Assignment to Catastrophe

"Edward Spears was a friend of Churchill’s. He was a British general, and Churchill sent him to France in the summer of 1940 to be his personal representative to the French government. Spears witnessed the whole of the collapse of France, and of the French government, of Reynaud losing power, of Pétain taking over – and his account of that in this book is absolutely wonderful. Some people say it’s a somewhat coloured account, but it’s grand politics, it’s debacle, it’s disaster. Spears has a tremendous eye for the little details: for instance, this image of Pierre Laval, a politician who became a leading collaborator with Pétain, sitting in a restaurant in Bordeaux tucking into these enormous meals, waiting for his moment to come. He also has this wonderful portrait of the French Prime Minster Reynaud’s mistress – Hélène de Portes – who was a great friend of the German ambassador. She is constantly urging Reynaud to surrender, as they’re going down through France, staying in châteaux. She bustles through the corridors casting poisoned looks at everyone else – she is an extraordinary figure – small and squat and apparently she didn’t wash very much. The book is almost like a gossip column, but at this great tragic moment. Spears’s account of how he flew de Gaulle out to London on 17 June is that de Gaulle was afraid of being arrested and possibly shot and so begged Spears to be flown out. And they set up a subterfuge at the airport and de Gaulle went to say goodbye to Spears and was pulled on the plane at the last minute. Of course the Gaullist account has a much more dignified exit… It’s probably better than any single French account. It’s just an absolute close-up of the Third Republic, the decay, the falling to bits. A lot of it is happening in these châteaux, the foreign ministry in Paris before they leave, the staff burning all the documents in the garden. It’s just a wonderfully vivid account. It’s quite long, and there’s quite a lot of bits of it which someone who is not familiar with the French politics of the time might want to skip over…"