Jean Louis Xavier François Darlan (; 7 August 1881 – 24 December 1942) was a French admiral and political figure. Born in Nérac, Darlan graduated from the École navale in 1902 and quickly advanced through the ranks following his service during World War I. He was promoted to rear admiral in 1929, vice admiral in 1932, and lieutenant admiral in 1937 before finally being made admiral and Chief of the Naval Staff in 1937. In 1939, Darlan was promoted to admiral of the fleet, a rank created specifically for him.
Darlan was Commander-in-Chief of the French Navy at the beginning of World War II. After France's armistice with Germany in June 1940, Darlan served in Philippe Pétain's Vichy regime as Minister of Marine, and in February 1941 he took over as Vice-President of the Council, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of the Interior and Minister of National Defence, making him the de facto head of the Vichy government. In April 1942, Darlan resigned his ministries to Pierre Laval at German insistence, but retained his position as Commander-in-Chief of the French Armed Forces.
Darlan was in Algiers when the Allies invaded French North Africa in November 1942. Allied commander Dwight D. Eisenhower struck a controversial deal with Darlan, recognising him as High Commissioner of France for North and West Africa. In return, Darlan ordered all French forces in North Africa to cease resistance and cooperate with the Allies. Less than two months later, on 24 December, Darlan was assassinated by Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle, a 20-year-old monarchist and anti-Vichyist.
Early life and career
Darlan was born in Nérac, Lot-et-Garonne, to a family with a long connection with the French Navy. His great-grandfather was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar. His father, Jean-Baptiste Darlan, was a lawyer and politician who served as Minister of Justice in the cabinet of Jules Méline. Georges Leygues, a political colleague of his father who would spend seven years as Minister of the Marine, was Darlan's godfather.
Darlan graduated from the École Navale in 1902. During World War I, he commanded an artillery battery that took part in the Battle of Verdun. After the war Darlan commanded the training ships Jeanne d'Arc and Edgar Quinet, receiving promotions to frigate captain in 1920 and captain in 1926.
Thereafter Darlan rose swiftly. He was appointed Chef de Cabinet to Leygues and promoted to contre-amiral in 1929. In 1930, he served as the French Navy's representative at the London Naval Conference, and in 1932 he was promoted to vice-amiral. Subsequently, in 1934, he took command of the Atlantic Squadron at Brest. He was promoted to vice-amiral d'escadre in 1936.
Chief of the Naval Staff
In 1936, he went to London on an unsuccessful mission to persuade the Admiralty that greater Anglo-French naval co-operation was needed given the way that Germany and Italy had aligned as a result of the Spanish Civil War. On 5 August 1936, Darlan met with the First Sea Lord, Admiral Ernle Chatfield, where he expressed much concern about the prospect of Italy obtaining naval and air bases in the Balearic Islands and likewise Germany obtaining naval and air bases in the Canary Islands. Darlan argued for joint Anglo-French action to prevent the Axis powers from obtaining any bases on Spanish soil.
During the Spanish Civil War, the Front populaire government of Léon Blum had pursued a pro-Republican neutrality while Italy had intervened on the side of the Spanish Nationalists, leading to acute Italo-French tensions. Blum stated that Darlan "thinks exactly as I do" about a potential Italian naval threat to France, and selected him as the next chief of staff of the Marine to replace the pro-Italian Admiral Georges Durand-Viel. In addition, Darlan was considered by Blum to be loyal to the republic and Darlan had spoken in favour of the Front populaire social reforms. Darlan had attracted attention within the Marine in the fall of 1936 with his advocacy of France's seizing the Balearic Islands to put a stop to the Italian naval and air bases under construction there as he argued that the prospect of Italian naval and air attacks from the Balearics on French shipping was an intolerable threat. Though Blum did not take up Darlan's suggestion, he did approve of him as an admiral with strong anti-Italian views, which he considered to be a refreshing contrast to Durand-Viel who advocated a Franco-Italian alliance. Blum's decision in October 1936 to appoint Darlan as the next chief of the naval staff over a number of admirals who had more seniority and combat experience was controversial.
He was appointed Chief of the Naval Staff from 1 January 1937, at the same time promoted to amiral. Darlan was close to Blum and the Defence Minister Édouard Daladier. As head of the Navy he successfully used his political connections to lobby for a building programme to counter the rising threat from the Kriegsmarine and Regia Marina. The American historian Reynolds Salerno wrote: "While Durand-Viel was a soft-spoken, cautious administrator who sought out advice from his subordinates and deferred to his minister for major policy decisions, Darlan was an extremely self-confident, resolute admiral who monopolized every aspect of the Marine". Salerno described Darlan as a conservative French nationalist who was committed to preserving France as a great power via a programme of building more warships for the Marine. Darlan's political views were inclined towards the right, but he worked well with the centrist Daladier and the leftist Blum.
