FRANCE 1920-1945

FRANCE 1920-1945

8.1 The Third Republic 1920-1940

1918-26

Struggled immediately after the war:

• 1 million men dead
• Destruction
• USSR reneged on it’s debts
• Divided between right and left
• So many parties made stable government difficult.
• Large government debts and rampant inflation

1923 occupied the Ruhr

1926-32

Things improved.

Strong centre-based coalition under Poincaré

Economy boomed (clothing, perfume, manufacturing and chemical industries)

But Poincaré retired and the Wall Street Crash was to change things.

1930s

France not hit as badly as other countries as 9 million were employed in agriculture.

However unemployment soared.

Rapid changes of governments.

The Stavinsky Affair

Stavinsky was a Jewish swindler, who stayed out of prison many times because of his connections with politicians.

He died in mysterious circumstances in 1934 and the right blamed the left wing government for killing him in order to keep him quiet.

The rioting, which followed, could have toppled the government and threatened democracy.

The government held firm and survived.

The Popular Front

A coalition of left wing parties formed a government under Leon Blum in 1936.

It collapsed in 1938 but some think it saved France from Facism.

Foreign Policy

During the Streseman era (1923-29) a policy of reconciliation was followed.

1925 France signed the Locarno Pact that confirmed her borders with Germany.

1928 Kellog-Briand Pact that outlawed war as a way of settling disputes.

Depended on collective security with Britain but failed to take action against Hitler on several occasions.

Deladier signed the Munich agreement.

France was slow to declare war in 1939.

8.2 A Defeated Nation

The Maginot Mentality

Not to defeat the enemy, only to prevent an invasion.

Line only went to Belgium.

Generals believed that tanks and aircraft could not break the line

Only General De Gaulle and the Prime Minister Reynaud objected.

When Germany attacked through Belgium, the French took men from the Maginot line leaving the Ardennes vulnerable.

In 8 days the Germans had reached the Atlantic.

The BEF had to withdraw from Dunkirk.

Marshal Petain surrendered.

Armistice

Signed in the same railway carriage in 1918:

• 3/5ths of France to be under German occupation
• The South-East to be run from Vichy
• Heavy reparations
• 1.5 million men to remain prisoners of war.

8.3 The Vichy State

Petain was to be head of state and Pierre Laval was deputy prime minister.

Petain wanted a conservative, Catholic, rural state, with Vichy the seat of government.

Laval was a Nazi sympathiser.

Petain collaborated because:

• He believed Germany would rule Europe and therefore it was in France’s interest.
• 1.5 million men were hostages.
• German occupation.

The Vichy government had its own police force and dealt with opposition harshly (concentration camps).

Ordinary people collaborated by identifying Jews and resistance fighters.

Businesses felt they had no choice

 

Free France

This was a London-based resistance movement founded by De Gaulle in 1940.

Britain and the US did not recognise him until 1944 as they saw him as a potential dictator.

He was not told of D-Day.

Nor was he invited to Yalta or Potsdam.

He would never forgive them.

The Resistance

In the early days there were many different groups.

They spread propaganda, organised escape networks and gathered intelligence.

De Gaulle sent Jean Moulin in to unify them. He did a good job before he was tortured and killed.

The Maquis assassinated Germans and collaborators. They sabotaged factories, infrastructure and gathered intelligence.

The Germans responded with brutality.

After the D-day landings, the resistance sabotaged the German defences.

France and the Final Solution

Richard Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann were involved in organising deportations to concentration camps.

¼ of all French Jews were exterminated.

Petain was not anti-Semitic but Laval was.

Vichy had no problem with deportations as long as the Jews were not French citizens.

The Aftermath

10,000 collaborators summarily executed.

100,000 put on trial later. 767 were executed, including Laval.

Petain got life.