Laval

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7.2.41 [George Orwell]

February 7, 2011 in Africa, British government, Conservatives, France, Franco, Germans, Germany, Gibraltar, Laval, Nazis, Petain, Political, Spain, Vansittart, War-time, war aims by orwelldiaries

There is now more and more division of opinion – the question is implicit from the start but people have only recently become aware of it – as to whether we are fighting the Nazis or the German people.  This is bound up with the question of whether England should declare war aims, or, indeed, have any war aims.  All of what one might call respectable opinion is against giving the war any meaning whatever (“Our job is to beat the Boche – that’s the only war aim worth talking about”), and this is probably bound to become official policy as well. Vansittart’s “hate Germany” pamphlet [1] is said to be selling like hot cakes.

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28.11.40 [George Orwell]

November 28, 2010 in Americans, Coventry, France, Italy, Laval, Mrs Simpson, Political, Stalin, Vichy, War-time, blitz, edward VIII, fascism, monarchy, pierre comert by orwelldiaries

Lunching yesterday with C.[1], editor of France. . .  To my surprise he was in good spirits and had no grievances.  I would have expected a French refugee to be grumbling endlessly about the food, etc.  However, C. knows England well and has lived here before.

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24.6.40 [George Orwell]

June 24, 2010 in Canada, Churchill, Duff-Cooper, Eileen, England, Flandin, France, Frenbch, French Communists, German armistice, Gwen, Hitler, LDV, Laval, Manifesto of Plain Men, Mass Observation, News Chronicle, Petain, Political, Richard Acland, Russia, Spain, Stalin, Verdun, War-time, capitalists, class, collaboration, conquest, demotic speech, left, pacifist, patriots, propaganda, red army, revolution, revolutionary government, revolutionary war, revolvers, right, speeches, winter by orwelldiaries

The German armistice terms are much as expected. . . . What is interesting about the whole thing is the extent to which the traditional pattern of loyalties and honour is breaking down. Pétain, ironically enough, is the originator (at Verdun) of the phrase “ils ne passeront pas”, so long an anti-Fascist slogan. Twenty years ago any Frenchman who would have signed such an armistice would have had to be either an extreme leftwinger or an extreme pacifist, and even then there would have been misgivings. Now the people who are virtually changing sides in the middle of the war are the professional patriots. To Pétain, Laval[1], Flandin[2] and Co. the whole war must have seemed like a lunatic internecine struggle at the moment when your real enemy is waiting to slosh you. . . . It is therefore practically certain that high-up influences in England are preparing for a similar sell-out, and while e.g. — is at — there is no certainty that they won’t succeed even without the invasion of England. The one good thing about the whole business is that the bottom is being knocked out of Hitler’s pretence of being the poor man’s friend. The people actually willing to do a deal with him are bankers, generals, bishops, kings, big industrialists, etc., etc. . . . . Hitler is a leader of tremendous counterattack of the capitalist class, which is forming itself into a vast corporation, losing its privileges to some extent in doing so, but still retaining its power over the working class. When it comes to resisting such an attack as this, anyone who is of the capitalist class must be treacherous or half-treacherous, and will swallow the most fearful indignities rather than put up a real fight. . . . whichever way one looks, whether it is at the wider strategic aspects or the most petty details of local defence, one sees that any real struggle means revolution. Churchill evidently can’t see or won’t accept this, so he will have to go. But whether he goes in time to save England from conquest depends on how quickly the people at large can grasp the essentials. What I fear is that they will never move until it is too late.

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