain, the Italian Armistice Commission insisted that the June 1940 terms remained in place. The prospect that Italy might simply extend the de facto annexation it had applied to Menton and its surrounding areas, therefore, represented a ‘threat of extreme gravity’ to Vichy.43 The Italian government’s decision to adopt a different position on the occupation to that of Berlin was an attempt to assert its independence.44 As John Gooch observes, however, the reality was that the Allied landings ‘signalled the beginning of the end for Mussolini’s war’.45 Italy’s subservient position to Germany meant that Italian armistice officials and occupying forces in mainland France were placed directly under the command of the German Marshal von Rundstedt.46 On 13 November, the deputy head of the French delegation at Turin, General Parisot, met the Italian army’s representative, General Gamaleri, to establish the respective 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

AD 9GMII 215, Note, 17 November 1942. Warner, Laval, p. 336. Zoppi to Ciano, 12 November 1942, DDI, IX, vol. 9, p. 299. Liberati to Lanza D’Ajeta, 12 November 1942, DDI, IX, vol. 9, p. 301. AD 9GMII 215, Note by Pierre Bressy, 17 November 1942. Ibid. AN AJ41 2151, Duplat to Laval, 9 December 1942. Gooch, Mussolini’s War, p. 325. AN AJ41 2151, Lahalle to Duplat, 6 December 1942.

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positions of the French and Italian authorities in the new zone of occupation. Gamaleri refused to give the same assurances on the integrity of France’s territory and empire as Hitler, despite being pressed to do so by Parisot.47 However, there was a noticeable change in the Italian officials’ conduct towards their French counterparts that suggested that the balance of power had not tipped so emphatically against Vichy. Sensing this, the following day Duplat went into a meeting with General Gelich resolutely on the offensive. Far from being cowed by the blow to French sovereignty, Duplat confronted his interlocutor with a list of ‘errors’ that he claimed had been committed by the Italian authorities. Criticising the Fascist regime for presenting the extension of the occupation zone as a ‘hostile act’ against France and for using the threat of Allied landings as a pretence for occupying areas it had long coveted, Duplat’s strident tone was in marked contrast with that of his Italian counterparts.48 Acting on direct instructions from Rome, Italian officials abandoned their earlier intransigence to advocate collaboration instead.49 Having already prepared the ground with requests that Italian occupying forces treat the French with courtesy, Vacca Maggiolini sought to manipulate Duplat into making a firm commitment to improving relations between France and Italy.50 After Duplat expressed potential interest at a meeting on 14 November, Vacca Maggiolini attempted to push matters forward with a follow-up letter headed ‘collaboration’, in which he expressed his delight that Vichy intended to ‘collaborate fully with the Axis’.51 Having merely presaged the meeting with a letter two days earlier stating that henceforth, relations between French and Italian armistice officials would ‘tend towards greater collaboration’, Vacca Maggiolini knew that Duplat had not had the opportunity to consult Vichy on the radically new proposal of collaboration that he was now advancing.52 He, therefore, must have known that to presume full government commitment from Duplat’s circumspect response was a significant misrepresentation of the French position.53 His attempts to pressure Vichy into collaboration were, however, a measure of wider Italian desperation and served only to reinforce the French position. 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

AN AJ41 2149, Parisot to Laval, 13 November 1942. AN AJ41 2151, Duplat to Laval, 14 November 1942. AN AJ41 2149, Parisot to Laval, 13 November 1942; AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to Laval, 20 November 1942. Liberati to Lanza D’Ajeta, 12 November 1942, DDI, IX, vol. 9, pp. 301–2. AN AJ41 2149, Italian Armistice Commission to Duplat, 17 November 1942. AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to Laval, 20 November 1942. AN AJ41 2151, ‘Aide-mémoire, objet: prétendue “promesse de collaboration”’, 25 November 1942.

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The Allied capture of Morocco and Algeria revived the pressure on Axis forces in North Africa, renewing the significance of Tunisia for the Italians as well as the French. Unlike the previous winter, however, the crisis did not result in collaboration between Vichy and Rome. For Mussolini, protecting Tunisia and Libya was critical to the wider struggle for Africa and the likely prospect of an Allied landing in southern France or Greece. He, therefore, called upon Berlin to turn its attention away from the eastern front to focus on the more pressing danger in the Mediterranean.54 German troops were sent to reinforce the Italian army, but as they confronted 100,000 American, 370,000 British and 75,000 North African soldiers, the issue of Mediterranean supply routes once again came to the forefront.55 As early as 14 November, Vacca Maggiolini pressed Duplat for an urgent agreement on the transportation of equipment and food to Italian forces through Tunisia.56 The response from Vichy, however, was one of indifference. Duplat suggested to Laval that the situation in Tunisia presented opportunities ‘to exploit to our benefit’, but he received no instructions to do so.57 And while he also conveyed the Italian demands to Admiral Auphan, the navy minister was ‘too busy’ to respond.58 When it came to the question of Italian occupation costs, Vichy adopted a more openly defiant stance, but one which was ultimately unsuccessful. Immediately after the arrival of its forces on 11 November 1942, the Italian government demanded the payment of 5 billion francs per month. With Vichy disputing the legality and the enormity of the claims and the German government refusing to get involved, the disagreement lasted for weeks. Rome lacked the power simply to impose its will upon Vichy, so it sought to impose economic penalties by forcing the introduction of the lira upon its zone of occupation.59 It was only on 28 January 1943 that the two sides reached an agreement.60 Between January and July 1943, Vichy paid Italy a total of 6.7 million francs, of which 2,753,000 francs went 54 55 56 57 58 59

60

Gooch, Mussolini’s War, pp. 344, 366. Duroselle, L’Abîme, p. 544. AN AJ41 2149, Italian Armistice Commission to Duplat, 17 November 1942. AN AJ41 2151, Duplat to Laval, 14 November 1942. AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to Laval, 18 November 1942. François Cathala testimony, 27 March 1954, France during the German Occupation 1940–1944, vol. I, trans. Philip W. Whitcomb (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957), p. 86; AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to de Brinon, 18 January 1943. AJ41 2153, ‘La délégation française à la Commission Italienne d’Armistice, 28 juin 1940–31 décembre 1942’; AD 9GMII 198, ‘Charges imposées à la France par l’agression italienne et ses conséquences’, no date.

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directly to cover the costs of the occupying armies in south-eastern France and Corsica.61 The figure was much lower than the amounts Vichy was compelled to pay Germany and much lower than Rome’s initial demands, but it nonetheless represented a significant worsening in the terms by which Franco-Italian relations had operated since the armistice. The reason Vichy was compelled to make such an unfavourable deal despite the weakened Italian position was in large part because of the discovery that it had been hiding large stocks of weapons and ammunition. Virtually from the outset, Axis officials had suspected that the French army was conspiring to conceal weapons in preparation for a future re-entry to the war. Having initially begun locally, the initiative was soon coordinated by the high command of the armistice army with the complicity of members of the Vichy government. As early as 21 September 1940, General Huntziger authorised the first illegal camouflaged military transport company to defend Nice against a potential future attack by Italian forces.62 Despite their best efforts, neither the Germans nor the Italians were able to uncover any evidence of the caches.63 It was only when Axis forces entered the southern zone in November 1942 that the full magnitude of the French deception became clear. German authorities found a stash of arms in Nice, and shortly afterwards, the Italians made similar discoveries in Corsica, Gap and Dauphiné.64 On 31 December 1942, Vacca Maggiolini announced that the Italian authorities had uncovered seventy-one secret weapons caches and had documentation and intercepted telephone conversations proving that the highest levels of government and the army had colluded in their creation and concealment.65 The discovery of the arms depots had serious implications for the French government’s relations with Rome. It reinforced Italian claims that Vichy could not be trusted and weakened the French negotiating position. Initially, Laval and war minister General Bridoux attempted to minimise the fallout by offering to return the weapons and disclosing the full extent of the caches. When Italian officials refused and demanded financial sanctions of 13 billion francs instead, Laval went on the offensive, responding with a fury that left General Avarna di Gualtieri somewhat ‘rattled’.66 61 62 63 64 65 66

Panicacci, L’occupation italienne, p. 164. After the fall of Mussolini, France ceased to make any financial contributions to cover Italian occupation costs, issuing payments only to Germany. Paxton, Parades and Politics, p. 114. AN AJ41 2314, Ribière to Peyrouton, 21 January 1941. AN AJ41 2151, Duplat to Laval, 9 December 1942. AN AJ41 2151, Duplat to Laval, 1 January 1943. AN AJ41 49, Vacca Maggiolini to Duplat, 30 December 1942; AN AJ41 1181, Meeting between Platon and Avarna di Gualtieri, 4 January 1943.

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Laval declared that he was ‘outraged’ by the Italian claims, which he condemned as ‘unjustified, inopportune and altogether nasty’.67 Despite having already made clear his preference for aligning with Germany, Laval stated that sanctions would make it impossible for Vichy to engage in collaboration with Italy.68 The stridency of Laval’s response was in part a measure of his dissatisfaction at being punished for a French policy that he had never supported. It was also a measure of his awareness that Italian calls for sanctions were driven by financial need.69 Nevertheless, the episode tipped the balance of power back towards the Italians. With the navy having been one of the key assets remaining under the French government’s control in June 1940, Vichy was determined not to lose it in November 1942. However, the occupation of the southern zone left the fleet and the Toulon naval base once again vulnerable to Axis threats. Mussolini had long had designs on the French navy and had hoped that the extended Italian zone of occupation would include Marseille and Toulon. When it came to it, though, German forces reached the ports before the Italians managed to get there. Laval persuaded Berlin to allow the Toulon base to continue to be defended by a small French contingent, but on 27 November 1942, Hitler rescinded his decision. Claiming that French officers could not be trusted to defend Toulon against the Allies, he ordered German forces to move in to capture the base and the French fleet.70 Hitler’s decision was as much a shock to Mussolini as it was to Vichy.71 However, it was the action of the French fleet in scuttling itself rather than risk capture by the Germans that struck the most significant blow to relations between Vichy and Rome.72 With their hopes of using the Toulon fleet dashed, the Italian authorities were determined to seize the remaining French ships. Using the pretext that the French navy had violated the June 1940 terms by failing to resist the Allied landings in Algeria, Rome broke with its armistice commitments.73 Against Duplat’s insistence that the retention of the fleet had been one of the main reasons the French government had agreed to sign the terms, Vacca Maggiolini pointed to the wording of Article 12, which stated merely that at the time of signing, the Italian government did not ‘intend 67 68 69 70 71 72 73

AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to de Brinon, 18 January 1943. Ibid. AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to de Brinon, 30 January 1943; AN AJ41 2151, Duplat to Laval, 19 February 1943. Duroselle, L’Abîme, p. 498. Burgwyn, Mussolini Warlord, p. 229. Rainero, La commission italienne, p. 312. AN AJ41 2151, Duplat to Laval, 1 January 1943.

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to use’ the French fleet.74 Once again, however, Laval responded by going on the offensive. He not only sought to use the Italian demand for ships as a bargaining tool but also sought to present Italian claims as retributive rather than legitimate. Conceding that, in the spirit of collaboration, he would allow Italy to use French ships against the Allies, he threw down the gauntlet by insisting that the Italians demonstrate goodwill towards Vichy by not imposing sanctions over the secret arms depots.75 Laval’s defiant stance towards the worsening of the Italian armistice terms reflected his preference for collaborating with Berlin, but it also stemmed from a realisation that Italy’s diminishing power was translating into a growing threat to France. With Italy’s economy suffering significant shortages and its factories unable to meet the mounting demand for equipment and supplies amidst Allied bombing, over the course of 1943, the occupying authorities increasingly turned to seizing French assets. On 12 February, Mussolini issued instructions that Italian forces were to take hold of everything they could and send it to Italy.76 Three months later, Vacca Maggiolini announced that Italy would use French factories to supply the material that it desperately needed to support its industrial production.77 The declaration came just a few days after the Italian army unilaterally announced its right to seize any private and state-owned property that would benefit Italy’s war economy.78 In their analyses, Davide Rodogno, H. James Burgwyn and Jean-Louis Panicacci have tended to understate the extent of Italian pillaging, suggesting that Rome’s ability to exploit its occupation zone was constrained by German moves to incorporate France into a new European economic system.79 To be sure, Germany dominated the aeronautics, steel and metallurgy sectors in the Italian occupied zone, while several companies, such as Renault, Citroën and Peugeot, signed exclusive contracts with the Germans. Yet even if the Italian authorities were unable to seize control of all the economic resources that they wanted, they nonetheless managed to appropriate significant assets. In addition to the money and supplies that Vichy agreed 74 75

76 77 78 79

Ibid. AN AJ41 49, ‘Historique des rapports entretenus et des discussions engagées par le gouvernement français avec le haut commandement italien depuis l’arrivée des troupes italiennes en zone libre jusqu’au 8 septembre 1943’, February 1944; AN AJ41 1181, Meeting between Avarna di Gualtieri and Laval, 8 January 1943. Rainero, La commission italienne, p. 318. AN AJ41 439, ‘Aide-mémoire sur les droits de la Puissance Occupante’, 14 June 1943. AN AJ41 2315, Duplat to Vacca Maggiolini, 17 May 1943. Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire, pp. 251–4; Burgwyn, Mussolini Warlord, p. 230; Panicacci, L’occupation italienne, p. 181.

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to provide to Italian forces, between November 1942 and September 1943, the Italian army appropriated equipment, goods and services worth over 12 billion francs.80 French armistice officials interpreted the Italian actions as being as much a political threat as an economic one. By shoring up its economic and industrial strength, Rome would be less dependent upon Berlin and therefore more able to pursue its own goals.81 Writing to Laval on 19 May 1943, Duplat warned that Italian forces might be gearing up to defy German opposition and proceed with annexing French territory. The Allied capture of North Africa raised the risk that the Italian government might seek to reassert its damaged authority, using claims that Vichy had not done enough to defend its territories as a pretext.82 While such fears never came to pass, they were nevertheless based on credible assessments of the Italian position. Rising food prices, mounting strikes and a collapse in the value of the lira fuelled public discontent with Mussolini’s regime.83 Increasingly weak both politically and militarily, the Italian government became ever more exacting and ever more determined to assert its dwindling power over Vichy.

Final Machinations Laval responded by seeking to exploit the divisions between Berlin and Rome once again. Yet despite their tensions, the two governments could not be so easily played. In attempting to do so, Laval revealed the flaws in his strategy. On 29 April 1943, he attended a meeting with Hitler at Berchtesgaden in the presence of Ribbentrop and Giuseppe Bastianini, who had taken over from Ciano as Italian foreign minister.84 Once again, he sought to project an image of strength, presenting Vichy as Berlin and Rome’s equal. Capitalising on Ribbentrop’s demand for Vichy and Rome to cooperate more closely and Hitler’s assurances that collaboration involved both Axis governments, Laval proposed that the three countries work towards a new European order and expressed his willingness to meet Mussolini.85 However, his sudden apparent goodwill towards Rome and the marked shift in his language was too overt and too transparent to fool 80 81 82 83 84 85

AD 9GMII 198, ‘Charges imposés à la France par l’agression italienne et ses conséquences’, no date. AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to de Brinon, 21 May 1943. AN AJ41 2151, Duplat to Laval, 19 May 1943. Gooch, Mussolini’s War, p. 364. ‘Entrevue du président Laval avec le chancelier Hitler’, Le Petit Journal, 1 May 1943. Meeting between Bastianini, Hitler and Laval, 29 April 1943, DDI, IX, vol. 10, p. 361.

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the Axis governments.86 Anticipating Laval’s ploy, German officials had invited their Italian counterparts to attend the meeting to convey Axis unity. Indeed, Ribbentrop warned Bastianini beforehand that Laval would seek to exploit their governments’ divisions and that they must, therefore, put on a united front.87 When Laval broached the question of Nice while demanding concessions to boost public support for collaboration, neither the Germans nor the Italians rose to the bait.88 Aware of Italian fears of exclusion from Franco-German rapprochement and knowing that Rome remained sensitive to any normalisation of relations that might jeopardise its claims, Laval sought to demonstrate his willingness to go along with German wishes while presenting Italian intransigence as the stumbling block to collaboration. Indeed, Laval used a speech that he was due to deliver on collaboration to pique Italian sensitivity once again. With Mussolini’s government opposing French requests to reconstruct a token naval fleet, Laval threatened to snub Rome by speaking only of Germany when extolling the virtues of collaboration.89 Such provocations sought to play upon a growing Italian sensitivity that was driven by three main factors. First, mounting divisions within the Fascist government prompted Mussolini to reassert his intransigent position against those who desired rapprochement with France. The second was that after losing Tunisia to the Allies in May 1943, Rome was keen to ensure that it would not end the war without any spoils. A few weeks later, Bastianini gave a defiant speech insisting that in order for France to be part of the new Europe, it must make territorial ‘sacrifices’ to Italy.90 The third factor was that the Allied capture of North Africa had left Italy as the new front line in the war. While that rendered the Italians more reliant on the Germans, as French officials noted, becoming ‘the most threatened bastion in fortress Europe’ emboldened Rome to be more assertive towards Berlin.91 As the costs of collaboration with Germany mounted and as Rome sought increasingly to affirm its independence from Berlin, Vichy attempted to find a way out by negotiating between the differing Axis agendas. On 16 86

87 88 89 90 91

‘J’ai l’ambition de faire de la France qui est un pays vaincu un pays associé’, Paris-Soir, 3 May 1943; ‘Mon voyage me parait avoir été bon pour la France’, Geo-Ch. Veran, Le Petit Parisien, 3 May 1943; ‘Je reviens en France porteur d’un grand espoir’, Le Matin, 3 May 1943. Meeting between Bastianini and Ribbentrop, 29 April 1943, DDI, IX, vol. 10, p. 358. Ibid, p. 357. Bastianini to Buti, 19 May 1943, DDI, IX, vol. 10, p. 446; Buti to Mussolini, 21 May 1943, DDI, IX, vol. 10, p. 459. AD 10GMII 473, ‘Rapports Franco-Italiens – Discours de M Bastianini’, 20 May 1943. AD 9GMII 310, ‘Note sur les rapports Salata et Bastianini devant le Senat Italien’, 22 May 1943.

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February 1943, Laval announced the Service du Travail Obligatoire (STO) to fulfil German demands for French labour after the failure of the voluntary relève scheme introduced in June 1942. With public opinion strongly opposed to the measure and with Sauckel increasing his demands with every French concession, the response from Vichy showed a degree of pragmatism not seen in other areas of policy. Aware that his deal on the STO was undermining Vichy’s credibility and boosting the ranks of the resistance, Laval saw opportunities for political gain in the simultaneous demands from Berlin and Rome.92 Whereas in other policy areas, he had sought German intervention to oppose Italian claims, in the competing demands for French labour, he accepted Vacca Maggiolini’s offer to interpose in negotiations with Vogl.93 By acceding to Italian requests to retain essential labour in France and by using Italian officials to secure concessions from Berlin, Laval was able to reduce the number of French workers forced to go to Germany and thereby to mitigate the impact of the STO in the Italian zone of occupation.94 Yet if Vichy chose to work with Rome to offset Berlin’s demands on French labour, it resolutely chose collaboration with Germany over the opportunities afforded by Italy when it came to the persecution of Jews. The Italian anti-Semitic laws of 1938 had helped to cement the ideological alignment between the Fascist and Nazi regimes, being introduced on Mussolini’s own initiative. Conceived as part of a wider series of measures on race, the legislation signalled the centrality of anti-Semitism within Fascist ideology and the regime’s programme for the fascistisation of Italian society.95 Rome’s decision to thwart French and German efforts to deport Jews from the Italian zone of occupation, therefore, seemed to contradict Mussolini’s policy and ideology. It was not, however, a measure of any fundamental Italian humanitarianism. As Daniel Carpi has argued, the issue was first and foremost about sovereignty, with Jews being caught between competing French and Italian efforts to assert their 92

93 94

95

On the significance of the STO in boosting support for the resistance, see Roderick Kedward, ‘STO et maquis’, in Jean-Pierre Azéma and François Bédarida (eds.), La France des années noires 2: De l’occupation à la libération (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 2000), pp. 309–33. AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to de Brinon, 22 April 1943; AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to Sanguinetti, 21 April 1943; AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to de Brinon, 17 June 1943. AN AJ41 2306, Report by de Bardies, 17 March 1943; ADAM 166W19, Extract of letter, 30 March 1943; AN AJ41 440, Lahalle to Duplat, 20 April 1943; AN AJ41 440, Duplat to Vacca Maggiolini, 26 April 1943. Michele Sarfatti, ‘Characteristics and Objectives of the Anti-Jewish Racial Laws in Fascist Italy, 1938–1943’, in Joshua D. Zimmerman (ed.), Jews in Italy under Fascist and Nazi Rule, 1922–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 75.

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authority and independence.96 In a similar vein, Davide Rodogno has gone so far as to suggest that Jews were ‘pawns’ in an Axis power struggle and that while Rome often justified its actions in terms of Italian prestige, it never cited humanitarian concerns.97 Meanwhile, as Patrick Bernhard and Michele Sarfatti have shown, if Italian authorities refused to hand Jews to the Germans in south-eastern France, they willingly did so in Libya and Croatia.98 While the introduction of the Jewish Statute on 3 October 1940 heralded a wave of persecutory laws and decrees driven by Vichy’s own antiSemitism, many in the regime saw such actions as a way of gaining favour with Berlin.99 Driven by delusions about retaining French sovereignty, Vichy chose to implement German ordinances itself at first in the northern occupied zone and then from July 1941 in the southern zone as well. Vichy acceded to German orders for the large-scale roundup of Jews in the summer of 1942. However, its willing collaboration with Nazi policies clashed with the Italian government’s desire to assert its independence from Berlin. When Vichy sought to extend the implementation of German orders and its own persecutory policies to the Italian zone of occupation from December 1942, it met with determined obstruction from the Italians. The occupying authorities insisted that only they had the right to determine policy on Jews and set about blocking French attempts to arrest and deport Jews of any nationality.100 Rather than take the opportunity afforded by Italian obstruction to ease the implementation of the brutal and unpopular deportation policies, Vichy chose to pursue the political opportunity of exploiting Axis tensions. With military defeats placing mounting pressure on relations between the Germans and Italians, Berlin was increasingly frustrated with what Goebbels condemned as the ‘extremely lax treatment’ of Jewish people by the Italian authorities in France and Tunisia.101 Nazi ideology meant the German 96

Carpi, Between Mussolini and Hitler, pp. 84–93. Davide Rodogno, ‘La politique des occupants italiens à l’égard des Juifs en France métropolitaine. Humanisme ou pragmatisme?’, Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’histoire, 93 (2007), 63–77; Rodogno, ‘Italiani brava gente?’, pp. 215–8. 98 Patrick Bernhard, ‘Behind the Battle Lines: Italian Atrocities and the Persecution of Arabs, Berbers, and Jews in North Africa during World War II’, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 26:3 (2012), 437; Michele Sarfatti, ‘Fascist Italy and German Jews in south‐eastern France in July 1943’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 3:3 (1998), 319. 99 On the broader history of Vichy’s policies towards Jews, see Marrus and Paxton, Vichy France; Poznanski, Les juifs; Zuccotti, The Holocaust, Joly, L’Etat contre les juifs. 100 AN AJ41 1179, Bridoux to Avarna di Gualtieri, 27 March 1943; AN AJ41 1179, Meeting between Avarna di Gualtieri and Bridoux, 27 April 1943. 101 Steinberg, All or Nothing, p. 86. 97

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authorities could not tolerate the prospect of significant numbers of Jews escaping their policy of Europe-wide extermination. In political terms, they saw Italian actions as setting a dangerous precedent, potentially giving the green light to others who might wish also to thwart their measures against Jews.102 Matters came to a head when Ribbentrop instructed German ambassador Mackensen to visit Mussolini in person to insist that the Italian army cease intervening in French attempts to arrest Jews. At a meeting on 17 March, Mussolini agreed to allow French police to conduct their roundups unhindered, but his decision was countermanded by Bastianini’s insistence that Jewish matters remain exclusively in the hands of the Italians.103 Sighting the diametrically opposed Axis positions, Vichy’s response was not merely to affirm its loyalty to Germany but to use it as a stick with which to beat the Italians. In regular written and verbal reports, Laval, Bousquet and other French officials complained to the German authorities about the Italian actions. Their detailed records of local incidents went to the most senior Nazi officials, with Eichmann, Ribbentrop and Goebbels being kept informed of what was happening. By making such complaints, Vichy sought to place the German authorities in a position where they were compelled to take action that would exacerbate the tensions between Berlin and Rome and reinforce the subservient status of the Italians within the Axis.104 On 14 January, Laval summoned the Italian ambassador to a meeting in which he expressed his incomprehension at Italian efforts to intervene not just in favour of Italian Jews but also in defence of all Jews in their zone of occupation. There were important political dimensions to Laval’s remarks. Unwilling to accept Italian actions that placed Vichy in an ‘awkward position’ with the French people, Laval sought not just to preserve a specious sense of sovereignty but also to manoeuvre against the Italians.105 One of Rome’s main complaints against the imposition of German measures towards Jews was that it would harm Italy’s prestige if it were seen not to be fully in command of its zone of occupation.106 Vichy, however, believed that any damage to Italian prestige would benefit the French position among residents of the Italian zone of occupation as well as improve its standing with Berlin. 102 103 104 105 106

Luca Fenoglio, ‘Between Protection and Complicity: Guido Lospinoso, Fascist Italy, and the Holocaust in Occupied Southeastern France’, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 33:1 (2019), 91. Steinberg, All or Nothing, p. 124. Serge Klarsfeld, Vichy-Auschwitz. La ‘solution finale’ de la question juive en France (Paris: Fayard, 2001), p. 217. Marrus and Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews, p. 317. Steinberg, All or Nothing, p. 92.

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Compliance and Defiance: April 1942 to September 1943

The fall of Mussolini on 25 July 1943 and his replacement by Marshal Badoglio only served to confirm Vichy’s move away from seeking any meaningful relationship with Rome. But although Badoglio vowed to continue to honour Italy’s commitment to its Axis partner, few expected it to last much longer.107 When news of the Italian surrender broke on 8 September 1943, the French press denounced the ‘betrayal’.108 However, the silence from Vichy highlighted the lack of significance it had come to ascribe to Italy and the satisfaction with which it greeted the departure of the Italian occupation forces. By that time, Laval may have been taking a tougher stance against German demands on the deportation of Jews and on the STO, but he was being increasingly marginalised by zealous collaborationists and by those in government who wished for his departure.109 With the likes of Joseph Darnand growing in influence and pushing for an increasingly radical and ideological form of collaboration, Vichy’s alignment with Berlin was finally complete.

Conclusion Over the course of 1942 into 1943, Vichy may have lost what little remained of French sovereignty, but it was not without room for manoeuvre. Far from its actions being confined to the defensive, the involuntary or even the unwilling, Vichy actively made choices in how it sought to play one Axis government against the other. The defiance with which French officials often treated Italian demands has wider implications for our understanding of the Vichy government in this period, seeming to present a contradictory picture to that which emerges from focusing wholly or primarily upon its relations with Berlin. Indeed, if Vichy was becoming ever more invested in a German victory, deepening its collusion with Nazi policies, its relationship with Rome was evolving in a very different direction. While Vichy may have wilfully deluded itself about its relationship with Berlin and about Germany’s prospects of victory, it treated Mussolini’s government and Italy’s prospects in the war with scepticism and realism. On his return to government, Laval, therefore, fundamentally changed his approach towards the Italians, abandoning his earlier desires for rapprochement and decrying what he claimed was Mussolini’s ‘personal and 107 108 109

AD 10GMII 472, ‘La Révolution et la Paix’, 27 July 1943; AD 10GMII 472, Note, 29 July 1943; Gooch, Mussolini’s War, p. 389. ‘L’Italie a trahi l’Europe’, Le Matin, 9 September 1943; ‘Armistice sans honneur’, Paris-Soir, 10 September 1943; ‘Armistice et dignité’, Charles Vales, Le Petit Journal, 11 September 1943. Jackson, Dark Years, p. 229.

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insuperable animosity towards France’.110 Vichy’s approach reflected at once its recognition of Italy’s declining political and military power and its recognition that a diminished status made Rome a greater threat. At the same time, however, that did not preclude Vichy from working with Rome against Berlin in matters such as the STO and it did not mean that it was able to resist all Italian demands over the occupation costs or the seizure of economic assets. During this period, Vichy’s policies were driven by considerations of rank, but not in quite the way historians such as Robert Frank have suggested. For Frank, Vichy’s pursuit of collaboration with Germany was driven by desires to secure a privileged position for France in a post-war Nazi-dominated Europe.111 What becomes apparent from Vichy’s response to Italian interventions in the persecution of Jews, however, is how it was also concerned to secure its political rank in relation to the Axis. Having endured spurious Italian claims of victory and attempted territorial annexation, as Rome’s power declined, Vichy sought to raise its own status by rousing the ire of the Nazis against their Fascist allies. In the final act, however, instead of prevailing over Rome, Vichy’s actions brought greater tragedy for France and its people. 110 111

Buti to Guariglia, 13 August 1943, DDI, IX, vol. 10, p. 829. Frank, ‘Vichy et le monde’, p. 106.

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chapter 5

The Absence of Collaborationism

In the frantic final few days before Italy declared war on 10 June 1940, French Fascists repeatedly called upon Mussolini not to enter the conflict on Germany’s side but to align with France instead. For over a year, Jacques Doriot, leader of the Parti Populaire Français (PPF), had pleaded with Mussolini in the name of their shared ‘ideological principles’ not to support the Nazis.1 In almost daily editorials, the Action Française leader Charles Maurras drew sharp distinctions between Italian Fascism and Nazism, suggesting that while France could work with the former, it could not work with the latter.2 After the defeat, however, French Fascists became conspicuously silent about Italy, advocating collaboration with the Nazis instead. Meanwhile, on 17 June the new Foreign Minister Paul Baudouin wrote to the Vatican expressing ‘the strong desire of the French government to collaborate with the Italian government in the interests of Christian civilisation and Latinity’.3 That culturally driven vision of a new ideological relationship between the French and Italian governments never came to pass either. In none of its propaganda or in any of the speeches made by leading government figures did Vichy advocate ideological collaborationism with the Fascist regime. Whereas it aligned its policies to fit with the Nazis’ ideological agendas and called upon the French people to embrace a new Nazi-dominated Europe, it never extended the same endorsement to the Italian Fascists. The chapters so far have explored the political, diplomatic and military considerations that shaped French policy away from any sustained collaboration with Rome between 1940 and 1943. This chapter moves the focus onto ideological collaboration, known as collaborationism. In contrast with its 1 2 3

Jean-Paul Brunet, Jacques Doriot: Du communisme au fascisme (Paris: Balland, 1986), p. 301. Charles Maurras, ‘Politique’, L’Action Française, 27 May 1940, 1 June 1940, 4 June 1940, 7 June 1940, 9 June 1940. Chassard, Vichy et le Saint-Siège, p. 44.

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descent into ever deeper and more ideological collaboration with the Nazis, the trajectory of Vichy’s engagements with the Italian Fascists was in the opposite direction. Early French attempts to pursue closer ideological ties with Mussolini’s regime came to nothing, and in so doing, had significant implications for the wider development of collaborationism with the Axis. Vichy and the French Fascists’ ideological engagements with the Axis raise wider questions about the relationship between state collaboration and collaborationism. Historians have established a range of motives behind the collaboration between Vichy and Berlin, focusing in particular on the complex ambiguities of voluntary and involuntary collaboration, ideological collaborationism and non-ideological collaboration. Much of this research builds upon Stanley Hoffmann’s seminal work arguing that collaborationism would not have been possible without state collaboration because in anticipating German demands and seeking to accommodate them, state collaboration often slipped from the involuntary to the voluntary.4 However, the failure to develop long-term, coherent or even desired state collaboration with Rome meant that the foundations of Vichy’s collaborationism with the Nazis were largely absent when it came to the Italian Fascists. The Vichy regime’s ideology was not Fascist and nor were its policies.5 Rather they were rooted in a reactionary French political culture that eschewed the more radical political, social, economic and cultural dimensions of Fascism. Through its heterogeneous and changing political makeup, Vichy nonetheless shared many ideological influences with Fascism and in turn, came to be influenced by kindred regimes in Europe, most notably Salazar’s in Portugal, as well as those of Franco and Hitler. Moreover, the more the war went on, the more Fascist proponents of collaborationism were able to increase their influence over the Vichy government, with Joseph Darnand, Philippe Henriot and Marcel Déat being appointed as ministers in 1944.6 However, this ideological evolution was most marked in the period after the Italian surrender in 1943. The dynamics of collaborationism with Fascist Italy were, therefore, shaped by a different political environment to that which shaped Vichy’s deepening collaborationism with Nazi Germany. 4 5

6

Hoffmann, ‘Collaborationism’, pp. 375–95. Olivier Wieviorka, ‘Vichy, a Fascist State?’, in Ismael Saz, Zira Box, Toni Morant, Julian Sanz (eds.), Reactionary Nationalists, Fascists and Dictatorships in the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2019), pp. 311–26; Jean-Pierre Azéma, ‘Le régime de Vichy’, in Jean-Pierre Azéma and Francois Bedarida (eds.), La France des années noires, vol. 1 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 2010), p. 188; Azéma and Wieviorka, Vichy, p. 130. Jackson, Dark Years, pp. 529–31.

