Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944 by Robert O. Paxton Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944
Book Review: A break-through and eye-opening book
Summary: 5 Stars
As a Frenchman interested in the gray attitude of my fellow countrymen during WWII, I can only say that this thorough study of the Vichy regime and its general acceptance by the French people from 1940 to 1943,based on numerous factual and statistical data,is an irreplaceable tool that has not been equalled ever since its publication almost 40 years ago. Other reviewers have pointed out the many qualities of this book, therefore I will only stress the main point of Paxton's theory: that French bureaucracy often went beyond what was expected by the Germans, that Pétain, at least until 1943, enjoyed an unprecedented popularity and , most worrying, that a certain type of "realpolitik" made it necessary for De Gaulle to avoid widespread purges of the mid to high-level government administrations in order for the State to continue to function proprerly in the immediate post-war period. The obvious conclusion is that the average Frenchman is no more a heroe or a villain than anybody else;he is just average...Book Review: An unfair book for France
Summary: 1 Stars
While « Anatomy of Fascism » is a well balanced and very interesting book, « France's Vichy » ignores the context of France in 1940. The book is unfair to France and eventually very wrong.
- First of all, one must remember that France desperately attempted to establish PEACE in Europe after WWI. France had been alone to stop Germany in 1914, the English not yet in the war, and in 1920 it was exhausted. The only thing France wanted was PEACE. (Aristide Briand received the NOBEL Price). It begged the US and UK to guaranty its borders against Germany. But the US walked away from the committment Wilson had made to France in 1919... In fact what happened is that both the US and UK supported Hitler's Germany in the thirties against France to the extent that Churchill was the lonely voice warning of the "awful danger" of "perpetually asking the French to weaken themselves". It can be said that the Anglo-Saxons' Francophobia was a defining factor in letting Hitler establish power. Not only it was a disaster for France, the world but also the Jews.
- Secondly to accuse France of rampant antisemitism is just not true. There was antisemitism, especially among the elite, but it was not expressed in the laws. France was the only country in the world to keep its borders open to all the refugees from Germany and Eastern Europe. They all came to France. And the Prime Minister of France in 1936 was Leon Blum, a very remarkable Jew. When is America going to vote for a Jewish President? So before 1939, France's behavior towards the Jews was one of the most friendly in the world. The US closed their borders and showed no pity. America had the land and more to welcome the Jews. In fact, a coordinated effort by the Anglo-Saxon world - US, UK, Canada & Australia - plus France, would have saved the Jews from Hitler !
- Thirdly, France was badly defeated in 1940. How could it be otherwise? France was not strong enough to resist Germany alone. And France was alone, the US having run away after leaving a mess in Europe in 1919, plus forcing France to weaken itself, and the UK, as usual, had no army and also very quickly run away... Dunkirk!
When France was badly defeated, and it was, everybody trying to escape from the German advance, documents show that Laval "forced" parliament to give all the powers to PETAIN. It was "a coup", not something which happened in normal circumstances. And PETAIN was an antisemite, the people around him also. In time of a major upheaval/disaster, a senile man and bad people took power. The French never voted for them. But again, the French disaster was the result of American policies in the thirties.
It is in this context that the Jews in France suddenly faced an hostile administration. Nobody in France can be proud of what happened. People who had come to France trusting the French tradition of hospitality, were betrayed. There is little excuse for such letdown though many French people did their best to help.
Quite rightly Paxton is critical of the French elite. No quarrel with that but it was a worldwide phenomenon. Just to give a personal example: my father, after the war, went to America on a business trip. He was a guest of a fancy Oyster Bay Golf Club and he invited Miss Rothschild, a first class French golfer to join him. The third time he took her there he was told that he was welcome but not the Jewish woman... and this happened after the war!
A lot more can be said. In the last fifty years, America kept alive its love for dictators with appaling results : Chiang Kai-Shek, Pahlevi, Marcos, Pinochet and above all Stalin to whom Roosevelt gave Eastern Europe....
