Andrée's War (18 page)

As in France, to be part of the Resistance was dangerous. Vichy sympathisers were quick to denounce anyone suspected of being involved in the Resistance movement, and there was at least one police inspector posted to Algeria with specific instructions to infiltrate the Resistance and report back. Arrests were common, but d'Astier's group persisted.

By May 1941, d'Astier was receiving regular intelligence reports from the Orion Group, including a briefing on the political views of several ministers at the heart of the Vichy government. They had identified a number of men who might be anti-Pétain and could potentially be persuaded to support the Free French. Alain's group relayed details of the movement of German troops around France, the numbers of troopers stationed in different parts of the country, records of the industrial productions of specially
targeted companies, the amount of electricity and gas used by the German army, and the state of the railways and road networks. D'Astier could also relay messages back to his supporters in France via the postal service Orion had set up through Marseilles and the Pyrenees.

Between the wars d'Astier had worked in New York and he felt confident that he understood the American way of thinking and could use that to France's advantage. He set about using his skill and legendary charm to gather around him a network of political allies, including the head of the Algerian security forces and the Head of the North African youth camps movement. In early 1942, the latter invited him to become joint head of the movement, a position which involved travel throughout Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, thereby helping him to build up his Resistance network.

D'Astier appointed Lieutenant Louis Cordier as his deputy, a vicar from Laon in northern France who had been wounded in 1940 and had returned to his parish following the disbanding of his regiment after the defeat of France. In Laon l'abbé Cordier had set up a Resistance group to help prisoners of war escape France; once the Gestapo became aware of his Resistance activities he escaped to Algiers, where he was recruited into the French intelligence services in Oran.

On 11 December 1941, a few days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States declared war on Japan and Germany. Thanks to d'Astier's close links with Ridgway Knight, the US consul in Oran, the US armed forces were aware of his structured Resistance group when they started planning for what was to become Operation Torch, the Allied landings in North Africa.

D'Astier had also developed a relationship with Jacques Lemaigre-Dubreuil, head of olive oil company Huiles Lesieur, who had close ties to the US government and acted as a formal intermediary between d'Astier, his Resistance group and Robert Murphy, head of US consuls in French North Africa. The Americans were looking for a French general with sufficient rank and authority to ensure that French North African troops would accept a foreign landing without challenge. Initially Murphy approached Admiral Darlan, Pétain's ‘dauphin'. Pétain was now in his mid eighties and a line of succession had been established; should anything happen to him,
Darlan would become head of the French Vichy government. Darlan had dreams of being admiral of a joint French–German naval fleet and refused to support plans for a US landing in North Africa.

Murphy then approached General Weygand, former head of the French armed forces in North Africa but who by the end of 1941 had been relieved of his command; the Vichy government thought he was too anti-German. There was also General de Gaulle, head of the Free French forces in London, but he was considered too divisive and difficult to work with. Besides which, he was intensely disliked by Roosevelt.

Finally an approach was made to General Giraud, a leading French general who, after the fall of France, had been held as a prisoner of war. From there he had escaped to Switzerland.

Lemaigre-Dubreuil offered to contact Giraud on Murphy's behalf. With Murphy's agreement, they met in Lyon and started to discuss the conditions under which Giraud might take on the leadership of the French North African army, working alongside the US and British forces. Giraud wanted the troops to land simultaneously in North Africa and on the French Mediterranean coast, but Eisenhower did not have sufficient troops to engage in such an operation. Giraud was forced to accept that the Allies would only land in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. On 17 July 1942, Eisenhower formally invited General Giraud to become head of the French army in North Africa; just over a week later President Roosevelt informed Winston Churchill of his plans to land in French North Africa. He summoned his military advisers to the White House on 30 July to tell them of his decision to defer plans for a cross-channel invasion in favour of Operation Torch, the Allied landings in French North Africa. On 13 August 1942, General Dwight D. Eisenhower was named Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in North Africa.

