Word: petain
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After Sedan, Premier Reynaud was desperate. He called in Weygand, who said the battle was lost. Baudouin persuaded him to call in Pétain, who was mortally afraid of Communism if the war dragged on with France losing. Baudouin switched his allegiance from Reynaud to Petain, whose closest adviser was Pierre Laval. These men made peace and took over France with the tacit consent of Hitler-moved by what ultimate motives only history can judge...
...dictators, he kicked Sir Robert upstairs from his post as Permanent Under Secretary to a vague something called Chief Diplomatic Adviser to the Foreign Secretary. Winston Churchill brought him downstairs again as one of his key advisers. Last week, as the French colonial armies and fleet joined the Petain Government in surrender (see p. 32) 59-year-old Sir Robert could no longer contain his sorrow. He expressed it, as many an Englishman would, in a letter to the London Times. The letter was a poem whose title embraced the years of the Entente Cordiale...
...leader of all free Frenchmen, wherever they may be, who rally to him in support of the Allied cause." But the British Foreign Office hedged when the General appeared to be shy of supporters. To recognize his group as France's government while the U.S. recognized Petain's regime, would have been embarrassing indeed...
...Syria, reputedly at the behest of his predecessor, General Maxime Weygand, Commander in Chief Eugene Mittelhausser of France's Army of the Near East likewise first denounced, then honored the Petain armistices. This announcement affected the actions of a dozen French warships, including at least three battleships still with the British at Alexandria. The attitudes of the commanders of these French ships remained unknown, but farther east, French surrender of Djibouti to the Italians gravely endangered British control of the Strait of Bab el Mandeb, far gate...
...Churchill is the judge of the interests of his country, but he is not judge of ours." Charles de Gaulle, who was made a colonel only three years ago, a general five weeks ago, was promptly demoted, discredited and threatened with court-martial by the Petain Government. But in the French Empire, Charles de Gaulle -whether General or just Monsieur-had quite a following...