Pétain, Racism, Treason, Racist World Wars, USA, Macron: the Eternal Wheel of Hateful Infamy, & Smugly Ignorant Complicity

The young, yet arrogant merger and acquisition banker turned French president, Emmanuel Macron, decided to honor Marshall Petain. Parroting Chirac, Macron said Petain was a hero who made “funestes” (lethal) choices (funeste comes from the Latin “funus”, namely a burial…)

Macron’s infamy encountered an outcry, in particular from Jewish organizations.

Indeed Petain’s criminal organization (“government”) passed a number of racial laws in particular against the Jews.

Petain had succeeded to hold the German fascist invaders at Verdun in 1916. (France had plenty of other generals who could have done the same.)  

The Battle of Verdun fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916, was the largest and longest battle of the First World War on the Western Front between the German and French armies. The battle took place on the hills north of Verdun-sur-Meuse in north-eastern France. The German 5th Army attacked the defences of the Fortified Region of Verdun (RFV, Région Fortifiée de Verdun) and those of the French Second Army on the right bank of the Meuse. Inspired by the experience of the Second Battle of Champagne in 1915, the Germans planned to capture the Meuse Heights, an excellent defensive position with good observation for artillery fire on Verdun. The Germans hoped that the French would commit reserves to recapture the position and suffer catastrophic losses in a battle of annihilation, at little cost to the Germans in advantageous positions on the heights.

The Germans captured Fort Douaumont in the first three days of the offensive. The German advance slowed in the next few days. By 6 March, ​21 French divisions were in the RFV and a more extensive defence in-depth had been constructed. Pétain ordered that no withdrawals were to be made and that counter-attacks were to be conducted, despite exposing French infantry to fire from the German artillery. By 29 March, French artillery on the west bank had begun a constant bombardment of German positions on the east bank, which caused many German infantry casualties.

In August and December, French counter-offensives recaptured much of the ground lost on the east bank and recovered Fort Douaumont and Fort Vaux. The battle had lasted for 303 days, the longest and one of the most costly in human history. In 2000, Hannes Heer and K. Naumann calculated 377,231 French and 337,000 German casualties, a total of 714,231, an average of 70,000 a month. In 2014, William Philpott wrote of 976,000 casualties in 1916 and 1,250,000 suffered around the city during the war.

World War One had been launched deliberately by the German imperial fascists in early August 1914. Their aim had been to destroy France first, then Russia, and finally, after it got an army together, force Great Britain to surrender. However after smashing into Belgium, and crushing northern France, the racist fascist invaders suffered a brilliant counterattack at the First Battle of the Marnes between 6 September and 13 September 1914.

Fascist German Troops Fighting the French REPUBLIC At Verdun, France, 1916. Ultimately more than 1.2 million casualties at Verdun alone, in a radius of a few kilometers.

French Commander In Chief Joffre was able to bring General Michel-Joseph Maunoury’s newly-formed Sixth Army into line northeast of Paris and to the west of the BEF. Using these two forces, he planned to attack on September 6. On September 5, Kluck learned of the approaching enemy and began to wheel his First Army west to meet the threat posed by the French Sixth Army. In the resulting Battle of the Ourcq, Kluck’s men were able to put the French on the defensive. While the fighting prevented the Sixth Army from attacking the next day, it did open a 50 kilometer (30-mile) gap between the First and Second German Armies.

Utilizing the new technology of aviation, French reconnaissance planes quickly spotted this gap and reported it to Joffre. Moving to exploit the opportunity, Joffre ordered General Franchet d’Espérey’s French Fifth Army and the BEF into the gap. As these forces moved to isolate the German First Army, Kluck continued his attacks against Maunoury. Composed largely of reserve divisions, the Sixth Army came close to breaking but was reinforced by troops brought from Paris by taxicab, buses and other motorized vehicles on September 7. On September 8, the aggressive d’Espérey launched a large-scale attack on Bülow’s Second Army driving it back.

By the next day, both the German First and Second Armies were being threatened with encirclement and destruction. Told of the threat, Moltke suffered a nervous breakdown. (The breakdown lasted months and was kept secret; Moltke had been the main fascist behind the foolhardy German attack onto the world and civilization.) 

During that week on the Marnes, 80,000 French troops died, and so did 68,000 Germans. (1,700 British, fighting under French command, also died.; the BEF, equivalent to a French army corps was not aggressive, because of its commander, also named… French. That enabled the german invaders to escape…)

The German retreat at the Marnes marked the abandonment of the Schlieffen Plan, that sneak attack on civilization. Overall German commander, and war plotter Moltke is said to have reported to the Kaiser: “Your Majesty, we have lost the war.” In the aftermath of the battle, both sides dug in and four years of stalemate ensued.

I went into some length about the First Battle of the Marnes to explain that, relative to these great feats, by great generals, in a war of movement, Pétain’s work pales into obscurity: his main battle, Verdun, was one of fortresses. One kilometer here, one kilometer there… But there is worse.

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So yes, Pétain was a hero at Verdun. But he was put there, under orders from higher-ups in the French hierarchy. Pétain was following orders. He organized supply lines (Voie Sacree), got French soldiers executed.

