Free Monsieur le Commandant by Romain Slocombe Page A

unprecedented spectacle of my country’s sudden abasement. A collective madness had taken hold of France and the French. All our values seemed to have been cast into the gutter, creating a disgusting flotsam caught up in a vortex of selfishness, impotence, chaos, defeatism, anger, stupidity, incoherence, submission, cupidity, cowardice, drunkenness, rancour, hatred and resignation, all in the tragic turmoil of a vast, incomprehensible and uncontrolled scramble to safety, every man for himself.
    These Frenchmen that I have described, Monsieur le Commandant, this heroic people – I no longer recognised them. As I later came to understand, their fall was merely the reflection of a deeper corruption: the evil had taken root in the very depths of our men; it had entered their bloodstreams. It had undermined their souls to an extent that none had dared to imagine, and it had taken this collapse to reveal the damage in all its tragic scope.
    If our victorious Army of the Great War had thrown in the towel a mere four weeks into the assault, it was not only the result of the enemy’s superior manpower and weaponry. It was because the French Army, like the Nation from which it emanated, had also been eroded by a terrible leprosy.
    Ever since its victory in 1918, France had never ceased to dodge, to scheme, to close its eyes to the developments around it. In an unforgivable abandonment of resolve, it had consistently refused to rise to any effort, to make the least sacrifice; it had been content merelyto enjoy itself, relying on others to provide it with the means. It had opted for ease, illusion, delirium, anything rather than labour for its own salvation.
    Need I add that any country that abandons itself to such impulses is irremediably doomed to suffer the worst forms of servitude?

12.
    I decided to bear west, heading for Argentan via L’Aigle. This route was clear, being perpendicular to the direction of the exodus, and once we had broken from the horde it took us only half an hour to reach L’Aigle, where we ate in the dining room of a hotel packed with travellers. The radio thundered out the latest news: the Tenth Army had abandoned Versailles and pulled back towards Alençon, where it would join forces with General Héring’s Sixth Army and General Frère’s Seventh to form a new defensive front along a line stretching from Caen through Alençon and Fontainebleau to Sens.
    I estimated that, at that time, we were only one or two days ahead of the enemy. That was not even counting his air force, whose raids could strike deep into our territory and whose Stukas, it was said, did not hesitate to strafe columns of civilians mercilessly. Our fighter force with its outdated Moranes paled by comparison, while the English had perfidiously deserted the skies, opting for a cautious withdrawal to their island while they waited to see how the situation would play out. We ate quickly and struck out again to the west, passing two Hotchkiss tanks that had been abandoned by the side of the road for lack of fuel. In Nonant-le-Pin, we had the devil of a time crossing the monstrous flow of vehicles heading south along the main road: trucks; ambulances; cars of all ages, their roofs covered in mattresses, their interiors chock-a-block with the most ridiculous cargo of brooms, hat boxes, birdcages, bundles of laundry and silverware, not to mention pets; carts loaded with pathetic, haphazard possessions; exhausted packhorses; motorcycles; sidecars; bikes; tandems; perambulators andeven wheelbarrows. The poorest trudged on foot at the sides of the road, harassed and covered in dust. I had to honk my horn, shout, order people to make way. I pretended that I needed to reach my unit, which drew oaths and insults. The masses considered all officers to be cowards. ‘We’re done for because of you!’ one man yelled in the midst of a chorus of catcalls. I sped up as fists rained down on the roof and spittle splattered the windows. Hermione was