1941-02-07 — Page 3

VOICI ET VOILA

politicians, regarding Paris as n hotbed of political intrigue, of con-

France fell because of corruption at the top, but the foundations are sound. British victory fidence tricksters and crooked will ensure reconstruction and rehabilitation.

By George Soloveytchik

UNOT

21

financiers.

war from the last there was com- correct description of the

plete continuity in the supreme. feelings the sudden collapse

command and technical superviz France has caused to all who know and love that country.

sion of the French armed forces, The ut-

Almost alone among the nations, most bewilderment, and pangs so

Moral Depravity

and with good reason, France acute that, far from becoming less

With the exception of Paris, never agreed to disarm; on the severe as time goes on, they grow

Venality, pettiness, sexual Jaxity. Marseilles, Lyons, Nice and

contrary, she invariably stressed in frequency and intensity.

mental snobbishness (which drew If

number of important industrial the need of preparedness and vi→ seems to be the common exper--

the intellectual elite to the ex- centres, there are no big towns in gilance. The tradition of her of

That many people

Alas. treme Right or the extreme Left): France.

these big cities meditating upon the French dis- aster they somehow feel it difficult

the worship of sectional interests make up in political and moral de- great military schools as a train- pravity for the rest of the country, ing ground for her officers went and, in certain cases, to believe it is really true. then

profound But the Frenchmen who dwell in

on unbroken. Compulsory mili- they hear the next bit of news,

defeatism; unsound finance. ob-

the villages and small towns are which is even more grim than

structionism

honest, hard-working, loyal citi fary service greatly facilitated the and administrative that which they already knew.

anarchy here are but some

zens, who responded to the call steady flow of recruits. And, with when it came and joined up

defence Of course, there

one exception, national alway

the unhealthy and lamentable their fathers and forefathers had those who pretend to be surprised

Rome dominated the world by features which characterised "the done. Eight months of complete received all the appropriations its by nothing and who say "Collapse he aims and institutions, Athens other France. Yet all these pro- inactivity at the front, and inces- Chiefs demanded. Neither the Right of France, my dear fellow” Whet by intellect, Carthage by gold. But

cesses, revolting though they were, sant defeatist propaganda skilfully nor the Left dared to interfere could have expected anything ANGE vouchsafed to France

did not seem to affect the funda- conducted, demoralised them com-

with the military organisation. predominate in all three. If it be mentals of French life.. of la pletely. When the blow came, true that the British

France reelle. They were at work, they had only one desire Common- wealth of Nations has

of home. Rome's unversalisni as a political

ganisation, it

is especially true that France has inherited her cul- Columnist at the top, defeatisin. tural universalism and maintain- treason and corruption, incompe- ed it to the present day. fence, disunty et vouer et voila

are

else

According to il host of French and British diplomatic commentators, war correspondent and other pundits, the explanation for which we are all searching in van is not hard to find Fifth

SEX 411

The only pout f differences among those who hold this view is that according tu some the process of disruption set in quite recently during the last seven years

whereas others be lieve that it tys. lasted for many decades, or indeed! that been herent

m the Third puble from its very origin.

Why?

h

tree-tops of the primeval German forest. For

thousand years France has not merely had a glorione history, but has shone in every sphere of human activity. especially in that of the mund.

Social Stability

Het rahance, though

to

herited

dimmed

at tame and never more so than in recent years--has been one of the few permanent factors in the history of civilisation. it

Whatever the may be said against Re..

Third Republie, its deplorable personnel. its politics and institutions, who can deny that throughout the seventy years of its existence. il has been not merely rich in po- litical surcesses, but has remained

There is always danger an over-

one assumed, on the surface

of

a

things, the core was healthy and

Was this assumption strong. mistaken atte" Not, I think, en- tirely mistaken.

Worlds Apart

tu

get

What Matters

Largely Royalist, with an in- It was not in the villages, but in the big cities of France that the tense contempt for, and hatred of, scum of the nation found its hap- the politicians, the army never- py hunting-ground. There can be

theless recognised and obeyed the no doubt that France's enemies both created and exploited every Republican Government's author- The fact is that in France, even possible source of disintegration. ity. But it remained outside the more than in most other highly

With each generation the calibre turmoil of party strife and finan- developed modern countries, it is

became cial wire-pulling. Its necessary to distinguish between of the nation's leaders

leaders the rural

The Fathers of the Re- the slighter. and population

cannot escape their share of the townsfolk

even the men public"

of 1900- They form two worlds

1920 were of Some

million twenty

a finer fibre than responsibility for the collapse of part,

the present generation.

their country. They had Frenchmen and Frenchwomen, or

given all they wanted, money and about one half of the whole na-

One man stands out as solid as Most of it on, live on the land.

men galore. Yet they not only they own

a rock; courageous, patriotic, able, something like 97 per eont of all the farms

efficient, incorruptible Georges conceived a wrong plan and gave Their nor

Mandel, Clemenceau's disciple. their mal holdings being anything from

men faulty orders, but most

have made him their scapegoat No. 1.

been

simplification And while it is per- the metropubs of all the arts and twenty to a hundred acres, with Small wonder that the Vichy gang of the troops were never allowed.

Tectly true that all these indiel- ments are fully justified, not only by the present disaster, but also by a long record of past tragedies. still the fundamental question re

mains

han

Why unansweri France collapsed ' And, further more, having collapsed, how could she art as she did, or, for that matter, still does?

science and learning?

21

Thirty to forty as a good averages. The peasants are the hardest working people in the world and Born after a defeat and during their womenfolk share their bur- a national paroxysm of the utmost dens. During the early months gravity, this Third Republic ar- of the present war, when it was as Ieved unprecedented prosperity yet a “Sitzgrieg", it was the wo- in the minimum of time; it re- men who, almost single-handed, gamed a considerable mindictan‘of gathered in the harvest and kept national and social stabilty which up the nation's agriculture on France. enabled it to face the ordeal of pre-war level. While it is true the world war; it built up the that this huge peasant population world's second largest colmial has always exercised great politi- empire But its principal achieve- cal power, it is equally true that mant was in the creative domam its principal concern in politics at the mind and spirit. It is clear has been largely bmited to its own that the causes for the tragedy immediate interests, ie questions that has supervened canol be of food prices, indirect taxation. sulamed up in one single formula. legislation concerning mortgages and similar topies. But the peut- Mants have always entertained A

Daladier

to fight at all. In their detesta¬ tion of the Republic political re➡ gime, the amy and some of the vital

departments One of the worst culprits, in my

government opinion, is Dalacher. For nearly committed wholesale treason from five years he was in charge of the what they held to be the noblest, National Defence Ministry of

Ostensibly they be How is it that the French of motives. entered this war in what is now lieved in "regeneration through admitted to have been a state of suffering." utmost unpreparedness? Where did all the money go those milliards Only a British victory can save voted every year for National De- France. A strong and politically fence? Why was the Maginot active France is an absolute neces- Line never extended along the sity to Britain. What particular Belgian and Swiss frontiers? forms this regeneration of the great French nation is to take, it Nor are the military experts less is premature to say. As Clemen- blanie-worthy During the twenty cenu used to put it, what matters

We have wrines.ed. within the brief space of a few months, mot only a slaggering muhlary defeat but the utter disintegration of a great state, which was one of the most solid and powertul states ever known in the history of man- kind The French were civilised when the ancestors of the present self-discovered Aryans were still With some of the forces of dis- balancing on their tails from the ruption we are familiar enough. profound distrust of politics and years that separate the present are not systems, but men.

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