Evening star., 1942-05-03
Lombard Will Leave
This Week 10 Join
De GauIIe in London
indication of Anti-Vichy
Sentiment Of French Seen
In CoIoneI's Action
BY BLAIR BOLLES


Emmanuel Lombard, colonel OF
France, who has been decorated
with the American Distinguished
Service Medal. will leave here this
week for London to get his orders
from Gen. Charles de Gaulle.
The Free French movement has
received no volunteer whose deci-
sion to join means more about the
way the wind is blowing with re-
spect to Vichy, for Col. Lombard,
until the return of Pierre Laval, was
a passionate admirer of Marshal
Petain.
"I hope others will benefit from
my small example" Col. Lombard
said yesterday. Il think it is what
Frenchmen should do, support Gen.
de Gaulle. I bring him gladly my
experience and my career in the
army of 80 years I will do what
ever he asks me and fight wherever
he orders.
ITO Frenchmen, I say. You are
either veterans of the last war or
the sons of those veterans. You
owe it to those of our soldiers dead
who died in the last war to fight
now against the enemy
Resigned Post in 1910.
When France went to war in 1899,
Col. Lombard was military attache
here, and he held his post after the
surrender of 1910 because of his
faith in Petain. He left the Embassy
without even formally resigning,
November /, 1910, dissatisfied with
its diplomacy, but loyal still to
Petain and aloof from the Free
French.
For Col. Lombard the return of
Laval was an incident that shat
tered illusions. Concluding that
his great hero, Petain. had grown
too old to dictate his wishes, he
came slowly to the opinion that he
must join the Free French. He
cabled Gen. de Gaulle in London,
offering his services.
The last time Col. Lombard was
in England was in 1914. when he
visited Aldershot as member of a
special French army mission.
Pierre Laval" Col. Lombard said,
sis now the gauleiter of France
This development is enough to
freeze the hearts of all Frenchmen
with dismay.
when my unhappy country,
crushed under the weight of the
arms of our enemy of today, was
obliged to sign an armistice with
the German Nazis, all Frenchmen
thought that the lowest depth of
their unhappiness had been reached,
and that France had nothing to do
but retire from the struggle and
contemplate her wounds.
Wife Wrote washington Waltz"
Marshal Petain himself assured
us that if all was lost save honor,
at least France would not be OBJ
liged to contribute to the effort of
Hitler to reduce the world to slav-
cry. He assured us that France
would stick to the terms of the
armistice.
In December, 1910, Marshal Pc
tain gave us a proof Of his desire
to hnaintain intact at least the honor
of France when he rejected Pierre
Laval from his government and
publicly made the promise that this
traitor, this Quisling never again
would be entrusted with a public
post.
With the arrival once more to
power of Pierre Laval, the man
whom Marshal Petain had publicly
denounced as unworthy of sitting
next him, the government of Vichy
is no longer French government.
No oath can oblige us to serve the
enemies of France"
Col. Lombard's wife is an Ameri-
can, the former Helen Carusi of
Washington. For several years, she
acted as hostess for the French
Embassy and is the author of the
book washington Waltz and a
widely syndicated newspaper column
under the same title.