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The first section of this chapter examines Vichy’s unsuccessful attempts to construct an ideological foreign policy with Italy. While many historians have explored Vichy’s ideology in domestic terms, relatively few have looked at its influence on foreign policy. Historians have suggested that Vichy saw collaboration with Germany first and foremost as a means of pursuing its domestic ideological ends. Thus for Robert Frank, the primacy of domestic policy was one of the main driving factors behind the collaboration with Nazi Germany.7 Peter Jackson and Simon Kitson, meanwhile, suggest that while Vichy’s foreign policy centred upon defending the global status of France as a colonial power, the regime sought to defend itself against the Allied threat precisely so that it could carry out its internal ideological reforms.8 Insofar as they have examined the significance of the National Revolution in Vichy’s foreign policy, historians have focused almost exclusively upon relations with Germany. For Denis Peschanski, notwithstanding the diverse nature of Vichy’s ideological roots and influences, the relationship between the National Revolution and the decision to collaborate with Berlin was a defining feature of the regime.9 For Philippe Burrin, meanwhile, the National Revolution provided an ideological justification for collaboration through a dolourist belief in the salutary effects of suffering. The repeated refrain that France had been vanquished by the Germans led to a conviction that it must yield to those who had defeated it.10 To date, however, there has been little research exploring how the National Revolution fed Vichy’s early attempts to develop an ideological relationship with Fascist Italy or the extent to which this represented a viable alternative to its alignment with Nazi Germany. Whereas historians have examined the Paris-based collaborationists who pressured Vichy to go further in pursuing Nazi ideals, they have devoted significantly less attention to the collaborationists’ lack of support for collaborationism with Fascist Italy. While collaborationists were diverse in political makeup, ranging from conservatives to Fascists and socialists, the second section of this chapter focuses on the role of French Fascists. It suggests that affinities with their Italian counterparts in the 1930s made the Italian Fascists the more obvious partners than the Nazis. 7

Frank, ‘Vichy et le monde’, p. 104. Jackson and Kitson, ‘Paradoxes’, p. 84. 9 Denis Peschanski, ‘Vichy Singular and Plural’, in Sarah Fishman et al. (eds.), France at War: Vichy and the Historians (Oxford: Berg, 2000), p. 109. 10 Philippe Burrin, ‘The Ideology of the National Revolution’, in Edward J. Arnold (ed.), The Development of the Radical Right in France: From Boulanger to Le Pen (New York: Palgrave, 2000), p. 145. 8

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However, in the move away from supporting Italian Fascism towards endorsing collaborationism with the Nazis, multiple forces were at play. The transition involved prioritising political over national considerations as collaborationists pivoted away from a former ally towards a past and current enemy state.

The National Revolution The Vichy regime came into existence with a mission to exploit the defeat to overhaul France. At its heart was the National Revolution. While associated primarily with Pétain, the National Revolution reflected the pluralistic nature of the regime.11 It, therefore, comprised a variety of influences and lacked a coherent vision or programme. Counter-revolutionary in its ideological and cultural roots, it sought to roll back the Revolution of 1789 and transform the country from the ‘decadent’ liberal individualism of the Third Republic into a society built on the values of social order, the Catholic Church, the countryside and hard work.12 Its political and intellectual influences were many, including the counter-revolutionary thinking of Charles Maurras and the nationalism of Maurice Barrès. With its emphasis on community, family, land and region, the National Revolution was primarily domestic in focus. The domestic and foreign policy influences of the National Revolution came together through the actions of Vichy’s first foreign minister, Paul Baudouin, who spearheaded attempts to pursue rapprochement with Rome. In almost all of the historical scholarship on Vichy, Baudouin’s role in the National Revolution is treated entirely separately from his role as foreign minister. Although he was a leading figure in the regime, shaping the direction of youth policy in the initial months, Baudouin’s ideological beliefs are scarcely mentioned in analyses of Vichy’s foreign policy. In the period between June and late October 1940, however, Baudouin engaged in concerted efforts to drive Vichy towards an alternative vision to that of alignment with Nazi Germany. Driven by the political ideas and cultural roots of the National Revolution, Baudouin’s policy consisted of creating a ‘Latin union’ with Italy alongside closer ties with Spain, Portugal and the Vatican. This ‘Latin union’ would protect France from being overwhelmed by German power and enable Vichy to pursue a more ideologically coherent vision of its role in a post-war world. 11 12

Peschanski, ‘Vichy Singular and Plural’, p. 109. Burrin, ‘Ideology of the National Revolution’, p. 147.

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Pétain’s decision to appoint Baudouin rather than Laval as foreign ­ inister on 16 June 1940 was primarily driven by the impending armim stice negotiations, but it was helped by Baudouin’s ideological credentials.13 In his memoirs, in which he downplayed his support for collaboration, Baudouin made no explicit reference to his ideological beliefs and indeed made scarcely any mention of his efforts at rapprochement with Italy. However, he was a committed Catholic, a supporter of the Action Française and an advocate of Christian and Latin nationalism.14 Writing in La revue de Paris in February 1938, he reflected upon the dangers facing France and the western world, arguing that only by remaining ‘faithful to Christ’ and ‘standing together with Latinity’ could western civilisation survive.15 As a former scout leader who advocated the creation of a new Catholic movement to defend European civilisation, Baudouin played a significant role in the social Catholic milieu that took control over youth policy in the early months of Vichy.16 Focused upon rolling back the secularising measures of the Third Republic and in seeking to shape the young, Catholics successfully stamped their authority on the new government.17 Yet while Baudouin differed from many of his colleagues in wishing to uphold the separation of Church and State, he advocated the cultural and social value of Catholicism in reshaping French society under the National Revolution.18 Baudouin’s political and religious beliefs moulded not just his domestic vision for France but his foreign policy outlook as well. In conjunction with François Charles-Roux and Wladimir d’Ormesson, the French ambassador to the Holy See, Baudouin developed a strategy towards Italy that was driven by appeals to a shared Latin heritage and Christian faith and that sought to exploit the relationship between Mussolini’s government and the Vatican.19 Since 1929, the Lateran Pacts 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Duroselle, L’Abîme, p. 233. John Hellman, The Knight-Monks of Vichy France: Uriage, 1940–1945 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993), p. 16; Lackerstein, National Regeneration, p. 144. Paul Baudouin, ‘Les données du problème Français’, La revue de Paris, 45:3 (1938), pp. 585, 595. Jackson, Dark Years, p. 153. Hellman, Knight-Monks, p. 6. Baudouin, Neuf mois, p. 253. On Charles-Roux’s term as ambassador to the Holy See, see Yves-Marie Hilaire, ‘Le Saint-Siège et la France, 1932–1939. Charles-Roux, un ambassadeur de politique étrangère’, in Achille Ratti (ed.), Pape Pie XI. Actes du colloque de Rome (15–18 mars 1989) (Rome: L’École française de Rome, 1996), pp. 765–73. On Wladimir d’Ormesson’s term, see Liliana Senesi, La missione a Roma di Wladimir d’Ormesson: un ambasciatore francese in Vaticano, maggio-ottobre 1940 (Milan: A. Giuffrè, 2004); Karine Varley, ‘“Ambassador Brawls with Minister”: Internal and External Crisis at the French Embassy to the Holy See in 1940’, in Rogelia Pastor-Castro and Martin Thomas (eds.), Embassies in Crisis: Studies of Diplomatic Missions in Testing Situations (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020), pp. 37–54.

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had established Vatican City state as an independent enclave within Italy and institutionalised a relationship of dependency between the Fascist regime and the Vatican.20 If the authority of the Vatican was diminished, Mussolini’s government recognised that it could ill afford to ignore the Catholic Church. Unlike in France where the influence of the Church had long been waning, Italy remained an overwhelmingly Catholic country. Far from seeking to supplant the values of Catholicism or the position of the Catholic Church, Mussolini’s regime sought to build upon them, exploiting the shared political aspirations of many Fascists and Christians and attempting to reap the diplomatic dividends of conciliation with the Vatican.21 It was to these Catholic, conservative, nationalist and anti-Communist ideals that Baudouin pitched his appeal for a Latin union. The Holy See was central to the realisation of this alternative vision of Vichy’s foreign policy. As German forces invaded France in May 1940, initially on his own initiative and then under instruction from the Quai d’Orsay, Charles-Roux sought Pope Pius XII’s assistance in discouraging Mussolini from entering the war. Charles-Roux’s successor, Wladimir d’Ormesson, not only continued the strategy but also helped to develop its ideological character. Appointed by Reynaud on 20 May 1940, d’Ormesson had no direct diplomatic experience.22 As an editorial writer for Le Figaro during the 1930s, his conservative views were well established. A critic of the Third Republic, d’Ormesson had long been a supporter of Pétain, even calling for him to be the prime minister in 1936.23 Nevertheless, his attempts to find common ground with the Italian Fascists in 1938 had received short shrift from Rome.24 Crucially, however, d’Ormesson shared many of the ideological values that underpinned the National Revolution. He was, therefore, ideally placed to pursue Baudouin’s strategy of using the Holy See to build a cultural and ideological bridge to Italy. At one level, it was a matter of appealing to the more conservative and reactionary elements within Mussolini’s regime. At another level, it was a matter of appealing to the Italian people by emphasising the ‘multiple affinities’ 20 21

22 23 24

Anthony Rhodes, The Vatican in the Age of the Dictators 1922–1945 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1973), pp. 252–4. John Pollard, ‘“Clerical Fascism”: Context, Overview and Conclusion’, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 8:2 (2007), 433–6; John Pollard, The Vatican and Italian Fascism, 1929–32: A Study in Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 87. Wladimir d’Ormesson, Les vraies confidences (Paris: Plon, 1962), p. 20. Ibid, p. 146. ‘Une curieuse réponse italienne au “Figaro”’, Le Figaro, 27 August 1938.

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between two, ‘Latin and Catholic’, countries.25 In the summer of 1940, Baudouin’s vision gained significant traction among Vichy’s leadership.26 Officials devised a strategy of seeking to use the Pope as a diplomatic intermediary and exploiting his spiritual authority to ‘arouse in the Duce a feeling of compassion as well as a flash of political sense’.27 By positing Catholicism at the heart of the values of the National Revolution, Baudouin aimed to draw both the Vatican and Italy into his vision of a new ‘Latin union’. As early as 21 June 1940, d’Ormesson had begun to prepare the ground for an ideological shift away from the Third Republic. Writing to the Pope, he suggested that the ordeals of defeat had reinvigorated France’s Christianity as the nation sought renewal through ‘religious and spiritual values’.28 A few weeks later, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs instructed d’Ormesson to inform the Holy See that despite seeking to improve its relations with Germany, Vichy had not abandoned the principles of Latin and Christian civilisation.29 D’Ormesson followed this up with the message that France still saw itself as the ‘eldest daughter of the Catholic Church’.30 In response, the Holy See agreed to ask Mussolini’s government to end its anti-French propaganda. Yet despite Secretary of State Cardinal Maglione and even Pius XII raising the issue with Mussolini and Ciano, the Italian government refused to alter its position.31 With the direct intervention of the Holy See failing to have any impact on Mussolini’s government, Baudouin appealed directly to the Italian people using Radio Vaticana and Osservatore Romano. The radio station and newspaper were the only media within Italian territory not under the control of the Fascist government. Broadcasting from within Vatican City, Radio Vaticana reached not just Italy but the whole of Europe.32 The fact that Osservatore Romano was read by most of the Catholic clergy in Italy, many of whom were at the centre of their local communities, offered Baudouin significant potential for impact as well.33 In order to 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33

AD 10GMII 473, Telegram from Baudouin to d’Ormesson, 6 August 1940; AD 10GMII 473, Telegram from Baudouin, 25 August 1940. AD Papiers Charles-Roux 12, Note for the Chauvel group, no date. Ibid. AD 10GMII 553, D’Ormesson to Baudouin, 22 June 1940. Chassard, Vichy et le Saint-Siège, p. 59. AD 10GMII 553, Telegram from Baudouin, 19 September 1940. AD 10GMII 559, D’Ormesson to Baudouin, 19 August 1940; AD 10GMII 559, Telegram from Baudouin, 20 August 1940; AD 10GMII 553, Telegram from d’Ormesson, 23 August 1940; AD 10GMII 473, Note, 23 September 1940; AD 10GMII 553, Telegram from d’Ormesson, 27 September 1940. D’Ormesson to Laval, 30 October 1940, DDF 1940, vol. II, pp. 775–88. Ibid, p. 784.

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win over the Italian people, the French foreign ministry provided Radio Vaticana and Osservatore Romano with regular briefings that highlighted the values connecting Vichy’s ideological agenda with the cultural heritage of Italy.34 On 2 August 1940, Osservatore Romano published a long article on Vichy’s reforms to schools and youth policy, emphasising the importance of Pétain’s programme.35 Later that month, it printed an article on the revival of Catholicism through education and the removal of the Third Republic’s anti-clerical measures.36 The newspaper was also the only publication within Italy to print the text of Pétain’s radio broadcast of 11 October 1940 which outlined the core values of the Vichy regime.37 Despite concerted efforts, Baudouin’s ideological vision of a ‘Latin union’ between Vichy and Rome failed to win over the Italian government.38 Over the summer and autumn of 1940, he doggedly persisted in the face of the mounting scepticism of d’Ormesson and Charles-Roux.39 D’Ormesson complained that any new policy bringing together the ‘two pillars of Christianity’ needed the influence and authority of the Pope.40 However, neither the Pope nor the Holy See was willing to take a strong stance in relation to Mussolini’s government.41 Indeed, d’Ormesson scathingly suggested that following Axis complaints about the Pope’s message of sympathy to the countries invaded by Germany in May 1940, the Holy See had effectively ‘abdicated’ before the Fascist government.42 It was widely understood that there were two broad factions within the Fascist regime: one led by Mussolini which was close to Germany and was suspicious of the influence of the Catholic Church, and one which was more moderate, fearful of German domination and sympathetic to the Catholic Church.43 The problem was that while the first faction was dominant, Baudouin pinned his hopes on the second.44 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

42 43 44

Chassard, Vichy et le Saint-Siège, p. 63. AD 10GMII 553, D’Ormesson to Baudouin, 2 August 1940. Chassard, Vichy et le Saint-Siège, p. 63. D’Ormesson to Laval, 30 October 1940, DDF 1940, vol. II, p. 784. AD 10GMII 553, Baudouin to Berne Embassy, 20 August 1940. AD 10GMII 553, D’Ormesson to Baudouin, 18 July 1940; AD 10GMII 559, D’Ormesson to Baudouin, 19 August 1940; AD 10GMII 559, Telegram from Baudouin, 20 August 1940. Chassard, Vichy et le Saint-Siège, p. 66. On the more recent scholarship exploring the relationship between the Vatican and the Fascist regime under Mussolini, see in particular, David I. Kertzer, The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) and Lucia Ceci, L’interesse Superiore. Il Vaticano e l’Italia di Mussolini (Rome: Laterza, 2013). D’Ormesson to Laval, 30 October 1940, DDF 1940, vol. II, pp. 784, 788. Pollard, Vatican and Italian Fascism, p. 10. AD 10 GMII 473, Telegram from d’Ormesson, 26 August 1940.

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The second strand in Baudouin’s ideological pursuit of a Latin union involved rapprochement with Spain. In addition to highlighting a ­common cultural and religious heritage between the two countries, Baudouin looked to exploit Pétain’s reputation in Spain.45 As ambassador to Madrid between March 1939 and May 1940, Pétain had overseen the re-establishment of relations between France and Spain following the Popular Front’s support for republicans against Franco during the Spanish Civil War. During this period, the French embassy sought to develop notions of a spiritual connection between the two countries that appealed directly to Spanish Catholics.46 Writing to Pétain’s successor in early July 1940, Baudouin stressed continuity in French policy towards Spain. He instructed the new ambassador to convey his belief that the ‘three great Mediterranean nations’ should join together in ‘Latin and Christian solidarity’.47 More practically, he asked him to ascertain whether Madrid might use its influence to moderate the German and Italian armistice terms.48 Once again, however, Baudouin’s hopes came to nothing. Despite playing an important role in helping to maintain Spanish neutrality at the outbreak of the war, Pétain had failed to bring any material improvement in relations between the two countries. As with Italy, the ability to exploit a shared Latin and Christian heritage was limited by the ambivalent views of the Franco regime towards the Catholic Church.49 In the end, Baudouin’s strategy was fundamentally flawed. His vision of ideological alignment was predicated on seeking commonalities between a narrow and distorted view of the National Revolution and a still narrower and more distorted view of Italian Fascism. Ultimately, Baudouin’s attempts to drive Vichy’s foreign policy in a direction that was more consistent with the ideals of the National Revolution were overtaken by efforts to develop a new policy of collaboration with Nazi Germany. While his initiative did have support among some Italian Fascists, it did not gain the backing of the dominant factions within the regime. Even those who sympathised with Baudouin’s cause did not do so unconditionally. Diplomatic sources in Switzerland reported that Baudouin’s vision of a Latin union had been welcomed by Italian intellectuals, but 45 46 47 48 49

AD Papiers Charles-Roux 12, Note for the Chauvel group, no date. Michel Catala, ‘L’ambassade espagnole de Pétain (mars 1939–mai 1940)’, Vingtième Siècle, revue d’histoire, 55 (1997), 31, 39. AD Papiers Baudouin 8, Telegram from Baudouin to Madrid Embassy, 3 July 1940. Ibid. Mary Vincent, ‘Spain’, in Tom Buchanan and Martin Conway (eds.), Political Catholicism in Europe, 1918–1965 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 119–23.

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only on condition that France satisfied Mussolini’s territorial claims.50 The  replacement of d’Ormesson as ambassador and the departures of Charles-Roux and Baudouin from the foreign ministry in late October and early November 1940 brought an end to such initiatives as Vichy’s policy moved increasingly in the direction of Germany. The shift in Vichy’s foreign policy was one of stepping away from the domestically driven ideals of the National Revolution towards a more internationally driven alignment with Nazi ideology that looked towards the future of France in a German-dominated Europe.

Kindred Spirits Among the most enthusiastic proponents of collaborationism with Germany after the defeat were those who had been both influenced by and connected with the Italian Fascist regime. While historians continue to debate whether the extra-parliamentary leagues that emerged in France in the 1920s and 1930s should be described as Fascist and while many of the groups’ leaders and members distanced themselves from Fascist parties outside France, the connections were evident.51 As early as the mid-1920s, the Italian Fascist Party took an interest in groups that shared some of its ideological beliefs. Seeking to present itself as part of a wider reaction to the threat from Bolshevism, Mussolini’s regime supported and financed groups across Europe. Yet while French Fascists may not have been unique in garnering interest from Rome, as Italy’s neighbour and geopolitical rival, the extent to which the Italian Fascist regime infiltrated France was greater than elsewhere. The absence of French Fascist support for ideological collaboration with Italy after 1940 is, therefore, remarkable. The first two groups that caught the attention of the Italian Fascists were the Action Française, led by Charles Maurras, and the Faisceau, established by Georges Valois. Having emerged in 1899 in response to the Dreyfus Affair, the Action Française was imbued with reactionary ideals centred upon a fundamental hostility towards republicanism. Its deeply embedded conservatism has led many historians to dismiss suggestions that it was Fascist or even that it was, as Ernst Nolte suggests, the ‘missing 50 51

AD 10GMII 469, Telegram from Lausanne Consul General, 19 August 1940. Robert Soucy, French Fascism: The Second Wave 1933–1939 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995); Robert Soucy, ‘French Fascism and the Croix de Feu: A Dissenting Interpretation’, Journal of Contemporary History, 26:1 (1991), 159–88; William D. Irvine, ‘Fascism in France and the Strange Case of the Croix de Feu’, Journal of Modern History, 63:2 (1991), 271–95; Zeev Sternhell (ed.), L’histoire refoulée: La Rocque les Croix de feu, et la question du fascisme français (Paris: CERF, 2019).

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link’ in the long-term origins of Fascism in Italy and Germany.52 Having been established long before the Italian Fascist party, however, the Action Française was distinct for being at once an early influence upon it and a conduit through which it was able to influence French politics in the 1920s.53 However, having based his endorsement of the Italian Fascist party on a misconstrued perception of it as being reactionary, hierarchical, built upon a belief in a strong state, respect for Catholicism and hostility to liberal democracy, Maurras soon moved to distance the Action Française from Mussolini’s regime. Many of the extra-parliamentary leagues that developed during the 1920s and 1930s were characterised at once by their growing affinities with the Italian Fascists and by their tendency to deny any connection with them. Nevertheless, several groups were clearly influenced by the Italian Fascist aesthetic, adopting similar uniforms and symbols.54 More significantly, however, several groups received financial backing and even weapons from Rome. Between 1934 and 1936, the Italian government funded the Francistes, established by Marcel Bucard in September 1933, to the tune of around one million francs. However, this was a relatively small sum compared to the nine million francs it gave the PPF.55 Mussolini’s government also provided arms and finance to the terrorist Cagoule group led by Eugène Deloncle. Under orders from Rome, the Cagoule assassinated the anti-Fascist Rosselli brothers in June 1937.56 Yet Italian financial support opened up tensions between French Fascists’ ideological affinity with Mussolini’s regime and the need to be seen defending French interests against foreign pressures. In consequence, despite their political and ideological affiliations, groups including the PPF and Croix de Feu distanced themselves from Mussolini’s regime and even rejected the label ‘Fascist’.57 Despite senior PPF figures being in regular contact with German agents operating in France, they also denied any links with 52 53 54 55 56

57

Ernst Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism: Action Française, Italian Fascism, National Socialism (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1963), p. 26. Joel Blatt, ‘Relatives and Rivals: The Responses of the Action Française to Italian Fascism, 1919–26’, European Studies Review, 11 (1981), 264. Soucy, French Fascism, pp. 38, 73. Chris Millington, A History of Fascism in France: From the First World War to the National Front (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), p. 86. Soucy, French Fascism, p. 41; see also Joel Blatt, ‘The Cagoule Plot, 1936–37’, in Kenneth S. Mouré and Martin S. Alexander (eds.), Crisis and Renewal in France, 1918–1962 (Oxford: Berghahn, 2001), pp. 174–98. Samuel Kalman, The Extreme Right in Interwar France: The Faisceau and the Croix de Feu (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), p. 42.

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the Nazis.58 Any suggestion that they were under external control risked them being banned as a threat to the French Republic as well as damaging their political brands. In foreign policy terms, during the 1930s, most French Fascists openly called for closer ties with Italy.59 However, the desire to maintain relations with a kindred regime and to avoid another war meant supporting Italian foreign engagements against public and government opposition. The Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935 proved particularly problematic. Some, such as Valois, opposed any accommodation of Mussolini, claiming that Italy and Germany sought to threaten France and its colonial interests.60 Yet despite international condemnation and a rift between the French and Italian governments, many other French Fascists, including Solidarité Française and the Croix de Feu, continued to advocate an alliance with Italy.61 The transition away from viewing international affairs through a primarily national lens towards viewing it through a more ideological one played a significant role in the changing views of Fascists and the far right towards Nazi Germany. The election of the Popular Front in 1936 heightened fears of an ‘internal enemy’ on the left, leading Marcel Déat and Colonel de La Rocque to call for closer ties with Germany.62 Turning their fire against the Popular Front’s ‘ideological’ imposition of sanctions against Mussolini and opposition to Franco, French Fascists and the extreme right insisted that unlike the left, they were driven by national, rather than political interest.63 However, theirs was a vision of the national interest that was defined by growing anti-Communism. As a result, despite their hostility to France’s ‘hereditary enemy’, all groups came to support appeasement, believing that war against Germany would open the door to social upheaval and Communist revolution. It was the issue of Italian territorial claims over France that crystallised the mounting tensions between French Fascists’ ideologies and their nationalism. As Mussolini adopted a foreign policy shaped by ideological 58 59

60 61 62 63

Soucy, French Fascism, p. 226; Philippe Burrin, La dérive fasciste: Doriot, Déat, Bergery 1933–1945 (Paris: Seuil, 1986), p. 294. Soucy, French Fascism, p. 75; Colonel de La Rocque, Service public (Paris: Editions Bernard Grasset, 1934), p. 177; La Rocque, Disciplines d’action (Clermont-Ferrand: Editions du Petit Journal, 1941), p. 27. Allen Douglas, From Fascism to Libertarian Communism: Georges Valois against the Third Republic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), p. 197. Soucy, French Fascism, p. 117. Ibid, pp. 55, 151. Sean Kennedy, ‘Defending Christian Civilization: The Evolving Message of the Parti social français, 1936–39’, in Samuel Kalman and Sean Kennedy (eds.), The French Right between the Wars: Political and Intellectual Movements from Conservatism to Fascism (New York: Berghahn, 2016), pp. 189–90.

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ambitions for territorial expansion, so French Fascists faced difficult choices. Yet while demands for Nice, Savoie, Corsica and Tunisia in the Italian Chamber of Deputies on 30 November 1938 divided French Fascists, they did not stop them from calling for an alliance with Italy. The Parti Social Français congress, held in the midst of the public outcry that ensued, called for the Italian government to end its provocative claims so that the two countries could work together.64 The issue was more difficult for the PPF, who were caught between the conflicting impulses of ideology, financial backing from Rome and the need to maintain the party’s nationalist credentials in their strongholds of southeastern France, Corsica and North Africa.65 While rejecting any loss of French territory, Doriot sought to maintain relations with Italy by offering to consider negotiations over Djibouti, Tunisia and the Suez Canal Company.66 He met with considerable opposition from within the party, however, with critics alleging that his failure to stand up to Italian threats was a consequence of being in the pay of Rome.67 Italian territorial claims also divided the Action Française.68 Its newspaper initially sought to play down the demands, but following protests in Corsica and Tunisia, it adopted a tougher line.69 Nevertheless, the Action Française maintained that relations were not beyond repair and France should continue to engage with Mussolini.70 It was for reasons entirely unconnected with events in the Italian Chamber that 30 November 1938 came to mark a turning point in French Fascists’ views on European affairs. Daladier’s government inaugurated a tough new stance towards trade union calls for a general strike that marked a decisive shift from the old policies of the Popular Front. 64 65 66 67 68

69

70

La Rocque, ‘Prévisions, directives d’action’, Le Petit Journal, 31 May 1939. In 1936, the Croix de Feu changed its name to the Parti Social Français after having been banned by the Popular Front. Jean-Baptiste Nicolaï, Simon Sabiani. Un ‘chef’ à Marseille 1919–1944 (Paris: Olivier Orban, 1991), pp. 220–1, 225. Burrin, La dérive fasciste, p. 303. Victor Barthélémy, Du communisme au fascisme. L’histoire d’un engagement politique (Paris: Albin Michel, 1978), p. 123; Soucy, French Fascism, p. 244; Brunet, Jacques Doriot, p. 296. Lucien Rebatet, Les Décombres (Paris: Editions Denoël, 1942), p. 104; Bertram M. Gordon, Collaborationism in France during the Second World War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980), p. 60. J. Delebecque, ‘Le discours du comte Ciano et les relations Franco-Italiennes’, L’Action Française, 2 December 1938; J. Delebecque, ‘Le nouvel irrédentisme’, L’Action Française, 3 December 1938; ‘Que cherche l’Italie ?’, L’Action Française, 4 December 1938; J. Delebecque, ‘Tenir sa langue’, L’Action Française, 4 January 1939. Rebatet, Les Décombres, p. 140; Charles Maurras, ‘Politique’, L’Action Française, 7 April 1939; Charles Maurras, ‘Politique’, L’Action Française, 9 April 1939; Charles Maurras, ‘Politique’, L’Action Française, 12 April 1939.

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Believing that the threat of revolution had diminished significantly as a result, French Fascists and others on the far right reverted to their old hostility towards Germany and abandoned appeasement.71 While the Pact of Steel hardened French Fascist opinion towards the Italian government, the Italian failure to enter the war alongside Germany in September 1939 reignited hopes that Mussolini might yet be persuaded to abandon his support for Hitler.72 As Italian entry into the war grew increasingly likely, French Fascist pleas grew increasingly desperate. Portraying the war against Nazi Germany as a struggle against ‘anti-Catholic’, ‘anti-Latin’, ‘anti-Roman’ ‘barbarism’, Maurras maintained that the failure to fight alongside France would be a betrayal of Italian values and interests.73 The right-wing press, including Gringoire and Je suis partout, also struggled to reconcile their political and nationalist ideals, continuing to hope for reconciliation but being unable to support a regime that had hostile designs over French territory.74 By contrast, caught between conflicting impulses, La Rocque initially remained silent. Only on 3 June did the leader of the Parti Social Français intervene to suggest that Italy would fair badly under a German victory.75 When Mussolini finally declared war, however, La Rocque denounced the action as one of ‘dishonour, humiliation, servitude and apostasy’.76 While not unexpected, the Italian entry into the war came as a profound shock to those who had supported Mussolini’s regime. Nevertheless, it was only after the defeat that French Fascists came to advocate collaboration with the Nazis. During the German invasion, nationalism prevailed over ideological affinities. La Rocque urged his supporters to resist the German invasion in May and June 1940. Doriot, meanwhile, served with distinction as a sergeant in the French army. It was only when confronted with the overwhelming strength of the Germans and the realities of the defeat that French Fascists pivoted to supporting the Nazis. By the same token, they reasoned that as the weaker Axis power, Italy would not determine the political future of Europe. They, therefore, saw little reason to work with the Italian Fascists. 71 72 73 74 75 76

William D. Irvine, ‘Domestic Politics and the Fall of France in 1940’, in Joel Blatt (ed.), The French Defeat of 1940: Reassessments (Providence: Berghahn, 1998), pp. 80–92. Pierre Milza, L’Italie fasciste devant l’opinion française 1920–1940 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1967), p. 222. Charles Maurras, ‘Politique’, L’Action Française, 2 June 1940. Milza, L’Italie fasciste, p. 232. La Rocque, ‘Les intentions de l’ennemi?’, Le Petit Journal, 3 June 1940. La Rocque, ‘L’Italie nous déclare la guerre’, Le Petit Journal, 11 June 1940.

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Collaborationism To begin with, French Fascists rallied behind Vichy. Doriot publicly proclaimed his faith in Pétain as a leader who would make the necessary domestic and foreign policy reforms.77 La Rocque initially supported the National Revolution, its exclusionary concepts of national identity chiming with his own.78 However, French Fascists soon became dissatisfied with the regime. While Vichy adopted the Croix de Feu slogan ‘travail, famille, patrie’, there were profound differences between its policies and those advocated by La Rocque.79 Many Fascists complained that Vichy was not going far enough in collaborating with Germany. In turn, Vichy sought to distance itself from the Fascists, failing to endorse Déat’s plans to unite pro-collaboration forces into a single political party. From their base in Paris, French Fascists became increasingly critical of the government, although they did not break with it entirely. Indeed, as Stanley Hoffmann observes, Vichy’s pursuit of state collaboration with Germany served to legitimise their own pursuit of ideological collaborationism.80 Mussolini’s enduring claims over French territory were a significant factor in shaping French Fascists’ stance on collaboration. Like the Vichy government, many believed that ingratiating themselves with the Nazis would help thwart Italian ambitions. Many also hoped that the Nazis would prevent Mussolini from imposing punitive peace terms. For some French Fascists, the switch to the Nazis also had more mundane causes. By 1943, between fifty and sixty per cent of the PPF’s annual income came directly from the German embassy.81 A further substantive reason for French Fascists’ alignment with the Nazis is that it was driven by shared anti-Communism and anti-Semitism. Although the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact of August 1939 muddied the waters, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the likes of Doriot were able to embrace the Nazis wholeheartedly, justifying their support in terms of an ideological struggle against Communism. 77

78 79 80 81

‘L’entrevue’, 26 October 1940 in Jacques Doriot, Je suis un homme du maréchal (Paris: Bernard Gasset, Editeur, 1941), pp. 8, 10; Jacques Doriot, ‘Le choix historique du Maréchal de France’, Le cri du peuple, 28 October 1940; Jacques Doriot ‘Pour la paix’, Le cri du peuple, 21 November 1940; J.-M. Aimot, ‘Pour que tous les français participent à la politique de collaboration il faut remettre notre maison en ordre’, Le cri du peuple, 9 December 1940; Jacques Doriot, ‘La collaboration francoallemande’, Le cri du peuple, 4 January 1941. Sean Kennedy, ‘Accompanying the Marshal: La Rocque and the Progrès Social Français under Vichy’, French History, 15:2 (2001), 188. Jacques Nobécourt, Le colonel de la Rocque: 1885–1946 ou les pièges du nationalisme chrétien (Paris: Fayard, 1996), p. 706. Hoffmann, ‘Collaborationism’, p. 380. Brunet, Jacques Doriot, p. 430.

