851.48/123: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Leahy) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 12—10:40 a.m.]
39. My telegram 31, January 9, 5 p.m. I called on Marshal Petain on the afternoon of January 9. He arranged to have Flandin present and as the Marshal seemed somewhat fatigued the Foreign Minister did most of the talking.
I read to him a paraphrase of the conditions concerning the Red Cross relief shipment and he read aloud a French translation I had prepared for him. I then explained what I felt to be the viewpoint of our Government with respect to Franco-American relations along the lines of the Department’s telegram 689, November 6, 6 p.m.7 When I had finished, Flandin with the Marshal’s approval, set forth at some length the very serious situation in which the Government now finds itself owing to critical foodstuffs deficiencies. Negotiations, he said, are beginning at Madrid between Sir Samuel [Page 94] Hoare8 and Ambassador Pietri.9 They will deal solely with economic questions.
He said that since the Armistice Agreement provisions in principle prohibit such negotiations, the Germans have been informed of them at Wiesbaden. (He emphasized that German “authorization” had not been requested.) It is in connection with these talks that the French so urgently need our help in persuading the British to adopt a “reasonable attitude”. He said, as he had previously, (Embassy’s telegram 1201, December 31, 9 a.m.10) that unless 6 million quintals of wheat and 2 million quintals of corn are received during the period between March 31 and the next crop, there will be a complete absence of these products. There is also an urgent need for meat; in the industrial suburbs of Paris the workmen have not had one gram for the last 2 weeks. The Germans, he said, are now conducting an active campaign in their controlled Paris press—and this is confirmed to me from other sources—blaming the food shortage entirely on the Vichy Government. While they have been careful so far not to attack the Marshal’s person, their attempt to undermine his Government is subtle and deliberate.
The Germans are, he said, utilizing the danger of starvation and human misery to bring pressure on and threaten the independence of the French Government. In view of the large stocks which the Germans have seized in the countries they have occupied—“including considerable amounts from occupied France”—they will, he said, eat well enough themselves this winter. There is a real danger when the situation becomes sufficiently acute that they will step in with their own winter help organization and distribute certain quantities of foodstuffs to the French population; this he feels they are in a position to do at least on a small scale. This, said Flandin, would result in swinging opinion so strongly against the Marshal’s Government and against the British that the Germans could set up their own Government, possibly occupy the entire country and bring about the further incidents against the British which they so ardently desire. In other words, under such circumstances an effort to force the British blockade, he implied, would be decidedly popular in France. The food problem is an economic one at present; it may soon become political. He admitted, in reply to my inquiry, that the German press campaign has so far not met with much success—and this is also confirmed to me from other sources—but he feels that the danger for the future is real and both he and the Marshal were patently worried.
[Page 95]The French, he said, want our help in three respects: First and foremost in persuading the British to allow the foodstuffs so vitally needed to pass the blockade. I inquired whether he had reference to the occupied zone as well as the unoccupied zone and he replied emphatically in the affirmative.
In reply to my further inquiry he said that he felt confident that the Germans would give “assurances” that foodstuffs brought into the occupied territory would be distributed solely to the French population although he did not himself seem to place entire confidence in those assurances. The Marshal remarked at this point that the Germans have already taken 500,000 head of cattle and 1,000,000 pigs and that they are continuing to take livestock in the occupied territory.
The second point on which the French require assistance, said Flandin, is in the unblocking of French assets in the United States. He spoke of a proposal which has apparently been made to ship gold from Martinique to the United States in return for the release of French dollar assets for foodstuff purchases and he did not seem to anticipate great difficulties on this score.
The third point is the question of transportation. He spoke of the number of ships which the French have tied up in our ports and the desire to utilize some of these for transport purposes. The Marshal stated that in addition to the aforesaid foodstuffs the unoccupied zone is in dire need of lubricating oils and unless supplies of these are permitted to be imported the French railways will soon be unable to function, thereby materially aggravating the present difficulties of distribution. Flandin then turned to the second question of future interest, namely the provisioning of North Africa.
He said that the food situation of metropolitan France, quite aside from any other point of view, would be considerably worse if the North African crop of 1941 cannot be harvested. Owing to lack of horses in North Africa that crop must be made as in the past by tractors and the supply of fuel oil for these tractors has run extremely short. He also spoke of the need in Morocco for sugar and tea which constitute principal articles of the native diet, but I imagine the North African needs are being fully covered by Murphy.11
The Marshal expressed his deep appreciation of the President’s message and said that I had brought him the first ray of hope in some time.
He said that he had given assurances in the past that the French would never initiate any military or naval action against the British and he wished to reiterate those assurances in the most solemn manner. [Page 96] He added, however, that France would defend her colonial territories against all comers. The help he said that he is asking now in this question of food supplies—and which help we alone can give—is to enable France to maintain the independence which she still enjoys and to prevent her from being forced to go further than the terms of the Armistice provide.
I asked Flandin to give me an informal memorandum explaining in some detail just what are the needs and this he promised to do. I have delayed this telegram in the expectation of receiving it but since its preparation has not yet been completed I feel it advisable to transmit this message without further delay. He likewise discussed the urgent question of arms for the defense of Indochina which I shall report by special telegram.
The Marshal who throughout this interview seemed tired and discouraged, in reply to an inquiry as to recent developments, emphasized the German press campaign against him and his Government in the occupied territory. He referred especially and with feeling to the attacks of Déat12 in L’Oeuvre.
I made it quite clear that I had little reason to hope that foodstuffs would be forthcoming for the occupied territory and while this was obviously disappointing they indicated that supplies for the unoccupied area would go a long way to help.
It would seem to me that there is a simple choice of sufficiently strengthening the Marshal’s hand at this critical juncture to enable him to carry on with the independence which his Government still retains, or of refusing this help with several unpredictable possible results: Following the Darlan school of thought, an effort may be made by this Government to force the British blockade with possible further engagements between the French and British Fleets; or the Germans, taking advantage of the serious social conditions which will result from a breadless France, may set up their own subservient regime that may be able to go farther along the road of assistance to Germany’s war efforts than the Marshal would ever consider.
It is my opinion that the provisioning of wheat and corn for the suffering people of unoccupied France is necessary if we are to retain the good will of the French. It should be so distributed by the American Red Cross as to ensure no assistance to aggressor nations.
It is my opinion that the provisioning of lubricating oil for the railways of unoccupied France and fuel for the agricultural machinery in North Africa is essential to the profound and critical food shortages both in European France and French North Africa.
- Foreign Relations, 1940, vol. ii, p. 482.↩
- British Ambassador in Spain.↩
- François Pietri, French Ambassador in Spain.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1940, vol. ii, p. 556.↩
- Robert D. Murphy, Counselor of Embassy in France, on special assignment in North Africa.↩
- Marcel Déat, editor of the French newspaper L’Oeuvre, under German control.↩