Word: blum
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...dared to say this of the man whom Vichy had condemned to death. Did it mean that the carefully chosen Riom tribunal would actually allow a trial in the finest French tradition? Or did it mean that Vichy had forgotten that such men as Daladier and Leon Blum were uncontrollable hornets when let loose...
Heavy with dramatic overtones, the trial opened in the beige and dark oak Salle d'Assises, where watchmen at night saw the ghosts of the profligate Dukes of Berry and Bourbon, lingering on from the Middle Ages. The accused were two for mer Premiers, Edouard Daladier and Leon Blum, the once-great Generalissimo Maurice Gustave Gamelin, onetime Air Minister Guy La Chambre* and a controller general of a once-great Army, Pierre Jaco-met. The accusation originally had been that they led France to war, but now the Vichy Government had watered down the charge to "betrayal of duties...
...seat. Flanking him were four other justices, an admiral, an Air Force general, glittering with war decorations. At the order "Introduisez les accuses," the five defendants filed in. First was Jacomet, a humble, whipped-dog expression on his lean face. Next the soft-footed, bearlike hulk of Leon Blum, a peasant's woolen muffler wound around his neck. Third was La Chambre, youngest of the five. Then came the aged gamecock, General Game lin, his face wan from prison illness, his mustache no longer a trim, precise line above his lips. Last was Daladier, thick-necked Bull of Vaucluse...
This claim the scholarly Socialist Blum countered with a tirade as eloquent and intellectually keen as any in his long career. The raw edges of his mustache waved like flags as he charged that "the best-armed army in the world will go under if the commanders don't know how to inspire the will to fight." With Gamelin mute, said he, the onus of war guilt was on political leaders, and, if so, where were the still-imprisoned ex-Premier Paul Reynaud and ex-Minister of the Interior Georges Mandel...
...trial, to eloquent old Leon Blum, was not that of war guilt but of "the Republic and Democracy," and, more than others in France, Leon Blum, as leader of the Popular Front, had enjoyed Democracy. That memory he now hurled at the justices. What mockery was this, that men already prejudged should face trial by a court which, under the law, was itself unconstitutional? What logic could claim that the trial was honest when Vichy had issued "directives" to reporters telling them what...