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Believing that the Nazis offered the best defence against internal and external Communist threats, Doriot was able to overcome his nationalist r­ eservations about the former enemy.82 By contrast, the Italian Fascists placed less emphasis on combatting the threat from the Soviet Union. With the regime’s ideological and geopolitical goals lying in the Mediterranean and Africa, Mussolini’s views towards the Soviet Union were more ambivalent than Hitler’s.83 Similar imperatives were at work when it came to anti-Semitism. While it was deeply rooted within Fascist ideology and the regime sought to ‘Aryanise’ Italian society, Mussolini’s government did not designate the Jews to be a primary threat to its imperial ambitions.84 It, therefore, adopted a more pragmatic position than that of the Nazis, being primarily concerned with upholding notions of Italian prestige.85 With Italian authorities actively thwarting French attempts to round up Jews in their zone of occupation in late 1942 and 1943, collaborationists found themselves increasingly at odds with the policies of the Fascist regime. The lack of any Italian equivalent to Otto Abetz also militated against collaborationism with Rome. Based in Paris, Abetz was the principal interlocutor not just for pro-collaboration figures within Vichy but for French Fascists and collaborationists as well. More than any other German figure, he stoked deluded French enthusiasm for collaboration, encouraging an entirely false belief that Hitler would reward it with concessions on the armistice terms during the war and the peace terms thereafter. As a wellconnected Francophile, the extensive political, cultural and intellectual networks that Abetz had cultivated during the 1930s provided the foundations for collaborationism to thrive under the occupation.86 By contrast, until January 1942 there was no Italian ambassador in France. Even after Gino Buti was sent to Paris and Vittorio Zoppi appointed consul general to Vichy, neither engaged in any political initiatives. The self-proclaimed ‘Italian Abetz’, Mirko Giobbe, may have acted as an intermediary between Laval and Mussolini, but his role and influence were limited.87 Other Italian Fascists who played similar roles, such as Guido Manacorda, tended to advocate a different agenda to that of Mussolini.88 With no one 82 83 84 85 86 87 88

Ibid, p. 354. Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, p. 63. Sarfatti, ‘Characteristics and Objectives’, p. 77; Sica, Mussolini’s Army, p. 173. Rodogno, ‘Politique des occupants’, p. 68. Frederic Spotts, The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 36–8. Procès du Maréchal Pétain, p. 317. D’Ormesson, De Saint Pétersbourg, pp. 202–3; AD 10GMII 469, Coulondre to Baudouin, 24 September 1940.

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to nurture dreams of collaborationism with the Italian Fascists and with Rome waging a hostile propaganda campaign, French Fascist aspirations towards Italy soon evaporated. The one brief exception to this came with a curious incident involving Eugène Deloncle. In late October 1941, the leader of the collaborationist Mouvement Social Révolutionnaire (MSR) wrote to Mussolini requesting a meeting to discuss collaboration between the Italian Fascists, the Nazis and French nationalists. Claiming that he had been commissioned by Pétain, he proposed acting as a go-between to broker a deal with Berlin and Rome so that the three parties could work together to defeat Communism and ‘Anglo-Saxon plutocracy’.89 As leader of the terrorist Cagoule before the war, Deloncle had had links with Mussolini’s regime and had called for an alliance between France and the other Latin and Fascist countries.90 He was also well connected within the Vichy government, army and French intelligence. However, while the letter came at a time when Pétain was engaged in secret attempts at rapprochement with Mussolini’s government, there is no evidence to support Deloncle’s claim to have been acting on his behalf. His involvement in the attempt to assassinate Laval in August 1941, his role in the murder of former interior minister Max Dormoy and the MSR’s bombing of Paris synagogues made him a contentious figure even among the most ardent collaborationists.91 It is, therefore, unlikely that members of the Vichy government should have wished him to act as their intermediary. The Italian authorities took the matter no further, but the incident was nevertheless remarkable for being the only such démarche by a French Fascist leader after 1940.92 While French collaborationists engaged in regular communication with the German authorities in Paris, the same was not the case with the Italian authorities. Ultimately, the outlook offered by the Italian Fascist regime was rather less appealing to French Fascists than that offered by the Nazis. Mussolini had made no secret of his territorial ambitions or of how his vision for Italy’s future put the country on a collision course with France.93 He remained determined that Italy should prevail over France and that France 89 90 91 92 93

Deloncle to Mussolini, 24 October 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, pp. 697–8; Confalonieri to Ciano, 26 October 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, p. 689. Millington, History of Fascism, p. 97. Bertram M. Gordon, ‘The Condottieri of the Collaboration: Mouvement Social Revolutionnaire’, Journal of Contemporary History, 10:2 (1975), 272–5. Anfuso to Confalonieri, 31 October 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, p. 722. Salerno, Vital Crossroads, p. 82.

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should be permanently diminished as a European and global power. Even though the Nazis would also bring loss of territory and a reduced status for France, French Fascists believed in and desired a German victory. They were drawn to German strength and the Nazis’ determination to defeat Communism and combat the ‘threat’ from the Jews. Thus French Fascists who had had limited affinity with Nazi ideology and still less sympathy for Germany before June 1940 voluntarily engaged in collaborationism with the Nazis. And despite having had greater affinity with Italian Fascist ideology and with Italy as a nation, they turned away from seeking collaborationism with the Italian Fascists.

Conclusion The lack of support for Italian Fascist aims in relation to France meant that there were not the same pressures driving Vichy towards collaborationism with Rome as there were with Berlin. The absence of sustained state collaboration with Italy meant that there were not the same imperatives to expand into collaborationism either. As the following chapters will discuss, in all the main areas of state collaboration under the occupation, including economic activity, the persecution of those the Nazis deemed enemies and the arrest and deportation of Jews, Italian policy was merely an extension of German policy. The very different character of Vichy’s ideological relations with the Italian Fascist regime compared with its relations with the Nazi regime, therefore, necessitates a modification of Hoffmann’s model of the relationship between state collaboration and ideological collaborationism. For Hoffmann, collaborationism with Nazi Germany depended on the existence of state collaboration, on the ambiguities of voluntary and involuntary collaboration and on the ease with which involuntary state collaboration could slip into becoming voluntary. Vichy justified involuntary collaboration with Berlin as a necessary price to defend the regime and its values against the threat from the Allies and based voluntary collaboration on the belief that Germany would win the war. Thus, Hoffmann argues, ‘involuntary collaboration was the price one had to pay for having misjudged France’s situation; voluntary collaboration was a price one chose to because one misjudged Germany’s’.94 Because Vichy had no sustained policy of state collaboration with Rome, however, there was little scope for slipping from involuntary to voluntary collaboration. Instead, voluntary 94

Hoffmann, ‘Collaborationism’, p. 378.

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state collaboration with Italy was the price some ministers were willing to pay because they misjudged Rome’s ideological position. Meanwhile, involuntary collaboration with Berlin was in part a price they had to pay for misjudging Rome’s political position. In turn, one of the key reasons that collaborationists engaged in voluntary collaborationism with the Nazis rather than the Italian Fascists was because there was so little scope for collaborationism with the Italian Fascists. The intransigent and often hostile stance of the Italian government, and of Mussolini in particular, therefore not only pushed Vichy further towards state collaboration with the Germans but helped foster collaborationism with the Nazis as well. In the conflicting imperatives of pursuing collaborationism with Berlin rather than Rome, the dilemmas of Vichy’s double bind were stark. As to whether there could have been collaborationism without state collaboration, the state collaboration that developed between Vichy and Rome may have been limited and unsustained, but it was not a significant causal factor in French disinclination towards collaborationism with Fascist Italy. The relationship between state collaboration and collaborationism with Fascist Italy was almost a mirror image of that with Nazi Germany. While short-lived and limited in nature, it was Vichy that led attempts to forge ideological collaboration with Rome rather than the French Fascists. And while collaborationists continued to press for greater collaborationism with the Nazis after the full occupation of France deepened state collaboration with Berlin, Vichy’s pursuit of state collaboration with Rome lasted longer than any pursuit of collaborationism.

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Part II

Local Encounters

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chapter 6

The Menace Within

July 1940 to November 1942

In a frank conversation with the American Chargé d’Affaires in midOctober 1940, the secretary-general of the French foreign ministry, François Charles-Roux, vented his frustration. After over three months of having to deal with the Italian control commissions, he declared: ‘the Italians are causing us all sorts of possible trouble in Syria and everywhere else. They are behaving worse than the Germans’.1 The terms of the June 1940 armistices placed the Mediterranean region under the jurisdiction of the Italians. With control commissions established across south-eastern France, Corsica, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Syria and Lebanon, the Italian presence on French territory was significant, posing major problems for the Vichy government and for local French officials. Scarcely had they arrived than they began work to undermine French authority through propaganda, espionage and acts of provocation. The presence of thousands of Italian citizens in the territories concerned only aggravated the problem. Unsure whether they might become a kind of fifth column and struggling to contain local hostility towards the Italian presence, the French authorities found themselves facing a threat that was at once tangible and difficult to quantify. Despite the armistice terms permitting Vichy to retain control over its colonial empire, neither the German nor the Italian government trusted the French authorities in North Africa and the Levant.2 But whereas Berlin insisted that Vichy’s authority must be strengthened to guard against threats from the British and Free French, Rome actively sought to undermine French rule.3 The differing Axis approaches were a measure of the two governments’ differing priorities. For Mussolini, protecting 1 2 3

Chargé in France Matthews to Secretary of State, 14 October 1940, FRUS, British Commonwealth, Soviet Union, Near East and Africa 1940, p. 917. Lo Jucco to Ciano, 4 December 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 6, p. 229; Guzzoni to Mussolini, 14 December 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 6, p. 280. Zamboni to Ciano, 20 November 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 6, p. 143.

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Italian colonial interests meant preventing any resurgence in French power.4 Aware that General Weygand was a staunch opponent of Italy, and harbouring suspicions of General Noguès in Morocco as well, Rome considered the British and Free French to be merely a secondary threat.5 The Mediterranean was an area of particular interest to Rome. During the 1930s, Fascist propaganda sought to revive desires for Italian hegemony over the Mediterranean, portraying it as part of the nation’s wider imperial mission.6 Together with notions of the Mediterranean as mare nostrum, the Fascist regime claimed that the destiny of the Italian people was to create a new Roman empire.7 At the heart of these imperial aspirations were desires for ‘vital space’ (spazio vitale) to accommodate an expanding Italian population.8 Territorial expansion was to be a natural outcome of Italian racial superiority.9 With Italy having colonised Libya in 1911 and seized Abyssinia in 1936, the Fascist regime longed to take Tunisia from the French.10 This chapter explores the challenges posed by the presence of Italian control commissions before November 1942 and how the French authorities tackled them at a local level. The scholarship on the areas under the remit of the Italian armistice authorities has tended to focus on Vichy’s domestic policies, the daily lives of ordinary people or the colonial dimensions of French policy.11 By contrast, there has been little research into the significance of the control commissions’ interventions. As a consequence, the extent to which Italian actions threatened French authority has tended to be understated. The Italian threat may not have been one of violent repression or military intimidation; however, it was its political character 4

Meeting between Keitel and Badoglio, 14–15 November 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 6, p. 104. Confalonieri to Ciano, 12 March 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 6, p. 687; Pietromarchi to Ciano, 15 July 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, p. 362. 6 Roberta Pergher, Mussolini’s Nation-Empire: Sovereignty and Settlement in Italy’s Borderlands, 1922–1943 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 3–22; Deborah Paci, ‘Is History the Strongest Weapon? Corsica in the Fascist Mare Nostrum’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 19:5 (2014), 626–8. 7 Aristotle Kallis, Fascist Ideology: Territory and Expansionism in Italy and Germany, 1922–45 (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 50; Alan Cassels, ‘Mussolini and the Myth of Rome’, in Gordon Martel (ed.), The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered: A. J. P. Taylor and the Historians (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 58. 8 Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire, p. 11. 9 Ibid, p. 45. 10 Eileen Ryan, ‘Violence and the Politics of Prestige: The Fascist Turn in Colonial Libya’, Modern Italy, 20:2 (2015), 123–35; John Gooch, ‘Re-conquest and Suppression: Fascist Italy’s Pacification of Libya and Ethiopia, 1922–39’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 28:6 (2005), 1005–32; Juliette Bessis, La méditerranée fasciste: L’Italie mussolinienne et la Tunisie (Paris: Editions Karthala, 1980), pp. 240–73. 11 See, for instance, Panicacci, L’occupation italienne; Schipsi, L’Occupazione Italiana. 5

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that made it so potentially hazardous for Vichy. With its sovereignty curtailed by the terms of the June 1940 armistices and its survival dependent upon the Axis, Vichy’s position was fragile. Domestically, its ability to hold onto power amid waning public support rested upon the credibility of its claims to be defending France and its colonial empire against external and internal threats. Internationally, its status rested upon maintaining control of its colonies and its naval fleet. With French power significantly diminished by the defeat, Vichy became, in the words of Martin Thomas, ‘an imperial rather than continental power’.12 By threatening the already weak foundations on which Vichy sought to base its legitimacy, Italian actions endangered its authority as well as its power. At the heart of the tensions were differing interpretations of the armistice. As Romain Rainero observes, the Italian government believed that the Villa Incisa terms restricted French sovereignty across all areas other than where it was explicitly guaranteed.13 By contrast, Vichy maintained that the only constraints upon French sovereignty were those specified by the armistice. As a consequence, whereas Rome believed that it had the legal and political right to encroach upon French sovereignty, Vichy did not. With no broad or sustained policy of collaboration with Italy, the French authorities adopted a more openly defiant stance towards the actions of the Italian control commissions than they did with their German counterparts. French defiance did not, however, constitute what Rainero characterises as ‘silent resistance’.14 With the challenges to French authority coming from multiple directions, the responses were complex and multi-layered. In North Africa and the Levant, rising anti-colonial movements, British and Free French action and German intervention sometimes led local French authorities to adopt different approaches to those being advocated by Vichy. In south-eastern France and Corsica, meanwhile, the complexities of regional and national identities compelled local authorities to seek more nuanced responses to Italian territorial claims than those proposed by Vichy. Where Italian actions clashed with Vichy’s defence of France’s colonies or its policies on Jews, the French authorities invited intervention from Berlin. However, as French attentions turned once again towards exploiting the rifts within the Axis, the response from Berlin showed that the strategy of seeking assistance from the Germans was to be no panacea. 12 13 14

Thomas, French Empire at War, p. 71. Romain Rainero, La commission italienne, pp. 51–2. Romain Rainero, ‘Une résistance silencieuse: La délégation française auprès de la Commission Italienne d’Armistice avec la France (Turin, 27 juin 1940–8 septembre 1943)’, Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains, 251 (2013), 121.

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The Italian Presence Between July 1940 and November 1942, the most immediate and persistent threat to French authority across south-eastern France, French North Africa and the Levant derived from the actions of the Italian control commissions. At first, their arrival seemed little more than an unwelcome inconvenience. The defeat had unquestionably damaged France’s status, especially in the colonies, but the armistice terms were a blow to Italian prestige as well. With widespread expectations that Italy would gain Tunisia having been dashed, Italian communities across North Africa expressed their contempt for the failures of their government and army.15 Indeed, the resident-general of Tunisia, Admiral Esteva, noted that aware of the ‘false nature of their victory’, the Italian armistice officials arrived in a conciliatory spirit.16 Such caution was, however, not to last. To assert Italian prestige, Rome instructed its officials to adopt a confrontational approach and go beyond the restrictions of the armistice.17 The return of former Italian consular staff under the guise of the control commissions was a particular challenge to French authority. Because France and Italy were in a state of armistice rather than at peace, international law prohibited the reopening of Italian consulates on French soil. The Italian authorities, therefore, used covert methods to re-establish them and to reposition their agents.18 Under the pretext that they were working for the control and assistance commissions, the former consuls returned to Grenoble, Nice, Modane, Annecy, Marseille, Gap, Cannes, Bastia and Ajaccio.19 In North Africa, the former Italian consul generals of Rabat and Casablanca along with several of their staff returned to Morocco, almost the entire pre-war consular corps returned to Tunis and many of the staff from the Italian consulate returned to Algiers.20 Many of the Casa degli Italiani that had closed at the outbreak of hostilities reopened without permission, forcing French officials to have to accept their reappearance as a fait accompli.21 Italian officials claimed that they were simply providing assistance to 15 16 17 18 19

20

21

Carpi, Between Mussolini and Hitler, p. 201. Esteva to Baudouin, 3 September 1940, DDF 1940, vol. II, p. 379. Michel, ‘Relations franco-italiennes’, p. 485; Duroselle, ‘Gouvernement de Vichy’, p. 83. See AN AJ41 2297, Duplat to Huntziger, 27 June 1941. AN AJ41 2313, Report by Perriaux, 30 July 1940; AN AJ41 2297, ‘Activité des anciens consuls Italiens en France’, 7 August 1940; AN AJ41 2297, Meeting between Duplat and Pintor, 29 August 1940; AN AJ41 2313, Peyrouton to prefects of Allier, Cher, Charente, Vienne, 4 October 1940. AD 9GMII 189, Telegram from Noguès, 7 September 1940; AD 9GMII 189, Baudouin to Huntziger, 7 September 1940; AD 9GMII 189, Foreign Ministry to Armistice Services Directorate, 6 January 1941. AN AJ41 2302, Minutes of meeting, 16 December 1940.

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Italian citizens living in France.22 However, it was immediately clear that their actions represented a significant security threat. During the 1930s, their intelligence-gathering and propaganda activities sought to identify security weaknesses and encourage support for the Fascist regime among Italian migrants. On returning to France, many former Italian consuls simply resumed their work.23 The ever-increasing numbers of armistice officials arriving in mainland France, Corsica and French North Africa enhanced their capacity to undermine French authority. In March 1941, the prefect of Corsica noted that the work to implement the armistice terms was almost complete. Despite this, the number of Italian officials kept increasing, rising from thirtyseven in September 1940 to fifty-one by April 1941.24 In North Africa, their presence had swelled to 329 by January 1941, prompting Weygand to describe them as a ‘battalion of propaganda and anti-French action’.25 The French head of the armistice services in Algeria went still further, claiming that the ‘invasive’ Italian presence was part of a strategy to stir up trouble and so provide Rome with the excuse to seize control from the French authorities.26 The actions of the Italian officials lent credence to French fears that they were preparing the ground for future occupation or annexation. Italian officials engaged in surveillance of French political parties, monitoring public opinion and sending covert agents into local communities.27 They were also often spotted gathering information on factories and making wider inquiries into the state of the economy in the regions claimed by Rome.28 These activities and the provocative attitudes taken by some Italian officials exacerbated tensions with local communities as well. In the Hautes-Alpes department, the arrival of twenty officers and eighty soldiers as part of the Italian control commission caused considerable hostility, especially as the Italians made excessive food demands at a time when the local population were subjected to severe restrictions.29 Frequent incidents 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

AN AJ41 2297, Memorandum for Duplat from Grossi, no date. AN AJ41 2297, Duplat to Huntziger, 20 July 1940; AN AJ41 2297, Duplat to Huntziger, 21 August 1940; AN AJ41 2297, Meeting between Duplat and Pintor, 29 August 1940. AN AJ41 2313, Balley to Darlan, 31 March 1941; AN AJ41 2313, Duplat to Grossi, 17 April 1941. AD 9GMII 189, Weygand to Huntziger, 14 January 1941; AN AJ41 65, Weygand to Huntziger, 15 May 1941. AD 9GMII 275, Baudouin to Huntziger, 7 September 1940; AD 9GMII 189, Huntziger to Darlan, 16 January 1941. AD 9GMII 187, Report by surveillance commissioner for Nice, 12 October 1940. AN AJ41 2150, ‘Activité non-militaire des délégations de contrôle des industries de guerre’, 4 August 1941. AN F1cIII 1137, Prefect of Hautes-Alpes to Peyrouton, 13 December 1940.

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involving Italian officials strained relations with the French authorities in North Africa and the Levant still further. The French colonial authorities accused the Italians of behaving as if they were in conquered territory, going about town armed and in uniform.30 In Syria, the mere presence of the armistice officials was enough to have a significant destabilising effect upon the local population.31 The presence of around 900,000 Italian citizens in France may not have been the gravest or most immediate threat, but it caused some of the most intractable problems. The department of Savoie was home to over 14,000 Italian citizens while neighbouring Isère had around 28,000 Italians.32 In Corsica, the number of Italian immigrants had peaked at 17,402 in 1937 but then declined to 11,414 by 1939.33 The greatest concentration was in the Alpes-Maritimes, which was home to 79,794 Italian citizens in December 1940.34 However, local police claimed that around forty per cent of the department’s population was Italian, with a further forty per cent being of Italian descent.35 Many had emigrated to France during the 1930s. Thousands more had benefited from the 1927 naturalisation law to become French citizens.36 The true scale of the Italian presence in France was, therefore, much greater than the official figures suggested. The presence of Italian citizens in North Africa represented a more direct challenge to French authority. Rome’s claims over Tunisia centred on the size of the Italian settler community, which had been roughly equal to the French one for decades. However, in 1936 a French census suggested that French colonists now exceeded Italians, the former totalling 108,068 and the latter standing at 94,289. With French citizenship based upon the principle of jus soli rather than the Italian jure sanguinis, the automatic naturalisation law of 26 June 1889 meant that the number of Italian citizens progressively diminished while the number of French increased. As a result, Rome started to challenge the French figures by calculating its own. It projected that by 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

AD Papiers Baudouin 9, Telegram from Esteva, 19 September 1940; AN AJ41 2153, ‘La délégation française à la Commission Italienne d’Armistice, 28 juin 1940–31 décembre 1942’. AD Papiers Baudouin 9, French consul at Jerusalem, 12 September 1940. ADS 1382W40, Census, December1939; AN AJ41 2313, ‘Rapport sur la situation des Italiens dans le département de l’Isère’, 6 December 1940. Sylvian Gregori, ‘Tra lucchese è nimicu: La représentation mentale de l’italien dans l’imaginaire corse 1938–1943’, Etudes Corses 49 (1997), 101–3. ADAM 616W223, ‘Propagande anti-nationale dans les Alpes-Maritimes’, no date. ADAM 616W133, Special commissioner to Ribière, 13 October 1940. Marie-Claude Blanc-Chaléard, ‘Le mouvement d’italiens entre la France et l’étranger’, in Pierre Milza and Denis Peschanski (eds.), Exils et migration: Italiens et espagnols en France 1938–1946 (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1994), p. 73.

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1940 there would be 150,000 Italians in Tunisia.37 It was a similar story even in the territories not directly in Fascist sights. In Algeria, to French claims that there were 20,929 Italian citizens resident, Rome responded that the figure was around 100,000. In Morocco, while French figures stated that there were 15,465 Italians, Rome forecast an increase that would see them outnumber French citizens.38 A second area of contestation was that the French statistics counted the 59,485 Jews resident in Tunisia as a distinct category, rather than as French or Italian citizens.39 Arguing that at least 5000 Jews were Italian, Rome found itself having to emphasise the importance of its Jewish community in order to sustain its claims over Tunisia.40 Italian armistice officials sought to exploit the presence of so many Italian citizens with three strategies. The first was to interpret Article 21 of the armistice, which dealt with prisoners of war, to mean that Vichy had no authority over any Italian citizen in France.41 The second was to engage in regular direct contact with Italian communities to thwart Vichy’s attempts to control access to Axis officials.42 The third was to offer Italian citizens sought-after goods such as tobacco in return for signing a declaration of loyalty to the Fascist government.43 At the same time, however, despite targeting its citizens with incentives to return to Italy, Rome also viewed them with suspicion.44 Many of the migrants were from the lower social classes, being unskilled workers and casual labourers, and were, therefore, considered less valuable members of Fascist society. The more educated Italian citizens and second-generation immigrants were also treated with suspicion, being more integrated within French communities and more likely to join the French armed forces.45 Above all, however, it was because so many of the Italian citizens had fled from Fascism that they proved to be less of an asset than the Italian authorities had hoped.46 The propaganda activities of the control commissions in French North Africa and the Levant proved particularly provocative, seeking to set Italian 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

Romain H. Rainero, ‘Les Italiens en Afrique du Nord’, in Milza, Les Italiens en France, p. 759. Ibid, pp. 754–7; Augustin Bernard, ‘Le recensement de 1936 dans l’Afrique du nord’, Annales de Géographie, 46:259 (1937), 84–7. Carpi, Between Mussolini and Hitler, p. 198. Ibid, p. 199; Terence Peterson, ‘The “Jewish Question” and the “Italian Peril”: Vichy, Italy and the Jews of Tunisia, 1940–2’, Journal of Contemporary History, 50:2 (2015), 246. Catoire, Direction des services, p. 19. AN AJ41 2313, Huntziger to Peyrouton and Baudouin, 23 October 1940. AN AJ41 2313, Prefect of Haute-Savoie to Peyrouton, 11 November 1940; AN AJ41 2313, Prefect of Basses-Alpes to Darlan, 17 February 1941. AN AJ41 2302, Minutes of meeting, 16 December 1940. Carpi, Between Mussolini and Hitler, p. 7. AN AJ41 2292, Duplat to Huntziger, 24 August 1940.

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communities against their neighbours and to extend Italian power beyond the armistice terms.47 Since the 1930s, the Fascist regime had broadcast radio propaganda across the region.48 Combining Arabic programmes that aimed to promote Fascist policies, history and culture with popular music and talk shows, Radio Bari enjoyed rising listening figures.49 The problem for Vichy was that the broadcasts also actively sought to encourage hostility to French colonial rule.50 Some programmes painted an idyllic image of what Tunisia would be like under Italian rule once the French ‘tenants’ had moved out, claiming that agriculture, commerce and industry would be developed to bring immense prosperity to the protectorate.51 More troublesome were those that exploited cultural sensitivities to play on anti-colonial tropes. One broadcast in April 1942 falsely claimed that riots had broken out after drunken French sailors in Bizerte had used a Muslim woman for target practice.52 Printed propaganda sought to stir trouble for French colonial authorities as well. In Morocco, the Italian control commission regularly circulated copies of the anti-French newspaper, Nuova Italia.53 Yet despite claiming to support Arab nationalists, Mussolini’s government sought to advance its own colonial project rooted in assertions of Italian racial superiority.54 Rome’s ambitions clashed with Berlin’s propaganda support for nationalist movements, however.55 The North African subsections of the German propaganda bureau in Paris deployed prominent figures, such as Belkacem Radjef of the Parti Populaire Algérien, to bolster the nationalist cause.56 In Tunisia, German radio broadcast Neo-Destour party leaders such as Ben Youssef, Bourguiba and Ben Slimane calling for an end to colonial rule.57 Attempts to exploit the rising tide of nationalism in French North Africa and the Levant left colonial officials scrambling to defend their authority. At the outbreak of war in 1939, the French government had introduced 47 48

49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

ADCS 6W23, Balley to Pucheu, 6 December 1941. Arturo Marzano, ‘Radio Propaganda during the War: The Mediterranean Scenario in Radio Bari’s Broadcasts (1940–1943)’, in Marco Maria Aterrano and Karine Varley (eds.), Fascist Decade of War (London: Routledge, 2020), pp. 165–78. Manuela Williams, Mussolini’s Propaganda Abroad: Subversion in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, 1935–1940 (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 83. AN AJ41 478, Head of armistice services to Duplat, 23 September 1942. See also Rainero, La politque arabe, p. 46. AD 9GMII 275, Telegram from Esteva, 29 July 1940; AD 9GMII 275, Huntziger to Duplat, 27 August 1940; AN AJ41 2297, Note, 28 August 1940. AD 9GMII 276, Esteva to Darlan, 27 March 1942; AN AJ41 2295, Esteva to Darlan, 6 April 1942. Levisse-Touzé, L’Afrique du Nord, p. 110. Castellani to Ciano, 27 May 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 7, p. 163. Bessis, Méditerranée fasciste, pp. 299–300. Thomas, French Empire at War, p. 165. Bessis, Méditerranée fasciste, p. 345.

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emergency measures to incapacitate anti-colonial groups. Vichy continued this approach, arresting and imprisoning the leaders of the Comité d’Action Maroccaine and the Neo-Destour party in Tunisia.58 However, they still faced challenges from the Moroccan sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef and the Tunisian bey, Sidi Mohammed el Moncef, who took up the nationalist cause.59 In Algeria, after gaining some success in local elections, the Parti du Peuple Algérien was banned by the French authorities, its leaders arrested and subjected to a particularly harsh regime at the Djenien-Bou-Rezg prison camp in the Sahara.60 Monitoring the situation from Vichy, foreign ministry officials grew increasingly concerned about the impact of Italian propaganda that played into the ‘schemes’ of the Neo-Destour party and sought to fuel tensions between Jews and Muslims in Tunisia.61 Within just a couple of months of the defeat, a report on the ‘dislocation of the French empire’ issued a bleak prognosis of Vichy’s position, warning that the structure of French administration in Africa left some parts particularly susceptible to external threats.62

Obstruction and Defiance In the face of the mounting threat posed by Italian intervention, Vichy and the local French authorities responded with obstruction and defiance. To combat Italian propaganda in metropolitan France, Vichy mobilised the power of French regionalism. The National Revolution called for a return to traditional French values, which Pétain believed were rooted in the soil and in the regional cultures that had been damaged by republicanism and modernity. Rejecting Jacobin centralisation in favour of the ideas of Charles Maurras and Jean Charles-Brun, Pétain articulated a vision in which attachment to the nation would develop through attachment to the petite patrie. To this end, in September 1940, Vichy established regional and departmental commissions that would defend border regions from threats of Axis annexation.63 However, some local officials complained that 58 59 60

61 62 63

Thomas, French Empire at War, pp. 165–6. Ibid, pp. 166–7. Christine Levisse-Touzé, ‘Les camps d’internement d’Afrique du Nord politiques répressives et populations’, in Jacques Cantier and Eric Jennings (eds.), L’Empire colonial sous Vichy, (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2004), p. 180. AD 8GMII 26, Note for minister, 23 August 1940. AN F60 309, ‘Risques de dislocation de l’empire française d’Afrique’, 6 September 1940. Kirrily Freeman, Bronzes to Bullets: Vichy and the Destruction of French Public Statuary, 1941–1944 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), p. 95; Pierre Barral, ‘Idéal et pratique du régionalisme dans le régime de Vichy’, Revue française de science politique, 24:5 (1974), 917–9.

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any direct response to Italian propaganda would give it credence and therefore exacerbate the situation. The prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes warned against any campaign that might fuel suggestions that the future of Nice was in question. He, therefore, proposed that the best means of defence was simply to ignore Italian action and carry on as normal.64 By contrast, as prefect of Corsica, Paul Balley had no such assurance. The legacy of past tensions between France and Corsica and the cultural distinctiveness of the island drove Balley to propose a more robust defence of Corsica’s ties with France.65 Thus whereas in the Alpes-Maritimes the focus was on conveying an outward message of defiance to Italy, in Corsica, the propaganda drive was as much about convincing Corsicans as it was about communicating to the Italians. Through education reforms focusing on history, geography and folklore, Balley proposed to foster closer connections to the grande patrie via an attachment to the petite patrie.66 Regional propaganda initiatives were supplemented by infrastructure investment that sought to reinforce the threatened regions’ attachment to France. In November 1940, Vichy announced the construction of a new hydroelectric station as the first of a series of major public works designed to address the weaknesses in Corsica’s infrastructure and to stem the flow of workers away from the island.67 This was followed in September 1941 by the announcement of a major ten-year project to improve communications and tourism. The communications and transport minister, Jean Berthelot, explicitly pitched the programme as being aimed at dispelling the popular perceptions of neglect by the French state that were being exploited in Italian propaganda.68 Similar infrastructure schemes were announced for parts of south-eastern France as well.69 When it came to Savoie, however, efforts to defend the region against the Italians fell victim to Vichy’s zeal for collaborating with the Germans. 64 65

66

67 68 69

ADS 1382W43, ‘Conférence pour l’étude des problèmes posés par l’occupation italienne tenue à Vichy’, 16 December 1940. On tensions between Corsica and mainland France, see Joseph Martinetti, Insularité et marginalité en méditerranée occidentale: l’exemple corse (Ajaccio: Editions le Signet, 1989), pp. 17–19, 44–62. On the implications for Vichy see Karine Varley, ‘Between Vichy France and Fascist Italy: Redefining Identity and the Enemy in Corsica during the Second World War’, Journal of Contemporary History, 47:3 (2012), 505–27; Sylvian Gregori, ‘Installation et idéologie du régime Vichyiste en Corse’, Etudes Corses, 44 (1995), 93–132. AN AJ41 2314, Balley to Laval, 18 October 1940; AN AJ41 2314, Balley to Charles-Roux, 19 October 1940; ADCS 1W7, Departmental commission for regionalist propaganda, minutes, 8 November 1940; ADCS 1W7, Balley to Darlan, 18 July 1941. AN AJ41 2314, Balley to Laval, 18 October 1940. Bastia Journal, 26 September 1941; AN AJ41 2314, Balley to Laval, 18 October 1940. AN F1cIII 1137, Prefect of Hautes Alpes to Darlan, 17 March 1941.

