It is difficult for a Frenchman to be objective about these things, although that is changing. Hence the large contribution to the history of occupied France which has been made by outsiders, mainly British and American. Matthew Cobb is the latest in this distinguished line. He writes a good narrative. He offers a sound history of events, basically chronological, with all the famous tales but also much that is infamous or little known. He has read widely in the immense corpus of Resistance memoirs, and dipped a toe into the administrative records.
Cobb is a realist. He makes few claims for the military record of the Resistance. His chronicle of jealousies, rows and betrayals speaks for itself. Yet he comes perhaps closer than any other historian to explaining why the Resistance matters in spite of all this. However ineffective militarily and however counter-productive politically, the desire of a handful of people to do something in the face of barbarism, and be seen to do it, reinforces one’s faith in the human spirit. The extraordinary courage of their lives, brief and suicidal as they often were, deserves to be known and is alone enough to justify a book like this.
Is this just the self-indulgence of a later generation? I do not think so. In the affairs of nations, honesty is not always the best policy. For France, the Resistance has been a necessary myth. The country’s recovery of its self-esteem enabled it to rebuild itself internally after the war and reclaim its place as a stable polity, a major economy and a big player in European affairs. This depended at least in part on the pretence that it had made a significant contribution to the defeat of Germany. Roosevelt’s desire to dismember the French empire and impose an Anglo-American military administration on the country may have reflected the realities of power politics, but no one can seriously suggest that we would have been better off if it had happened. De Gaulle’s opposition was the main reason why it did not. And that was largely down to his ability to present himself as the representative of a great movement within France and its Mediterranean colonies. Only now can we afford the truth. q
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