Etc... I am not an historian. But I would like to see the rightful and arrogant America apologize to the Jews, as Chirac and France did. May be, to achieve this result, Mr. Paxton needs to write a book : "American anti-semitism in the 20th century and its consequences". France is the wrong fight, America is a better one, the real one is the top of the Catholic church: the pope.
Book Review: First Rate
Summary: 5 Stars
This pioneering book is usually given credit for sparking the boom in scholarly work on Vichy France, though as Paxton points out, the distinguished German historian Eberhard Jackel and some French scholars were publishing similar work at about the same time. Vichy France is also given credit for igniting public discussion of Vichy in France itself. Published initially in the early 1970s, its basic conclusions remain unchallenged. This is a history of the Vichy governments and their policies. Readers looking for a broader look at France during this period should pick up Julian Jackson's book, France:The Dark Years, which provides a more panoramic view.
Paxton examines 4 key prior conclusions about Vichy; that Vichy was imposed by the Germans, that Vichy governments worked to deflect the worst features of German rule, that the Vichy governments were played a "double game" with the Germans, secretly trying to help the Allies; and that the French public did not support Vichy and was waiting only for plausible alternative to resist the Germans. Paxton subjects all these conclusions to destructive criticism. Vichy was widely accepted as legitimate and was initially popular, a result not only of the crushing defeat but also of widespread disenchantment with the institutions and policies of the Third Republic. The successive Vichy governments proceeded to pursue, independent of German direction, their own "National Revolution." A reactionary set of anti-liberal and anti-leftist policies based on a highly conservative version of Catholic authoritarianism, the National Revolution was in large part an act of revenge by frustrated conservatives against what they perceived as particular enemies - Jews, Freemasons, and leftists of all stripes. Paxton makes clear that underpinning the National Revolution was a pervasive and somewhat hysterical fear of disorder and revolution, particularly among the French upper and middle classes. The leaders of Vichy clearly also made the calculation that Germany had won the war and that renewed space for France could only exist in a France as a junior partner in a German dominated European, one in which France retained some independence and its Empire. Paxton details the increasingly desperate attempts of Vichy governments to persuade the Germans of the value of a Vichy led France, removing the Occupation and awarding the French a peace treaty. At points, Vichy pursued hostile neutrality towards the British and might well have declared was on Britain, had they been offered a good deal by the Germans. Paxton does a particularly good job of explaining how important the French colonies were to the Vichy elite and for the Gaullists as well. In fact, Vichy gave Hitler almost everything he wanted; an emasculated French military, an inexpensive occupation, an essentially colonial status for the French economy, the satisfaction of humiliating the French, and the liberty to implement their genocidal policies.
While the Vichy state fell into a period of historical amnesia for about a generation, Paxton has an interesting analysis of some lasting effects of Vichy. One interesting feature of Vichy was the relative importance of civil servants and technocrats in ministerial positions. The Vichy emphasis on technocratic solutions and the exigencies of the war time economy set the stage for the dirigiste economy planning of the post-war period.
Unusually well written, the book has a particularly nice combination of narrative interspersed with thoughtful analysis.
Book Review: Landmark Work
Summary: 5 Stars
Robert Paxton is the supreme authority on the Vichy regime. This, his seminal work, was originally published in the 1970s and has been updated with a new preface. Despite the availability of additional data, the book stands with very few qualifications as originally written. Vichy, despite the claims of it's many apologists, neither protected nor served France and the French, with the exception of various professional elites, who seamlessly transitioned from Petain's regime to the Fourth Republic and, in some instances, to the Fifth. Petain and his confreres met little, if any, indigenous resistance because virtually all Frenchmen were disgusted with the Third Republic and craved a more ordered and traditional form of government, an authoritarian one, in a word. Petain was happy to oblige, basing the regime on the assumptions that the war would be short, Germany would be victorious, the (despised) British holdouts would soon be defeated and, most importantly, domestic revolution would be avoided. This last point cannot be overestimated in the conservative, Catholic society of mid-century France. The leftist riots of February 6, 1934 left an indelible impression which Vichy could and did use to telling effect. It should be recalled that de Gaulle stood virtually alone. Most Frenchmen, especially those in military and government service chose to support the regime, even to the point of fighting the British in North Africa, not only in relatively well-known engagements at Mers el Kabir, but also in Syria and domestically in Dieppe. Vichy mostly hoped to achieve parity with Nazi allies in a German-dominated post-war Europe, also hoping to retain their colonial empire under exclusive French administration. Paxton recalls all these details and plenty more, along with a welter of statistical detail which somewhat slows the narrative. Even so, the work is exceptional and a classic of the historian's art.Book Review: On the review of Mr J. Adams
Summary: 4 Stars
The book in question was written by Mr Paxton as a thesis for his PHD at Harvard in 1963 and was later published in 1966 by Princeton University.