In early October 1942, Robert Murphy asked d'Astier to arrange a meeting between a group of French representatives and eight members of the US armed forces. The US contingent was headed by General Mark Clark, representing Eisenhower. The meeting took place in secret on 22 October
in a villa on an isolated beach, eighty kilometres west of Algeria near a town called Cherchell. The Americans were brought to the Algerian coastline by a British submarine and taken ashore in a small boat. The French side included General Charles Mast, Giraud's personal representative; Colonel Jousse, head of the Algerian Resistance; a journalist named Jean Rigault, who wrote the minutes of the meeting; senior officers of the French navy and air force; and, lastly, d'Astier himself and a couple of trusted colleagues.

They discussed the help that the French army and Resistance groups could give their US allies as they landed in Algeria and Morocco, as well as the military plans drawn up by Eisenhower and the difficulties American and British troops might encounter from some of the French armed forces loyal to Pétain.

The lengthy discussions were interrupted by a security alert at 4.00 a.m. when two local police officers out on patrol were seen checking the surrounding area. To avoid an international incident, the eight American officers had to scramble back into the waiting British submarine.

Over the next two weeks the plans agreed at Cherchell were put into action as d'Astier prepared, following General Clark's request, to take control of Algiers for six hours on the day of the landings, which was thought to be sufficient time for the Allied troops to land on the beaches at the port of Sidi Ferruch.

On the night of 7 November, d'Astier's Resistance groups, headed by José Aboulker, successfully took control of the radio-transmitting stations at Mogador, cutting off most military communication networks. D'Astier's groups took over the marine and air forces headquarters of Algeria and arrested several high-ranking French army officers. They were determined to prevent the French forces loyal to Vichy from opening fire on the Allies as the landings took place.

Before General Giraud had even landed in Algeria, he was mysteriously heard to make a radio broadcast rallying the French army and civilians to support him. Meanwhile, d'Astier was faced with an unexpected problem: out of the blue Admiral Darlan had arrived in Algiers in a private capacity because his son was in hospital, seriously ill with polio. D'Astier and Colonel
Chrétien (the latter was responsible for the French intelligence services in North Africa) went to see General Juin, head of the French North African troops, and informed him that Eisenhower had agreed that General Giraud was to take control of the French armed forces, that US and British troops were about to land in North Africa. He asked Juin to try to convince Darlan not to stand in their way and instead to join them. Darlan refused to accept the situation without Pétain's full support, leaving Murphy and d'Astier fearful that the French armed forces would rally under Darlan.

D'Astier decided to take pre-emptive action; he placed Darlan under arrest. That night a British Royal Navy warship attempted to put ashore one hundred men but was shot at with canon fire by French soldiers, forcing the British to give up their planned landing. The Resistance forces had tried without success to take the Algiers airport of Blida; it remained in the hands of the Vichy French. Everywhere else in Algiers, the landings were delayed but ultimately successful, though in Oran and Morocco the French troops resisted and approximately 2,000 casualties were reported.

Conscious that the French armed forces were still loyal to Admiral Darlan, d'Astier's position was no longer tenable: he was forced to release Darlan. Murphy decided there was no other option but to recognise Darlan as the legal head of the French armed forces representing Pétain and to negotiate with him.

But the military advances were not over yet. Early on 8 November, a group of British and American commandos managed to capture the gun emplacements guarding the Eastern side of the Algerian bay; using these as their base, 25,000 US soldiers landed on the beaches of Sidi Ferruch, twenty miles west of Algiers, along with 7,000 British troops further west of Castiglione. Once Darlan learnt of the successful landings, he had no option but to negotiate a ceasefire as the US forces took control of Algiers. It had been a significant undertaking, with major consequences for the outcome of the war. Operation Torch ‘was the first indication that the Allies could turn the tables on Hitler. Over 100,000 American and British troops and 100 ships took part in the invasion, which involved a massive parachute drop and five simultaneous amphibious landings along nearly 1,000 miles of the North African coastline.'
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Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie's dream had come true: the Allies had landed in North Africa and the French army would now fight alongside the Allies with Giraud as their head. Yet Darlan – and Vichy – were still in overall command of the French army and of French North Africa. What was to be done about Darlan?