After attending the Coronation of George VI, Darlan complained that protocol had left him, as a mere vice admiral, "behind a pillar and after the Chinese admiral". In 1939 he was promoted to Amiral de la flotte, a rank created specifically to put him on equal terms with the First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy. Darlan promised Churchill, now the British prime minister, at the Briare Conference (12 June) that no French ship would ever come into German hands.
France and Britain were bound by treaty not to seek a separate peace. However, on 16 June a telegram arrived from Churchill agreeing to an armistice provided the French fleet was moved to British ports. This was not acceptable to Darlan, who argued that it would leave France defenceless. That day, according to Jules Moch, he declared that Britain was finished so there was no point in continuing to fight, and he was concerned that if there was no armistice Hitler would invade French North Africa via Franco's Spain. Pétain's government signed an armistice (22 June 1940) but retained control of the territories known as "Vichy France" after the capital moved to Vichy in early July.
Churchill later wrote that Darlan could have been the leader of the Free French, "a de Gaulle raised to the tenth power", had he defected at this time. De Gaulle's biographer Jean Lacouture described Darlan as "the archetypal man of failed destiny" thereafter.
Thereafter, French forces loyal to Vichy (most of them under Darlan's command) fiercely resisted British moves into French territory, and sometimes co-operated with German forces. However, as Darlan had promised, no capital ships fell into German hands, and only three destroyers and a few dozen submarines and smaller vessels passed into German control.
Darlan expected the Axis to win the war and saw it as to France's advantage to collaborate with Germany. He distrusted the British, and after the attack on Mers-el-Kébir, he seriously considered waging a naval war against Britain.
1941–42: collaboration with Germany and after
thumb|left|Darlan, [[Philippe Pétain|Pétain and Göring in France, 1941]]
Darlan came from a republican background and never believed in the Vichyite Révolution nationale; for example, he had reservations about Pétain's clericalism.
Because he reported only to Pétain, Darlan exercised broad powers, although Pétain's own entourage (including Weygand) continued to wield considerable influence. Darlan relied heavily on the personal loyalty of key army and naval officers in the French colonial empire to head off defection to Free France.
They also captured Darlan. The Allies had anticipated little response from French forces in North Africa, and instead expected them to accept the authority of General Henri Giraud, brought from France to take charge. But opposition from Vichy forces continued, and no one heeded Giraud, who had no official status. To bring a quick end to the resistance and secure French co-operation, the Allies put pressure on Darlan, who released a general ceasefire (including Morocco) after two days (on 10 November). However, the Americans wanted the active assistance of French forces in North Africa. Only after nine more days, after German troops entered unoccupied France, and under extreme pressure from the Allies, did Darlan agree that French troops should defend Tunisia against arriving German forces.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allied commander on the spot, recognised Darlan as commander of all French forces in the area and also his creation of the French Civil and Military High Command for North and West Africa on 14 November, with himself as "High Commissioner of France in Africa" (head of civil government).
The "Darlan deal" proved highly controversial, as Darlan had been a collaborator with Germany, as de facto head of the Vichy government between February 1941 and June 1942: he had negotiated the Paris Protocols with Hitler; and he had advocated military neutrality and collaboration with Germany, both economically and politically, in exchange for compensation from the occupier.
General de Gaulle and his Free France organisation were outraged. So were the Géo Gras Group; many of them were jailed by Darlan for months. Some high American and British officials objected, and there was furious criticism by newspapers and politicians. Roosevelt defended it, using wording suggested by Churchill, as "a temporary expedient, justified only by the stress of battle."
In a secret session, Churchill persuaded an initially sceptical House of Commons. Eisenhower's recognition of Darlan was right, he said, and even if not quite right, it meant French rifles pointed not at Allied troops, but at Axis soldiers: "I am sorry to have to mention a point like this, but it makes a lot of difference to a soldier whether a man fires his gun at him, or at an enemy..." American historian Robert Paxton on the contrary considers that a thesis "based on too many post-war pleas to be credible",
The ceasefire and the "deal" were condemned by the Vichy government. Pétain stripped Darlan of his offices and ordered resistance to end in North Africa, but was ignored. The Germans were more direct: German troops occupied the remaining 40% of France on 11 November. However, the Germans initially paused outside Toulon, the base where most of the remaining French ships were moored. Only on 27 November did the Germans try to seize the ships, but all capital ships were scuttled, and only three destroyers and a few dozen smaller ships were captured, mostly fulfilling Darlan's promise in 1940 to Churchill.
