1941-07-17 — Page 39

THE CHINA MAIL, JULY 17, 1941.

CHINA MAIL

WINDSOR HOUSES

MARSHAL PETAIN

We are publishing this week a series of articles on Marshal Petain by Henry Bernstein. The original picture of the marshal spread by his supporters was that of the old "hero of Verdun," convinced that further resistance would be catas- trophic, fearful that Brit- ain was about to fall, stepping into the awful chaos of defeat to save what was possible, hold the fragments together and with skill and firm- ness restore the spirit of the French nation.

M. Bernstein's picture is a very different one. It is that of a man who was! in fact no "hero of Ver-! dun"; whose defeatism was apparent as long ago as 1918; who did nothing, despite his high military position, to maintain and prepare the French Army through the post-war years; who was deeply in- volved with the domestic enemies of the French democracy and passive, if not friendly, toward the external menace of Ger- man Nazism; a man, with a large share of respon- sibility for the national weakness he now blames on others, who in the final days slipped, with his de- featism, into high place and there used his in- fluence to complete the paralysis and hand France to slavery in order to earn power and posi- tion for himself from the German master.

over

(..

*

THE HARBINGERS

The Spirit Of France

yet.