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| Sunday, 16 October 2005 |
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Famous Trials that shook the world - Trial of Henri Philippe Petain by Lionel Wijesiri
Born into a family of farmers in northern France, Henri Philippe Petain, after attending the local village school and a religious secondary school, was admitted to Saint-Cyr, France's principal military academy. As a young Second Lieutenant in an Alpine regiment, sharing the rough outdoor life of his men, he came to understand the ordinary soldier. The extraordinary popularity he was later to enjoy with the rank and file in World War I is believed to have had its origin there. His advancement until the outbreak of World War I in 1914 was slow because as a professor at the War College he had propounded tactical theories opposed to those held by the high command. While the latter favoured the offensive at all costs, Petain held that a well-organised defensive was sometimes called for and that before any attack the commander must be sure of the superiority of his fire power. At the start of the World War I, he was still a regimental colonel with the Fifth Army and due for retirement. During the first months of the war, however, Petain fought well and advanced rapidly in rank. By the middle of 1915 when he was 58, he was a full general in command of the Second Army and had won the trust of his soldiers because he was careful not to waste their lives in futile assaults. Saviour of Verdun In February 1916, he was ordered to defend the fortress at Verdun (a town in North-Eastern France) at all costs. The massive German attack lasted six months. Petain delivered upon his famous pledge (They shall not pass!'), earning acclaim for his policy of artillery-based defence backed by expert organisation of supplies and manpower. As a result of his brilliant defense at Verdun, he became known as the 'Saviour of Verdun' and hailed as a French hero. Subsequently, when serious mutinies erupted in the French army following the ill-considered offensives of General Robert - Georges Nivelle, then French commander in chief, Petain was named his successor. He re-established discipline with a minimum of repression by personally explaining his intentions to the soldiers and improving their living conditions. Petain was made a Marshal of France in November 1918 and thereafter was appointed to the highest military offices (Vice President of the Supreme War Council and Inspector General of the army). After World War 1, Petain was encouraged to go into politics. In 1934 he was appointed to the French cabinet as Minister of War. The following year he was promoted to Secretary of State. In the spring of 1940, France was invaded by Nazi Germany. Marshall Petain was then appointed as Prime Minister. Seeing the French army defeated, the 'hero of Verdun' on June 22 signed an armistice with Germany that gave the Nazis control over the North and West of the country, including Paris, but left the rest under a separate regime, with its capital in the resort town of Vichy. French Government moved to Vichy. There the National Assembly voted to cede all government power-Constitutive, Legislative, Executive and Judicial-to Marshall Petain, suspending the constitution of the Third Republic and making Petain practically a dictator. As leader of this dictatorial regime, a personality cult was set up and Petain's image was spread throughout France, portraying him as a father figure to the nation. Conservative factions within his government used the opportunity as an occasion to launch an ambitious program known as the 'National Revolution' in which much of the former Third Republic's secular traditions were overturned in favour of the promotion of a more traditionalist, Catholic society. Petain immediately used its new powers to order measures including the dismissal of Republican civil servants and the imprisonment of his opponents and foreign refugees. He also adopted, as early as October 1940, Hitler-inspired laws against Jewish citizens. Petain did not resist requests by the Germans, to side militarily with them. He also allowed French and German troops to deport large numbers of French Jews to Germany death camps, and his police helped German forces to arrest Jews and resistants. Allied invasion He provided the Germans with large supplies of manufactured goods and foodstuffs, and also ordered troops in France's colonial empire to fight against Allied forces everywhere (in Dakar, Syria, Madagascar, Oran and Morocco), as well as to receive German forces without any resistance (in Syria, Tunisia and Southern France). After the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942, Germany decided to occupy all of France. This unexpected action reduced Petain to the figurehead of a regime serving German interests. Petain nevertheless clung blindly to the belief that only co-operative neutrality could protect French interests, property, and lives. When the Allies landed in Normandy in June 1944, he ordered the French to be 'quiet and orderly, not to aid the armies that were liberating his country'. On September 07, 1944 he and other members of the Vichy cabinet moved to Germany and soon after he resigned as leader. On April 24, 1945 Petain arrived in Switzerland, with no thought of escaping trial. He surrendered without question to the French, and was imprisoned at Fort Montrouge near Paris. His trial did not open until July 23. He was accused, not of being a traitor in the conventional sense, but of having taken the wrong side. Whether the origin of his power was legitimate or not, he had attempted to destroy democratic institutions. Petain had probably never been clear in his mind about his own attitude. Wait-and-see In his defense, he emphasised the Attentiste ('Wait-and-see') aspect of his policy. His 'collaboration', he claimed, was only meant to fool the Germans. On August 15, Petain, 89 years old, was sentenced to death, but commended to the mercy of the Chief Executive. General de Gaulle immediately commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Petain was first sent to the fortress of Portalet in the Pyrenees, where he had kept his political opponents. In November, he was transferred to the milder climate of the Island of Yeu, in the Bay of Biscay. He died in prison in 1951. In modern French lexicology, the word petainisme suggests an authoritarian and reactionary ideology. |
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