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Thursday, December 11, 2014


Just Finished Reading: Eleven Days in August – The Liberation of Paris in 1944 by Matthew Cobb (FP: 2013)

It was never meant to happen this way. The plan all along was to bypass the city a leave its German garrison alone to wither on the vine whilst the Allied armies swept around Paris in great arch’s pushing the German forces headlong back to their own countries boundaries. Two things changed their minds – or at least modified a part of the plan: Charles de Gaulle and the Parisians themselves who forced the issue. In the end the Allies had no alternative but to liberate Paris far ahead of schedule.

Of course no story of this magnitude is that easy. Paris was, and still is to a large extent, a mythic city and its liberation after so many years under German occupation had to be equally mythic. The tiny French contingent of the Allied forces fighting in France had to be, for political and propaganda reasons, at the head of any liberating force. De Gaulle demanded for good reasons (mostly his political future) that French troops should be seen by the world – and most especially by the French themselves – liberating their own capital. After many arguments, arm twisting, threats and a largely unauthorised race to the city boundary the French where finally authorised to proceed. The strangest part of that process was the agreement – mandated by the American command structure upon a largely North African and integrated force – that only white troops should entry Paris as its liberators and that all non-white troops should be temporarily stood down until the liberation was complete.

The citizens of Paris meanwhile, chaffing under years of occupation and the terror that followed it, decided to take things into their own hands. After waiting for weeks after the initial D-Day landings they had had enough and, after obeying the order to show restraint and wait, decided to throw what little weight they had against the much reduced German garrison. Starved of weapons, explosives and manpower they used whatever they had wherever they could. Luckily the Germans had little appetite for a fight and, unlike their counterparts so recently in Warsaw, defended themselves and little else. Psychologically already retreating with their compatriots heading back to Germany they hit out only when they thought themselves sufficiently threatened. Ordered to fight to the last man by an increasingly delusional Hitler and tasked with destroying the city rather than hand it over intact to the Allies the German commander clearly had no intentional of doing either. As Resistance pressure grew and the sound of street battles reverberated through the city boulevards the Germans waiting for someone to surrender to wearing more than a Free French armband and carrying a Sten gun dropped to them by the British.

After enjoying the author’s previous book on the French Resistance I was not disappointed to find the same passion and level of detail I had come to expect from this accomplished popular historian. Told with personal details from all sides involved in the iconic events of those two weeks this is a gripping tale of political wrangling, personal sacrifice, naked (and to be honest often naïve) patriotism among the city’s youth, fear, and triumph as the tanks rolled into the outskirts and inched their way forward surrounded by cheering crowds. Made all the more poignant by the largely ad hoc unplanned progress this is a great moment in European history captured in the dairies and correspondence of the men and women on the ground. Cobb has the ability to bring you right into the heart of the action where you can smell the cordite, feel the anxiety and also the relief and pent up fervour once the whole city was free. Highly recommended for anyone interested in modern French history or those who want to be riveted by a great story well told.

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