Unruly Allies: British Problems with the French Treatment of Axis Prisoners of War, 1943-1945

Abstract

The treatment of prisoners of war was one of many issues which led to con-flicts in the relationship between the major western allied powers and their French allies during the Second World War. While both the British and Americans found it expedient to hand over captured German and Italian soldiers to the custody of the Free French, first in North Africa and then later in north-west Europe, in order to relieve pressure on their own manpower resources, this policy ultimately created a whole series of problems. From the very beginning, neither the metropolitan nor the colonial Free French soldiers appeared to treat their captives in accordance with the terms of the Geneva Convention. The situation was further complicated by the German and Italian refusal to recognize the French as belligerents and to treat them instead as francs-tireurs, as civilians carrying concealed weapons. Thus when the Axis powers shot captured Free French soldiers in North Africa, and FFI men in metropolitan France after June 1944, the French had no compunction in carrying out reprisals against Germans and Italians in their hands. This created worries in both London and Washington that the ill-treatment or killing of captured Axis soldiers might lead to reprisals against the British and Americans held in Germany - a fear which remained until the final surrender in the spring of 1945. While the powers found it hard to control the actions of their junior ally, they did prevent a wholesale breakdown of the conventions which supposedly protected prisoners on both sides while the war continued. There were, nevertheless, innumerable infractions and claims that Allied units habitually refused to take prisoners. However, the story of French treatment of prisoners raises a number of wider issues, most importantly the question of what really protected prisoners from violence meted out by their enemies during and after surrender and also later in captivity. Was it primarily the existence of treaties and conventions, or was it more dependent on reciprocity and the need to avoid tit-for-tat reprisals? Certainly, the treatment of Germans in Allied hands once the threat of Nazi retaliation had been removed suggests the latter to have been more important than the former.