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The response to Italian propaganda centred primarily upon affirming the legitimacy of the 1860 referendum that had confirmed Savoie’s attachment to France. The regional propaganda commission argued that Savoie had never been culturally Italian because it had already developed a distinct identity before joining France.70 Communities were, therefore, encouraged to embrace their cultural heritage by reviving traditional costumes, songs, dances and village fêtes.71 Such confident assertions of the region’s cultural identity clashed with other government priorities, however. To fulfil German demands for metal for armaments production, from October 1941 Vichy began dismantling and melting down hundreds of bronze statues. The Commissariat for the Mobilisation of Non-Ferrous Metal decided not only to remove Chambéry’s statue symbolising the attachment of Savoie to France but to do so on the anniversary of the 1860 plebiscite.72 Despite the public uproar, the Commissariat was less interested in the statue’s political significance in relation to Italy than in its usefulness in relation to Germany, justifying the action by asserting that it lacked artistic merit and had greater value in terms of the copper it contained. In protest, local residents left flowers on the empty plinth, their faith in Vichy’s willingness to save their region from Italy having been dealt a major blow.73 In its efforts to counter the threat posed by the Italian control commissions, Vichy took a more determined and more consistent approach. Ministers instructed police to monitor the activities of the Italian officials, focusing in particular on any interactions with local residents. As Simon Kitson has observed, Vichy saw the prevention of unauthorised contacts with the German armistice officials as being critical to its efforts to control collaboration.74 With the Italians, however, the calculations were different. The cultural proximity and multiple interactions between French and Italian citizens created a much greater scope for the control commissions to undermine French authority. The large number of Italian citizens resident in France meant that by August 1940, there were daily queues of hundreds waiting to meet the Italian officials.75 In Nice, the offer of free meals ensured a steady flow of between 150 and 200 visitors every day.76 It, therefore, soon became clear that the French authorities 70 71 72 73 74 75 76

ADS 1382W36, ‘Le cas de la Province de Savoie – Louis Dimier’, 11 October 1941. ADS 1382W36, Regionalist propaganda committee, minutes, 14 March 1941. ADS 1382W15, Monthly report, 4 May 1942; ADS 1382W172, Prefect of Savoie to Laval, 1 June 1942. ADS 1382W177, Intercepted letter, 28 July 1942. Kitson, Vichy et la chasse, p. 198. AN AJ41 2313, Report by Captain Perriaux, 1 August 1940. AN F1cIII 1137, Ribière to Peyrouton, 18 November 1940.

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needed to adopt a rigorous approach towards the activities of the Italian control commissions. A series of attacks against Italian officials in North Africa in early 1941 gave French police the excuse they needed for introducing a raft of tighter surveillance measures.77 The new approach was backed by Darlan who ordered the monitoring of all those who visited the Italian officials, as well as the verification of identity papers and car registrations.78 The measures deliberately went far beyond their purported aim of providing greater security. Indeed, despite calling for increased protection, Italian officials soon complained about the invasive nature of police activity, as surveillance officers installed themselves outside their hotel rooms and followed them wherever they went.79 The close monitoring and often intrusive actions of French police became a kind of power play between the French and Italian authorities. As Italian officials demanded protection from the mounting attacks, French police responded with increasingly provocative tactics, antagonising officials and treating them, rather than their assailants, as the criminals.80 Police efforts to restrict the activities of the Italian control commissions were aided by French counterespionage services. Having initially maintained that France’s intelligence agencies should not undertake any action against the Axis, from August 1940 ministers agreed to support the activities of counterespionage agents.81 Thereafter, French counterespionage worked to combat the threats from both the Allies and the Axis on the grounds that all espionage was a breach of sovereignty and a threat to national security.82 They were particularly active in North Africa, where the head of the ‘Travaux Ruraux’ counterespionage network, Paul Paillole, claimed that no Italian action escaped French attention.83 Indeed, it later emerged that an attack on the head of the Italian control commission in Algeria was not all it had first appeared to be. In early January 1941, a group of armed French citizens subjected General Boselli to a savage beating, triggering outrage from Italian officials who claimed that the assailants 77 78

79

80 81 82 83

AN AJ41 2313, Huntziger to general commander at Avignon, 24 February 1941. ADCS 6W23, General Germain to prefect at Marseille, 9 August 1941; AN AJ41 2313, ‘Note concernant les démarches des sujets français auprès des commissions d’armistice’, 16 September 1941; ADCS 6W21, Liaison detachment to Italian control commission at Ajaccio, 22 November 1941. AN AJ41 2313, Vacca Maggiolini to Duplat, 16 October 1941; AN AJ41 2313, Memorandum for Duplat from Vacca Maggiolini, 18 October 1941; AN AJ41 2295, Duplat to Vacca Maggiolini, 17 April 1942. AN AJ41 2313, Duplat to Vacca Maggiolini, 1 October 1941. Paul Paillole, Fighting the Nazis: French Military Intelligence and Counterintelligence 1935–1945, trans. Robert L. Miller (New York: Enigma Books, 2002), pp. 182–7. Kitson, Vichy et la chasse, pp. 69–104. Paillole, Fighting the Nazis, p. 178.

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had been whipped up by Vichy’s propaganda.84 The assault had, in fact, been organised by French counterespionage services. Acting under direct instruction from Weygand, it was orchestrated to pressure Axis officials into accepting a more intrusive police presence.85 The strength of Vichy’s determination to restrict the activities of Axis armistice officials by means of counterespionage and surveillance was revealed in one of its most audacious decisions. In 1941, Darlan authorised the installation of microphones and telephone tapping devices in the offices of the Italian and German control commissions in North Africa.86 Conversations were regularly monitored and recorded before the devices were discovered many months later. Even through more conventional methods, French authorities were able to have some success in checking suspicious activities and detecting enemy agents.87 The correspondence of Axis officials was systematically intercepted by the Service du Contrôle Technique.88 In June 1941, police identified Angelo Guiganino, a retired Italian officer living in Cannes with his German wife, as being an Italian agent.89 In Corsica, a local taxi driver and a tailor were uncovered as informants working for the Italians.90 Suspicions about the espionage activities of many former Italian consuls turned out to be justified as well.91 Others suspected of being involved in information networks were threatened with legal sanctions such as the withdrawal of French citizenship in the case of Italians who had been naturalised.92 More challenging for the French authorities were the security threats that came from illicit contacts and relationships between local French women and Italian armistice officials.93 The numbers of cases increased steadily over the course of the war as Italian officials sought female company at local cafés, bars and restaurants.94 Police in Ajaccio discovered that Emmanuel Pontana, a liaison agent between the Italian armistice delegation 84 85

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94

AD 9GMII 189, Weygand to Huntziger, 14 January 1941; AN AJ41 2297, Vacca Maggiolini to Duplat, 25 January 1941. Paillole, Fighting the Nazis, p. 273; Charles Serre, Rapport fait au nom de la Commission chargée d’enquêter sur les événements survenus en France de 1933 à 1945, vol. 6 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1951), p. 1661. AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to Laval, 25 September 1942; Kitson, Vichy et la chasse, pp. 121–3. AN AJ41 2313, Prefect of Basses-Alpes to Peyrouton, 10 October 1940. Austin Roger, ‘Surveillance and Intelligence under the Vichy Regime: The Service du Contrôle Technique, 1939–45’, Intelligence and National Security, 1:1 (1986), 125–7. ADAM 28W81, Special police commissioner Guisset to divisional commissioner at Cannes, 20 June 1941. ADCS 6W21, Chief inspector of police to divisional commissioner, 4 October 1941. AN AJ41 2335, General de Vaucelles to Huntziger, 12 February 1941. AN AJ41 2313, General Olry to commander of 7th region, 28 October 1940. AN AJ41 2314, Balley to Peyrouton, 1 September 1940. ADCS 6W21, Chief inspector to divisional commissioner, 4 October 1941.

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and pro-Italian Corsicans, had set up a prostitution ring which provided local women for Italian officials.95 In Modane, Captain Mario Negri not only began a relationship with a French woman but over several months, engaged in what police described as ‘debauched’ and ‘louche’ activities, hosting extravagant banquets to which local women were invited.96 In Annecy, police learned that a local French woman was involved in a relationship with Emilio Pezzoni, whom they knew to be engaged in gathering intelligence for the local Italian control commission.97 More often, however, the nature of the contacts and the relationships was more complex. In Haute-Savoie, police found that the former Italian consul who had returned to the department as an assistance and repatriation delegate had resumed his pre-war relationship with a local French woman.98 Police were unable to prove that the woman was directly involved in espionage or enemy activity. Such relationships were condemned by local communities and the police, but a long history of cultural entanglements, especially in the border regions, complicated the French authorities’ efforts to constrain the activities of the Italian control commissions.

Multi-layered Responses Faced with such challenges, the French colonial authorities in Africa and the Levant carved out a particular role for themselves as defiant opponents not just of Axis intervention but of Vichy’s attempts to impose it. In so doing, their actions underscored Vichy’s double bind, becoming an additional complicating dimension to the broader relations between Vichy, Rome and Berlin. French colonial authorities sought to exploit the divisions between Berlin and Rome. However, at times, the imperatives of Vichy’s pursuit of collaboration with the Germans clashed with the need to combat the threat posed by the Italians. As delegate-general for French North Africa, Weygand made clear his determination to preserve the French empire from any outside intervention, telling ministers that he would apply the terms of the armistice but go no further.99 Esteva followed 95 96

97 98 99

ADCS 6W22, Chief inspector to chief commissioner, Ajaccio, 24 August 1942. ADS 1382W40, Special police commissioner to Sarraz-Bournet, 20 February 1941; ADS 1382W40, Report on Chambéry for 16–26 March 1941, 22 March 1941; AN AJ41 2150, Duplat to Huntziger, 17 April 1941. ADHS 15W4, Police commissioner to prefect of Haute-Savoie, 3 November 1941. ADHS 15W4, Police commissioner to prefect of Haute-Savoie, 3 April 1942. Chargé in France Matthews to Secretary of State, 8 November 1940, FRUS 1940 General and Europe, vol. II, p. 614.

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suit, becoming an increasingly determined opponent of Axis intervention in Tunisia. Speaking to the American consul general in Algiers in June 1942, he went so far as to brand the German and Italian armistice officials ‘vermin’.100 With communications between Vichy and Tunis often slow and sporadic, Esteva exploited the opportunities afforded by his relative isolation to pursue an agenda independent of government policy. The resident-general’s modus operandi was one of calculated delays in responding to correspondence, wilful contempt towards government instructions and a ‘narrow particularism’ which meant that he often dealt with the Italian authorities directly without informing Vichy.101 In French Somaliland, military governor General Legentilhomme’s refusal to comply with the Italians caused friction with Vichy as well. Article 3 of the armistice stipulated that the French colony would be demilitarised, with Italian forces being granted the right to use the port of Djibouti as well as the Djibouti to Addis-Ababa railway line. Having repudiated the armistice, however, Legentilhomme blocked the entry of Italian forces into an area which for several years had been threatened by Fascist claims and from the neighbouring presence of Italian East Africa. Backed by the British, his refusal to comply with Italian military delegate General Emanuele Beraudo di Pralormo caused the head of the Italian Armistice Commission to threaten the seizure of French military equipment.102 In response, Vichy dispatched General Maxime Germain initially to persuade Legentilhomme to cooperate, then on 25 July 1940, to replace him. The defiance of other colonial officials was not so easy to dismiss, however. The conflict between the priorities of the Vichy government and those of the French colonial authorities was particularly acute in the Levant. The French colonial authorities faced direct threats from the Italians on the one hand and from the British, Free French, Germans and anti-colonial groups on the other hand.103 Such was the precarious nature of the French position that high commissioner General Dentz bowed to pressure from 100

101 102 103

Consul General at Algiers Cole to Secretary of State, 22 June 1942, FRUS 1942 Europe, p. 322. On Esteva’s growing hostility towards the Axis, see Chargé at Tangier Childs to Secretary of State, 14 June 1941, FRUS 1941 Europe, p. 380. AD 9GMII 275, Gross to Huntziger, no date; AD 9GMII 275, Armistice services directorate to Rochat, 8 January 1942. Thomas, French Empire at War, p. 53; Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, p. 152. AD Papiers Baudouin 9, Pintor to Duplat, 11 September 1940; AD Papiers Baudouin 9, Telegram from Puaux, 14 September 1940; AN AJ41 2297, Badoglio to Huntziger, 22 September 1940; AN AJ41 2297, Baudouin to Huntziger, 11 October 1940; AN AJ41 66, Italian Armistice Commission foreign affairs sub-commission to Duplat, 23 July 1941; Antoine Hokayem, ‘La France et le Levant de 1940 à 1943: L’indépendance du Liban et de la Syrie’, Cahiers de la Méditerranée, 48 (1994), 84.

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moderate Maronite and Arab leaders, agreeing to create consultative assemblies in Beirut and Damascus and affirming that the French government would honour its promises on Syrian independence.104 However, the efforts of the French colonial authorities were confounded by Vichy’s quest for collaboration with Berlin. During the Protocols of Paris negotiations in May 1941, Darlan conceded the use of Syrian airfields to German forces fighting in Iraq. Although the Germans left soon after the Iraqi revolt had been quelled, Darlan’s decision led Churchill to order an attack on Syria. Vichy’s dogged pursuit of collaboration with Germany, despite the concerns of the colonial authorities, resulted in the Levant being lost to British and Free French control in July 1941. The arrival of German armistice officials in North Africa aggravated the divisions between Vichy and the French colonial authorities still further. Welcoming the German presence in the name of collaboration, Vichy kept officials in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia as well as the head of the French delegation to the German Armistice Commission in the dark. Indeed, when he wrote to General von Stülpnagel on 15 January 1941, General Doyen expressed his ‘profound surprise’ at the development.105 Weygand was angered by the move, becoming an increasingly vocal critic of the Axis presence in French North Africa.106 In late October 1941, having sought to block Darlan’s concessions to Berlin on the transportation of supplies to Axis forces in Libya, Weygand attacked Vichy’s willing acceptance of the growing numbers of Axis officials in North Africa. Writing directly to Darlan, he pointedly reminded the government of how the Germans and Italians were using the control commissions as a cover for espionage, propaganda and increasing interventions in French colonial affairs.107 Despite these objections, however, it should be noted that neither the French colonial authorities’ opposition to Axis intervention nor their tensions with Vichy signalled any secret support for the British and Free French.108 The implementation of French legislation on Jews provided opportunities for exploiting the divisions between the Germans and the Italians but in so doing, it widened the tensions between Vichy and the colonial authorities in North Africa as well. On the surface, it appeared to prelude 104 105 106 107 108

Thomas, French Empire at War, p. 103; Hokayem, ‘La France’, p. 87. Doyen to von Stülpnagel, DFCAA, vol. III, pp. 475–6. AN AJ41 65, Weygand to Darlan, 15 May 1941. Weygand to Darlan, 25 October 1941, DDF 1941, pp. 914–6. Weygand, Recalled to Service, p. 293; Andrew Buchanan, American Grand Strategy in the Mediterranean during World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 20–9; Géo London, L’amiral Esteva et le général Dentz devant la Haute Cour de Justice. Les grands procès de la guerre 1939–1945 (Lyon: Roger Bonnefon, 1945), p. 81.

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the conflict between Vichy, Berlin and Rome over the persecution of Jews in the Italian zone of occupation between November 1942 and September 1943. However, the importance that Vichy and its colonial officials ascribed to retaining control over the French empire gave the application of antiSemitic measures a distinct character in French North Africa. Measures to restrict the rights of Jews, such as the Jewish statutes of 3 October 1940 and the abrogation of the Crémieux decree in Algeria, or attempts to ‘Aryanise’ the economy by seizing control of Jewish-owned economic assets, were an integral part of Vichy’s ideological project. Indeed, as Eric Jennings has argued, the regime sought to replicate its domestic policies in the French colonial empire.109 In the case of Algeria, the implementation of antiSemitic measures carried particular significance as it was deemed part of metropolitan France. However, because it was an object of rivalry between France and Italy, it was Tunisia that became the focus of contestation. Italian officials protested that the introduction of Vichy’s racial laws threatened to leave Jews with Italian citizenship worse off than they had been before the French defeat.110 The proportionately high levels of property ownership among Italian Jews in Tunisia meant that any seizure of Jewish assets had the potential to tip the economic balance of power decisively in the French favour, thereby threatening Italian claims over the protectorate.111 Ciano accused Vichy of using anti-Semitic legislation as a cover for its real aim of seeking to damage Italian authority and undermine Fascist colonial ambitions.112 A paradoxical situation, therefore, arose in which Italian officials in Tunisia sought to prevent the application of French anti-Semitic legislation in order to protect the interests of Italian Jews, despite such actions being in contravention of their own racial laws and in defiance of Berlin. In turn, keen to avoid any measure that might trigger Italian military intervention, and calculating that the Italians were the more immediate threat than the Jews, French colonial officials deviated from Vichy’s policy and delayed implementing the legislation.113 Despite Esteva seeking Berlin’s reassurance that it did not support the Italian actions, the Italians counter-manoeuvred by seeking intervention from the Germans against the French.114 However, when they finally responded to the Italian request on 16 September 1942, the German 109 110 111 112 113 114

Jennings, Vichy in the Tropics, p. 2. Rainero, La commission italienne, pp. 216–7. Peterson, ‘Jewish Question’, p. 237; Carpi, Between Mussolini and Hitler, p. 209. Carpi, Between Mussolini and Hitler, p. 219. Peterson, ‘Jewish Question’, p. 242. Ibid, p. 256.

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foreign ministry declined to interpose.115 On the face of it, Berlin’s refusal to take Rome’s side over that of Vichy might appear to have been a victory for the French. In reality, of course, it was not quite so straightforward. The secretary of state at the German foreign ministry, Ernst von Weizsäcker, saw through the French tactics and dismissed the matter as just another attempt to play the Axis partners off against one another. The reason for German non-intervention was rather to be found in Abetz’s criticisms of Italian actions. Arguing that being seen as the ‘protectors’ of the Jews against French persecution was inconsistent with Axis policy and with Italy’s own racial laws, Abetz pointed out that such actions risked damaging Rome’s wider relations with the Arab world as well.116 The shame and dishonour caused by the Italian presence in the French colonies led officials to seek all means of opposing Italian intervention. North Africa and the Levant experienced the humiliation of Italian claims of victory more directly than metropolitan France.117 Indeed, in September 1940 the American consul general at Beirut observed the ‘growing indignation’ of French officials at the arrival of the Italians.118 His counterpart in Algiers concurred, reporting that ‘the daily irritation of close contact with Italian representatives brings home to the French in Tunisia a keener realisation of French humiliation’.119 In their own correspondence and in meetings with their counterparts in Berlin, Italian officials reluctantly conceded that the Germans’ military success in 1940 had given them greater power and authority over the French.120 As a result, the French authorities in North Africa more readily acceded to the presence of German control commissions than Italian ones.121 Most gallingly, Italian officials discovered that French colonial authorities accepted collaboration with the Germans in the belief that it would be at the expense of the Italians.122 The low regard that French colonial officials had for the Italians was clearly manifested by the very different ways in which they treated Axis 115 116 117 118 119 120

121 122

Carpi, Between Mussolini and Hitler, p. 227. Michel Abitbol, Les juifs d’Afrique du Nord sous Vichy (Paris: G. P. Maisonneuve et Larose, 1983), p. 83. Esteva to Baudouin, 27 October 1940, DDF 1940, vol. II, pp. 752–3. Consul General at Beirut Palmer to Secretary of State, 20 September 1940, FRUS 1940 British Commonwealth, Soviet Union, Near East and Africa, p. 910. Consul General at Algiers Cole to Secretary of State, 22 June 1942, FRUS 1942 Europe, p. 322. Guzzoni to Mussolini, 14 December 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 6, p. 280; Marras to War Ministry, 15 January 1941, DDI, IX, vol. 6, p. 469; ‘Situation politique en Tunisie’, 21 May 1941, reproduced in Rainero, La commission italienne, p. 448. Lo Jucco to Ciano, 4 December 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 6, p. 229; Guzzoni to Mussolini, 14 December 1940, DDI, IX, vol. 6, p. 280. ‘Situation politique en Tunisie’, 21 May 1941, reproduced in Rainero, La commission italienne, p. 448.

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officials. While the French authorities fulfilled Italian demands that were within the armistice terms, they often did so with disdain. When an Italian aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing in Tunisia in 1941, the French authorities placed the airmen in unsanitary accommodation without even the most basic comforts. The bed linen had already been used by Tunisian troops and the airmen were made to eat soup with their hands. When they returned to their aircraft, the airmen discovered that the silk had been surreptitiously removed from their parachutes.123 Such actions might have been relatively minor, but they were part of a wider pattern of activity that targeted the Italians with greater fervour than the Germans. Indeed, when German aircraft were forced to make emergency landings in French North Africa, the airmen were released within two or three days. Italians, by contrast, had to wait two to three weeks. The French authorities gave German officials superior accommodation to the Italians as well.124 While counterespionage services sought equally to combat the threat from Italian and German activities, the French authorities’ response to Italian espionage was markedly tougher than it was to German espionage.125 Once again, however, there were tensions in the priorities of different layers of French administration. The example of Luigi Glesaz, who was arrested in Clermont-Ferrand and sentenced to death for spying for Italy in September 1940, was a case in point. Despite being born in Paris and having a French passport, because his parents were Italian, Glesaz was classed as an Italian citizen under Italian law. The head of the Italian Armistice Commission, General Pintor, therefore, demanded his release under the terms of Article 21 of the armistice.126 Maintaining that Glesaz was a French citizen under French law, however, Vichy refused.127 By contrast, in an earlier case involving a convicted spy deemed to be a French citizen under French law and a German citizen under German law, Vichy had yielded to Berlin’s demands for his release.128 The precedent contradicted French claims to be merely defending judicial sovereignty, implying political choices in how the citizens of the two Axis states were treated. Duplat, therefore, proposed a pragmatic response whereby Glesaz would be released, arguing that it might also help break the impasse with 123 124 125 126 127 128

AN AJ41 2151, Vacca Maggiolini to Duplat, 11 November 1941; see also AN AJ41 2151, Duplat to Darlan, 6 March 1942. AN AJ41 2151, Duplat to Laval, 6 August 1942. On the French treatment of German spies, see Kitson, Vichy et la chasse, pp. 136–69; AN AJ41 2151, Vacca Maggiolini to Duplat, 15 May 1942; AN AJ41 2312, Duplat to Laval, 19 May 1942. AD 2GMII 288, Pintor to Duplat, 19 September 1940. AN AJ41 2330, Huntziger to Alibert, 23 December 1940. AN AJ41 2330, Huntziger to Laval, 10 December 1940.

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the Italians over the return of French prisoners.129 Vichy, however, maintained its opposition. Arguing that handing a French citizen to the Italian authorities would set a dangerous precedent, Huntziger proposed pardoning Glesaz instead.130 Laval was loath to yield to the Italians as well, insisting that any concession be used to pressure Rome on other matters.131 It was above all the Italian espionage cases in French North Africa that exposed disparities in the French treatment of Axis spies. In May 1942, a military tribunal in Casablanca sentenced to death two spies who had been convicted of working for Italian intelligence.132 A barber by profession in Khouribga, Immormino was accused of passing French military secrets to the Italian authorities with the aid of his accomplice Biddisi and two other Moroccan men.133 The case gained notoriety for the antiItalian insults traded in court and for Vacca Maggiolini’s allegations of a Dreyfus-style stitch-up by French police after Italian intelligence denied any knowledge of the men involved.134 However, its real significance lay in the French application of the death sentence. Whereas Vichy unilaterally decided not to execute German spies on 16 January 1942, it only agreed to extend the same treatment to Italian spies under the threat of reprisals several months later.135 With Immormino, Biddisi and several others facing imminent execution, Rome issued a series of urgent messages warning that if the death sentences were carried out, Vichy would face ‘very serious consequences’.136 The espionage cases highlighted the reasons for the tougher French response to the threats posed by the Italian control commissions. While the German authorities also sought to extend their activities beyond the armistice terms, the Italian authorities did so more brazenly. Basing his approach on the Italian argument that the armistice restricted French sovereignty across all domains other than those that were explicitly guaranteed, Vacca Maggiolini maintained that the Axis had unlimited rights to 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136

AN AJ41 2330, Duplat to Pintor, 27 October 1940; AN AJ41 2330, Duplat to Huntziger, 3 December 1940. AD 2GMII 288, Huntziger to Laval, 10 December 1940; AN AJ41 2330, Huntziger to Alibert, 23 December 1940. AD 2GMII 288, Laval to Huntziger, 12 December 1940. AN AJ41 2312, Duplat to Laval, 19 May 1942; AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to Laval, 23 May 1942; AN AJ41 2312, Duplat to Pétain, 22 June 1942. AN AJ41 2335, Duplat to Vacca Maggiolini, 7 July 1942. AN AJ41 2312, Duplat to Laval, 4 June 1942; AN AJ41 2151, Duplat to Laval, 27 June 1942. Kitson, Vichy et la chasse, p. 162. AD 2GMII 288, Telegram from Noguès, 13 May 1942; AN AJ41 2151, Vacca Maggiolini to Duplat, 15 May 1942; AD 2GMII 288, Sanguinetti to Laval, 27 May 1942; AN AJ41 2335, Gamaleri to Duplat, 18 June 1942.

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monitor the military activities of the French state, including by means of espionage.137 Duplat, by contrast, insisted that there were clear distinctions between the control commissions’ role in monitoring the implementation of the June 1940 terms and espionage.138 Any Italian activity conducted outside the control commissions would be treated as espionage and would be subject to French criminal law.139 The Italian attempt to conflate control with espionage highlighted how Italy’s weakening military and political status did not diminish the threat it posed to French authority but rather served to increase it.

Conclusion The areas that fell under the jurisdiction of the Italian armistice prior to the full occupation of France and the arrival of Allied forces in North Africa may not have suffered the same hardships and repression as those that fell under Nazi control in northern France. Nor did they encounter the de facto annexation endured in the Italian zone of occupation. Nevertheless, that did not mean that the Italian presence was benign. If Italy did not wield the same military or political power as Germany, it nonetheless had the means and the motive to challenge French authority. Still harbouring desires over French territory and dissatisfied with the armistice terms, the Italian government sought to stake its claims in advance of any final peace deal. By extending their activities beyond the armistice terms, making unauthorised contacts with local populations, engaging in espionage and propaganda and stirring up pre-existing tensions between communities, Italian officials challenged not just Vichy but the very legitimacy of French rule in the territories concerned. The arrival of Italian control commissions brought home the humiliation of 1940, imposing as victors an enemy by whom the people of southeastern France, Corsica, French North Africa and the Levant had not been defeated. Local French officials, therefore, responded with defiant opposition. Meanwhile, the strategic significance of the Mediterranean and the subsequent arrival of German control commissions in North Africa provided Vichy with opportunities to exploit the divergent policies emanating from Berlin and Rome. However, improving relations with Berlin did not necessarily yield the desired results. For all the German 137 138 139

AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to Laval, 12 May 1942; AN AJ41 2335, Vacca Maggiolini to Duplat, 3 July 1942. AN AJ41 2335, Duplat to Vacca Maggiolini, 24 July 1942. Ibid.

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Armistice Commission’s professions of sympathy and willingness to assist over minor issues, Berlin refused to back the French against the Italians on more significant matters. Moreover, the policy interests of Vichy were not always shared by the local French authorities. There thus arose a further complicating layer to Vichy’s dealings with the Axis. French officials’ efforts to counter the threats from the Italian control commissions should not, however, be conflated with notions of ‘resistance’. Defiance and non-compliance in some areas of policy coexisted with acceptance and compliance in others. Moreover, despite Italian suspicions, attempts to diminish Axis power in the French colonies did not imply consenting to a subsequent rise in British and Free French power. Nor did it suggest that French officials were engaged in any kind of ‘double game’. As early as 1940, rumours had begun to circulate that Pétain and de Gaulle were secretly working together, the former as the ‘shield’ defending France from the Nazis and the latter as the ‘sword’ who would lead its liberation. After the war, the claims gained traction, especially among those seeking to justify their support for collaboration.140 Strikingly, however, the myth did not refer to French dealings with the Italians. With no sustained collaboration with Rome, a more even balance of power than was the case with Berlin and no support for the Fascist regime’s ideological goals in the war, there was no inherent contradiction between Vichy’s claims to be protecting the people and territory of France from Italian threats and its policies more broadly. Indeed, in their efforts to oppose Italian challenges and interventions, at times, Vichy and the local French and colonial authorities acted with a boldness that seems to contradict the prevailing image of submission in the cause of collaboration. Nevertheless, in the end, their actions had little tangible impact and did not amount to any kind of ‘shield’ for the French people. Ultimately, the crux of the matter remained the same: theirs was a defence of the state and its authority at a local level in France and its colonies. It was not a defence of the interests and well-being of the French people or the people of the French empire. 140

See Henry Rousso, Le syndrome de Vichy: de 1944 à nos jours (Paris: Seuil, 1990), pp. 48–66; Paxton, Vichy France, pp. 357–74; Robert Aron, Histoire de Vichy (Paris: A. Fayard, 1954), pp. 185, 201–25, 347–8.

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chapter 7

Annexation by Stealth

Italian Occupation from June 1940 to November 1942

In the vast array of scholarship on France in the Second World War, the Italian occupation between June 1940 and November 1942 rarely receives more than a passing mention.1 In part, it is simply because of the relatively small size of the Italian zone of occupation. Yet it is also because those experiences do not fit the established narratives of the French collapse under German invasion, the arrival of occupying forces and the early stirrings of resistance. It has fallen instead to the more specialised research of historians such as Jean-Louis Panicacci and Emanuele Sica to analyse the significance and character of the Italian occupation during this period.2 However, while their work situates this zone in the context of the wider Italian occupation that occurred between November 1942 and September 1943, this chapter argues that for Vichy, the situation facing Menton and the mountainous areas around Haute-Tarantaise and Haute-Maurienne could not be treated in isolation from the German occupation. Mussolini’s government saw the occupation of French territory at once as part of its ambitions to develop spazio vitale for the Italian ‘race’ and as a matter of Fascist prestige.3 As a consequence, it treated its zone not so much as an occupation as an annexation. Within days of the armistice, Mussolini went to survey the spoils of Axis victory, visiting Haute-Tarantaise on 28 June 1940 and Menton on 1 July.4 For the Fascist leader, it was an important symbolic victory for the young Italian nation over its older neighbour. 1

2

3 4

Examples include Azéma and Bédarida, La France; Burrin, Living with Defeat; Jackson, Dark Years; H. R. Kedward, Occupied France: Collaboration and Resistance 1940–1944 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985); Richard Vinen, The Unfree French: Life Under the Occupation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006). See Panicacci, L’occupation italienne; Jean-Louis Panicacci, Les Alpes-Maritimes 1939–45: un département dans la tourmente (Nice: Editions Serre, 1989); Pascal Molinari and Jean-Louis Panicacci, Menton dans la tourmente 1939–1945 (Menton: Société d’art et d’histoire du Mentonnais, 1984); Sica, Mussolini’s Army. It is also covered in Schipsi, L’Occupazione Italiana. Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire, pp. 45–52. Panicacci, L’occupation italienne, p. 32.

141

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The occupation may have been small, but it enabled the regime to take a step closer to realising its ambitions over French territory in Savoie and the county of Nice. It, therefore, sought to transform the popular coastal town of Menton into a showcase for Fascist rule and incorporation into Italy.5 Rome’s efforts to bring about the de facto annexation of the Italian zone of occupation paralleled German action in Alsace-Lorraine and became part of Vichy’s double bind. For the French government, territorial integrity had been a critical factor in its decision to agree to the terms of the June 1940 armistices. Defending the interests of France and the French people was also at the heart of the regime’s narrative of legitimacy. It, therefore, could not simply consent to Italian or German manoeuvres without publicly losing face. In its dealings with the Italian and German control commissions in the unoccupied zone and the colonial empire, Vichy showed itself willing to defend French sovereignty against Axis encroachments. With more restricted powers in the areas under occupation, however, Vichy’s ability to act was more limited. Nevertheless, it was the government’s political choices that ultimately determined its response. Vichy’s decision to prioritise collaboration with Berlin over objecting to the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine restricted its ability to oppose similar developments in the Italian zone of occupation. In turn, Vichy found itself subjected to greater humiliation in failing to prevent de facto territorial annexation by an Italian army whose claims of victory it rejected.

Italianisation The small size of the Italian zone of occupation between June 1940 and November 1942 was a consequence both of the fighting and of the political manoeuvres of Hitler and Mussolini. When the battle of the Alps ended on 24 June, the Italian army had only managed to advance four kilometres into French territory, capturing Menton but running into greater difficulties in the mountains. Despite outnumbering their opponents three to one, the invading Italian army had a more difficult task than the French defensive forces. Moreover, unlike in areas further north that were facing the overwhelming onslaught of the German army, French soldiers’ morale remained strong. Losses were consequently much higher on the Italian side than on the French, the latter losing thirty-seven men, and the former suffering 631 dead and 616 missing.6 Under pressure from Hitler, who 5 6

Sica, Mussolini’s Army, p. 56. Ibid, pp. 22–4.