The infamous Vichy regime rightfully denounced by Mr Paxton enjoyed the offcial embassy of Admiral Leahy helped by the friend and personal representative of President Roosevelt, Robert Murphy [despite the existence of the Free French government in London]. The fact that France is a member of the security counsel of the United Nations results from the fact that the Free French supplied the biggest contingent of men after the launching of Torch [landing in north Africa) and stayed alongside their American allies in the Japanese war.
You should check that, at Yorktown, Washington was actually defeated by the English when the French army and the French fleet captured the British army and fleet... before offering this victory to Washington. There was no lend-lease for the French support to the young American republic and you never heard a French regretting it. It's a matter of style.
You should also check that only the down payment of the Louisianna deal was actually paid because Napoleon got ultimately defeated by the British. France never made a territorial claim for that.
You should learn that despite the infamous Vichy regime which came to power by a coup and not by a democratic vote, the Jewish community of France is the one who survived the most of all the occupied countries (don't believe me check with Raul Hilberg's book), again despite this truly infamous regime.
Of the two friendly country which one should be criticized for its support is a truely open debate.
You should check that the grand father of president Bush was sentenced under the "Trading with the ennnemy act" for his partnership with nazis in mining investments in Upper Silesia, that President Kennedy's father was recalled from his position as Embassador in London for his openly expressed nazi sympathy...
You should however learn that, to this very day, Americans showing their American passports in most of the restaurants of Normandy don't have to pay for their bills because the French are still grateful to the American people.
You should know that the French population, even when they politically disagree with the American government, keep their friendship for the American people intact and their sympathy for young American soldiers on the front. There are many dark periods in American history as well (ask the Japanese Americans for exampple, or the Eastern Europeans offered to Stalin at Yalta for American control over western European economies: cf Churchill's memoirs).
The French do not resent Robert Paxton for his studying of a dark period in French history, but you should also read the cynical view of President Roosevelt toward the dismantling of the French empire reported in "The way he saw it" by his son Elliott.
The French keep saluting the American men and women, for they risked or lost their lives in France, or their blood or just a part of their youth to combat Hitlerite tyrany in what Pressident Roosevelt, after the Tehran conference didn't call "freeing France" ... but "Invasion of France".
Every American is wellcome to France no matter what! Our friendship pre-dates English friendship.
The book of Mr Baxton is an excellent book but it must be completed by "our Vichy Gamble" by William Langer and other readings like Raoul Aglion's "Roosevelt & deGaulle Allies in conflict" to understand France in the second world war.
It is not so clear to know which one of these two friendly countries has a greater work to do for cleaning its own doorstep. It takes more courage and intelligence to listen to one another points, than to spit hate for recently frustrated foreign policy. Leadership is not dominance, friendship is not obedient slavery and patriotism is not narcissic craving for military power.
For avoiding any readers'possible prejudice or misconception, it must be stated that the present reviewer's father, born catholic, spent years in the worst concentration camps for resisting the nazi policy towards Jewish people [he had already been arrested, tortured and deported when America did land in North Africa].
Among the four liberties presented by President Roosevelt were the liberty of speech, the liberty of opinion and the liberty from fear.
Let's drink to Robert Paxton having the liberty to fearfully express, with talent and personality, his political vision on an infamous French regime, and the French having the right of criticizing without fear the foreign policy of their American friends.
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