French soldiers of 1940, these unloved

During confinement, the "The Seventh Company" trilogy again recorded television audience records. The adventures of these fishy soldiers who try to escape the German army during the May 1940 debacle always make the French laugh as much. More recently, "La Folle Histoire de Max et Léon", released in 2016, has in turn met success by staging the story of two worthless and not very courageous French soldiers who are trying by all means to escape in combat.

For eighty years, the same stereotypes have stuck to the skin of these French soldiers from 1940. Little mentioned or mocked, they are mostly overlooked. To get them out of oblivion, the historian Rémi Dalisson devotes a work to them entitled "The soldiers of 1940 - A generation sacrificed" (CNRS editions). "Having no national monument, except that of their association in Montauville in Meurthe-et-Moselle and being always ridiculed, especially in the cinema, they have always intrigued me", explains this professor at the University of Rouen. "I was struck by their relative memorial and honorary abandonment compared to their elders, even their successors of the Algerian War. They seemed to me 'sacrificed' on the altar of a glorious vision (that of 14 -18), or a decolonial vision (that of Algeria) of history ".

On May 10, 1940, the Germans launched their offensive. In Belgium and in the north of #France 🇫🇷, there is panic. In a few weeks, millions of refugees hit the road.

➡️ Discover the #webdocumentaire "1940: words of exodus" on https://t.co/h5TGnzMMJd@Stbslam pic.twitter.com/OK9r0SfCWH

"A trauma, a world and collapsed landmarks"

Before even suffering defeat, these men had to go through what was called "the funny war". From September 1939 to May 1940, these children both "of the republican school and of the idea of ​​the sacrifice for the fatherland", but also "of pacifism born of the Great War" waited on the Maginot line against the armies German entrenched behind the Siegfried line. An endless wait that has left its mark. "This period shook their certainties, their sense of duty and instilled doubt in their minds," says Rémi Dalisson. "In the spring, at the time of the German offensive, they are therefore both relieved to finish with inaction and often persuaded of the solidity of the Maginot line and the Ardennes".

But in a few weeks, the French army is submerged. On June 22, 1940, the government of Philippe Pétain signed the armistice with Germany. The shock is brutal. "What French could have imagined such a future in 1939? None, and certainly not these soldiers, drenched in propaganda and the myth of an army which had overthrown Germany and its allies twenty years earlier, presented as the most powerful of Europe backed by a huge colonial Empire ", explains the historian. "It is indeed a trauma, a world and landmarks which collapse all the more as they were not prepared for it by the general staff".

A plaque pays homage to these fights. Opposite, two Armee Korps supported by the Panzergruppe of General Guderian, finally manage, despite a fierce defense, to cross the Aisne and the Ardennes canal on June 9. pic.twitter.com/qtJitLni6T

"We present them as cowards"

From this period, the collective memory has often retained only the debacle. The fighting and the courage of these soldiers has been erased. "The figures are edifying: 65,000 soldiers killed in such a short time, not counting civilians. There were units chopped up on the spot. There were terrible deaths: sometimes with gas in the Maginot line, shredded by the Stukas, crushed by Panzer caterpillars or even burned in tanks, "insists the historian.

Faced with a lightning defeat, these soldiers also suffered stigma. They quickly become the ideal scapegoats. They embody general disintegration. Their ordeal is just beginning. Nearly 1.8 million of them are taken prisoner. They then become captives manipulated by the Vichy regime. After an image of cowards, comes that of stash. "We present them as cowards who take refuge, forced of course, with the winner. They are far away, often on farms where the French imagine them in campaigns where the rationing is less and where one eats his fill", describes the memory specialist. "Their own letters sweeten their suffering because they want to reassure their families who imagine them to be treated much better than they are."

"The old world that we want to forget"

The return is all the more difficult. Prisoners from 1940 return to France after the final battle. Between the former captives and their relatives settled a pit of incomprehension: "They are surprised, because they did not imagine the state of the country, the suffering and the rationing. For their part, their families do not understand either their double trauma of defeat: bloody combat then captivity. " For five years, life went on without them. At the end of the Second World War, no one was ready to listen to them. Their memory is not rewarding in front of the resistance heroes who died in combat. "They embody the old world that we want to forget," says Rémi Dalisson.

However, these veterans did not remain inactive. Some write their memoirs. Many participate in patriotic ceremonies or create their own associations. "They are therefore present without being completely in post-war France, they have never disappeared and rather float in memorylessness," says the historian.

It was one of the French army's attempts to counterattack, which became famous because it was commanded by Colonel Charles de Gaulle who initially took several strategic points, but which ended in a defeat of the 4th French division of battleship. pic.twitter.com/j8pNlZAtaW

Eighty years later, the commemorations organized in 2020 could have been the occasion to finally put a spotlight on "this sacrificed generation". But the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in the cancellation of many events. On May 17, 2020, during the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Montcornet, in Aisne, a ceremony nevertheless took place in the presence of President Emmanuel Macron. He paid tribute to the soldiers of the Battle of France, but above all he honored the "spirit of resistance" of Charles de Gaulle, who distinguished himself during these battles. Again, the men of 1940 came to the fore.

"Even if this anniversary is auspicious, being the last ten years with witnesses and actors, it is crushed by the De Gaulle year", notes Rémi Dalisson. The year 2020 marks the 130th anniversary of his birth, the 80th anniversary of the June 18 appeal and the 50th anniversary of his disappearance. "And the Covid further reinforces this probable failure. The state and the media will fall back on what is likely to be De Gaulle, its appeal and the beginning of external, then internal, resistance. It is therefore a disappointment for the historian, it will also be for the last elders of 40, who also die a lot from the Covid, given their age. "

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