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sought to avoid imposing measures that might push the French government into resuming combat, Mussolini was compelled to scale down his demands before entering armistice negotiations. Under Article 2 of the Villa Incisa armistice, Italian forces were permitted to remain in the territory they had captured at the time the agreement came into force. Much of this comprised sparsely populated high Alpine villages. In Savoie, the occupation zone covered nine communes and one hamlet; in the Hautes-Alpes, two communes and one hamlet; in the Basses-Alpes two hamlets; and in the Alpes-Maritimes two communes and one hamlet, spanning a total surface area of 841 square kilometres. Of the 28,523 people placed under Italian occupation, 5,301 were in Savoie, 320 in the Hautes-Alpes, just 32 in the Basses-Alpes, with the remaining 22,820 in the Alpes-Maritimes, mainly concentrated in Menton.7 By contrast, the German zone of occupation spanned 304,368 square kilometres inhabited by 29 million people.8 The Italian occupying forces quickly sought to establish their positions so that they could not be dislodged.9 However, the fragmented nature of the Italian advance during the battle of the Alps meant that some soldiers were left isolated in small pockets of mountainous French territory, unable to make contact with their commanders during the winter months. As a consequence, the Italian government had to request that in addition to the green line, which demarcated the post-armistice border between France and Italy, there should be a red line in which forces were permitted to transport supplies to more remote units. Following further negotiations, the Menton accords established a demilitarised zone fifty kilometres deep in which the Italian armistice authorities were entitled to enter without restriction and even to remain on a permanent basis.10 The territory was administered by the armistice services in Turin; however, because of the political significance the Italian government ascribed to its zone of occupation, all major decisions had to be referred directly to Rome.11 In the more isolated areas, the Italian occupying forces sometimes had little choice but to find a modus vivendi with the French authorities and local communities. Having initially treated local residents with contempt, 7

AD 9GMII 203, Report, no date; ADS 1382W39, Report for Duplat, 23 July 1940. Duroselle, L’Abîme, p. 264. 9 AN AJ41 2153, ‘La délégation française à la Commission Italienne d’Armistice, 28 juin 1940–31 décembre 1942’. 10 AN AJ41 2302, ‘Relations avec les autorités d’occupation’, 4 October 1941; AN AJ41 432, ‘Procèsverbal de la conférence du 28 août 1942 relative à diverses questions intéressant les relations francoitaliennes d’Armistice’. 11 Sarraz-Bournet, Témoignage, p. 104. 8

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imposing a harsh regime at the start of the occupation, by winter the occupying forces in the mountain areas of Tignes and Val d’Isère found themselves cut off and wholly dependent upon the French for supplies and communications.12 As the occupation wore on and morale sank, Italian soldiers also began to adopt a more conciliatory approach towards the local population.13 The cultural, linguistic and sometimes personal affinities that the Italian forces held with France meant that soldiers readily fraternised with local communities. Many were from the Val d’Aosta and the frontier regions, while Piedmontese soldiers spoke a similar patois to Savoyard residents and those from Dauphiné.14 By June 1941, the Italian authorities had become so concerned about fraternisation that they produced propaganda to remind their soldiers that the French people remained their enemy.15 In contrast with the situation in the more remote villages, however, around Menton tensions remained high.16 The Italian authorities’ treatment of their zone of occupation in France followed a similar pattern of forced Italianisation witnessed in other territories under Fascist control, including Albania, the Balkans and parts of Africa.17 Likened by some historians to colonisation, the process involved eradicating national identity, expelling non-native born citizens and fascistising the local population.18 Indeed, as Davide Rodogno observes, the Italian government treated its occupation zone in France in the same manner as its annexed territory in the Balkans, seeing both as part of a wider ideological vision for spazio vitale.19 The scale of Rome’s ambitions in France were revealed in Mussolini’s ‘Proclamation Concerning Administrative and Judicial Organisation in the Occupied Territories’ of 30 July 1940. The conditions of Italian occupation had already been laid out in a royal decree of 8 July 1938 which upheld some elements of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 but abandoned many others.20 Under the terms of Mussolini’s 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

ADS 1382W39, Report by Sarraz-Bournet for Duplat, 23 July 1940; Panicacci, L’occupation italienne, p. 31. ADAM 166W96, Special police commissioner to Ribière, 18 December 1940; ADS 1382W39, Special police divisional commissioner to prefect of Savoie, 18 July 1941. ADS 1382W39, Report by Sarraz-Bournet for Duplat, 23 July 1940. AN AJ41 2307, Special police commissioner to prefect of Savoie, 12 June 1941; ADS 1382W39, Special police commissioner to prefect of Savoie, 13 June 1941. AN AJ41 2302, ‘Relations avec les autorités d’occupation’, 4 October 1941; AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to Laval, 21 October 1942. Elysa McConnell, ‘International Disputes in the Italian-Yugoslavian Borderlands’, Les Cahiers Sirice, 22:1 (2019), 119. Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire, p. 261; Sica, Mussolini’s Army, pp. 55, 61, 69, 77. Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire, p. 273. AN AJ41 439, ‘Aide-mémoire sur les droits de la Puissance Occupante’, 14 June 1943.

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proclamation of 30 July 1940, in contravention of Article 43 of the Hague Convention of 1907 which stated that the occupier must respect the sovereign rights of the territory it occupied, Rome unilaterally suspended French sovereignty in its zone of occupation. The proclamation stated that Italy had sole authority over the occupied population, seizing control over civil, financial and judicial affairs and replacing French law with Italian law.21 Article 1 declared that civil powers were to be exercised by commissions operating under the direct orders of the Italian supreme command.22 Article 6, meanwhile, stated that local French officials could only retain their positions if they returned before 10 August 1940. They were not permitted to have any contact with French authorities outside the occupied zone and were stripped of all financial powers.23 Articles 21 to 34 detailed the Italian administration of civil and penal justice. The 30 July proclamation also set the framework for the Italian authorities to seize control over the infrastructure of their occupation zone and to begin the process of integrating it into Italy. As a sign of its long-term intentions, the Italian government voluntarily paid the bill for repairing the damage caused to the electricity and water supply networks during the battle of the Alps.24 Indeed, engineers employed by Menton municipal council found that the repair work had already been completed by the time they returned.25 The council’s chief engineer discovered that the Italian authorities had also started to replace signs around the town with their Italian equivalents.26 Such gestures might have seemed cosmetic or little more than propaganda gestures, but they were a sign of things to come. The occupiers changed road signs so that they gave distances to Rome and altered street names to make them sound more Italian. As a foretaste of a future under Italy, Menton railway station replaced Ventimiglia as an international interchange with France.27 The Italian postal service also began to treat the occupied zone as part of Italy. By March 1942, letters from residents in Fontan to other parts of France had to be sent at the 21

22 23 24 25 26 27

‘Proclamation Concernant l’Organisation Administrative et Judicaire dans les Territoires Occupés’, 30 July 1940, reproduced in Rainero, La commission italienne, pp. 407–15; ADS 1382W39, Report for Duplat, 23 July 1940; AN AJ41 2302, Duplat to Huntziger, 28 September 1940; AN AJ41 2304, Huntziger to Duplat, 7 January 1941. ADS 1382W39, Report for Duplat, 23 July 1940. AN AJ41 431, Note for Duplat, 11 August 1940; AN AJ41 431, Baudouin to Weygand, 16 August 1940. AN AJ41 2302, ‘Note sur les revendications italiennes’, 30 September 1940. Niall MacGalloway, ‘Building Italian Menton, 1940–1943: Urban Planning and Italianization’, Urban History, 45:3 (2018), 492–3. Molinari and Panicacci, Menton, p. 46. AN AJ41 2302, ‘Note sur les revendications italiennes’, 30 September 1940.

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international postage rate via Ventimiglia, with senders being obliged to write their return address as: ‘Fontan, occupied by the Italians’.28 Failure to comply was punishable with a sentence of up to one month in prison or a fine of 5,000 lire.29 Picture postcards also left visitors in little doubt about the future, encouraging tourists to visit ‘Italian Menton’.30 The Italian authorities took control over education as well. The academic calendar and curriculum were aligned with those in Italy. All pupils were obliged to take between two and three hours of Italian language lessons per week, as well as new classes on Italian history.31 There were no concessions to those whose cultural upbringing had been entirely French. In the hamlet of Bourget, pupils who spoke no Italian were taught by teachers who spoke no French.32 The small number of French teachers who remained in their posts had to agree to have no contact with the French education authorities in the unoccupied zone and were forbidden from playing or singing the Marseillaise.33 The occupation authorities also imposed Italian as the official language in courts and for government business and introduced the lira as currency. From the autumn of 1940, they began to take over some of the most fundamental administrative functions of the state as well. Beginning by distributing identity cards to Italian citizens with their place of birth and residence given in Italian, they extended the practice to French citizens, even Italianising their names.34 From April 1942, the occupation authorities established bureaux to register births, marriages and deaths, so that the most important milestones in residents’ lives involved contact with the Italian rather than French state.35 With Mussolini’s proclamation of 30 July 1940 having declared that sovereignty lay exclusively in Italian hands, the occupying authorities sought to bar French functionaries from resuming their positions. Any employee who had not returned to work within ten days of the proclamation was 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

35

ADAM 618W161, Chief commissioner of Renseignements Généraux to regional prefecture, 2 April 1942; AN F1cIII 1137, Monthly report, 5 May 1942. ADAM 618W161, ‘Nouvelles mesures prises par les autorités occupantes à Fontan en ce qui concerne la correspondance postale’, 18 March 1942. Molinari and Panicacci, Menton, p. 57. AN AJ41 2313, Inspector general of administrative services to Peyrouton, 6 November 1940. AN F1cIII 1137, Monthly report, no date. AN AJ41 2230, ‘Situation de la zone occupée par les forces armées italiennes – Sarraz Bournet’, 23 July 1941. AN AJ41 2153, ‘La délégation française à la Commission Italienne d’Armistice, 28 juin 1940–31 décembre 1942’; ADS 1382W39, Report for Duplat, 23 July 1941; AN AJ41 2302, Duplat to Vacca Maggiolini, 5 August 1941. AN AJ41 432, Report by Theis for Duplat, 11 July 1942.

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threatened with immediate dismissal and replacement by Italian officials.36 Within a week, twenty-seven functionaries had returned to Menton including the mayor.37 In Maurienne, most were permitted to return, but in Tarentaise, French officials were systematically refused, despite having the correct documentation.38 Among those caught up in the dispute were sub-prefects, inspectors, council employees, teachers and engineers.39 Police officers were declined authorisation on the grounds that law and order was now under the purview of the carabinieri, while firefighters were also denied permission to return. Mayors and town hall staff who managed to resume their posts found that they could have no contact with their counterparts in the rest of France, being placed under Italian authority instead.40 Even medical staff found that they were no longer at liberty to attend to their patients. One doctor in Modane was informed that he needed to gain permission each time he entered the occupied zone.41 In order to persuade local populations of the benefits of being part of Italy, and with an eye to a wider propaganda audience in the region, the occupation authorities introduced a variety of attractive offers.42 Among the most enticing were free medical care and treats for children who declared their loyalty to Mussolini.43 Food supplies were plentiful as well, unlike in the rest of France.44 Yet it was not all a matter of gentle persuasion; the occupation authorities imported Fascist repression as well. Across the Italian zone of occupation, security forces were highly visible. In addition to the carabinieri and Fascist militiamen, two Pubblica Sicurezza bureaux were established, equating to one police or security officer for every six residents.45 As the occupation wore on, the Italian authorities tightened their grip, suppressing any manifestations of loyalty to France or the Vichy regime.46 French citizens were forbidden from meeting at night, singing the Marseillaise, wearing tricolour cockades, listening to French 36

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

‘Proclamation Concernant l’Organisation Administrative et Judicaire dans les Territoires Occupés’, 30 July 1940, reproduced in Rainero, La commission italienne, p. 408; AN AJ41 431, Baudouin to Weygand, 16 August 1940; AN F1cIII 1186, Prefect of Savoie to Marquet, 22 August 1940. Molinari and Panicacci, Menton, pp. 48–9. AN AJ41 432, ‘Note pour monsieur le délégué aux relations économiques franco-allemandes’, no date. AN AJ41 2230, Inspector general of administrative services to Peyrouton, 30 September 1940. AN AJ41 432, ‘Note pour monsieur le délégué aux relations économiques franco-allemandes’, no date. AN AJ41 2230, French delegation minutes, 17 September 1940. ADS 1382W39, Report for Duplat, 23 July 1940. AN AJ41 2302, ‘Note sur les revendications italiennes’, 30 September 1940; AN AJ41 432, ‘Rapport no. 15 sur l’activité des commissions italiennes de contrôle’, 7 October 1941. AN F1cIII 1137, Ribière to Peyrouton, 7 February 1941. Panicacci, L’occupation italienne, p. 54. AN AJ41 2302, ‘Relations avec les autorités d’occupation’, 4 October 1941.

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radio, distributing French newspapers and even displaying portraits of Pétain in public places.47 To transform their zone into an integral part of Italy, the occupation authorities sought to engineer a fundamental transformation in the population. In the chaos of June 1940, most of the residents of the areas bordering Italy were evacuated with only the barest of belongings. After the armistice, however, many found that the route to their return had been blocked. Seeking to make their zone an area inhabited by an Italian majority, the occupation authorities erected administrative hurdles to prevent and deter French citizens from returning. Declaring that it had sole authority to determine who could enter the occupied zone, in late August 1940 Rome announced that all French citizens would have to apply for permission to return.48 Many were refused. By late April 1941, only around 500 former French residents were back in their homes, around 5,000 having been declined permission in the first few months alone.49 Most French citizens were only granted authorisation to return for one or two weeks so that they might collect their belongings.50 As a consequence, by May 1941, 4,444 of the 6,725 residents of Menton were Italian citizens. Only 1,623 were French citizens who had been born in France, 539 were naturalised French citizens and the remaining 119 held a variety of nationalities.51 The shift was enormous; from having represented only around twenty-five per cent of Menton’s population in 1939, by mid-1941 Italian citizens comprised around sixty-six per cent of the total. In support of such measures, Rome extended the widest possible definition of Italian citizenship. On 6 April 1941, Mussolini issued a decree stating that in the Italian zone of occupation, nationality was to be based on the principle of jus sanguinis rather than the French jus soli. Under the new rules, all the children of Italian citizens, irrespective of where they were born, were henceforth to be considered Italian. The decree also reaffirmed that Italian law did not recognise naturalisations conducted in foreign territory and stated that French nationality legislation had been suspended in relation to Italian citizens following the armistice.52 Thus the authorities considered all those who had been born in their zone of occupation to 47 48 49 50 51 52

ADS 1382W39, Report for Duplat, 23 July 1940. ADAM 30W57, Marquet to prefects, 23 August 1940. AN AJ41 2302, Minutes of meeting, 16 December 1940; AN AJ41 2302, ‘Occupation de Menton par l’armée italienne – note de renseignement’, 26 July 1941. Molinari and Panicacci, Menton, pp. 48–9. Ibid. Sarraz-Bournet, Témoignage, p. 103.

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Italian parents and who had not made a declaration of French nationality to be Italian citizens. Where the father of a child born in the Italian zone of occupation was the son of a foreign citizen but considered to be French under French law, the Italian authorities decreed that the father’s nationality would be based upon that of his grandfather. If he was Italian, then his son would be deemed Italian unless he had made a declaration of French nationality. However, many residents of the occupied zone found themselves caught between the conflicting French and Italian definitions of citizenship, being classed as having French nationality under French law and Italian nationality under Italian law. Among those who found themselves in this position were French women who had married Italian men but had not requested to acquire their husband’s nationality. Those who had gained French nationality under the naturalisation law of 10 August 1927, including children born in France to Italian parents and children born in France to an Italian father and French mother, also found themselves subjected to conflicting rules.53 Against their will, the new rules had significant implications for the pre-war residents of Menton, the vast majority of whom were henceforth considered to be Italian citizens by the Italian authorities.54 Among those residents who did return to their homes in Menton, many did not remain for long, finding it virtually impossible to resume their pre-war lives.55 With many homes having been pillaged by the occupying forces, few jobs for French citizens, isolation from France and the prospect of having to rely upon Italian charity, the occupied zone was an unappealing place for French residents.56 The introduction of the lira had made the cost of living prohibitive as well.57 Vichy offered financial assistance to encourage those who had fled the occupied zone to return, but only a few dozen took up the offer.58 The government’s allocation of thirty francs for three months was meant to encourage community leaders to return to their homes so that they could defend French culture against the Italianisation measures, but the financial incentive was far from sufficient to offset the difficulties facing Menton residents.59 Even the prospect of 53 54 55 56

57 58 59

AN AJ41 2292, Peyrouton to Abrial, 14 December 1940. AN AJ41 2302, Liaison officer Curet to General Olry, 26 January 1942. AN AJ41 432, ‘L’occupation italienne’, no date. ADAM 30W57, ‘Rapport du Lieutenant Descours sur la situation d’ensemble dans les cantons de Saint-Sauveur et Saint-Etienne’, 2 July 1940; ADAM 616W96, Ribière to Peyrouton, 4 January 1941; AN AJ41 2302, ‘Occupation de Menton par l’armée italienne – note de renseignement’, 26 July 1941. ADAM 30W57, Marcel Rauch to mayor of Nice, 17 March 1941. AN F1cIII 1137, Monthly report, no date. ADAM 166W96, Ribière to Darlan, 6 September 1941. AN F1cIII 1137, Monthly report, no date.

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losing their possessions for good did not persuade Mentonnais to return. In February 1942, the occupation authorities declared that any property belonging to former residents now living in the free zone would be considered as having been abandoned and seized by the Italian state.60 Many families preferred to remain in France where, despite being housed in poor, unsanitary conditions, they could claim benefits as refugees and live in a less hostile environment.61 Italian measures to suppress expressions of French identity and to drive out the vestiges of the French administration served to conflate acts of resistance with support for Vichy. In some cases, actions by French citizens resembled those seen in the German occupation zones. For instance, residents displayed paper flowers in the French national colours along the routes used by Italian soldiers.62 Some also held secret French culture and history lessons at the Saint-Michel basilica in Menton, under the guise of church choir rehearsals.63 Upon viewing the Italian authorities’ actions against Vichy, many French residents came to believe that Pétain’s government was on their side against the occupiers. Italian officials proscribed any activities relating to the National Revolution, especially anything deemed to have a military dimension. Vichy’s Légion des Combattants was, therefore, banned, along with the Chantiers de la Jeunesse.64 The Italian authorities also decreed that anyone who joined the French armistice army would be arrested, despite voluntary engagement being permitted under Article 9 of the armistice.65 French acts of resistance against the Italian occupiers, therefore, often involved expressions of loyalty to Vichy. Many sought to show their loyalty to France in defiance of the Italians by displaying images of Pétain in their homes.66 The mayor of Seez refused to take down a portrait of the marshal, despite being threatened with arrest, while war veterans met secretly to distribute pictures of Pétain along with tricolore cockades. Some teachers permitted their pupils to commit minor acts of misbehaviour to manifest their loyalty to Vichy, graffitiing ‘long live Pétain, long live France’ on their desks, 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

ADAM 618W161, Head of Renseignements Généraux to regional prefecture, 19 February 1942; AN F1cIII 1137, Monthly report, no date. ADAM 30W57, Prefect of Var to Ribière, 19 November 1940; AN F1cIII 1137, Ribière to Peyrouton, 11 February 1941. ADS 1382W39, Report for Duplat, 23 July 1940. Panicacci, L’occupation italienne, p. 79. ADS 1382W39, Report for Duplat, 23 July 1940. AN AJ41 2230, ‘Rapport du chef d’escadron Blachère sur la propagande faite par les italiens en zone occupée’, 31 March 1941; AN AJ41 2230, Duplat to Vacca Maggiolini, 12 December 1941. ADS 1382W43, Divisional commissioner of special police to prefect of Savoie, 19 December 1940.

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while others destroyed Italian textbooks.67 To many French citizens cut off from the rest of France, Vichy seemed like the best defence against the Italian occupation.

The Response from Vichy Officials in Vichy were keenly aware of the growing menace posed by the Italian authorities in their zone of occupation. Countless reports from French armistice delegates in Turin and local officials warned that the occupation was nothing less than a ‘disguised annexation’.68 They readily understood that measures being implemented by the occupiers were designed to supplant French sovereignty so that when the final peace terms were signed, France would be powerless to reverse a fait accompli. Reporting to an inter-ministerial meeting on 18 December 1941, the head of the interior section of the French delegation to the Italian Armistice Commission, Marius Sarraz-Bournet, drew a sharp contrast between the German and Italian occupation zones. Whereas the German occupation zone was primarily conditioned by military needs, the Italian zone was shaped by political ambitions. And whereas the German occupiers sought to exercise control over the French authorities, the Italian occupiers sought to replace them. As befitted the ‘country of Machiavelli’, it was not a ‘frontal assault’, Sarraz-Bournet argued, but an ‘indirect method of nuances’.69 The Italian zone of occupation was thus unlike the much larger German zone of occupation during the same period. In some respects, it bore a resemblance to the regime imposed by the Germans in the Nord-Pas-deCalais. The strategic significance of the northern zone and its vulnerability to attack from the British led Berlin to declare it a ‘forbidden zone’, which would be ruled directly by the German military command in Brussels. Like in the Italian zone of occupation, residents of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais endured measures that sought to impose administrative, economic and 67 68

69

ADS 1382W39, Report for Duplat, 23 July 1940; ADS 1382W39, Divisional commissioner of special police to prefect of Savoie, 18 July 1941. See, for instance, AN AJ41 2230, ‘Situation de la zone occupée par les forces armées italiennes – Sarraz Bournet’, 23 July 1941; AN AJ41 2299, ‘Intentions de l’Italie’, 13 August 1940; AN AJ41 2302, ‘Conférence interministérielle du 18 décembre 1941, allocution de Sarraz-Bournet’; AN AJ41 2302, ‘Relations avec les autorités d’occupation’, 4 October 1941; AN AJ41 2306, ‘Note – recrutement en zone occupée par l’Italie’, 19 September 1941; AN AJ41 432, ‘Rapport no. 17 sur l’activité des commissions italiennes de contrôle’, 16 January 1942. See also Jean-Louis Panicacci, ‘L’Occupation italienne et ses ambigüités: l’exemple des Alpes-Maritimes, Recherches Régionales: Alpes-Maritimes et Contrées Limitrophes, 190 (2008), 65–82. AN AJ41 2302, ‘Conférence interministérielle du 18 décembre 1941, allocution de Sarraz-Bournet’.

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cultural isolation.70 Those who had been evacuated or who had fled the fighting in May and June 1940 also found that they could not easily return, having to gain permission from the German authorities. Essential workers, such as engineers and miners, were told they could not bring their families back home with them. Local officials and functionaries of the French state had to gain authorisation to resume their positions, being assessed for their likely compliance with the occupiers. The economy of the Nord-Pasde-Calais was turned over to German exploitation and the Propaganda Abteilung in Brussels controlled the press and radio. As was the case in the Italian-occupied zone, the administration of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais was cut off from the rest of France and from the Vichy government.71 A more pertinent comparison was, however, with Alsace-Lorraine. Despite the loss of Alsace-Lorraine having been one of the French government’s red lines in the armistice negotiations, in mid-July 1940 the Germans restored the 1871 border which had demarcated the annexed territory after the Franco-Prussian War.72 Thereafter, the zone was subjected to annexation in all but name. Measures that had been taken to reintegrate Alsace-Lorraine to France after 1918 were reversed.73 As Alsace was attached to the Gau of Baden and Lorraine attached to Saarland-Palatinate, the French legal system was replaced by that of Germany and German was reimposed as the official language.74 Residents’ names were Germanised, as were the names of towns and villages in the region. The education system reverted to that of Germany and only teachers from Germany were permitted to hold posts in schools. Statues of Joan of Arc were pulled down and symbols of French cultural identity were banned. Anyone found speaking French or wearing items associated with France, such as the beret, faced being sentenced to one year in a concentration camp.75 To ensure that Alsace-Lorraine was inhabited by a majority German population, the occupation authorities expelled around 270,000 people, including 100,000 70 71 72 73 74

75

Etienne Dejonghe, ‘Les départements du Nord et du Pas-de-Calais’, in Jean Pierre Azéma and François Bedarida, France des années noires (Paris: Seuil, 1993), pp. 524, 536. Etienne Dejonghe, ‘Le Nord et le Pas-de-Calais pendant la première année d’occupation (juin 1940–juin 1941)’, Revue du Nord, 51:3 (1969), 680–88. On the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine in 1871, see D. P. Silverman, Reluctant Union: AlsaceLorraine and Imperial Germany 1871–1918 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1972). On the reintegration of Alsace into France after the First World War, see Alison Carrol, The Return of Alsace to France, 1918–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). On the experiences of German rule, see Bernard Le Marec et Gérard Le Marec, L’Alsace dans la guerre, 1939–1945 (Le Coteau: Horvath, 1988); Pierre Rigoulot, L’Alsace-Lorraine pendant la guerre 1939–1945 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998). Elizabeth Vlossak, Marianne or Germania?: Nationalizing Women in Alsace, 1870–1946 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 255.

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from Lorraine and 22,000 Jews. In place of Vichy’s National Revolution, the German authorities introduced Nazification measures along with propaganda organisations such as the Hitler Youth.76 Of particular concern to French officials was that the Italian authorities’ new definition of citizenship threatened to create parallel difficulties on military service to those encountered in Alsace-Lorraine. Doubts about the reliability of the people of Alsace-Lorraine had led the German army to be initially reluctant to impose conscription. However, by mid-1941 the Gauleiter of the two regions had introduced compulsory labour with military training. Following further measures of assimilation in early 1942, the German authorities imposed military service. In contravention of Article 45 of the Hague Convention, around 160,000 men from Alsace-Lorraine were forced to serve in the German armed forces, becoming known as the ‘malgré nous’.77 While French authorities sought to protect Italian citizens living in the Italian-occupied zone from being conscripted, they were constrained to accept Italy’s right to mobilise its own citizens.78 Vichy did not, however, accept that Italy had any right to draft men with French citizenship into its army. The problem was that Mussolini’s decree of 6 April 1941 had created conflicting definitions of citizenship. Men considered French under French law, but Italian under Italian law, therefore, faced the prospect of having to serve in the Italian army against their will.79 One of the ways that Vichy sought to challenge Italian attempts to mobilise men with French and Italian citizenship was to seek to recruit them into the armistice army. The strategy echoed Vichy’s practices in the German-occupied and free zones. The French government appointed refugees from Alsace-Lorraine to administrative posts in order to protect them from being summoned to compulsory labour or military service by the German authorities.80 French officials could not recruit soldiers from 76

77

78

79 80

Jackson, Dark Years, pp. 174, 247; Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1944), pp. 171–3. On the experiences of the ‘malgré nous’, see Francis Koerner, ‘Les “malgré-nous” alsaciens et mosellans sur le front nord-oriental: le siège de Leningrad 1943–1945’, Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains, 234 (2009), 40–1. AN AJ41 433, 44 heads of family to Ribière, 17 August 1940; ADAM 30W57, Menton refugees living at Nefiach to Ribière; AN AJ41 2302, ‘Conférence du 16 décembre 1940 Sarraz-Bournet, Traitement des Ressortissants Italiens’; AN AJ41 2306, Italian Armistice Commission, sub-commission for general affairs, 14 December 1941. AN AJ41 2306, Ribière to Darlan, 24 January 1942; AN AJ41 2306, ‘Note – appel sous les armes des ressortissants italiens se trouvant en zone occupée par l’armée italienne’, 10 February 1942. Lothar Kettenacker, ‘L’attitude du gouvernement de Vichy face à l’annexion de fait de l’AlsaceLorraine durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale’, trans. Léon Strauss, Revue d’Alsace, 132 (2006), 300.

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Alsace-Lorraine, but the armistice terms did not prevent them from seeking volunteers resident in the areas under occupation.81 Indeed, in July 1941, Berlin granted Vichy permission to enlist up to 32,000 volunteers in the German-occupied zones, including the forbidden zone. When the Italian authorities sought to prevent Vichy from recruiting soldiers in their zone of occupation, French officials, therefore, cited the German decision as a precedent.82 On this occasion, the French strategy paid off in practical, if not in political terms. In March 1942, the Italian armistice authorities conceded that men with French citizenship would not be called to serve in the Italian army, albeit on the condition that Rome would not rescind the principle that lay behind the policy.83 Vichy’s failure to take a defiant stance against the effective German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, despite its insistence on maintaining French sovereignty and territorial integrity and despite the suffering of its people, was condemned as a moral abdication by prosecutors after the liberation and by historians thereafter.84 Yet the French government’s tacit acceptance of the loss is all the more intriguing in light of the contrast between its actions in public and its actions behind closed doors. According to François Charles-Roux, diplomats wanted to make a public protestation on 31 August 1940, but were blocked by senior government officials.85 Under instruction from Vichy, the French delegation at Wiesbaden did, however, issue no fewer than 112 notes of protestation against measures of ‘disguised annexation’ between 6 July 1940 and 5 July 1944.86 These included a complaint against the dismissal of French prefects on 10 July 1940 and a letter from Huntziger to Stülpnagel objecting to ‘measures whose effect is to deprive France of its rights of sovereignty’ on 3 September 1940.87 Even Laval took up the cause, writing to Abetz on 4 September 1942 to protest against the forced expulsion of French citizens from Alsace-Lorraine, the imposition of German nationality upon French citizens drafted into the Wehrmacht or the Waffen-SS and ‘colonisation’ 81 82

83 84 85 86 87

AN AJ41 2306, ‘Note – recrutement en zone occupée par l’Italie’, 19 September 1941. AN AJ41 2230, Duplat to Darlan, 30 April 1941; AN AJ41 2230, Duplat to Grossi, 7 May 1941; AN AJ41 2302, ‘Compte-rendu de la conférence interministérielle ayant pour l’objet l’étude des problèmes posés par l’occupation et la propagande italienne’, 10 December 1941; AN AJ41 2230, Duplat to Vacca Maggiolini, 12 December 1941. AN AJ41 2306, Parisot to Darlan, 17 March 1942; AN AJ41 2230, Darlan to Interior Ministry, 25 March 1942. Kettenacker, ‘L’attitude du gouvernement’, p. 323. Charles-Roux, Cinq mois tragiques, p. 308. Kettenacker, ‘L’attitude du gouvernement’, p. 321. Vernoux, Wiesbaden, p. 230.

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measures which amounted to ‘official and unilateral annexation’.88 The reasons these complaints were never publicly disclosed have been explored by Lothar Kettenacker and Marc Olivier Baruch and centre upon concerns about a backlash among the French people and the negative consequences for Vichy’s relations with Berlin.89 Indeed, Kettenacker suggests that German officials were under the impression that the objections issued by the French delegation at Wiesbaden were little more than a cover for the abandonment of the provinces. By early March 1942, Abetz had concluded that Vichy simply wanted to put on record that it had not recognised the de facto annexation before it became de jure.90 Vichy also failed to issue any public objection to the de facto Italian annexation of French territory. While any suggestion that it tacitly accepted the loss of the occupied zone would have been politically damaging, the areas concerned did not have the same resonance as AlsaceLorraine, whose annexation by Germany in 1871 had represented such a profound blow to a nation under the shadow of defeat. Nor were the areas taken over by Italy anywhere near as large or as populous as those seized by Germany, being dismissed by Baudouin as having ‘little significance’.91 Any public outcry that might have ensued would, therefore, have been smaller and would not have been inconsistent with Vichy’s rejection of Italian claims of victory or its wider foreign policy. However, for Vichy, the fate of the Italian zone of occupation was inextricably tied to that of Alsace-Lorraine. The French government could not have issued a public protestation against what was happening to the former without raising questions about what was happening to the latter. Whereas the Germans refused to be drawn into a lengthy dispute with the French, never issuing any written response to French complaints, the Italians mounted a vigorous defence of their actions. The legal arguments advanced by the Italian authorities were based upon those which had been prepared by the Germans in relation to Alsace-Lorraine, in what was evidently a coordinated response from the armistice commissions. The arguments over the de facto annexation of the Italian zone of occupation, therefore, became a kind of proxy for the arguments over the de facto annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. In the initial months, the Italian case rested on reasserting Mussolini’s proclamation of 30 July 1940. 88 89 90 91

Pierre Barral, ‘L’Alsace-Lorraine: Trois départements sous la botte’, in Jean Pierre Azéma and François Bédarida, France des années noires, vol. 1 (Paris: Seuil, 1993), p. 255. Kettenacker, ‘L’attitude du gouvernement’, p. 314; Baruch, Servir l’Etat français, p. 78. Kettenacker, ‘L’attitude du gouvernement’, pp. 326–7. AN AJ41 431, Baudouin to Weygand, 16 August 1940.

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In  mid-August 1940, the Italian Armistice Commission’s legal advisors argued that under the terms of the proclamation, France retained sovereignty over the occupied territories but had lost temporary exercise of that sovereignty in favour of the occupying power. They compared it to the tutelage of an adult over a minor. Italy was to assume financial control, including raising taxes, paying the salaries of local functionaries and taking control of local government.92 In response, French lawyers countered that the proclamation violated the 1907 Hague Convention, wilfully confusing annexation with occupation.93 In 1941, however, the Italians shifted to advancing a case that was based on German claims.94 The German justification for taking control over Alsace-Lorraine in 1940 rested on the precedent of 1918 in which the French state had assumed sovereignty over the region before the final peace terms had been agreed.95 Italian lawyers, therefore, sought explicitly to tie the Italian zone of occupation with the regime imposed by the Germans in Alsace-Lorraine since June 1940 and with French actions in 1918 to assert that sovereignty lay in the hands of the occupiers.96 The French armistice authorities mounted a vigorous defence against Italian claims, rejecting not only the attempts to subvert French sovereignty but refuting Italy’s right even to occupy the areas under question. Seeking to tear apart the united Axis front, French legal advisors argued that unlike the German armistice of June 1940, the Villa Incisa armistice did not state that Rome would have the power of occupier or indeed that any part of French territory would be occupied by Italian forces. In strictly legal terms, Italy merely ‘maintained’ troops where they were stationed at the time the armistice was signed. The Italian government only had the right to intervene in French territory to maintain the security of its troops and could only do so by gaining the permission of the French authorities. The French armistice delegation argued that their government’s treatment of Alsace-Lorraine in 1918 had been in accordance with the Hague Convention, which stipulated that specific measures could be taken for a short period when communication between central and local authorities was rendered impossible by war.97 Only when military operations 92 93 94 95 96 97

AN AJ41 431, Duplat to Weygand, 13 August 1940. AN AJ41 2304, Duplat to Vacca Maggiolini, 18 May 1942; AN AJ41 2302, Minutes of meeting, 16 December 1940. ADS 1382W39, Report by Sarraz-Bournet for Duplat, 23 July 1941. Kettenacker, ‘L’attitude du gouvernement’, p. 326. AN AJ41 2306, Parisot to Darlan, 17 March 1942; AN AJ41 2151, ‘Note de renseignements, section juridique’, 10 June 1942. AN AJ41 2151, ‘Note de renseignements, section juridique’, 10 June 1942.

