MENDÈS FRANCE Pierre (1907-1982) homme politique

Lot 942
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1000 - 1200 EUR
MENDÈS FRANCE Pierre (1907-1982) homme politique
L.S. "Mendès France", Paris 10 March 1949, to Winston CHURCHILL; 4 in-4 typed pages, headed Assemblée Nationale. Nice letter to the British Prime Minister, making some corrections to his Memoirs (book devoted to The Fall of France) concerning the parliamentarians of Massilia. He read with emotion the extracts of his Memoirs devoted to the events of 1940, but wishes to complete his information "as regards the incidents which took place on the occasion of the displacement of a certain number of French Parliamentarians, of which I was, on board the Auxiliary cruiser Le Massilia", he owes it to the memory "of Georges MANDEL, César CAMPINCHI, Jean ZAY and Pierre VIÉNOT who have since died in tragic conditions" . He will see in Liberté, Liberté chérie (1943) the pages devoted to the Massilia affair, specifying that it was deliberately incomplete, for fear of reprisals against Mandel and Zay, "in the hands of the enemy", or the family of Viénot, then in France . He then reviews inaccurate elements of Churchill's account. He does not believe that the embarkation of politicians was a "premeditated ambush" on Darlan's part, but a plan "designed to place the representatives of French Sovereignty out of reach of the enemy", since the government presided over by PÉTAIN had decided to transfer public powers to North Africa. Later, the political opportunity to get rid of troublesome opponents was understood by DARLAN, LAVAL, BAUDOUIN, etc., who were not able to do so. Mendès-France also rectifies the chronology with regard to the attempts of the representatives of France and Great Britain to agree on the continuation of the war, appointing General Noguès, Commander-in-Chief of the North African theatre of operations, Mandel and the British heads of mission, Alfred Duff Cooper and Lord Gort, and pointing out the parliamentarians' mistake of having continued to lodge on board the ship, which was moved away from the dock, effectively interning the
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