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As a theoretician of war. he knew the need for speed. "Our Army," he wrote several years ago, "is strong in numbers but it has the character of defensive armies, slowness and rigidity. I may add"-and this proved tragically true last week-"that it has not the technical means for rapid and decisive counter-attack." He urgently demanded "an Army of shock troops with lightning-like speed and formidable power in artillery . . . modern tanks which will go 40 kilometres an hour in flat country." But those defenders of the realm, Blum, Daladier, Gamelin, would not listen.
"Time is limited." Well might Reynaud and his hands hurry last week. The peril was immediate, for as this week began, not only was France at war with Nazi Germany, but with Fascist Italy. Perhaps France had a millennium of freedom ahead-but it looked more like a mere thousand hours, perhaps less. The length of French resistance, the rigid odds of mechanization being what they were, depended directly on morale-of the troops and of the populace. Over the radio, Premier Reynaud addressed himself to this intangible factor. The enemy, he said, had embarked on three enterprises.
First, they hoped to crush the troops' morale in Flanders. "Far from collapsing, the morale of our troops and of our country proved worthy of our ancestors. The heroism of the combats in Flanders and of the battles in Dunkirk belongs to history. The greatness of our military chiefs magnificently revealed itself in those days." The second aim was to break the morale of Paris from the air. "A few minutes after [last week's] bombing I saw on the spot the proud faces of our men and women workers of Paris who cannot tremble.
We know what the colossal raid means for the people of Paris-nothing." The third and by far the grimmest German-and Italian-enterprise was the death struggle which was instinctively named The Battle of France-aimed at the morale of a people. But even this Reynaud challenged. "The dream of German hegemony will clash with French resolution. The France resisting Hitler today is not one between two wars. It is a different France, just as England combatting Hitler is not the England of the past 20 years. We of June, 1940, shall not lose our time debating responsibilities when the country is in danger. We shall not weaken France by dividing her. We all bear responsibilities, every one of us. ...
France, like her ally, is calm and proud." As he concluded, swift Reynaud made one last plea for speed: "Immense values are at stake and time is limited."Calm and proud. Someone has said that though most human bodies are composed of oxygen (65%), carbon (18%), hydrogen (10%), nitrogen (3%), calcium (1.5%), phosphorus (1%), the body of a Frenchman is a simple compound of pepper, garlic, pate de foie gras, common bread and good red wine of the land. The French are pungent people. Little things make them gesticulate wildly and pour maledictions like a flood: a bowl of soup upset, a bus missed, a kiss refused. But big things-the Battle of France, so many of the young men spilling that precious red wine into the soil-makes them cold, determined, grim, brave, calm and proud.