Short History of World War II - James L. Stokesbury [145]
The Yugoslav situation was unique, however, in that the country was off the main line of advance of any of the major Allies. What happened in France was more typical, and what happened in Poland more tragic, than the good fortune enjoyed by Tito.
Throughout their lifetimes there were various attempts to unite the separate French Resistance movements into one great whole. Ideological preconceptions and personal rivalries served to prevent this, as did the peculiar problem of de Gaulle, “Fighting France,” and what to do about it. De Gaulle was determined to control all aspects of the French opposition to Germany, but his contacts with the Resistance inside France were tenuous. He did not appear to understand either the problems or the aims of the resisters; they wanted a new, regenerated and rejuvenated France; he seemed to them to want an older France, out of the days of Richelieu or at best Napoleon. Eventually, it was de Gaulle who won; he was the only man whose prestige was sufficient to rally all shades of Frenchmen behind him. Many times, though, it looked as if the Resistance was as preoccupied with its internal politics as it was with fighting the Germans.
Because of the Allied invasion of Normandy, the French never got the chance to try a full-scale, independent, national uprising. They did come close, however. As the Normandy invasion took place, there were general risings in Limousin, the Vercors, Auvergne, and Brittany. A massive interdiction campaign slowed the German movement of reinforcements to the battle front; German troops from eastern France, supposed to reach Normandy in three days, took more than two weeks instead. The price for this was steep; the French Forces of the Interior (FFI), as they called themselves, lacked heavy weapons and armor, and they received relatively scanty supplies from the Allies until the latter realized how widespread the rising was. There were reprisals and massacres, both of armed Frenchmen and of open towns, such as the little village of Oradour-sur-Glane, wiped out by a passing German column out of sheer bloody-mindedness.
In Paris the French rose up and liberated the city before the arrival of the Allies, thereby in some measure resurrecting the national pride after the humiliation of 1940. All over Paris even now, though reminders of the events of 1940 are noticeably lacking, there are small commemorative plaques recalling the liberation of 1944. By late in the year the French Resistance was operating formally alongside the Allies, and was given the responsibility for clearing much of southwestern France and the Biscay coast ports. On his return, de Gaulle quickly took over the leadership of the Resistance cadres, and many of the FFI soldiers were soon drafted into the regular French Army, also fighting beside the Allies. Conscription into the army was one way to deprive potential rivals of their underpinning. Ironically, former Resistance fighters tended not to make excellent regular soldiers; the necessary mental attitudes of both were too far apart.
Triumph in France was matched by tragedy in Poland. The Poles too looked forward eagerly to liberation, but their anticipation was clouded by the fact that the Russians would be their liberators. Once more geography was to prove Poland’s curse. Polish-Soviet relations had been stormy at best throughout the war; the Russians insisted that the large share of Poland they had taken in 1939 would remain Russian, they constantly snubbed the Polish government in exile in London, and eventually, early in 1943, they broke off relations with the Poles, using Polish requests for an investigation of the Katyn Forest massacres as their excuse. If the Poles did not trust the Russians enough to believe the Russian denials of the massacres, the Russians would have nothing to do with them. It was hypocrisy that would have done credit to George Orwell’s vision of 1984, but it served the Russian purpose. Bringing out tame Polish Communists,