Evening star., 1945-07-25
|Petain Refuses
Reply on Dieppe
Wire 10 Hitler
Marshal Is Accused
Of CongrotuIoting
Nuzis on Success
Ey the Associated Press.

PARIS, July Is. - Muttering
and protests arose from jurors
and spectators at the treason
trial of Marshal Petain today
when the 89-year-old soldier
curtly refused to answer ques-
tions about kilograms congratu-
lating the Germans on their sue
cess at Dieppe and seeking per-
mission for French troops to
participate in defense of Vichy
territory alongside the Germans.
Petain stolidly refused to answer
questions, adhering to his vow on
the first day of the trial. Judge
Paul Mongibeaux then read into
the record what he said was tele-
gram from Petain to Hitler asking
permission for Vichy troops to help
the Germans in defense.
The issue arose during the cross
examination of former Premier
Edouard Daladier, whose angry tes-
tirnony was punctuated by chair
slamming and shouts.
Lebrun Next Witness.
Daladier was followed to the
stand by Albert Lebrun. the last
elected President of the third re-
public.
Lebrun testified that Petain
threatened TO resign from the Rey-
maud government unless 1t asked an
armistice from Germany and later
the same day took complete cab
met list from a pocket when asked
to form new administration. He
described the dramatic cabinet ses-
sions of June 16, 1910.
Lebrun told in a voice quivering
with emotion of news from the front
telling of the complete collapse of
French armies.
Was Asked for Resignation.
Lebrun recounted how three un-
named Vichy officials demanded his
resignation as president. He said he
refused and was ousted by the Vichy
regimes action in suspending the
constitution and making Petain a
dictator.
The telegram referring to defense
was read in response to a jurors
Questioning of Daladier, who had
testified that "all the traitors of
France" fiocked to Vichy after the
and that the Petain regime
destroyed the republic. Daladier
had declared that France was not
when the Germans struck
in 1910.
The same Juror asked Daladier
he knew of telegram from
Petain to Hitler congratulating the
Germans on the bloody repulse of
the Canadians at Dieppe.
Concessions Considered.
There was no immediate reply, but
in the later questioning Daladier
said:
"Of his intelligence with Hitler,
1 knew nothing"
Daladier agreed during cross-ex-
with testimony yesterday
Of Premier Paul Reynaud that Ger
tain concessions in Africa" to Mus
solini were considered in 1910 in
an effort to keep Italy at peace.
THE true cause of our defeat"
Daladier said, resulted from de-
of the army and the
old conception of the inviolability
of the Ardennes"-the mountainous
gap of Belgium and Northeast
France through which the Germans
burst French lines in 1910 and
pushed back the Americans last
December.
q He said the defeat also was due
to military 'incapacity" and activi-
ties of the fifth column.
Tells of Resistance Efforts.
Daladier told of the voyage of
French officials aboard the liner
Marsillia bound for North Africa
and denied that they were "fugi-
tives or cowards," saying they did
all possible to organize resistance in
North Africa. He said he tried to
convince Gen. Auguste Nogues, then
commander of French Morocco, to
rally French resistance, using Amer
ican planes then being assembled in
Casablanca.
Daladier turned to the American
invasion of French Africa and said:
If only Petain had given the
signal for an uprising of France on
the day of the Anglo-American
landings in North Africa! What
glorious page in the history of his
long life he would have written. I
would have kneeled in front of him.
Daladier read into the record fig
ures on the increase of French war
materials between June. 1896, and
tSee PETAIN, Page A-14.)