War and Liberation in France: Living with the Liberators

Abstract

By Hilary Footitt. Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2004. x+226 pp. Hb £45.00 There are two parallel narratives of the Liberation of France, argues Hilary Footitt, the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ version, concentrating on D-Day and the fond embrace of Allied servicemen by French women, symbolizing the gratitude and passivity of the French population, and the French version, highlighting the liberation of France by the French themselves, the Allies confined to walk-on parts. Footitt's project is to bring together these two stories, to construct the liberation as the encounter and co-existence of two very different communities, taking us through a series of case studies and adopting, as she puts it, an ethnographic approach. Some of the cases she selects broadly bear out the received narratives. In Normandy, there was indeed a massive and fast-moving Allied onslaught, leaving the French as bystanders and also victims of Allied bombing and bombardment, lying low or taking to the roads as refugees once again, as in 1940. In the Midi, the Americans arrived late and the French did by and large liberate themselves, whether as Free French or Resistance, and took charge of their own affairs. But the range of Footitt's case studies gives the lie to such simplistic stories and casts much of the liberation of France in a welcome new light. Franco–American relations were not always easy after the first flush of freedom, and indeed the Americans stayed for some considerable time in Cherbourg, Marseille and Reims, all of which are put under the microscope. The massive arrival of troops, equipment and supplies was little short of an invasion, and much damage was done, whether to church towers suspected of hiding German snipers or to whole cities such as Caen. In many ways, such as the recurrence of requisitioning and pillaging, the imposition of curfews and the requirement that firearms be handed over, the flourishing of the black market and clandestine prostitution, the American occupation was little different from that of the Germans. Relations between Americans and French were often difficult: black troops were disliked and accused of rape, drunkenness was rife and Americans were seen either as savage or childlike, resentment built up about continuing shortages while the Americans were well supplied and German POWs were well treated, those working for the Americans demanded rights as workers and went on strike, to the fury of their liberators, and few Americans could communicate in the French language — Colonel Parkman at Marseille being an honourable exception. Above all, there was a gulf between the agenda of the Americans, for whom the Liberation of France was but a link in the chain of the defeat of Hitler's Germany, and the French agenda, which was to reforge national pride and national identity. Footitt has done an admirable job in the French, British and American archives, skilfully woven together a number of stories to illustrate the complexity of the liberation experience, and brought home forcefully that while heroism abounded, the myths on either side need the careful re-examination that she had expertly undertaken.