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were ongoing could the occupying power impose their own legal authority. This was not the case for France and Italy after the armistice of June 1940. Writing to Vacca Maggiolini on 18 May 1941, Duplat, therefore, argued that the Italian authorities were obliged to adhere to French law with no infringement upon French sovereignty.98 He pointed out that Alsace-Lorraine had been immediately reintegrated into France without awaiting the final peace terms because it had been part of the armistice of 11 November 1918. By contrast, the Italian armistice of June 1940 had made no reference to the transfer of sovereignty.99 On the face of it, the same arguments could have been said to apply to the German treatment of Alsace-Lorraine after June 1940. Yet French legal advice rested in significant part upon contrasting the illegitimacy of Italian actions with the legitimacy of German actions. The detailed guidance provided by the legal section of the French delegation at Turin repeatedly compared the two Axis governments to demonstrate the weakness of the Italian position. It pointed out that while Article 2 of the German armistice stated that German forces would occupy part of French territory and Article 3 granted Germany ‘all the rights of occupying power’, no such provisions were included in the Italian armistice.100 As a consequence, Rome had no authority to claim the ‘privileges normally granted to any army stationed in a foreign country’.101 While the German insistence that the rights of occupying power included administrative authority represented an ‘abusive application’ of Article 43 of the 1907 Hague Convention, the French legal guidance conceded that it nonetheless represented a ‘possible interpretation’.102 Indeed, it suggested, the very fact that Article 3 of the German armistice reserved French administrative powers implicitly acknowledged the legitimacy of such an interpretation.103 In their bid to divide the Axis and oppose the illegitimacy of Italian actions, the French armistice authorities, therefore, presented inconsistent responses to the de facto annexation of French territory. One explanation for the inconsistency is that Vichy and the armistice delegates found Rome’s attempts to annex French territory harder to stomach than Berlin’s. The recent history of Alsace-Lorraine meant that 98

AN AJ41 2149, ‘Note de renseignements, section juridique’, 15 May 1942; AN AJ41 2304, Duplat to Vacca Maggiolini, 18 May 1942. 99 ADS 1382W39, Report by Sarraz-Bournet for Duplat, 23 July 1941. 100 AN AJ41 2151, ‘Note de renseignements, section juridique’, 10 June 1942. 101 Ibid. 102 Ibid. 103 Ibid.

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officials had been sceptical of Hitler’s renunciation of German claims in the 1930s and his declaration to the Reichstag in July 1940.104 Military defeat by German forces made the loss of Alsace-Lorraine if not inevitable then at least highly likely. By contrast, while Mussolini had reasserted Fascist claims over French territory, the Italian army’s failure to gain victory in the battle of the Alps rendered any attempts at annexation a more grossly inflated violation of the armistice terms. A second explanation for the differing French approaches to Italian and German actions lay in officials’ assessments of the two governments’ future intentions. On 8 and 9 August 1940, the French foreign and defence ministries issued similar guidance to their officials at Wiesbaden and Turin on the need to protest against infringements on French sovereignty.105 But whereas in the case of Germany, Baudouin’s main concern was avoiding any public recognition of the separation of Alsace-Lorraine from France, in the case of Italy, his concerns were more about taking preventative action against future threats. On 16 August, Baudouin wrote to Weygand asking him to instruct Duplat to issue a second protestation on behalf of the government, stating that Vichy should officially assert its rights of sovereignty over French territory.106 He repeated the warning issued by the foreign ministry officials that while Italian actions might only have applied to a small area of French territory, if left unchecked they threatened to develop into a much wider crisis. Because the terms of the armistice had granted Italy a much smaller occupation zone than Germany, Rome was looking for other ways to extend its control into Nice and the department of the Var. In such a scenario, the French government would be powerless to intervene, and the annexation of a whole swathe of French territory risked becoming a fait accompli by the time of the final peace terms.107

Conclusion While the Italian occupiers did not subject French populations to the violence they wrought elsewhere, most notably in the Balkans, Libya and Abyssinia, and while conditions were less brutal than under German rule in Alsace-Lorraine, they nonetheless brought hardship, repression and 104 105 106 107

Duroselle, L’Abîme, p. 119. AN AJ41 431, Weygand to Duplat, 9 August 1940; AN AJ41 431, Baudouin to Weygand, 16 August 1940. AN AJ41 431, Baudouin to Weygand, 16 August 1940. Note by Garnier for Baudouin, 15 August 1940, DDF 1940 vol. II, pp. 250–1.

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upheaval.108 The Italian occupation of French territory between June 1940 and November 1942, therefore, became a test for Vichy’s claims to be the true defender of France. To be sure, French armistice officials protested frequently and vigorously against Italian actions.109 For the most part, however, their complaints were simply ignored by an Italian government determined to exploit the political capital of occupying a small part of France. Vichy was acutely aware of the wider significance of Italian measures. Its response, therefore, raises questions as to why it did not do more. The legal arguments advanced by the French delegation at Turin were important for establishing the illegitimacy of the Italian position, but they bore little relation to local realities. The Fascist government had shown its disregard for international law on numerous occasions already and its legal advisors made light work of countering the French claims with spurious assertions of the supremacy of Italian law. Moreover, the political imperatives that lay behind its actions were unlikely to be altered by any arguments advanced by French lawyers. The weakness of the French response to Italian actions is brought into still sharper relief when taking into consideration the crisis unfolding in Alsace-Lorraine. The de facto Italian annexation of French territory not only paralleled German conduct but sought to draw legitimacy from it as well. The problem was that Vichy’s pursuit of collaboration with Berlin constrained its willingness to take an active stance against the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. Vichy, therefore, consigned itself to accepting ‘relative’ sovereignty over French territory.110 Not wanting to endanger its relations with Hitler’s government, Vichy chose not to air its grievances. As a consequence, it could not publicly protest against Italian action either. Such was the price of a French policy that pulled in opposing directions across the differing layers of administration. Vichy, therefore, painted itself into a corner, unwittingly conveying an impression of tacit consent to violations of sovereignty not just to Berlin but to Rome as well.

108

109

110

There is a growing body of scholarship emphasising Italian brutality in the Balkans and Africa. See, for instance, H. James Burgwyn, Empire on the Adriatic: Mussolini’s Conquest of Yugoslavia, 1941–1943 (New York: Enigma, 2005); Eric Gobetti, L’occupazione allegra: Gli italiani in Jugoslavia (1941–1943) (Rome: Carocci, 2007); Giorgio Rochat, Guerre italiane in Libia e in Etiopia: Studi militari 1921–39 (Treviso: Pagus, 1991). AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to Laval, 6 August 1942; AN AJ41 2230, Inspector general of administrative services to Peyrouton, 30 September 1940; AN AJ41 2302, Duplat to Vacca Maggiolini, 5 August 1941; AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to Laval, 23 May 1942. Baruch, Servir l’Etat français, p. 69.

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chapter 8

Confronting Italian Occupation November 1942 to September 1943

The expansion of the Italian zone of occupation after 11 November 1942 crystallised the intractability of Vichy’s position in being confronted with conflicting demands from the two Axis governments. Historians have often portrayed the Italian occupation of south-eastern France and Corsica during this period as relatively benign, especially when compared to experiences of German occupation and the Italian occupations elsewhere in Europe.1 However, this chapter suggests that it posed a significant, often unpredictable and volatile threat to local populations and to French authority, compelling Vichy to have to make fundamental policy choices about sovereignty, ideology and collaboration. As was the case with the Germans, Vichy instructed local authorities not to resist the arrival of Italian forces. In the months that followed, they cooperated to ensure the continued operation of local services and the orderly functioning of society. Beyond that, however, the picture was more complicated. By analysing the nature of the Italian occupation and how two of the main policies of collaboration played out in the Italian zone, namely, the persecution of Jews and the Service du Travail Obligatoire (STO), this chapter argues that French responses to the Italians were characterised by opposition, unwilling compliance and limited cooperation. As had been the case earlier in the war, tensions arose between the local French authorities and Vichy, the former sometimes finding themselves being countermanded by the latter. This was because the Italian occupation did not occur in a vacuum or in isolation from the German occupation. At the front line of engagement, French officials were dealing not just with the Italian occupation forces and the remaining control commissions but with the often incompatible demands of Vichy as well. In turn, Vichy had to reconcile commands from 1

See, for instance, Sica, Mussolini’s Army, pp. 6–8, 158–60; Michel Chanal, ‘L’occupation dans l’Isère (nov. 1942–sep. 1943)’, in Michel Chanal (ed.), Guerra e Resistenza nelle Regioni alpine occidentali, 1940–1945 (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1980), pp. 133–71; Schipsi, L’Occupazione Italiana, pp. 413–45.

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Berlin with those from Rome while also balancing the imperatives of its own internal agenda and the growing disquiet of its people. Despite the weaker Italian position by late 1942, the occupation was not a story of unmitigated French defiance or of successful opposition to Italian demands. This was because Vichy saw sovereignty as being comprised of multiple dimensions which included individual, political, territorial and administrative aspects. While these elements often overlapped, they had their own imperatives which, in the words of Peter Jackson and Simon Kitson, ‘traded off’ against one another.2 Vichy treated sovereignty like a currency, whose value fluctuated but which could be bought and sold as well as saved. Efforts to defend French sovereignty from Italian infringements, therefore, varied across areas of policy and in response to differing levels of threat. Thus while the local French authorities were determined to defy what they considered politically and morally illegitimate actions by the Italians, they also found themselves making concessions. In part, this was a consequence of pressure from Vichy, but at times it was also a consequence of balancing priorities and pressures from Berlin. Defending French sovereignty for its own sake was, therefore, not the overriding priority for French authorities in the Italian occupation zone. In contrast with Robert Paxton’s depiction of Vichy seeking to repurchase sovereignty from the Germans at ever-increasing costs, or Marc Olivier Baruch’s suggestion that it became a ‘trap’ which demanded ever greater concessions, this chapter suggests that the French authorities made pragmatic choices about sovereignty in relation to the Italian occupation.3 They sought to make concessions to one Axis government in one policy area in an attempt to defend against the other Axis government and maintain control over another policy area.4

The Arrival of the Occupiers On 11 November 1942, 150,000 soldiers from the Italian Fourth Army entered the free zone in south-eastern France. They were followed by the arrival of 80,000 men from the Seventh Army in Corsica three days later. In so doing, they significantly extended the zone under Italian control, covering an area inhabited by approximately four million people across eleven departments. 2 3 4

Jackson and Kitson, ‘Paradoxes’, p. 96. Paxton, Vichy France, p. 382; Baruch, Servir l’Etat français, p. 77. The relationship between sovereignty and collaboration is explored further in Karine Varley, ‘Defending Sovereignty without Collaboration: Vichy and the Italian Fascist Threats of 1940–42’, French History, 33:3 (2019), 422–43.

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While led by General Vercellino, the Fourth Army were under the overall command of the German Marshal von Rundstedt. By contrast, the occupying forces in Corsica were wholly under Italian command. The arrival of the Italian occupation forces heralded a declining role for the Italian Armistice Commission. From 1 April 1943, all Italian control commissions came under the command of the occupying forces. Only the commissions dealing with war industry remained under the jurisdiction of the Italian Armistice Commission in Turin. The extended occupation also heralded the official re-establishment of Italian consulates west of the Rhone.5 Yet far from arriving as victorious conquerors, the demeanour of the Italian forces seemed only to confirm the illegitimacy of their presence. Italian commanders were instructed to avoid any provocation while Italian armistice officials were told to treat French civilians with courtesy.6 French officials noticed that any bravado about claims over French territory had vanished; instead, soldiers behaved nervously, being not merely cooperative but almost apologetic.7 Italian officers insisted that their presence would be merely temporary and would not pose any threat to French authority.8 In some areas, French officials noted that the Italian soldiers seemed in poor physical condition and that their morale appeared to be low.9 Some reported that the Italian soldiers behaved in a generally ‘correct’ manner, but that those from the south lacked discipline and were often slovenly in appearance.10 Those arriving in Isère and the Basses-Alpes were said to be better dressed and more disciplined than those sent to the area between Nice and Menton.11 Having been instructed not to oppose the arrival of Axis forces, local French authorities kept a close eye on the responses of their communities. In Haute-Savoie, police reported that the arrival of the Italian occupiers provoked a ‘stupor’ followed by a ‘cold reserve’ among local residents.12 Within a few days, however, they found that the occupiers and the occupied had settled into viewing each other with indifference.13 5

AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to Laval, 15 January 1943; AN AJ41 2151, Duplat to Laval, 24 March 1943; AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to De Brinon, 25 March 1943. 6 Liberati to D’Ajeta, 12 November 1942, DDI, IX, vol. 9, pp. 301–2. 7 Schipsi, L’Occupazione Italiana, p. 387. 8 AN AJ41 2151, Duplat to Laval, 14 November 1942. 9 AN AJ41 2316, ‘Rapport sur l’occupation de la Corse par les troupes italiennes’, 28 November 1942. 10 AN AJ41 49, ‘Historique des rapports entretenus et des discussions engagées par le gouvernement français avec le haut commandement italien depuis l’arrivée des troupes italiennes en zone libre jusqu’au 8 septembre 1943’, February 1944. 11 Ibid. 12 ADHS 8W12, Head of Renseignements Généraux to prefect of Haute-Savoie, 18 November 1942. 13 ADHS 8W12, Head of Renseignements Généraux to prefect of Haute-Savoie, 20 November 1942.

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Only in a small number of areas did the Italian forces conduct themselves aggressively on arrival. Where incidents did occur, it was usually as a consequence of not having received orders or having misunderstood them.14 In Savoie, the Alpini took over the local administration and police, disarmed the garde mobile and arrested several Italian and French residents. After vigorous protests from the French authorities, however, the Italian forces apologised and rescinded their actions.15 In Saint-Agnès in the Alpes-Maritimes, an Italian captain apologised after blackshirts threatened local people at gunpoint while soldiers disarmed frontier police and removed a French flag.16 In Corsica, a rupture in communications with mainland France left the island with no instructions on how to respond to the sudden arrival of the Italian forces. The military commander in charge, General Humbert, decided on his own initiative to defend the island by destroying weapons and matériel.17 French officers fancied that despite the arrival of the blackshirts, local men could have taken on the Italian forces and even won.18 From the outset, the local French authorities’ dealings with the Italian occupiers were characterised by suspicion, uncertainty, fear and indignation. In the initial few weeks of the occupation, communication between French and Italian officials was strained by Italian attempts to affirm their power. By stationing himself in Menton and refusing to meet French authorities, General Vercellino deliberately created a barrier to relations. It was only after Colonel Vialet, head of the French military liaison section, persuaded the German military delegation to intervene that the impasse was broken. The following day, the German delegation instructed the Italian army to agree to the establishment of a French liaison officer to the Fourth Army.19 Despite this, however, the nature of relations between French and Italian authorities failed to improve. Away from the front line of the occupation, in Vichy and among French armistice delegates at Turin, the arrival of Italian forces in the free zone was a cause for concern. The Axis governments justified the occupation as being necessary to defend the Mediterranean coast 14

15 16 17 18 19

AN AJ41 49, ‘Historique des rapports entretenus et des discussions engagées par le gouvernement français avec le haut commandement italien depuis l’arrivée des troupes italiennes en zone libre jusqu’au 8 septembre 1943’, February 1944. AN AJ41 49, Sarraz-Bournet to Laval, 20 November 1942. ADAM 616W241, Mayor of Sainte-Agnès to Ribière, 17 November 1942. AN AJ41 2230, Duplat to Vacca Maggiolini, 30 November 1942; AN AJ40 1401, Italian Armistice Commission report, 11 November 1942–31 January 1943. AN AJ41 2316, ‘Rapport sur l’occupation de la Corse par les troupes italiennes’, 28 November 1942. AN AJ41 1182, ‘Rapports entre le gouvernement français et le commandant italien pendant le stationnement des troupes italiennes en France du 11 novembre au 9 septembre 1943’.

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from the risk of Allied invasion following the landings in North Africa. However, the French authorities suspected that the Italians were merely using the defence of the coast as a pretext for occupying areas over which they had long made claims.20 Within a fortnight of their arrival, Duplat complained that contrary to their claims of a temporary occupation, the Italian forces had begun constructing permanent military installations in Savoie and Dauphiné.21 At the heart of the problem were the legal ambiguities of the Italian occupation and Rome’s determination to exploit them. On 17 November 1942, the deputy director of the Europe section of the French foreign ministry issued a stark warning. Highlighting Rome’s dissatisfaction with the armistice and its determination to uphold its claims over French territory, Pierre Bressy suggested that in political terms, the Italian occupation was more dangerous than the German one.22 As the occupation set in, French authorities noted a variety of local responses to the Italian soldiers. In December 1942, the prefect of Savoie described relations as being ‘relatively tense’.23 In Modane, however, the prefect claimed that local people were ‘suspicious’ of the occupiers following a series of arbitrary arrests, but were still willing to speak to them.24 Intercepted correspondence also revealed mixed responses, from minor irritation to ridicule, distrust and strong hostility. One letter from a resident of the Alpes-Maritimes claimed that the arrival of ‘our dear neighbours’ had ‘not been too annoying’ to begin with, but that when the occupiers started to become more ‘familiar’ and began encroaching upon the role of the police, local people mocked them.25 In areas less directly affected by threats of territorial annexation, French officials noted that cultural and social connections between the occupiers and the occupied served to ease tensions. The prefect of the Hautes-Alpes department reported that the Italian soldiers’ courteous conduct, language and family connections with local residents had enabled them to develop bonds with the community.26 The prefect of the Var, meanwhile, reported that the department’s significant Italian community had helped to build bridges between the occupied and occupiers.27 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

AN AJ41 2151, Duplat to Laval, 14 November 1942. AN AJ42 2149, Duplat to Laval, 26 November 1942. AD 9GMII 215, Note, 17 November 1942. AN AJ41 2315, Prefect of Savoie to Laval, 31 December 1942. AN AJ41 2315, Prefect of Savoie to Laval, 3 December 1942. ADAM 104W4, Interception, 6 January 1943. AN F1cIII 1137, Monthly report, 20 July 1943. AN F1cIII 1194, Monthly report, 1 February 1943.

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In Savoie, Haute Savoie, the Alpes-Maritimes and Corsica, which were more directly affected by Italian territorial claims, the mood among local communities was frequently hostile. While some observers noted that anti-Italian sentiment was limited to words, others found it to be more deeply embedded and visceral than anti-German sentiment.28 One local official claimed that the people of Savoie were averse to everything Italian and that behind a dignified and resigned exterior, they felt a ‘profound hatred’ towards the occupiers.29 The prefect of Haute-Savoie repeatedly warned that antipathy risked escalating into clashes because ‘if Savoyards do not like the Germans, they hate the Italians’.30 A French army commander in Haute-Savoie noted that ‘most people hate the Italians more than the Germans but fear them less and find the Italian occupation difficult to stomach’.31 The hostility grew as the occupation became more repressive, but contempt was also aggravated by the conduct of the occupiers and the wider position of Italy in the war.32 The Italian defeat in Tunisia in May 1943 emboldened local people in Savoie openly to display their disdain towards the occupying forces.33 Soldiers’ disorderly conduct and pillaging soured relations with local communities as well.34 One resident of Montesoro in Corsica claimed that in less than two months, Italian soldiers had stolen over 30,000 francs’ worth of food from his land.35 In nearby Cardo, residents complained that their properties had been subjected to ‘devastation’ by thieving soldiers.36 Over the course of the postNovember 1942 occupation, Italian forces stole an estimated fifty million francs worth of supplies.37 Such negative experiences and preconceptions about the Italians helped to cast the German army in a more positive light. Where Italian soldiers arrived after German forces had left, some people 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

35 36 37

ADAM 616W133, Regional propaganda delegate to regional prefect for Nice, 25 November 1942. ADS 1382W16, ‘Problèmes soulevés par la présence des troupes d’opérations’, no date. ADHS 8W12, Prefect of Haute-Savoie to regional prefect of Lyon, 30 December 1942; AN F1cIII 1187, Monthly report, 4 January 1943. ADHS 8W12, ‘Rapport du Chef d’Escadron Calvayrac sur les agissements nuisibles au relèvement du pays et sur l’attitude de la population’, 24 December 1942. ADAM 1382W172, Synthesis of Renseignements Généraux for April 1943. ADS 1382W22, Bulletin of Renseignements Généraux, 10–16 May 1943. AMB 2H9, Nicolas de Luri to Mayor of Bastia, 27 November 1942; ADS 1382W16, ‘Problèmes soulevés par la présence des troupes d’opérations’, no date; ADCS 6W52, Bulletin of Renseignements Généraux, 15–21 July 1943; AN AJ41 1182, ‘Rapports entre le gouvernement français et le commandant italien pendant le stationnement des troupes italiennes en France du 11 novembre au 9 septembre 1943’. AMB 2H9, Peretti to Mayor of Bastia, 7 January 1943. AMB 2H9, Residents of Cardo to Mayor of Bastia, 19 March 1943. AD 9GMII 198, ‘Charges imposés à la France par l’agression italienne et ses conséquences’, no date.

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regretted the departure of the Germans, whom they found to be more orderly than the ‘odious’, ‘dirty’ Italian ‘thieves’.38 For some French women, however, the absence of the 1.8 million men taken prisoner in 1940 combined with the arrival of soldiers with whom they shared many connections overrode any notions of the Italians as enemies.39 One young woman in Savoie who had struck up a friendship with some Italian officers struggled to understand why her father was annoyed, pointing out that ‘the men are like us and poorer’ and simply wanted the war to end.40 Yet as in the German zone of occupation, those who did develop relationships with Italian soldiers were widely regarded as committing acts of betrayal.41 Even where French communities saw Italians in nuanced terms as culturally proximate and unsympathetic or even hostile towards Fascism, there could be no escaping the fact that the Italian soldiers were the occupiers and were, therefore, the enemy. Women suspected of being involved with Italian soldiers became targets for resistance groups, forcing local police to have to intervene. In La Roche, one woman was accosted by a group of young men who then cut her hair in reprisal for her relationship with an Italian soldier.42 After fourteen women alleged to be having relationships with Italian soldiers in Albertville were publicly named by members of the resistance in May 1943, police had to step in to assure the women’s safety.43 The responses of local French authorities were not merely driven by concerns for public order or even security, however; there was also a moral dimension. Seeing the women’s conduct as a sign of personal weakness rather than a consequence of cultural proximity or poverty, police reports condemned them as being morally compromised.44

Violence and Repression While notions of the Italian forces as humane and good-natured ‘brava gente’ have been consigned to myth by research highlighting acts of 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

ADS 1382W172, Prefect of Savoie to Laval, 5 January 1943; AN F1cIII 1187, Monthly report, 4 January 1943. ADCS 6W52, Report from sub-prefect of Bastia to Balley, 7 July 1943; Gérard Comte, Bastia sous l’occupation. Un témoin raconte 11 novembre 1942–4 octobre 1943 (Bastia: Anima Corsa, 2006), p. 12. ADS 1382W172, ‘Relations avec des officiers de l’armée d’occupation’, 25 February 1943. See, for instance, ADS 1382W22, Weekly bulletin, 29 March–4 April 1943. ADHS 22W8, Police inspector to head of Renseignements Généraux of Haute-Savoie, 14 August 1943. AN AJ41 2307, Divisional commissioner Bonneau to head of Renseignements Généraux at Modane, 17 May 1943. ADCS 6W52, Report from sub-prefect of Bastia to Balley, 7 July 1943. On the punishment of women accused of having had relationships with the German occupiers, see Fabrice Virgili, La France ‘virile’: Des femmes tondues à la liberation (Paris: Payot, 2000).

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violence in the Balkans and East Africa, the traumas of the Italian occupation in France continue to be seen as having been tempered by cultural proximity between the occupiers and the occupied.45 If, as Robert Gildea suggests, a ‘common cultural framework’ of military honour, European civilisation and Christianity helped to offset traditional hostility in the German zone of occupation, the connections between Italian soldiers and the people of south-eastern France and Corsica were more immediate and more tangible.46 Indeed, Davide Rodogno argues that it was in part for this reason that the Italian supreme command exercised voluntary restraint in France.47 Emanuele Sica, meanwhile, argues that the connections between Italian soldiers and local populations combined with poor morale and military discipline saw forces choosing to ‘eschew’ the more brutal and repressive practices employed elsewhere.48 According to Domenico Schipsi, the agreeable nature of life in France led to a gradual lessening of the severity of the Italian occupiers’ control.49 How the people living under Italian occupation experienced and perceived it, however, depended upon a more complex range of factors. Cultural proximity with the Italians often served to fuel feelings of betrayal that had no equivalent with the Germans who were widely perceived as France’s ‘hereditary enemy’ of the First World War and Franco-Prussian War.50 Moreover, the growing vulnerability of the Italian position in the wider conflict between 1942 and 1943 translated into greater desperation and increasingly harsh conditions of occupation. Comparisons with the German occupation zone and the Italian occupations elsewhere have led historians to downplay the levels of violence committed by the Italian forces in France. Nevertheless, the Italian occupation in south-eastern France and Corsica saw the use of torture, arbitrary violence and increasing measures of repression against the threat from the resistance.51 At the Villa Lynwood in Nice, the OVRA interrogated and tortured hundreds of people suspected of being part of the resistance or of being enemies of the Fascist regime.52 As the occupation wore on, growing nervousness among Italian troops led to increased 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

Sica, Mussolini’s Army, p. 6; Rodogno, ‘Italiani brava gente?’, pp. 213–4. Robert Gildea, Marianne in Chains: Everyday Life in the French Heartland Under the German Occupation (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002), pp. 31, 404. Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire, p. 217. Sica, Mussolini’s Army, pp. 8–10. Schipsi, L’Occupazione Italiana, p. 410. Gildea, Marianne in Chains, p. 21. Panicacci, L’occupation italienne, pp. 326–7. Ibid, pp. 231–4.

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repression, arrests and deportations.53 Sometimes the pettiness of the alleged offence was revealing of the vulnerability of the occupiers as they sought desperately to impose their authority. In Haute-Savoie in January 1943, for instance, a local teacher was arrested after being accused of smiling when passing an Italian soldier.54 Acts of arbitrary brutality, often in reprisal for local disputes, were not uncommon. Following a series of incidents in Nice, a group of local residents were taken to the Italian consulate, made to swallow ricin oil, physically assaulted and forced to give the Fascist salute while shouting ‘long live Mussolini’.55 In Ain in March 1943, meanwhile, soldiers lynched eight young men for behaving ‘discourteously’ towards an Italian shopkeeper.56 After the fall of Mussolini, the Italian army announced even tougher measures of repression. On 16 August 1943, General Vercellino issued a decree stating that the death penalty would be applied to anyone found guilty of pillaging, insurrection, assisting the enemy, sabotage and murdering Italian officials or soldiers. Prison sentences of up to twenty-four years were handed to anyone caught in possession of weapons, up to twelve years for engaging in ‘subversive’ acts, six years for insulting Italy and up to three years for threatening Italian soldiers.57 While officials in Vichy could see that overall levels of violence were lower in the Italian occupation zone than under the German occupation, they painted a more complex picture than that which has sometimes appeared in post-war accounts. An analysis compiled by the Direction des Services de l’Armistice in April 1943 noted that while Italian soldiers had been responsible for eight killings since 11 November 1942, they did not have the same ‘savage character’ or ‘cold aggression’ as those committed by the Germans because the victims had been seeking to evade the STO.58 The report attributed this to the ‘relatively humane attitude of the Italian authorities’.59 However, officials went on to warn that resistance activity risked escalating into guerrilla warfare which would bring increased levels of repression. Indeed, whereas three Italian soldiers had been killed between 11 November and 31 December 1942, between January and April 1943 the 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

ADHS 22W1, ‘Note sur les relations avec les troupes d’opération italiennes du 25 avril au 25 mai 1943’; AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to De Brinon, 17 June 1943. ADHS 22W9, Police Commissioner to prefect of Haute-Savoie, 19 January 1943. ADAM 616W242, ‘Violences et menaces provenant des autorités italiennes’, no date. Panicacci, L’occupation italienne, p. 184. Panicacci, ‘Aspects politiques’, p. 53. AN AJ41 439, ‘Note relative au régime des territoires placés sous le contrôle militaire italien’, 21 April 1943. Ibid.

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numbers had risen to sixty-five.60 Emanuele Sica observes that in the face of increasingly violent attacks by the resistance, Italian commanders ‘reined in’ their response.61 When compared with the German arrest of 20,000 people and destruction of the old port at Marseille in reprisal for resistance attacks in January and February 1943, the Italian response to the ­killing of three officers in Nice on 27 April 1943 does indeed seem relatively restrained.62 Yet if the Italian occupation was less repressive in character, it was not necessarily by design; the Italian response was as much a measure of weakness and incompetence as of self-restraint. When the Italian Fourth Army instituted a major roundup of suspects resulting in 200 arrests, many of those detained turned out not to be the Communists or fuoriusciti (antiFascist exiles) it sought.63 Moreover, in other incidents, the Italian response was not so lenient. Following an unsuccessful attempt on the life of General di Castiglioni on the night of 24–25 May 1943, Italian authorities imposed a collective fine of three million francs on the people of Grenoble, with less than a week to pay up.64 Far from perceiving moderation in the Italian response, French armistice officials observed that sharpened by the army’s weakness and aggravated by an inferiority complex, the already ‘anxious Italian mentality’ was ‘rendered brutal’ with fear.65 The number of arrests conducted by the Italians may have remained relatively stable until the summer of 1943, totalling 154 between 11 November and the end of December 1942 and 511 between January and May 1943, but the nature of the arrests changed, becoming increasingly linked with more severe measures of repression. In the Alpes-Maritimes, the total number of arrests between November 1942 and September 1943 was 1366, compared to 1229 under the German occupation between September 1943 and August 1944, despite the later period being a time of growing resistance activity.66 Corsica also witnessed numerous arrests and deportations. After a wave of arrests in Prunelli di Fium’Orbu in March 1943, 110 prominent members of the local community were deported to Italy. In July 1943, thirty-nine people from the village of Petreto-Bicchisano suspected of 60 61 62 63 64 65

66

Ibid. Sica, Mussolini’s Army, p. 144. Ibid, pp. 138–40. Schipsi, L’Occupazione Italiana, pp. 409–10. AN AJ41 313, ‘Zone d’opérations italiennes – Mesures de représailles’, no date. Giolitto, Grenoble, p. 147. AN AJ41 49, ‘Historique des rapports entretenus et des discussions engagées par le gouvernement français avec le haut commandement italien depuis l’arrivée des troupes italiennes en zone libre jusqu’au 8 septembre 1943’, February 1944. Jean-Louis Panicacci, ‘Aspects politiques et militaires de l’occupation italienne dans les AlpesMaritimes’, Etudes Corses, 57 (2004), 56.

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supporting the resistance were arrested and transported to the island of Elba.67 Italian forces also increasingly turned to hostage-taking. On 24 December 1942, the Italian army issued a decree stating that ten hostages would be taken for each Italian soldier who was wounded by the resistance, twenty for each soldier killed and forty for each officer killed. For damage to military equipment, the punishment was that three hostages would be taken, while damage to military facilities would result in the seizure of five hostages.68 Thus after local members of the resistance cut telephone lines around Porto-Vecchio, Mayor Camille de Rocca Serra was taken hostage along with his deputy, a local landowner and a businessman.69 In SaintLaurent-du-Var, early one morning in January 1943 the mayor was taken hostage along with several local notables and told that they would be held responsible for any incidents involving the Italian army.70 Of particular concern to French officials were the worsening conditions of the Italian occupation in Corsica. The island, whose population was no greater than 220,000, saw the arrival of over 80,000 Italian soldiers. An additional 20,000 German forces joined them in June 1943, making it one of the most densely occupied areas in Europe. For mainland France to have been occupied to such levels would have required the presence of 10 million soldiers.71 Indeed, whereas the Italian occupying forces comprised only eight per cent of the population of the Var, they amounted to twenty-eight per cent of the population of Corsica.72 From the outset, the Italian occupiers sought to establish a stranglehold over the island by isolating it from the mainland. French authorities were unable to communicate freely with Vichy or with any of their counterparts outside Corsica, having to submit all telegraph and radio communications to the Italians for prior approval and having to gain permission to travel to mainland France.73 The Italian army demanded the removal from the island of all demobilised French soldiers and 500 gendarmes, whom they replaced with 800 carabinieri.74 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74

Hélène Chaubin, ‘L’opinion publique en Corse sous Vichy’, Les Cahiers des Troupes de Montagne 22, (2000), 13. Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire, p. 347. ADCS 6W41, Balley to regional prefect, 21 January 1943. ADAM 616W242, Mayor of Saint-Laurent-du-Var to Ribière, 12 January 1943. AN AJ41 440, Monthly report, 1 February 1943. Panicacci, ‘Aspects politiques’, p. 53. ADCS 6W32, Balley to Laval, 21 November 1942; ADCS 6W32, Balley to Laval, 14 December 1942; AN AJ41 2316, Vacca Maggiolini to Duplat, 22 August 1943. AN AJ41 49, ‘Historique des rapports entretenus et des discussions engagées par le gouvernement français avec le haut commandement italien depuis l’arrivée des troupes italiennes en zone libre jusqu’au 8 septembre 1943’, February 1944; Hélène Chaubin, ‘Les italiens en Corse pendant la seconde guerre mondiale’, Etudes Corses, 54 (2004), 45.