Darlan refused to repeal the most aggressive laws and measures of the Vichy regime, which resulted in political prisoners remaining in concentration camps in southern Algeria. Justifying himself on military grounds, he refused to abolish the discriminatory status of Jews, restore the Crémieux Decree, or emancipate Muslims.
The American public supported Free France and did not like the "Darlan deal"; one American official admitted that this episode amounted to "a sordid nullification of the principles for which the United Nations were supposed to be fighting for."
Assassination
On the afternoon of 24 December 1942, French anti-Vichyist and monarchist Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle shot Darlan at his headquarters in the People's Palace; Darlan died a few hours later. Bonnier de La Chapelle (aged 20), the son of a French journalist, was part of a pro-monarchist group that wanted to restore the pretender to the French throne, the Count of Paris.
De La Chapelle was arrested immediately, tried and convicted the next day, and executed by firing squad on 26 December.
Legacy
Darlan was unpopular with the Allies – he was considered pompous, having asked Eisenhower to provide 200 Coldstream Guards and Grenadier Guards as an honour company for the commemoration of Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz. It was said that "no tears were shed" by the British over his death. Harold Macmillan, who was Churchill's adviser to Eisenhower at the time of the assassination, wryly described Darlan's service and death by saying, "Once bought, he stayed bought."
|-
! Midshipman first class
| 5 October 1902
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! Ship-of-the-line ensign
|5 October 1904
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! Ship-of-the-line lieutenant
|16 November 1910
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! Corvette captain
|11 July 1918
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! Frigate captain
|1 August 1920
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! Ship-of-the-line captain
|17 January 1926
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! Counter admiral
|19 November 1929
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! Vice-admiral
|4 December 1932
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! Squadron vice-admiral
|1936
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! Admiral
|1 January 1937
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! Admiral of the fleet
|24 June 1939
|}
Decorations
- 80px Knight of the Order of Agricultural Merit: 28 July 1906
- 80px Officer of the Order of Maritime Merit: 19 January 1931
- 80px Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour: 21 December 1937; Grand Officer: 31 December 1935; Commander: 31 December 1930; Officer: 16 June 1920; Knight: 1 January 1914
Notes
References
Bibliography
- Atkin, Nicholas, Pétain, Longman, 1997, .
- Funk, Arthur L. "Negotiating the 'Deal with Darlan'." Journal of Contemporary History 8.2 (1973): 81–117. Online.
- Funk, Arthur L. The Politics of Torch, University Press of Kansas, 1974.
- Howe, George F. North West Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West, Center of Military History, US Army, 1991.<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed, if any -->
- Hurstfield, Julian G. America and the French Nation, 1939–1945 (1986) online pp. 162–83.
- Kitson, Simon. The Hunt for Nazi Spies: Fighting Espionage in Vichy France, (University of Chicago Press, 2008)<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed, if any -->
- Lacouture, Jean. De Gaulle: The Rebel 1890–1944 (1984; English ed. 1991),
- Melka, Robert L. "Darlan between Britain and Germany 1940–41", Journal of Contemporary History (1973) 8#2 pp. 57–80 at JSTOR .
- Verrier, Anthony. Assassination in Algiers: Churchill, Roosevelt, DeGaulle, and the Murder of Admiral Darlan (1990).<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed, if any -->
- Williams, Charles, Pétain, Little Brown (Time Warner Book Group UK), London, 2005, p. 206, .
In French
- José Aboulker et Christine Levisse-Touzet, "8 Novembre 1942: Les armées américaine et anglaise prennent Alger en quinze heures", Espoir, n° 133, Paris, 2002.
- Yves Maxime Danan, La Vie politique à Alger de 1940 à 1944, Paris: L.G.D.J., 1963.
- Professeur Yves Maxime Danan, République Française Capitale Alger, 1940-1944, Souvenirs, L'Harmattan, Paris, 2019.
- Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Politique étrangère de la France: L'abîme: 1940–1944. Imprimerie nationale, 1982, 1986.
- Bernard Karsenty, "Les Compagnons du 8 Novembre 1942", Les Nouveaux Cahiers, n°31, Nov. 1972.
- Simon Kitson, Vichy et la chasse aux espions nazis, Paris: Autrement, 2005.
- Christine Levisse-Touzet, L'Afrique du Nord dans la guerre, 1939–1945, Paris: Albin Michel, 1998.
- Henri Michel, Darlan, Paris: Hachette, 1993.