Word: laval
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Strategic Retreat. The crisis in Franco-German relations had come at last. It had been brewing since December, when the Marshal dismissed Pierre Laval-a politician of the sort that Adolf Hitler can deal with. The Marshal's trusted aide, Admiral Jean Darlan, was in Paris conferring with Laval and with Hitler's Ambassador, Otto Abetz. Admiral Darlan was empowered to offer Laval reinstatement in the Government on an equal footing with himself and War Minister General Charles Huntziger, the Marshal retaining supreme authority. That was the Marshal's strategic withdrawal to positions he had previously prepared...
...Laval wanted more. As on the night of his dismissal, he demanded authority for himself, with the Marshal as a figurehead. To back up his demand he offered tempting concessions on the part of the German conqueror. More war prisoners would be released. The cost of occupation would be reduced from $8,000,000 to $3,600,000 a day. The boundaries of unoccupied France might be extended, possibly to include Paris. Admiral Darlan took a train back to Vichy, half won over to Laval's cause...
...Vichy U. S. Ambassador William Daniel Leahy held a conference with the Marshal and told him that the British had agreed to let more food shipments into France. Since Laval and the British despise one another, the Ambassador did not have to stipulate that the British would undoubtedly change their minds if Laval got supreme power. From North Africa General Maxime Weygand proclaimed that France would never agree to the occupation of Bizerte or any other part of Tunisia, and from farther east came news of the British capture of Bengasi (see p. 36). These things helped to keep...
...meeting of his Ministerial Council. Flandin opposed and Darlan got into an argument over the extent of collaboration that should be offered to Germany. The Marshal held to his stand that collaboration should be offered, but that it must be within the terms of the Armistice. On Laval's demands he was obdurate. Laval might return to a "Ministry of State as a member of a committee"-nothing more. Admiral Darlan went back to Paris with this offer in his pocket...
...Paris he talked to Hitler's Abetz again. He talked to Laval and to Fernand de Brinon, Vichy's Ambassador to Paris and Laval's man. Laval, playing for all or nothing, flatly refused the Marshal's offer. If he had expected the Germans to force him on Vichy, he was disappointed. Admiral Darlan had apparently persuaded Herr Abetz of his own worth as a collaborator, and he returned again to Vichy with the blessing of Herr Abetz and his boss. The Paris radio began praising Darlan and the German radio complimented Marshal Petain...