OCR Text |
Show .PETAIN CHARGED WITH TREASON One of the tragic spectacles of the war was the arrest of Marshal Mar-shal Henri Phillippe Petain upon the border of France when the 89-year-old officer came from his haven inside Germany and returned return-ed his native land for trial on charges of high treason. Saxon aggression" when the Al- lies landed there in 1942. The French government was preparing to try the Marshal in absentia and the date for the trial had been set. His unexpected arrival ar-rival in France is entirely inexplicable inex-plicable except upon the assumption assump-tion that the Germans allowed him to do so, which raises the suspicion suspi-cion that the Nazis calculated his presence at the trial might devel- At the outbreak of the first Eu-ropen Eu-ropen war, Petain was a Colonel on the retired list. He was recalled re-called into active service and distinguished dis-tinguished himself by skilfull leadership, lead-ership, finally being appointed a Marshal of France and Commander-in-Chief of all French armies on the Western front. Petain was more than eighty years of age when the present war began. In the last desperate days, preceding the French surrender, sur-render, he was called into service and became the head of the French state. Thereafter, he met Hitler at Montoirer, in October, 1940, and afterward defended collaboration col-laboration with Germany as necessary nec-essary to "save France. Subsequently, Subse-quently, he urged Frenchmen in North Africa to resist "Anglo- op differences among the French people, since opinion in France remains re-mains somewhat divided on the question of his guilt. The defense of Marshal Petain will be: "What I did, I did for France" and there is no disputing the fact that many Frenchmen supported his policy as being in the interest of defeated France. In the present unsettled conditions condi-tions that prevail throughout France, the issue of collaboration remains until this day a debated point. American admiration for Marshal Mar-shal Petain was based upon his part in the first World War and it is now rather difficut to understand under-stand his remark about "Anglo-Saxon "Anglo-Saxon aggression" in connection with the invasion of Africa. Evi-dently, Evi-dently, despite close relationship between Great Britain and France prior to the German attack, the views of -the Marshal underwent a revolutionary change, regardless regard-less of the cause, whether pressure from the Nazis or a mistaken conclusion as to the best interests of his own country. 1 |