When I heard of Macron’s temporary collapse of reason, I sent a message to a number of organizations.

Marshall Pétain obeyed at Verdun. However, when dictator of France, he chose to set up racist anti-Jewish laws. A crime against humanity. Pétain also agreed to a pro-Nazi ceasefire in June 1940, instead of pursuing the war from Algeria (Nazis couldn’t seize that). So he is a Nazi traitor to France & civilization, worthy of death!

Pétain was indeed condemned to death in 1946, and struck with national indignity.

Let me repeat my points:

1. When Pétain was a hero, he was actually not just executing soldiers, but executing orders. Executing soldiers? The orders not to retreat were given using the old Roman method of executing those who disobeyed.
2. When Pétain was on his own, in June 1940, he betrayed, first the Republic (France was a Republic fighting a lethally racist invading tyranny, the natural scion of the despicable tyranny of 1914… Not to speak of the holocaust in Namibia earlier…). Then Pétain betrayed civilization with his racial laws.  
   

In 1940, France had been the victim of her own commander-in-chief, who didn’t see the trap Hitler and the German High Command had led him in (although his second in command told him it was a possibility). A number of incredible coincidences made the situation worse (for example the absence of the Second Armored British division, which was supposed to be where the Nazi tanks passed). In 40 days the Battle of France (as it came to be known) caused 360,000 dead or wounded French soldiers, and around 164,000 casualties on the Nazi and Italian side (a bit more than 6,000 Italian died, and more than 50,000 Nazis).

Considering perhaps the callous disregard the USA showed for the peril in which France and britain, its parents, were. Pétain called for a ceasefire.

Asking for a ceasefire with the Nazis in 1940 was a mistake: it made the French empire weak, when it was far from defeated. The French fleet and French aviation were ultramodern, mostly intact and in great numbers. Retreating to North Africa, they could have prevented indefinitely the Nazis to get to Africa (the British, with much smaller forces than the French had, all by themselves, succeeded to nearly do so).   

Paradoxically, by holding Africa (and the Middle East), the French Republic would have been in better situation to protect French citizens in occupied France.

But then, of course, the population of France in 1939 was less than in 1914. Thanks to the butchery of WWI. Many French didn’t feel like dying for another war whose great and only victor was going to be the USA again… French die, US profits. (And you tell me Trump is bad? Relative to what?)

So why didn’t Pétain choose that route? Because he was a racist (against Jews, at the very least). A closet Nazi. It’s also for the same reason that De Gaulle, also a racist (this one against North Africans), was so fond of Pétain’s memory.

Actually, Pétain was filth. He should be celebrated as such. And only as such. His glory in WWI is nothing: it was ordered to him. Pétain clearly deserved death much more than King Louis XVI. Ah, but then, Macron said France couldn’t get over the execution of the king (although Britain clearly had). And that France still longed for a king… So, if Louis XVI was not that culprit, then neither was Pétain…

US citizens, reading all this, could smirk: who cares? Well, the French Republic, and her multiethnic empire twice saved the world by fighting to death German lethally racist fascism in 1914-1918 and 1939-1945. Pétain was Hitler’s soulmate. It’s important to be able to distinguish who was with Adolf and his ilk, and who was against.

The USA played a crucial Deus Ex Machina role in both world wars, encouraging & enabling lethal fascist German racist militarism in many ways. Now many (pseudo-) progressives in the USA vent hatred at Trump. As if Trump were culprit of what the USA did for real with its German proxy in 1914-45! It’s clearly unconscious, but those (pseudo) progressives would gain in power if they knew what truly happened, in the real world of real fascism and real racism, and how US plutocracy enacted its hatred.

In 1914-1917, the USA helped the Kaiser (and then did a 180 degrees as it became clear France and Britain were going to win). In 1933-1941, the USA and its plutocracy helped Hitler (and arguably more, as many US firms collaborated with Hitler, throughout the war… IBM, for example, from New York, through Geneva, kept on managing all the computers of Nazi Germany, all the way to May 8, 1945…)

Those who judge others, as if they knew history, should learn it first.

To finish with the traitor Pétain, traitor to France, the Republic, civilization and humanity, rightly condemned to death and national indignity. Pétain’s greatest glory in WWI was to order shot to death panicked soldiers, to make French soldiers fear their own generals more than the robotic racist fascists they were fighting. The least that could have been done, was to give him some of his own medicine, all the way. (Some, who were much less culprit than Pétain were executed; France executed up to 40,000 Nazi collaborators in 1944-45-46…)

Because it was not done, now we have ignorant, arrogant twerps telling us Pétain was a great man, at some point. One can be great, according to Macron, although one engaged in racist genocide. If Pétain had been executed, as he should have been, Macron would have reviewed his copy, before uttering his racist drivel.

Patrice Ayme

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The French REPUBLIC suffered 1.4 million KIA and 4.2 million wounded, including 15,000 “gueules cassees”, soldiers with atrociously destroyed faces.  Ten billion letters between French soldiers and loved ones were exchanged.

 

Tags: genocide, Ignorance, Macron, Pétain, USA, WWI, WWII