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The disruption of the food supply routes from France and Tunisia caused severe shortages which were greatly aggravated by the Italian army’s failure to provide adequate provisions for its soldiers.75 Heavily reliant upon imports, food prices rose exponentially, beyond the means of many Corsicans and contributing to significantly higher rates of child mortality than those experienced elsewhere in France.76 The food shortages intensified tensions between the local population and the occupying forces, spiralling into public protests and increased resistance activity. In turn, this provoked further repression by the Italian authorities.77 The presence of eight battalions of blackshirts was a critical factor in the greater levels of violent repression experienced on the island. As early as January 1943, the blackshirts were reported to have ‘brought terror’ to the population of the Niolu, with a series of arrests, hostage-takings and death threats.78 In July 1943, with rumours circulating about a possible Allied landing, Italian forces threatened to ‘exterminate’ the population of Corsica.79 The worst acts of violence were against captured members of the resistance. Dispatched from London to unite the disparate resistance groups and networks under Operation Sea Urchin in early January 1943, Fred Scamaroni was apprehended by the OVRA two months later.80 His location had been revealed by radio operator Jean Hellier who had been tortured by Italian counterespionage agents.81 After being tortured under interrogation for twenty-four hours without revealing any information, on 19 March 1943 Scamaroni took his own life.82 Jean Nicoli, a leading Communist member of the Front National resistance group, also met a brutal end at the hands of the OVRA. Arrested on 27 June 1943 and found guilty of espionage on 30 August, he was shot in the back and then decapitated by the force of repeated blows. His body was later discovered to have multiple stab wounds as well.83 Officials in Vichy were under no illusions about the severity of the situation, comparing the regime in Corsica to the German occupation of 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83

AN AJ41 2153, ‘La délégation française à la Commission Italienne d’Armistice, 28 juin 1940–31 décembre 1942’. Hélène Chaubin, Corse des années de guerre 1939–1945 (Paris: Editions Tirésias, 2005), p. 67. Sarraz-Bournet, Témoignage, p. 152. ADCS 6W52, ‘Note de renseignements, état d’esprit de la population du Niolu’, 4 August 1943. ADCS 6W52, ‘Note de renseignements, la population et les troupes d’opération’, 24 July 1943. Chaubin, Corse des années, p. 80. René Sedillot, ‘Les Corses dans la seconde guerre mondiale’, in Colonel Rémy, La résistance en Corse, vol. I (Geneva: Editions Famot, 1976), p. 23. Marie-Claude Scamaroni, Fred Scamaroni. Mort pour la France (Paris: Editions France-Empire, 1999), pp. 173–223. Francis Arzalier and Francette Nicoli, Jean Nicoli de la colonie à la Corse en résistance. L’itinéraire d’un homme libre (Ajaccio: Albania, 2003).

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the Nord-Pas-de-Calais. A report produced by the Direction des Services de l’Armistice in April 1943 warned that Corsica merited ministers’ particular attention and called for measures to oppose Italian action.84 Using the same language as that deployed in relation to the Nord-Pasde-Calais, officials described Italian actions in Corsica as ‘exceptional measures’ driven by a ‘policy of prestige’.85 The Nord-Pas-de-Calais had been under German occupation since 1940 when invading forces led by the SS subjected the area to terror, burning down houses and massacring civilians. Thereafter, it was declared a ‘forbidden zone’, ruled directly by the German army in Brussels.86 Occupying forces imposed administrative, economic and cultural isolation from the rest of France. The region was also the first to be subjected to the execution of hostages in reprisal for attacks by the resistance.87 That officials considered Corsica to be experiencing similar conditions to the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, whose suffering was only exceeded by that of Alsace-Lorraine, was a measure of their concern. Alarmed by reports on the situation in Corsica and troubled by the island’s isolation from mainland France, in January 1943, Laval sent the head of the interior section of the French delegation to the Italian Armistice Commission, Marius Sarraz-Bournet, to find out what was really happening.88 Reporting back to Pétain a month later, Sarraz-Bournet found that many Corsicans felt forgotten amidst the ‘anarchy’ caused by the Italian occupation and the absence of Vichy’s authority.89 While he reassured officials that Corsicans remained ‘profoundly French’, he cautioned that such sentiments would not last for much longer.90 The island’s isolation combined with a perceived neglect by Vichy that only fuelled old tensions with mainland France meant that ‘the first step has been taken towards the dangerous direction of the de-Frenchification of Corsica’.91 Thus, he concluded, ‘the unanimous opinion is this: occupied and claimed by Italy, Corsica has been abandoned to its sorry fate by France’.92 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92

AN AJ41 439, ‘Note relative au régime des territoires placés sous le contrôle militaire italien’, 21 April 1943. AN AJ41 1182, ‘Rapports entre le gouvernement français et le commandant italien pendant le stationnement des troupes italiennes en France du 11 novembre au 9 septembre 1943’. Dejonghe, ‘Le Nord’, pp. 677–708. Dejonghe, ‘Les départements’, pp. 524, 536. AN AJ41 440, Sarraz-Bournet to Laval, 12 February 1943; AN 72AJ 113, ‘La France Libre, Le Gouvernement d’Alger et la Corse’, Communication by Jean-Marie d’Hoop, 1976. AN F60 1692, ‘Situation de la Corse’, April 1943. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. See also Sarraz-Bournet, Témoignage, pp. 148–57.

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It was not just the brutality of the Italian repression that disquieted the French authorities, however. Indeed, the OVRA and carabinieri often targeted the same groups as Vichy. It was rather that the Italian actions were a sign of the increasingly desperate position of the Italian army. French officials believed that Mussolini’s ‘policy of prestige’ was driving the army to seek to compensate for its military failings by imposing tougher occupation conditions. Losing on the battlefield made the Italian occupiers behave more ‘arrogantly’ in order to save face, French officials warned, exacerbating tensions and creating a volatile atmosphere.93 Reflecting upon the two zones of occupation in October 1944, Colonel Chomel de Jarnieu, head of the military liaison section of the French army, argued that the Italian occupation had had its own distinctly malign character, having been ‘especially damaging in the moral and psychological domains’.94 French officials were thus compelled to respond to an Italian occupation that was qualitatively different from the German one, but whose violent, repressive characteristics nevertheless represented a distinct threat to the local populations and to French authority. One of the areas that saw frequent and significant clashes between the French and Italian authorities was policing.95 Retaining control over law and order enforcement was an essential element of Vichy’s claim to govern a legitimate sovereign state under the occupation.96 In the German zone of occupation, collaboration in policing was well-established, with an accord having been signed between Berlin and Vichy on 8 August 1942. The agreement was extended to the southern zone in April 1943, being justified by Vichy on the grounds that it would protect French sovereignty. In return for Vichy apprehending those whom the Nazis deemed to be enemies, Berlin vowed not to interfere in French policing. Vichy’s secretarygeneral in charge of the police, René Bousquet, sold the deal by claiming that if French officers did not undertake the work the Germans would do it instead, causing further suffering to the people of France.97 In reality, however, the accords resulted in Vichy becoming increasingly complicit 93 94 95

96 97

AN AJ41 1182, ‘Rapports entre le gouvernement français et le commandant italien pendant le stationnement des troupes italiennes en France du 11 novembre au 9 septembre 1943’. AN AJ41 1182, Colonel Chomel de Jarnieu to head of army research unit, 28 October 1944. ADAM 616W242, Ribière to Avarna di Gualtieri 19 November 1942; ADCS 6W32, Report by brigade commander at Propriano, 23 December 1942; ADCS 6W32, Sub-prefect of Sartène to Balley, 23 December 1942; ADCS 6W32, Balley to commander of 7th Italian army, 27 February 1943. Simon Kitson, Police and Politics in Marseille, 1936–1945 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 73, 106. Ibid, p. 159.

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in the Nazis’ ideological agenda and failed to halt German encroachments upon French sovereignty. Confronted with an onslaught of Italian interference, local French officials vigorously maintained that Italian police had no authority over French citizens, except in exceptional cases of espionage or assassination, and had no right to intervene in border controls.98 However, in the face of mounting pressure and disputes over arrests, Vichy sought to bring a measure of cooperation into policing in the Italian zone of occupation.99 In an attempt to ‘restrain the increasing abuse’ of policing authority, Bousquet met General Avarna di Gualtieri, the representative of the Italian supreme command at Vichy, and signed a similar accord to that made with the Germans.100 According to Christian Villermet, the Italian authorities in Savoie began to share information about suspected members of the resistance with French police.101 The more common experience elsewhere, however, was that the Italians simply carried on as before, making arrests without informing the French authorities.102 Even where they shared the same objectives, there was little cooperation between French and Italian police. The many réfractaires who fled their homes to avoid being sent to work in Germany under the relève and STO schemes were pursued separately by the French and Italian police.103 In Savoie, the thousands hiding in the mountains posed a significant challenge. Being subjected to increasing attacks, Italian troops conducted their own operations, often without the knowledge of French police. Following a skirmish at the Refuge de Platé in Haute-Savoie which left one man dead and six wounded in June 1943, Italian forces took numerous réfractaires prisoner, preventing French police from being able to interview them.104 Far from being in a position of collaborating with or opposing Italian actions, French police increasingly found themselves relegated to being little more than bystanders. 98

ADCS 6W32, Squadron leader to group commander, 25 November 1942; ADCS 6W32, Report by brigade commander at Propriano, 23 December 1942; ADAM 616W133, Weekly report, 7–13 December 1942. 99 On disputes over Italian arrests, see, for instance, ADCS 6W32, Balley to Laval, 14 December 1942; ADCS 6W32, Balley to commander of 7th Italian army corps, 27 February 1943. 100 AN AJ41 49, ‘Historique des rapports entretenus et des discussions engagées par le gouvernement français avec le haut commandement italien depuis l’arrivée des troupes italiennes en zone libre jusqu’au 8 septembre 1943’, February 1944. 101 Villermet, A noi Savoia, pp. 147, 150. 102 ADCS 1W27, Report by Paul Catani, Porto-Vecchio police brigade, 20 June 1943. 103 AN AJ41 1182, ‘Rapports entre le gouvernement français et le commandant italien pendant le stationnement des troupes italiennes en France du 11 novembre au 9 septembre 1943’. 104 AN AJ41 313, Procurator General at Chambéry to Gabolde, 15 June 1943.

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Vichy’s Double Bind The particular character of the Italian occupation zone compelled Vichy to have to choose between the principles that drove collaboration with Berlin and the consequences of such action. Its decisions and those of local French authorities revealed not just their priorities but their ambivalences as well. Before the arrival of the occupying forces in November 1942, French authorities had been faced with Rome’s demands to repatriate Italian workers, Berlin’s demands for labour under the relève scheme and industrialists’ desires to keep vital workers in France.105 The onset of the occupation, however, brought even greater demands for French labour. From the Germans, it came in the form of the STO. Introduced on 16 February 1943, it meant French workers being conscripted to assist the Nazi war effort. From the Italians, it came from Rome’s claim to have the rights of occupying power, under which it sought to put French industrial plants and factories to work for its economic benefit.106 But whereas Berlin called for French workers to be sent to Germany, Rome insisted that they remain in France. Determined to assert its autonomy from Germany and to protect its citizens, Rome also demanded that all Italians and Jews of any nationality should be exempt from the STO. In the Alpes-Maritimes, this amounted to 80,000 Italian citizens and over 20,000 Jews.107 Vichy, therefore, found itself confronted with a two-tier system in which more than a fifth of the population of one department was protected from the STO, while French citizens were not. Despite being one of the architects of the STO agreement and despite Vichy’s propaganda vaunting the STO as a patriotic duty, Laval responded opportunistically to the situation. When tension arose between Fritz Sauckel’s demands for labour in German factories and Albert Speer’s insistence that workers were more productive when employed locally, Vichy did not intervene. Where Berlin’s demands for workers clashed with the demands from Rome, however, Laval responded by seeking to play one Axis government against the other so that he could appear to be defending French interests. Mindful of the unpopularity of the scheme and of the exemptions accorded to Italian citizens and Jews, in exchange for agreeing to fulfil Italian demands for workers, Laval requested that Vichy should be granted a reduction in the numbers demanded by Berlin.108 The final deal, 105 106 107 108

ADHS 8W12, Head of Renseignement Généraux to prefect of Haute-Savoie, 30 October 1942. AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to De Brinon, 17 June 1943. AN F1cIII 1137, Monthly report, 20 July 1943. AN AJ41 440, Captain Lahalle to Duplat, 20 April 1943.

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brokered with the assistance of Vacca Maggiolini, offset the numbers due to Germany and meant that in the Italian occupation zone, many of the men and women who had been due to go to Germany were able to remain in France.109 In Corsica, prefect Paul Balley went a step further, initiating local negotiations with the Italian authorities to gain German agreement that no Corsican worker would be forced to make the dangerous sea crossing to Germany.110 However, because the number of workers allocated to Italy only reduced the total demanded by Germany by fifty per cent, Vichy’s agreement with Rome still left it a net loser. The deals struck in mainland France and Corsica did not indicate any diminished willingness by Laval or French officials to collaborate with Berlin, but they demonstrated a willingness to comply with Rome’s demands in the belief that they might help restore support for Vichy among the French population. The problem was, however, that in making the deals, officials committed France to collaboration with both the German and Italian war efforts. While the likes of Balley may have believed that they were acting in the interests of French workers, they were also acting politically, driven by an awareness of the rising numbers of people fleeing the STO and joining the resistance.111 Moreover, those due to be called up to the STO did not see the deals as heralding any improvement in their situation. Still required to work for the benefit of the Axis, many fled to the maquis instead.112 The gravest charges against the decisions taken by Vichy and the local French authorities in the Italian zone of occupation concern the persecution of Jews. Contrary to post-war myths that Vichy sought to shield the country from the brutalities of the Nazis, historians have shown that the French authorities actively opposed Italian efforts to impede the roundup and deportation of Jews.113 Nor did Vichy seek to protect French Jews at the expense of foreign Jews.114 That French officials chose to collude with the Germans rather than take the opportunity of working with the Italians has served to highlight how far from being compelled to collaborate with the Nazis’ persecution of Jews, Vichy and its functionaries 109 110 111 112 113 114

ADAM 166W19, Extract of letter, 30 March 1943; AN AJ41 2149, Duplat to De Brinon, 21 April 1943; AN AJ41 440, Duplat to Vacca Maggiolini, 26 April 1943. ADCS 6W48, Balley to Laval, 16 March 1943; ADCS 6W48, ‘Appel aux jeunes gens de l’ile’, Dépêche Corse, 19 July 1943. ADCS 6W52, ‘Note de renseignements – application de la loi sur le STO’, 20 April 1943. ADCS 6W48, Commander of armed forces in Corsica to Balley, 2 September 1943. See, in particular, Carpi, Between Mussolini and Hitler; Marrus and Paxton, Vichy France. On the myth that Vichy sought to protect French Jews, see Laurent Joly, L’Etat contre les juifs. Vichy, les Nazis et la persécution antisémite (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 2018).

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did so voluntarily.115 In choosing the policies of the Nazis over those of the Italian Fascists, Vichy’s actions swung the pendulum decisively away from any moral justifications. French officials’ attempts to defend the authority of the French state and Vichy’s ideological goals saw them acting in ways that were directly antithetical to the humanitarian consequences of Italian policies. As Chapter 4 highlights, echoing its approach in other areas of dispute, Vichy aimed to exploit the mounting tensions between Rome and Berlin. However, it was at the local level of the occupation that the insidious nature of Vichy’s double bind was fully revealed. The Italian authorities regarded the treatment of Jews as a matter of demonstrating their power in relation to France and independence in relation to Germany.116 The local French authorities, meanwhile, saw the implementation of Vichy’s policies and the demands from Berlin as a matter of affirming their control in the face of Italian intervention. The prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes, Marcel Ribière, was among many local officials committed to Vichy’s antiSemitic measures and determined not to allow them to be thwarted by the Italians.117 Their complaints, combined with reports on the wider threat posed by the Italian occupation, intensified Vichy’s fear for its authority and fuelled a delusion that collaboration with the Germans was the solution. Before the arrival of the occupying forces into the free zone, many Jews had fled south to escape persecution; after November 1942, however, the Italian occupation zone became a magnet for Jews seeking a safe haven. Prior to 1939, between 15,000 and 20,000 Jews lived in south-eastern France; by late summer 1943, the number had risen to around 50,000.118 Even after Vichy extended the round-ups and deportations to the southern zone, Jews continued to flee to the areas occupied by Italian forces. Many simply went out of desperation, but some sought routes out of France via the Mediterranean or Switzerland. In Nice, the Italian Jewish banker Angelo Donati and the Comité Dubouchage helped some 4,000 Jewish refugees with provisions and false identity papers.119 In Haute-Savoie however, police uncovered a significant operation to smuggle Jews across the 115

116 117 118 119

See, for instance, Susan Zuccotti, The Holocaust, the French, and the Jews (New York: Baltic Books, 1993); Serge Klarsfeld, La Shoah en France, 4 vols (Paris: Fayard, 2001); Renée Poznanski, Les juifs en France pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale (Paris: Hachette, 2005). Carpi, Between Hitler and Mussolini, p. 84; Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire, p. 393. Jean Kleinmann, ‘Les politiques antisémites dans les Alpes-Maritimes de 1938 à 1944’, Cahiers de la Méditerranée, 24 (2007), https://cdlm.revues.org/2973. Marrus and Paxton, Vichy France, p. 319. Carpi, Between Hitler and Mussolini, pp. 93–8.

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border to Switzerland, in which desperate refugees were being charged up to 200,000 francs for every passage.120 The relatively high concentration of Jews in the Italian occupation zone posed political and administrative problems for the French authorities. On 6 December 1942, Laval proclaimed that for security reasons, foreign Jews who had arrived in France after 1 January 1938 had to be evacuated from the Mediterranean coast to a zone 30 kilometres from the sea and the Pyrenees. To alleviate pressure on local authorities, Jews were spread around the Alpes-Maritimes, with those who could not be accommodated there being sent to the departments of Drôme and Ardèche, which were located in the German occupation zone.121 Many were sent to hotels in mountain villages such as Megève.122 However, the local French authorities complained that the arrival of so many Jews created tensions with residents and brought increased resistance activity. Jealousy at the presumed wealth of the Jews combined with anti-Semitic myths to fuel resentment and suspicion. The head of the Salanches division of the Légion des Combattants wrote to the prefect of Haute-Savoie to complain that local people felt like they had been ‘invaded’ by the arrival of forty-three ‘undesirable’ Jews whom he claimed engaged in illegal black market activities.123 In a letter intercepted by the postal control service, a woman from Aix-les-Bains complained that the arrival of the Jews had turned the town into a ‘ghetto’.124 The fact that, for want of alternative accommodation, some Jews were moved to luxury hotels in some of the most exclusive holiday resorts at a time of French suffering exacerbated local anger.125 It was against this backdrop that the local French authorities confronted Italian intervention in Vichy’s policies on the Jews. From the earliest weeks of the occupation, Italian forces actively obstructed French attempts to arrest and deport Jews. On 30 December 1942, under instruction from Rome, General Trabucchi ordered the Fourth Army to prevent French authorities from interning Jews and to stop the expulsion of 1400 nonFrench Jews to the German occupation zone.126 Local Italian commanders 120 121 122 123 124 125 126

ADHS 8W12, ‘Rapport du Chef d’Escadron Calvayrac sur les agissements du pays et sur l’attitude de la population’, 22 January 1943. ADAM 616W242, Regional prefect of Lyon to regional prefect of Nice, 7 December 1942. ADHS 22W19, Police commissioner Brustel to head of Renseignements Généraux, 25 June 1943. ADHS 41W39, Head of 3rd division of civic services to prefect of Haute-Savoie, 23 June 1943. ADS 1382W178, ‘Critiques de la présence des Juifs à Aix-les-Bains’, 5 June 1943. ADHS 22W19, Dr Franck Tissot, Head of Hygiene Bureau at Menetrel, 9 May 1943. Carpi, Between Hitler and Mussolini, p. 88; Luca Fenoglio, ‘On the Use of Nazi Sources for the Study of Fascist Jewish Policy in the Italian-Occupied Territories: The case of South-Eastern France, November 1942–July 1943’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 24:1 (2019), 67.

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instructed that no Jewish person could be questioned or arrested by French police without their approval unless it was a matter of urgency.127 A few days later, Ciano announced that only the Italian authorities had the right to deal with matters relating to foreign Jews and that all French measures were to be immediately suspended.128 On 20 February, Italian authorities intervened to secure the release of eight Jews who had been arrested by French police in Annecy. Later that week, Italian forces occupied a gendarmerie where sixteen Jewish workers due to be transferred to the German zone were being held until the prefect agreed to let them go.129 A few weeks later, the Italian military commissioner in Savoie intervened to block the prefect’s instructions on the deportation of Jews.130 After months of ad hoc and partial interventions, on 2 March 1943 the Italian occupation authorities announced a comprehensive policy to take control over the treatment of Jews. General Avarna di Gualtieri declared that all Jews in the Italian zone of occupation, including those with French citizenship, would fall under Italian military jurisdiction and that no action affecting Jews could be taken without Italian approval.131 A few weeks later, he declared that French police would have to account for the arrest of any Jews to the Italian authorities. The Italian supreme command also demanded the release of all Jews who had been arrested and interned by French police.132 The repeated Italian interventions undermined French authority at a national and local level. A letter from Ribière told of the administrative chaos ensuing from successive contradictory orders. No sooner had he started to implement Vichy’s instructions forbidding Jews from living within 30 kilometres of the Mediterranean coast than the Italian consul general requested that Italian Jews be excluded from the measure. It was a similar story when it came to the internment of Jews, which the prefect was compelled to suspend on 1 January 1943 following Italian objections. In early December 1942, having followed Vichy’s instructions to gather information on foreign Jews with a view to their integration into workers’ battalions, Ribière was then informed that the policy had been suspended in 127 128 129

130 131 132

ADHS 22W19, Head of liaison detachment at Annecy to prefect of Haute-Savoie, 15 February 1943. Carpi, Between Hitler and Mussolini, pp. 91–2. AN AJ41 49, ‘Historique des rapports entretenus et des discussions engagées par le gouvernement français avec le haut commandement italien depuis l’arrivée des troupes italiennes en zone libre jusqu’au 8 septembre 1943’, February 1944. ADS 1382W178, ‘Libération d’Israélites sur intervention des autorités militaires italiennes’, 20 March 1943. AN AJ41 2316, Avarna di Gualtieri to Platon, 2 March 1943. AN AJ41 2316, Avarna di Gualtieri to Bridoux, 27 April 1943; ADS 1382W16, Prefect of Savoie to regional prefect of Lyon, 28 May 1943.

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accordance with Italian demands.133 Vichy also acceded to Italian requests to suspend the requirement for the word ‘Jew’ to be stamped on Jewish residents’ identity papers.134 Announced on 11 December 1942, the measure was designed to separate Jews from the rest of the population as part of the intensification of Vichy’s anti-Semitic programme.135 Nevertheless, the policy lasted only a few weeks in the Italian zone of occupation. It might appear from Vichy’s compliance with Italian demands that the regime implicitly acquiesced in Rome’s efforts to obstruct the round-up and deportation of the Jews. This was far from being the case. It was rather that Vichy’s attempts to prevent Italian intervention were ill-conceived and ineffectual. In March 1943, Bousquet insisted that measures relating to Jews remained the exclusive domain of the French government, but then caveated his position by stating that it was in the absence of any agreement between Vichy and Rome to the contrary.136 By signing an accord with Avarna di Gualtieri, he weakened the authority of French police and their ability to oppose Italian demands.137 French officials were perplexed by the implausible and contradictory claims of the Italian general staff that the treatment of the Jews was a security matter, especially after the Italian consul general had insisted that it was a political concern.138 When asked how the French decision to move Jews from the Mediterranean coast threatened the security of Italian troops in March 1943, Avarna di Gualtieri was unable to provide any explanation.139 A month later, he insisted again that the Jews posed a threat to Italian military security, but at the same time, demanded the return of the Jews that Vichy had deported from the Italian occupation zone.140 The shift away from asserting the rights of occupying power towards emphasising security concerns was simply an Italian ploy to gain greater legal authority over judicial matters.141 Failing to realise what the Italian authorities were up to, however, French officials were outwitted and outmanoeuvred. Vichy, therefore, decided to call for German intervention. Seeing the internment of Jews in terms of the wider policy of deportation, German 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141

ADAM 616W242, Ribière to Colonel Bonnet, 13 January 1943. ADAM 616W242, Calisse to Ribière, 14 December 1942; ADAM 616W242, Telegram from Ribière to Laval, 13 January 1943; ADAM 616W242, Ribière to Laval, 14 January 1943. ADAM 616W242, Spanish Vice-Consul to Ribière, 23 December 1942. ADHS 22W2, Bousquet to prefect of Haute-Savoie, 25 March 1943. AN AJ41 2316, Platon to Avarna di Gualtieri, 27 March 1943. ADAM 616W242, Ribière to Laval, 14 January 1943. AN AJ41 439, Meeting between Avarna di Gualtieri and Platon, 19 March 1943. AN AJ41 2316, Avarna di Gualtieri to Bridoux, 27 April 1943; AN AJ41 1179, Meeting between Avarna di Gualtieri and Bridoux, 27 April 1943. Carpi, Between Hitler and Mussolini, p. 156.

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officials were increasingly suspicious of Rome’s support for the former while it opposed the latter. For Berlin, such actions suggested that Mussolini’s government did not really endorse the ‘Final Solution’.142 In January 1943 Laval instructed his officials to ask Helmut Knochen, the commander of the Sicherheitsdiest and secret police in France, for assistance in dealing with Italian obstruction of French policies on foreign Jews.143 By signalling Vichy’s willingness to implement anti-Semitic measures and to collaborate in the arrest and deportation of Jews, Laval gained German agreement to interpose on the French behalf. Laval also sought recourse from the German embassy to Avarna di Gualtieri’s orders preventing the French authorities from arresting Jews of any nationality and demanding the release of those who had already been detained.144 Bousquet, meanwhile, used the opportunity of a meeting with German head of policing Karl Oberg to complain about Italian efforts to thwart French searches for Jews in south-eastern France.145 The strategy paid off. Following pressure from the Germans, Mussolini relented, agreeing to hand matters relating to the Jews back to French police.146 The strategy of inviting German encroachments upon French sovereignty in order to oppose Italian encroachments upon French sovereignty might seem paradoxical, but behind it lay political calculations. Vichy did not seek to defend French sovereignty for its own sake. It was rather that facing growing complaints from the local French authorities, Vichy saw Italian actions as a greater threat to its credibility and legitimacy than any German intervention might be. Indeed, French officials were alarmed at how the Italians were not merely shielding the Jews from persecution but appeared to be giving them preferential treatment.147 Ribière complained that many Jews saw the Italian occupiers as their protectors, seeking assistance from the Italian consul general and army against the French authorities.148 Police intelligence recorded French citizens’ anger over how the Italians were looking after the Jews while they were condemned to suffer the hardships of the war and occupation.149 In particular, reports suggested 142 143 144 145 146 147

148 149

Fenoglio, ‘Between Protection and Complicity’, p. 91. Ibid, pp. 102–3. Marrus and Paxton, Vichy France, p. 317. Sica, Mussolini’s Army, p. 167. Carpi, Between Hitler and Mussolini, pp. 129, 133. AN AJ41 49, ‘Historique des rapports entretenus et des discussions engagées par le gouvernement français avec le haut commandement italien depuis l’arrivée des troupes italiennes en zone libre jusqu’au 8 septembre 1943’, February 1944. ADAM 616W242, Ribière to Laval, 14 January 1943. ADHS 41W39, Head of 3rd division of civic services to prefect of Haute-Savoie, 23 June 1943; ADS 1382W172, Synthesis of reports for August 1943.

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that local residents were outraged that Italian intervention enabled Jews to remain in France at a time when many French workers were being forcibly sent to Germany.150 Avarna di Gualtieri refuted the accusations, but French suspicions persisted.151 By the time of the Italian surrender in September 1943, French officials had become convinced that the Italian army had engaged in a sustained policy of favouring the Jews over the French from the very start of the occupation.152 Such an inversion of the racial and political hierarchies of Vichy’s ideological vision was deeply damaging to the regime’s credibility. With the very people the French government purported to defend seeming to be placed at the bottom of the pile, Italian actions exposed Vichy’s justification for existence as being utterly worthless. What particularly rankled French officials was not that Italian actions might have been motivated by any humanitarian concerns but rather that they were driven by power politics. The fact that the Italian strategy was overseen directly by Ciano fuelled French suspicions of Rome’s motivations. Writing to Laval a few days after Ciano had instructed that the Italian authorities had sole responsibility for all Jews in their zone of occupation, Ribière warned that the real driving impulse behind the Italian actions was the desire to assert their independence from the Germans.153 As Laval telephoned the Italian embassy in Paris to protest, the delusions of the French position became starkly apparent. Far from Vichy being the ones to pull the strings in manipulating Berlin against Rome, Rome was not only playing Vichy against Berlin but in undermining the French government’s authority, it was setting Vichy against the French people. Vichy hoped that the collapse of the Fascist regime would strengthen its hand. Mussolini’s removal from office on 25 July 1943 paralysed the occupation authorities as Italian support for the war collapsed.154 False rumours that Italy had withdrawn from the war caused several army units to desert their posts and return home.155 There was perhaps no better sign 150 151 152

153 154 155

ADS 1382W178, ‘Critiques de la présence des Juifs à Aix-les-Bains’, 5 June 1943. AN AJ41 1179, Meeting between Avarna di Gualtieri and Bridoux, 27 April 1943. AN AJ41 49, ‘Historique des rapports entretenus et des discussions engagées par le gouvernement français avec le haut commandement italien depuis l’arrivée des troupes italiennes en zone libre jusqu’au 8 septembre 1943’, February 1944. ADAM 616W242, Ribière to Laval, 14 January 1943. AN F1cIII 1187, Monthly report, 4 September 1943; AN AJ41 2300, ‘Tendances de presse italienne’, 6 September 1943. AN AJ41 49, ‘Historique des rapports entretenus et des discussions engagées par le gouvernement français avec le haut commandement italien depuis l’arrivée des troupes italiennes en zone libre jusqu’au 8 septembre 1943’, February 1944.

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of the rapid disintegration of the Italian occupation than the actions of Colonel Gianni Cagnoni. On 11 August 1943, the blackshirts commander secretly met Corsican resistance leaders and offered to hand over Axis military plans. As an anti-Fascist son of a republican senator whose brother had died fighting against the Germans in the First World War, Cagnoni gladly switched sides to support the liberation of Corsica.156 When Badoglio’s government finally surrendered on 8 September 1943, the news came as a surprise to Italian armistice officials and the army. While Rome’s military delegation at Vichy remained in place until 22 September, many officials departed overnight. Military discipline collapsed as troops abandoned the chaos. Italian soldiers were given the option of fighting with the German army, working for Germany, or being taken prisoner. In Toulon, 50,000 were disarmed by German forces, around 10,000 decided to fight with Germany, 15,000 became labourers and 25,000 became prisoners.157 While some local residents sympathised with the Italian soldiers who faced an uncertain future, the French authorities complied fully with German efforts to prevent them from escaping. Newspapers ran notices warning that anyone found sheltering Italian soldiers faced severe punishment.158 In Corsica, meanwhile, the resistance seized the opportunity to rise up and take control of Ajaccio. Having been instructed by their commander General Magli to treat the Germans as enemies, between 16,000 and 18,000 Italian soldiers joined 15,000 Corsicans in the struggle to liberate the island from the 20,000 German forces who had arrived in June.159 They finally succeeded on 4 October 1943 at a cost of 72 French soldiers, 170 Corsican resistance fighters and 637 Italian soldiers.160 As German reinforcements moved in to take control of the occupation of south-eastern France, the hunt for Jews who had been shielded from arrest by the Italian authorities began. Aided by French collaborationist volunteers, the German search was hampered by the actions of Jean Chaigneau, appointed to replace Ribière as prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes in April 1943. With 30,000 Jews concentrated in the area, Chaigneau’s 156 157

158 159 160

Maurice Choury, Tous bandits d’honneur! Résistance et libération de la Corse (juin 1940–octobre 1943) (Paris: Editions Sociales, 1956), p. 104. AN AJ41 49, ‘Historique des rapports entretenus et des discussions engagées par le gouvernement français avec le haut commandement italien depuis l’arrivée des troupes italiennes en zone libre jusqu’au 8 septembre 1943’, February 1944. ADAM 616W215, Lieutenant Colonel Scheibler to Chaigneau, 16 September 1943; ADAM 616W215, ‘Avis aux personnes qui hébergent clandestinement des soldats italiens’, 4 October 1943. On the liberation of Corsica, see General Gambiez, Libération de la Corse (Paris: Hachette, 1973); Paul Silvani, … Et la Corse fut libérée (Ajaccio: Albania, 2001). Sédillot, ‘Les Corses’, p. 33.