I
n December 1942, the political situation in French North Africa could be described, with understatement, as difficult to understand. Instead of appointing Giraud, as per the Cherchell agreement, Robert Murphy and Eisenhower formally recognised Admiral Darlan as overall Commander-in-Chief for North Africa. Giraud in turn also agreed to accept Darlan's overall authority. It is possible that Murphy – still concerned by the hugely pro-Vichy North African population along with Darlan's arrival and three Vichy-appointed Governor Generals in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria – thought it ultimately safer to deal with Darlan than with Giraud.

Henri d'Astier, meanwhile, believed that General Giraud had let the French and his Resistance fighters down because, having accepted command of the French forces in North Africa, he then made way for Darlan and accepted reduced responsibility for the Tunisian campaign. Darlan's politically shrewd tactics had paid off, and despite the Allied landings, he refused to make any further decisions without Pétain's consent.

D'Astier felt that overall power and control of Algeria should lie with the team who had supported and helped the Allies land in Algeria and Morocco. The French army, however, was deeply divided; many supported Darlan while others were unsure who to champion.

At that time many in North Africa did not want General de Gaulle taking control of Algeria and Morocco and refused to recognise him as a possible leader. In turn de Gaulle, leader of the Free French, was not prepared to accept the pre-eminence of Giraud, while Giraud himself, although acceding to Darlan as head of the armed forces, was angry at the US turnaround. Many within d'Astier's Resistance group saw Darlan as a traitor, especially those who had risked their lives to help the Allied landings.

The plan to assassinate Admiral Darlan is thought to have begun within a group of young Resistance fighters. Initially d'Astier and his deputy l'abbé Cordier rejected the prospect, knowing that the US would not look kindly upon the political assassination by a group of Gaullist supporters of a leader they had recognised. Instead they hoped to persuade Darlan to resign, leaving the territory without governance and thus enabling them to invoke emergency measures under the Loi Tréveneuc of 1872. Their intention was to appoint Henri d'Orléans, Count of Paris and pretender to the French throne, as head of a provisional French North African government. The Gaullist d'Orléans had the support of the republicans, the press, the Catholic clergy, the Masons, the Jews and even the head of the Algerian armed forces and the representatives of the general councils of the North Africa territories.

On 9 December 1942, the Count of Paris travelled from Morocco to Algiers; d'Astier's plan, once he arrived, was to have the Murphy/Darlan agreement declared void, clearing the way for the Count of Paris to be declared head of the Provisional Algerian government. D'Astier had some authority by this point; in the provisional government that had been set up in the wake of the Allied landings, he had been appointed joint Minister of the Interior. For his plan to happen, however, Darlan had to resign. He had no intention of doing so.

On 19 December 1942, Air Force General François d'Astier, Henri's brother, arrived in Algiers from London to meet Giraud, Darlan and some Gaullist supporters. De Gaulle insisted that if Darlan did not resign to be replaced by a Gaullist, perhaps the Count of Paris, it would leave France in a potentially dangerous political situation. He believed that if a fascist leader such as Admiral Darlan was still in power when France was ultimately liberated, the French Resistance might side with the Russians.

The popularity of the French Communist party had been a longstanding concern for the establishment and it was widely thought that the French were more likely to support the Communists if a Vichy leader was still in power in North Africa. François d'Astier gave Darlan one last chance to resign; he refused. It has been claimed that François d'Astier had received clear instructions from General de Gaulle to assassinate Darlan if he refused.
Records show that François d'Astier arrived in Algiers with US$80,000 – it has been argued that the funds were intended to be used to arrange for Darlan's assassination.
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Henri d'Astier, meanwhile, was still trying to convince Eisenhower to accept his plan to position the Count of Paris as head of the Provisional government. Roosevelt, who had never liked de Gaulle and preferred to deal with Giraud, refused to agree to the plan.