JOHN OWEN

C'est la Guerre.

 

Most countries and communities have their history ghosts. Few places can be more haunted by their history ghosts than France.  If one is haunted one can just ignore the source of the discomfort and hope it will go away,  or one can deny or rationalize it, or one can try to re-write the history. It sometimes seems that the French do all of these.

 

I first came across this aspect of French culture on a river cruise along the Rhone. The tour manager was a very urbane, Maurice Chevalier-type of Frenchman. I had enjoyed several short conversations with this gentleman and we had developed a mutual cordiality. Most of the other guests were American and, as we were in port for a few hours, the American ladies had dragooned my wife into helping them negotiate with local shopkeepers. (My wife's French is very good).

 

I saw the Tour Manager sunning himself on the top deck. He invited me to sit with him for a while. I was worried that I might be stealing his scarce rest-time, but he assured me that he would welcome company. After some chit-chat I discovered that Christian was working as a tour guide to augment his retirement. He had previously been a senior bank manager, and before that he had served as an officer in the French Army in Algeria. We found some similarities in our careers and I felt bold enough to ask a question that I would not normally  put to any Frenchman with whom I did not feel completely at ease.

 

"Christian", I said, "why is it that the French hold Napoleon in such high esteem"?  

After all, Napoleon lost four armies. Not just battles, but armies.  In the Peninsula, Wellington prevailed. In Egypt, Napoleon actually abandoned his army while he dodged the British blockade and crept back to France to enter by the rear door. In Russia, he was sent packing by the Cossacks and General Winter. Finally, he was humiliated at Waterloo, and exiled to St.Helena. In any other country, a military leader with that record would be consigned to the trash bucket.

 

And yet, every French city, town and village has a grand Avenue or Square named in his honour.

 

Christian studied my face for a few seconds and then, almost sadly, he said, "Aah, you are Engleesh!  You would not undairstand"!

 

 

Veauvenargue.

 

More recently, I was able to spend some time  poking about the beautiful countryside of Provence.  The village of Veauvenargue is nestled under the massive Ste. Victoire  mountain which features in much of Cezanne's work. In a neglected laneway stands a weed-covered memorial to the village's war casualties. There are at least twenty names carved  into the stone obelisk.  Four of them share the same  date of death and family name. Clearly, something terrible happened in Veauvenarge on May 6, 1942.  According to a Pre-War census, the village had only 161 inhabitants. Loss of  civilian life on this scale is proportionately worse than Stalingrad, or the London blitze.

 

A handwritten notice had been posted in the cafe window opposite the memorial. It announced a 'Vin d'honneur' to memorialize May 6.  There was no signature, no person's name or address  -  just "Cercle des Anciens Combattants". 

I checked the Mayor's official village website and found over twenty clubs of one sort or another. There was a chess club, a rugby supporters' club, a committee to run the annual Fete des Fleurs, at least ten painting, drama and photography groups, but nothing for veterans.  A summary of the village's history spans back to pre-Roman times.    The valuable contributions to civic and cultural life made by the Count of Veauvenarge, Picasso, Van Goch and Cezanne, are well documented.  Incredibly, there is no mention made of any events between 1744 and 1947, when Pablo Picasso acquired the Chateau.

 

Obviously, the Anciens Combattants were not part of the polite culture of the community. 

 

Speculatively, I suppose the Mayor's failure to recognize the village veterans may have something to do with the fact that the Provence region was part of Vichy France in 1942. *

 

In 1940 the French fleet on the mainland scuttled itself instead of supporting the Allied invasion of Southern France. Two years earlier the Royal Navy had destroyed the French (Vichy) fleet at Oran Algeria because it chose to align itself with Germany. Many Frenchmen never fogave us!

 

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*PS.  I later found the following note on the village website.

 

Union des Anciens Combattants Vauvenargues - Saint Marc :

monsieur KERLANN 105 chemin Saint-François 13126 Vauvenargues .

 

Not clear if this is a recent addition, or if I missed it when I first checked. JDO 

 

Camp Les Milles.

 

Life must be very tedious for French historians.  How are they to decide who to portray with white hats, and who are the ‘Baddies’?

 

Just a few short kilometres west of the delightful small city of Aix-en-Provence lies a former tile factory. In the run-up to the Second World War, it became a jail to house a large number of ‘undesirables’  who had been rounded up off the streets of Marseille.

Most of these were artists and foreign intellectuals.

 

As the War became inevitable, the detainees were replaced by German and Austrian civilians, who found themselves in the wrong place. Perhaps the French security agencies were inspired by the British who set-up similar detention facilities, notably, on the Isle of Man.

 

Following the French capitulation and ‘Armistice’, the Germans were released and Camp Les Milles became a concentration camp to hold mainly Jewish and Gypsy men, (women were held in a different location in Marseille). According to believable anecdote accounts, the (Vichy) French security apparatus scoured the streets of Marseille to round up the latest ‘enemies du jour’.  No doubt they were following the wishes of the German Authorities, and doing so with diligence and an enthusiasm to surpass even the brutality of the Gestapo. After their arrest the victims were held at Les Milles and then transported to occupied Northern France for dispatch to Auschwitz. The arrests and detentions were handled entirely by French police officers. Only later in the war did German troops occupy southern France to defend against the expected Allied Invasion (Operation Dragoon) following their successes in Italy.

 

The Camp is now a museum and shrine for the remembrance of victims, and as an education centre for French students. 

 

These history ghosts must still be troubling for the otherwise level headed French.

 

C'etait la Guerre!