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decision to destroy the records of their names and whereabouts helped save lives but was not representative of the wider response by French officials. The departure of the Italian occupiers enabled Vichy to regain control over areas that had been subjected to virtual annexation since June 1940. Flying the tricolore flag and sounding the Marseillaise for the first time since the defeat, Vichy presented the end of the Italian occupation as a kind of liberation.161 The fact that this ‘liberation’ came at the price of German occupation showed how far Vichy had gone in throwing its lot in with the Nazis.

Conclusion The use of torture, hostage-taking and the violent pursuit of the resistance testify to how the Italian occupation of south-eastern France and Corsica was not as benign as historians have sometimes presented it. Moreover, with the Italian occupiers lacking just claim to victory and having limited power and authority, French officials were less willing to cooperate with them than they were with the Germans. Indeed, the German occupation served as a constant reference point against which to measure Italian actions and a perpetual reminder of the legitimacy gap between the two occupations. Above all, however, the difference between French responses to the two occupations was the absence of any sustained collaboration with Italy and of any drive towards collaborationism. French actions in the Italian zone of occupation, therefore, stand in marked contrast with the picture of Vichy in much of the existing scholarship. The period after November 1942 is often seen as one in which Vichy moved ever further into the Nazi orbit, engaging in ever deeper collaboration. If historians have nuanced this picture by demonstrating that obstruction, delays and other acts of ‘passive resistance’ were not uncommon responses to the demands of the German occupiers, they have also shown that they were largely driven by desires to protect the authority of the French state and were not inconsistent with the wider policy of collaboration.162 By contrast, the trajectory of French policy in relation to the Italian occupation was in the opposite direction. Ad hoc cooperation with the Italians, such as in matters of 161

162

AN AJ41 49, ‘Historique des rapports entretenus et des discussions engagées par le gouvernement français avec le haut commandement italien depuis l’arrivée des troupes italiennes en zone libre jusqu’au 8 septembre 1943’, February 1944. John F. Sweets, Choices in Vichy France: The French Under Nazi Occupation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 173–80; Paxton, Vichy France, p. 373; Burrin, Living with Defeat, p. 131; Jackson, Dark Years, p. 168.

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policing, was not grounded in any wider pursuit of collaboration. Nor did acts of compliance signal any wider political intent. French administrators did not seek to anticipate Italian demands and transform them into French initiatives as they did with the Germans either.163 Philippe Burrin’s characterisation of a basic, almost inevitable ‘structural accommodation’ with the German authorities is, therefore, problematic when applied to the Italian occupation. For Burrin, ‘structural accommodation’ may have represented a minimum and in some ways neutral form of cooperation, but it was nevertheless part of a wider spectrum of behaviour in which voluntary and deliberate collaboration sat at the extreme end.164 In the case of the Italian zone of occupation, not only was Vichy heading away from closer engagement with Rome but the whole framework of Franco-Italian relations was not one primarily structured around collaboration. The complex, multi-directional nature of French policy towards the Italian and German occupations highlights how much of the existing scholarship on Vichy, usually conceived in terms of Franco-German encounters, is unable to capture the complexity of the French position. Nor indeed are existing concepts of collaboration able fully to distinguish between direct, intended policies and their indirect, unintended by-products. Indeed, Vichy’s decision to prioritise collaboration with Germany undermined its response to the Italian occupation; in turn, however, its response to the Italian occupation undermined its policy towards Germany. As the case of the STO showed, public opposition combined with the opportunities afforded by Italian demands led Vichy to seek to mitigate the impact of a core policy of collaboration with the Germans. Meanwhile, Rome’s insistence on the exemption of Italian citizens from the STO combined with its measures to shield Jews from persecutory policies exposed French citizens to the consequences of Vichy’s pursuit of collaboration. Pressure from the French local authorities, moreover, pushed Vichy to seek German assistance against Italian intervention. Had it not been for Vichy’s determination to persist in collaborating with the Germans, it could have carried its opposition to the Italian occupation through to its logical conclusion by refusing to cooperate with the Italians entirely. That, however, would have risked a political rupture with Hitler’s government and intervention by German forces. Despite collaborating with Berlin, at the heart of Vichy’s double bind lay an awareness that for all the suffering and humiliation of the Italian occupation, occupation under the Germans was even worse. 163 164

Baruch, Servir l’Etat français, pp. 77–9. Burrin, Living with Defeat, pp. 461–3.

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The Italian invasion, armistice and occupation are strikingly absent from French public memories of the Second World War. Visitors to Nice will find the city’s walls adorned with plaques commemorating the actions of those who gave their lives to end the Nazi occupation in August 1944, as well as the deportation of Jews, but will see little to mark the Italian occupation between November 1942 and September 1943. In Menton, there are still fewer traces remaining of the town’s virtual annexation by Italy between June 1940 and September 1943. It is a similar story across the areas of south-eastern France that fell under Italian occupation. Only in Corsica are the signs more visible. Memorials dedicated to the actions of the resistance in Ajaccio, Bastia, Levie, San Gavino di Carbani, Sartène, Usciolu and Porto-Vecchio explicitly refer to the brutalities committed by the ‘Italian’ or ‘Fascist’ occupiers. The absence of Italy’s role from public and scholarly understandings of Vichy, collaboration and the occupation is wrapped in the continuing fascination with Nazi Germany. With the Axis being a manifestly uneven alliance, there has been an understandable tendency to focus on Germany as the dominant political and military power. The imperatives of postwar politics also played a part in shaping perceptions of Italy’s role. As Germany was divided up and forced to confront its responsibility for war and genocide, the western powers sought to keep Italy from being lured into the Communist sphere by treating it more leniently. In Italy itself, there was a concerted campaign led by government officials, many of whom had served under the Fascist regime, to exculpate their country and to load the responsibility onto the shoulders of Germany instead.1 Officials developed a narrative that portrayed the Italian people as the victims of Fascism and emphasised how Italian forces had fought alongside the Allies 1

Nicola Labanca, ‘Changing Perspectives: Italian Studies on Italy in World War Two’, in Aterrano and Varley (eds.), A Fascist Decade (London: Routledge, 2020), pp. 189–204.

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from October 1943.2 The absence of any equivalent of the Nuremberg trials combined with a public discourse that denied responsibility for antiSemitic measures helped to fuel international perceptions of the Italians as fundamentally more humane than their German counterparts.3 There was, therefore, less interest and urgency in investigating the role played by the Italians. A further explanation lies in popular French perceptions of the Second World War as a Franco-German struggle. If Gaullist notions of 1914–1945 as a ‘thirty years war’ between France and Germany have long ceased to have any traction among historians, there remains an overwhelming tendency to conceive of ‘the Occupation’ as signifying only the German occupation.4 Italy also falls between the cracks of post-war self-justifications as leading Vichy figures sought to distance themselves from collaboration with the Nazis and to claim that they had been supporters of the Allies all along. It was only a peripheral concern in France’s post-war trials as well.5 Yet as historians have developed more complex and nuanced understandings of this period in France’s history, broadening their outlook to incorporate the French colonial empire and engaging in comparative and transnational studies, that such a major player should continue to be neglected remains an anomaly. The unsatisfactory nature of this is further highlighted by the growing body of scholarship dismantling myths of the ‘Italiani brava gente’ by focusing on the violent character of the Italian occupations in other parts of Europe and Africa. If Vichy did not engage in any sustained collaboration with Rome, that does not mean that Italy was an inconsequential player in French dealings with Germany or indeed German dealings with France. Nor did it signal that the Italian presence was without wider consequence for France and its colonial empire. The history of Vichy has also often been seen as a Franco-French controversy. The inward focus of much of the broader scholarship on France during the Second World War has served to diminish the significance of 2

3 4

5

Filippo Focardi and Lutz Klinkhammer, ‘The Question of Fascist Italy’s War Crimes: The Construction of a Self-Acquitting Myth (1943 – 1948)’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 9:3 (2004), 335–6. Filippo Focardi, ‘Italy’s Amnesia over War Guilt: The “Evil Germans”’, Mediterranean Quarterly 25:4 (2015), 16–19. On the evolution of French memories of the Second World War, see Rousso, Syndrome de Vichy, pp. 29–248. For more recent perspectives, see Olivier Wieviorka, La mémoire désunie: le souvenir politique des années sombres de la libération à nos jours (Paris: Seuil, 2010); Richard Golsan, The Vichy Past in France Today: Corruptions of Memory (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2019). On the post-war trials, see Richard Golsan, Vichy’s Afterlife: History and Counterhistory in Postwar France (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000).

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external forces. Aside from analyses of high political meetings between heads of government and ministers and the relationships between the occupied and the occupying authorities, the Italians and even the Germans often appear as secondary players in Vichy’s story. By contrast, this book has sought to approach the subject from an international as well as national perspective. French dealings with the Axis authorities need to be interwoven not just into the histories of France’s foreign relations or the occupations but into the wider tapestry of Vichy’s political choices as well. To do so is not to downplay Vichy’s responsibility for its actions or to understate the extent to which the regime’s policies and ideologies were rooted in French political culture. It is rather to recognise that Vichy did not make its political decisions in isolation and that its non-belligerence after June 1940 did not mean that it was in any way disconnected from the external pressures of the wider war. A central argument in this book is that French responses to the challenges arising out of the Italian armistice terms, Fascist territorial claims and the Italian occupation were critical to shaping Vichy’s wider policies on collaboration. The significance of the Italian dimension lies in the gravity of the threats posed by Italy and in the strategies employed by Vichy to combat them. A second central argument is that French dealings with the Italians were critical to Vichy’s relations with Berlin. Italian actions helped push Vichy to seek closer ties with the Germans. At the same time, however, the French government also sought to foster closer relations with Rome so that the two states might counter German domination. Vichy’s decision to throw its lot in with the Nazis was therefore not inevitable and alignment with Berlin was not the only option within the Axis. In contrast with historians’ tendency to characterise the months following the defeat in terms of how Vichy’s pursuit of closer relations with the Germans culminated in collaboration, this book has explored how Vichy pursued a simultaneous, alternative policy of rapprochement with the Italians. Far from having a fixed, one-dimensional policy leading inexorably to Montoire, Vichy was more flexible and opportunistic than some historians have portrayed it. Indeed, the relatively moderate Italian armistice terms convinced many in the French government that Rome might be willing to work with them. Some, such as Baudouin, saw ideological alignment with Fascism as being more consistent with the National Revolution than alignment with Nazism. Most of the others in Vichy, however, were driven by ambitions for political gain. Post-war myths of Vichy playing a ‘double game’ between the Axis and the Allies led historians to examine the significance of the French

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government maintaining unofficial contacts with Britain even after the two states had broken off diplomatic relations.6 The widely accepted conclusion that such actions did not signal any deviation from Vichy’s alignment with the Axis has, however, served to obscure the other avenues explored by the French government. The willingness to work with the Italians, despite their ‘treachery’ in declaring war on France, suggests that Vichy was less defeatist than some historians have argued. For JeanBaptiste Duroselle and Philippe Burrin, a pervasive sense of defeatism lay at the heart of Vichy’s willing submission to German demands and thus its engagement in collaboration.7 However, Vichy neither accepted that it had been defeated by Italy nor simply yielded to German domination without exploring alternative options. Even after the full occupation of France in November 1942, Vichy might have found itself on the back foot, but so did Rome. Vichy’s defiance towards Rome and its wariness towards Berlin hint at a less fatalistic and more hubristic outlook. Despite having been defeated, many in Vichy considered France to belong above Italy in the hierarchy of post-war Europe. Far from wanting Germany to dominate over France, they wanted France to be Germany’s partner and equal. That the history of Vichy did not become one of collaboration with Italy was not so much due to any French decision as to the opposition of Mussolini. French overtures, whether through direct contacts or through intermediaries such as the Holy See, failed to win the Italian dictator over to the French side. Indeed, in insisting that Fascist Italy’s position was alongside Nazi Germany rather than alongside what he saw as a declining and decadent power, Mussolini merely maintained the position that he had established before the war. Only when external pressures prevailed did Mussolini deviate from this stance. Such was the case in late 1941 and early 1942 when Italian forces’ desperate need to transport supplies to Libya through Tunisia resulted in a brief period of military collaboration. The episode did not, however, serve to alter Mussolini’s broader policy towards France. While Vichy pursued rapprochement with Rome to counter the threat from Berlin, it also had to deal with the threat posed by Italy. This came principally in the form of challenges to French sovereignty and claims over territory and was above all political in character. If Italy lacked the military means simply to seize French territory, the virulent propaganda campaigns unleashed by the Fascist regime combined with the local activities of Italian 6 7

Rachel Chin, ‘After the Fall: British Strategy and the Preservation of the Franco-British Alliance in 1940’, Journal of Contemporary History, 55:2 (2020), 297–315. Duroselle, L’Abîme, p. 264; Burrin ‘Ideology of the National Revolution’, p. 145.

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control commissions and occupying forces had a cumulative effect that damaged Vichy’s authority. Far from being a benign or marginal player, Italy represented an enduring challenge to the power and legitimacy of the Vichy government. One of the strategies that Vichy deployed against the Italian threat was to seek to deploy Berlin against Rome. In so doing, it attempted to exploit the tensions between the Axis governments and to capitalise on its relations with the Germans. Believing that its collaboration with Berlin had earned it the respect and gratitude of the Germans and that the Axis partners could be prised apart to suit French needs, Vichy sought German intervention against Italian territorial demands and against Italian attempts to block the military reinforcement of North Africa. In inviting German interference, it might appear that Vichy pursued contradictory policies. However, it tailored its responses to the challenges with which it was confronted. Where Italian actions threatened France’s territorial integrity and its colonial possessions, Vichy turned to Berlin for assistance. Where Vichy considered German power to be antithetical to French interests or where specific policies such as the Service du Travail Obligatoire posed difficulties, Vichy turned to Rome for assistance. When negotiations with Berlin reached an impasse, as was the case with the Protocols of Paris in 1941, Vichy turned its attention to Rome; and when relations with Rome became deadlocked, Vichy turned to Berlin. In its attempts to play one Axis government off against the other and in its quest for concessions on political, military, economic or other matters, Vichy was willing to sacrifice elements of French sovereignty. Historians have previously shown how the defence of sovereignty was of paramount significance for Vichy, but that sovereignty had multiple and often competing facets. However, this book has sought to nuance this understanding still further, suggesting that far from being driven to preserve sovereignty for its own sake, the French authorities made concessions to one Axis power in relation to one policy so that they could oppose the other Axis power and retain control over another policy. Seeing sovereignty as both multi-dimensional and divisible, the French authorities’ responses varied across policy domains and in reaction to the different levels of threat. Far from engaging in any double game between the Axis and the Allies, Vichy contented itself with manoeuvring between the Axis governments. In seeking to play one Axis government against the other, Vichy acted as if it had the upper hand. However, the reality of Vichy’s position was that it was caught in a double bind. Whichever way it turned, it was confronted by difficult choices and harmful repercussions. Quite simply, it

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overestimated its ability to manipulate Rome and Berlin. Thus despite the French authorities having some success in securing German support for North African military reinforcements against Italian opposition, when faced with the choice of whether to back Rome or Vichy on major policy matters, Berlin always chose Rome. Moreover, however stark the tensions might have been between the two Axis governments, when confronted with major challenges, they always closed ranks and ultimately Rome always chose to support Berlin over Vichy. Having to confront challenges on two fronts, Vichy’s political choices with one Axis government could sometimes become self-imposed constraints in its dealings with the other. The unwillingness of the French government to jeopardise collaboration with Berlin by openly objecting to its de facto annexation of Alsace-Lorraine meant that Vichy was restricted in its ability to oppose Italian attempts to annex Menton. Vichy, therefore, found itself having to face the humiliation of potentially losing territory to a country whose claims of victory it refuted. The expansion of the Italian zone of occupation after 11 November 1942 brought the intractability of Vichy’s position into even sharper relief. On the one hand, the French authorities found themselves facing an Italian occupation whose pernicious character revealed itself in violent repression, economic exploitation and political threats. On the other, the brutalities committed by the Nazis elsewhere in France showed that replacing the Italian occupation with a German one would have been even worse. In facing the often conflicting policies of the two Axis governments, Vichy thought that it could exploit the differences. However, the consequences of each government’s actions were frequently more complex than Vichy anticipated. Berlin’s encouragement of nationalist movements in North Africa and the Middle East may have clashed with Rome’s own ambitions in the region, but the fallout did not simply yield dividends for Vichy. Suffering a crisis in its own colonial authority, Vichy found that German manoeuvres exacerbated the challenges facing local French officials. Moreover, attempts at rapprochement with Rome may have been driven by a compelling diplomatic rationale, but they were poorly received in the areas of south-eastern France, Corsica and Tunisia that were under threat from Italian territorial claims. The intractability of Vichy’s position was further exacerbated by the poor negotiating abilities of its ministers. Labouring under the delusion that unilateral concessions would help foster better relations, Laval and Darlan repeated the mistakes that they made with the Germans in their negotiations with the Italians. Failing to appreciate how the retention of France’s colonial empire and fleet had

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greater value as negotiating assets with the Italians than with the Germans, in agreeing to transport supplies to Libya via Tunisia in the winter of 1941–1942, Darlan played his strongest hand between Berlin and Rome but gained little in return. Through analysing French responses to the challenges posed by the Italians, it becomes clear that existing models of collaboration, conceived in terms of Franco-German engagements, fail to capture the very different nature of Franco-Italian relations or the complexity of the French position vis-à-vis the two Axis governments. Contrary to the situation with Germany, there was no ‘mission creep’ following Vichy’s military collaboration with Italy in the winter of 1941–1942. Vichy did not seek to extend its collaboration with Rome into any other area of policy and did not find itself doing so inadvertently either. The nexus between ‘involuntary collaboration for reasons of state’ and ‘voluntary collaboration for that reason’ identified by Stanley Hoffmann, therefore, becomes more limited in its application, relating only to Vichy’s relations with Berlin.8 In contrast with Marc Olivier Baruch’s depiction of French dealings the Germans, Vichy was not drawn into collaboration with the Italians by seeking to anticipate Rome’s demands or dissimulating them as its own policies.9 Existing models of the connection between state collaboration and ideological collaborationism are also less useful when applied to Franco-Italian relations. Mussolini’s uncompromising stance left Vichy and the French Fascists little scope and even less incentive for collaborationism with Rome. Despite the Italian Fascist regime being a more obvious candidate for ideological alignment than the Nazi regime, and despite initial French overtures to Rome, Italian territorial claims remained a critical stumbling block. Even proponents of collaborationism with the Nazis struggled to see any appeal in aligning with a regime which not only aimed to seize French territory but whose political and military power lacked legitimacy. The notion that there was a causal link between the existence of state collaboration and the development of collaborationism, therefore, cannot be applied to French engagements with Italy.10 In the case of Vichy’s relations with Rome, the desire for ideological collaboration preceded any state collaboration. Moreover, the limited military collaboration did not lead to any greater desire for collaborationism. The Italian dimension, therefore, 8 9 10

Hoffmann, ‘Collaborationism’, p. 378 (Italics in the original). Baruch, Servir l’Etat français, p. 79. Hoffmann, ‘Collaborationism’, pp. 375–95.

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highlights not only how state collaboration did not necessarily foster collaborationism but that it was not a necessary precondition either. The Italian aspect of Vichy’s engagement with the Axis also shows that existing concepts of collaboration are insufficiently nuanced in their ability to distinguish between direct, intended policies and their indirect, unintended by-products. The inclusion of a third party, whether it was Rome in the case of Franco-German relations, or Berlin in the case of FrancoItalian relations, adds a layer of complexity to understanding the motives behind Vichy’s policies and the consequences of its actions. Indeed, Vichy’s pursuit of collaboration with Berlin distorted its responses to the Italian occupation; in turn, its responses to the Italian occupation served to distort its policy towards Berlin. In their study of European resistance and collaboration under the Nazis during the Second World War, Vesna Drapac and Gareth Pritchard have argued against what they describe as the ‘linear and teleological framework in which the resistance/collaboration paradigm is embedded’.11 Instead, they advocate a transnational approach which considers how the development of collaboration and resistance varied across what they describe as ‘Hitler’s empire’.12 While they argue for the need to ‘transcend’ the ‘resistance/collaboration paradigm’, they maintain that resistance and collaboration existed in a ‘binary relationship’ in which ideologically driven collaboration sat at one end of the scale and ‘heroic’ resistance at the other.13 The inclusion of a third party complicates any notion of a ‘binary relationship’ between collaboration and resistance, however, especially in cases where collaboration with one Axis government was driven by attempts to thwart the demands of the other. Even where historians have considered multiple actors driven by a variety of motives, collaboration remains conceived as an act undertaken with an ‘enemy’ occupier or military victor. Yet despite being partners, their very different policies and levels of power mean that Berlin and Rome cannot simply be conflated as a single actor. Moreover, opposing Rome’s demands and failing to develop any sustained collaboration did not mean that Vichy engaged in resistance against the Axis. Nor did turning to Rome to counter Berlin. Vichy remained an emphatic supporter of an Axis victory. A linear spectrum between resistance and collaboration therefore no longer 11 12 13

Vesna Drapac and Gareth Pritchard, Resistance and Collaboration in Hitler’s Empire (London: Palgrave, 2017), p. xvi. Ibid. Ibid, p. xv, 45.

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encompasses the complexities of the French position once Italy is added to the equation. Of course, historians such as Simon Kitson and Marc Olivier Baruch have already demonstrated that opposition to German demands was not incompatible with support for collaboration.14 The defence of French sovereignty against actions that went beyond the terms of the armistice or any subsequent agreements gave rise to numerous cases of refusal and noncompliance. However, this book has suggested that the responses to Italian encroachments upon French sovereignty were of a different order. Unlike with Germany, in the absence of any sustained collaboration between Vichy and Rome, there was no inherent contradiction between efforts to oppose Italian demands, either at a high political or at a local level, and the wider French policy towards Italy. Whereas Vichy became increasingly invested in a German victory, intensifying its collaboration as the war went on, the trajectory of its relations with Italy was in the opposite direction. French attempts at rapprochement with Rome and the brief period of military collaboration hint at the intriguing possibilities of what the history of Vichy might have looked like had these initiatives developed further. It is tempting to contemplate an alternative policy of collaboration with Rome instead of Berlin. Yet while it is not within the scope of this book to engage in counterfactual speculation, one of its central arguments is that the Italian government, armistice authorities and occupying forces were far from benign. While collaboration with Italy might not have carried the same moral implications as collusion in the Nazi genocide, Vichy would nevertheless have been drawn into actions that were harmful to the welfare of the people of France and its empire. The fundamental error of the French government was to delude itself about the damaging repercussions of siding either with Rome or with Berlin or of trying to play one off against the other. That, in the end, was the tragedy of Vichy’s double bind. 14

Kitson, Vichy et la chasse, pp. 69–104; Baruch, Servir l’Etat, pp. 78–9.

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Index

Abetz, Otto, 37, 41, 50, 64, 73, 80, 113, 136, 155 Abyssinia, 120 crisis of 1935, 19 Italian invasion of, 18, 19, 30, 109 Action Française, 98, 102, 107, 110 Algeria, 83, 87, 89, 119, 123, 125, 127, 134 Alpes-Maritimes, 124, 128, 143, 163, 164, 169, 175, 177 Alsace-Lorraine, 142, 152–8, 172, 191 armistice Franco-German of 1940, 25–7, 157 Franco-Italian of 1940, 27–9, 30, 47, 121, 125, 133, 143, 150 Avarna di Gualtieri, General Carlo, 88, 174, 179, 180, 182 Azéma, Jean-Pierre, 52, 74, 75, 77 Badoglio, Marshal Pietro, 16, 28, 29, 35, 96, 183 Baruch, Marc Olivier, 6, 155, 161, 192, 194 Bastianini, Giuseppe, 91, 92, 95 Baudouin, Paul, 21, 33, 35, 37–9, 43, 45, 50, 61, 98, 101, 106, 155, 158, 188 Bousquet, René, 79, 95, 173, 180 Bucard, Marcel, 108 Burrin, Philippe, 5, 185, 189 Cagoule, 108, 114 Carpi, Daniel, 8, 93 Catholic Church, 101, 103, 105 Catholicism, 38, 101, 102, 104, 108 Charles-Roux, François, 37, 44, 45, 102, 105, 119, 154 Churchill, Winston, 134 Ciano, Count Galeazzo, 16, 20, 22, 24, 46, 57, 58, 63–5, 68, 76, 79, 182 citizenship, 124, 148, 153, 179 collaboration concepts of, 5, 74, 99, 115, 192 with Germany, 45, 128, 173, 175–7, 184 with Italy, 64–70 relationship with resistance, 193 collaborationism, 98–9, 112–16, 192

Corsica, 2, 4, 8, 10, 20, 21, 33, 84, 88, 110, 119, 121, 123, 124, 128, 139, 163, 170–3, 186, 191 Croix de Feu, 108, 109, 112 Dakar, 45, 47, 50 Daladier, Edouard, 20, 23–4, 110 Darlan, Admiral François, 35, 37, 52, 53, 57–8, 60, 71, 75–6, 78, 79, 130, 134, 191 approach to collaboration, 72–4 meeting with Ciano, 63–4, 71 military collaboration with Italy, 64–8 negotiates Protocols of Paris, 53–5 de Gaulle, General Charles, 25, 47 Déat, Marcel, 109, 112 Deloncle, Eugène, 108, 114 Donati, Angelo, 177 Doriot, Jacques, 98, 110–13 d’Ormesson, Wladimir, 103–4 Duplat, Admiral Henri, 33, 35, 60, 68, 85–7, 89, 91, 139, 157, 164 Duroselle, Jean-Baptiste, 6, 189 empire (French), 36, 46, 75, 121, 191 espionage, 130–1, 134, 137–9 Esteva, Admiral Jean-Pierre, 30, 70, 122, 132, 135 Faisceau, 107 Flandin, Pierre-Etienne, 15 foreign policy (French) towards Britain, 32, 35 towards Italy before June 1940, 21–4 Franco, Francisco, 38, 99 François-Poncet, André, 15, 20, 23 Franco-Italian accords of 1935, 17, 18, 38 French North Africa, 4, 47–50, 54, 55, 65, 70, 83, 119, 121–6, 134, 136, 139, 191 French Somaliland, 133 Gamelin, General Maurice, 18, 20 Gaulle, General Charles de, 49, 140 German Armistice Commission for France, 47, 81, 82, 134, 140

214

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Index Giobbe, Mirko, 41–2, 45–6, 113 Goebbels, Joseph, 94, 95 Göring, Hermann, 56, 66, 69, 72, 73 Grandi, Dino, 16 Grossi, General Camillo, 34 Haute-Savoie, 132, 174, 178 Hitler, Adolf, 1, 2, 15, 16, 20–2, 24, 25, 27, 30, 32, 38, 42, 44, 48, 49, 55, 58, 63, 73, 82, 83, 85, 89, 142, 193 meeting with Laval, 83, 91 meetings at Montoire, 44, 46, 52 Hoare, Sir Samuel, 18 Hoffmann, Stanley, 5, 74, 99, 115, 192 Holy See, 39, 102, 103, 189 Huntziger, General Charles, 26–8, 33, 47, 52, 62, 88, 138, 154 ideology (Italian Fascist) empire, 120 significance in foreign policy, 19–21, 50 significance of anti-Semitism, 93, 113 ideology (Vichy), 99–107, 127, 135 invasion German of France, 23 Italian of France, 24 Iraq, 134 Italian Armistice Commission for France, 33, 44, 45, 47, 59, 60, 62, 78, 81, 85, 137, 162 control commissions, 122–7, 129–32, 139 Italianisation, 144–50 Jews Italian policy towards, 135, 175, 177–82 Vichy policy towards, 79, 93–7, 113, 134–6, 176–83 Juin, General Alphonse, 66, 69 La Rocque, Colonel François de, 109, 111, 112 Latin bloc, 38, 43, 61, 101, 103, 105, 106 Laval, Pierre, 34, 37, 49, 50, 52, 53, 61, 73, 77, 82, 87, 88, 90, 96, 113, 154, 175, 176, 191 collaboration with Germany, 79–81, 83–4, 93, 95 Italian suspicions of, 43 playing Berlin against Rome, 79–2, 92 playing Rome against Berlin, 39–42, 93 rapprochement with Italy in 1930s, 17–18, 38 return to government, 79 treatment of Jews, 178, 181–2 Leahy, William, 71, 76 Lebanon, 119 Legentilhomme, General Paul, 30 Levant, 2, 4, 47, 121, 124, 126, 133, 136, 139 Libya, 57, 63, 64, 66, 67, 69, 73, 78, 80, 87, 120, 134, 189

215

Maurras, Charles, 98, 101, 107, 111, 127 Mediterranean, 9, 19, 20, 34, 42, 55, 56, 63, 66, 69, 70, 82, 87, 113, 119, 120, 139, 163 Menton, 28, 145–51, 162, 186, 191 Mers-el-Kébir, British attack on, 32, 34–6, 38, 47 Montoire meetings, 44, 46, 49, 52, 62, 65, 188 Morocco, 83, 87, 119, 125, 134 Mouvement Franciste, 108 Mouvement Social Révolutionnaire, 114 Murphy, Robert, 71 Mussolini, Benito, 15, 22, 25, 30, 32, 44, 58, 142, 144, 158, 181, 189, 192 declaration of war, 24 fall from power, 96 foreign policy, 19–20 opposes collaboration, 46 policy of prestige, 173 suspicions towards Germans, 46 views on Laval, 83 navy (French), 89, 191 Nice, 88, 110, 128, 129, 142, 162, 169, 186 Noguès, General Charles, 30, 120 Nord-Pas-de-Calais, 151, 172 occupation (German), 151–4, 160, 168, 169, 171, 173, 187 occupation (Italian) after November 1942, 85–6, 160–94 before November 1942, 141–51 costs after November 1942, 87 local responses to, 164–6 violence, 166–70 Paillole, Paul, 130 Panicacci, Jean-Louis, 7, 90, 141 Parisot, General Henri, 28, 34, 85 Parti Populaire Français, 98, 108, 112 Parti Social Français, 110, 111 Paxton, Robert, 5, 26, 34, 49, 74, 77, 161 Pétain, Marshal Philippe, 53, 54, 56, 57, 62, 66, 71, 73, 76, 78, 79, 84, 85, 106, 114, 127, 140, 150 collaboration with Germany, 45 meeting with Hitler, 44 Pintor, General Pietro, 34 Popular Front, 19, 20, 39, 109, 110 propaganda French, 127–8 Italian, 44, 125, 147 Protocols of Paris, 52–4, 56–8, 68, 134, 190 Rainero, Romain, 6, 26, 121 regionalism, 127

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216

Index

relève, 79, 82, 174, 175 resistance (French), 25, 141, 150, 167, 168, 171, 176, 183 Reynaud, Paul, 23, 24 Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 25, 48, 58, 91, 95 Ribière, Marcel, 177, 179, 181 Rodogno, Davide, 90, 94, 167 Rome Protocols, 61, 68 Sauckel, Fritz, 79, 93, 175 Savoie, 110, 124, 128, 142, 143, 163, 164, 179 Service du Travail Obligatoire, 160, 168, 174, 175, 185, 190 Sica, Emanuele, 7, 141, 167, 169 Solidarité Française, 109 sovereignty (French), 6, 46, 48, 51, 74, 77, 93, 95, 121, 130, 138, 142, 154, 156, 158, 159, 161, 173, 181, 189, 194 sovereignty (Italian), 146 Spanish Civil War, 19, 106 STO (Service du Travail Obligatoire), 93, 96, 97 Stülpnagel, General Otto von, 47, 134 Syria, 53, 55, 119, 124, 134

territorial claims (Italian), 5, 36, 43, 45, 48, 58, 68, 78, 81, 84, 107, 109, 114, 139, 158, 162, 188, 190–2 Tunisia, 53, 57, 63, 64, 66, 67, 69, 71–3, 84, 87, 92, 110, 119, 124, 125, 127, 133–5, 137, 189, 191 Vacca Maggiolini, General Arturo, 58, 62, 78, 81, 85–9, 93, 138, 176 Valois, Georges, 107, 109 Vatican, 39, 98, 102, 105 Vercellino, General Mario, 163, 168 Vichy government begins collaboration with Germany, 44 diplomatic rupture with Britain, 34 internal divisions, 37 National Revolution, 38, 100, 101, 104, 112, 127, 188 relations with United States, 71 Vogl, General Oskar, 81, 93 Weygand, General Maxime, 27, 30, 33, 35, 37, 54, 56, 71, 120, 123, 132, 158 Wieviorka, Olivier, 52, 74, 77 women, 131, 149, 166

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