Evening star., 1945-05-06

civilian cloth, but Gamelin wore
leather puttees.
Daladier Lights Up.
Daladier produced his pipe when
I offered some American tobacco.
Lighting up, he said he had suffered
from lack of tobacco.
One member of the group, who
cannot be named now, said they had
lived in liberation of one another
despite many contrasting political
views which were never discussed.
All had been keeping voluminous
notebooks, and Reynaud said he
planned to write a book on his ex-
periences. Daladier said he in
tended to write history of the war.
Most of the group said they
planned to return to France and
offer their services to their country
but were uncertain what roles they
might be called upon to play.
De la Rocque said that perhaps
he might engage in his Croix de
Feu nationalist organization again,
insisting it was not anti-Semitic.
De Gaulle's sister, talking at length
of her imprisonment and that of
her husband, said he once had to
travel nude and virtually starving
in German prison train.
Daladier said the German who
had headed the notorious Dauchau
prison camp was visitor here last
Saturday and committed suicide
the next day, whereupon the village
priest refused to perform funeral
services.
Berlin announced April S, l943,
that Daladier, now so, and Gamelin,
Y, had been claimed by the Ger
man government and removed to
German prisons to prevent "estab-
lishment of a countergovernment"
under Allied auspices.
Both had been held by the Vichy
government of Marshal Petain from
shortly after the German defeat of
France in 1910.
Reynaud. also arrested by Vichv
in 1910. was taken by the Germans
after the Allied invasion OF North
Africa in November, l942.
Weygand, who remained loyal TO
the Vichy government after his de-
feat in the field by the Germans,
was arrested by the Germans la+e
in November. 1912, as a hostage Tor
Gen. Giraud, who had. escaped
from a German prison and joined
the Allies.
Premier When War Started.
Daladier was Premier of France
at the outbreak of war September
8, 1889, and was one of the un-
happy men of Munich who with the
late Prime Minister, Neville Cham
berlain of Britain arranged the
CzechoSlovak settlement in Ser
tember, 1888.
During the long "phony war"
period of l939-40. he was under in
creasing criticism for failure to
prosecute the war more vigorously.
and finally resigned March 20, 1910.
when most of the Chamber of
Deputies refused to vote on a mo-
ton of confidence.
Reynaud, now 66, succeeded to
the premiership, and was premier
when the German onslaught began
May 10, 1910.
BY June 16 of that year the
French cause was all but lost.
Reynaud, after frantic appeal to
President Roosevelt for aid which
the United States was in no posi-
tion to give, resigned and was sue
ceeded by Petain. last Marshal of
France.
In Command at Beginning.
Petain promptly sued for peace
! and made himself head of the Vichy
regime which attempted to govern
the southern half of France which
the Germans did not occupy.
Gamelin, scholarly soldier once
hailed by the Allies as the best
trained French military man since
Napoleon, was genaralissimo in
command of both the French and
the British expeditionary forces at
the start of the war.
When the German deluge came.
he found his forces inadequate to
stop it. He appealed to French
soldiers to stand and die rather than
retreat, but to no avail.
Reynaud finally replaced him two
weeks later with Gen. Weygand, who
had been commander of French
forces in Syria.
Weygand, remarking that he had
been given battle that was already
lost, was in command when the COL
lapse came. He now is Is.
Prodded by the Germans, the
Vichy government in February, 1912,
began at Riom a so-called war
guilt trial. of former French leaders.
Gamelin and Daladier were the
principal defendants.
Unpreparedness Blamed.
The Germans had hoped to
prove" that France was to blame
for starting the war, but during a