I Posed as a Traitor to Get Out of France

A young French infantry officer, who volunteered for service in Syria in order to have a chance of getting out of France, here, gives a revealing account of the attitude of the people in the occupied zone towards cooperation with the Germans.

In June 1941 I was garrisoned with an infantry regiment near the border of Occupied France. Like many comrades who left the military school at the same time as me, I entertained the secret hope of joining the Free French. A heaven-sent opportunity arose when a secret circular arrived, asking for reinforcements in officers and NCOs for the Levant. I signed on immediately, and towards the middle of June we left, 700 of us, by special train.
Every time our train stopped in Occupied France people, often in the presence of German officers, did not hide their contempt for the “volunteers,” brandishing a threatening fist at us, calling us “traitors” and shouting all sorts of insulting epithets. At Mulhouse groups of people, notably women, gathered in front of the train windows shouting “Shame! Shame!” and pelted us with stones. Many windows were broken. The police had great difficulty in moving hostile groups from the platform. An aged peasant shouted in front of my carriage window: “You are all traitors. I hope you will be killed by the Free French or drowned in the sea.” Many of us tried to buy cigarettes and refreshments at the station buffet, but no one would serve us. All the places through which we passed bore signs of the real feeling of the population, like the immense “Darlan has sold himself” chalked up on the wall of a factory beside the railway line.
We were particularly disgusted when we arrived at the German frontier. Then it became clear whom we were about to fight for. The Nazis, officers and men, were most polite, almost obsequious. The clanking of boots and spurs, the shaking of hands, the robot like salutes, the refreshments specially prepared for us, the toasts to German victory and the new order in Europe, if some credulous or misled people were taken in by them, most of us felt more like crying. The same ceremony was repeated during the crossing of Germany and the occupied Balkans. We left the train to be taken by air to Aleppo. The plane which took me and several other officers to Athens must have been sabotaged in some way or other, for we had scarcely got in the air when we lost one propeller. Then three engines out of four refused to work properly. The pilot managed to land safely in a field near the aerodrome where we had started. We arrived in Syria a few days before the armistice was signed. As soon as we arrived a great many of us made arrangements to join the Free French Forces. One day I hailed an Australian motor lorry on the Tripoli road, and two hours later I was at the Free French headquarters.

This Free French soldier fought alongside the British in Syria. After the Allied victory many of the Vichy troops came over to the cause of Free France.

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