John Lichfield: Our Man in Normandy
Sarkozy to fight defeatism on the beaches
Monday, 5 May 2008
President Nicolas Sarkozy is about to invade Normandy, weather permitting.
The Elysée Palace will announce officially today that the celebration of France's victory over Germany in 1945 (with some American, British and Canadian help) will not take place at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on 8 May, as tradition demands. Instead, on Thursday, President Sarkozy will preside over an elaborate and expensive ceremony at the small seaside town of Ouistreham, just north of Caen.
Almost the entire French government, the ambassadors of Allied nations and hundreds of war veterans will be moved the 130 miles to lower Normandy in a fleet of planes and a special train. Viewing platforms and a staircase have been constructed. The beach has been swept for mines, just in case any of the 2 million explosive devices installed by General Erwin Rommel 64 years ago might have eluded generations of holidaymakers.
Why choose Ouistreham? The small town is the easternmost part of the D-Day landing beaches. On 6 June 1944, it was part of Sword Beach, where 28,845 British soldiers came ashore. They were part of an Allied force of 156,000 which landed in France that day. President Sarkozy will pay eloquent tribute to the sacrifices of American, British and Canadian troops. He will later attend a ceremony at a Canadian military cemetery with the Governor-General of Canada, Michaelle Jean.
None of that explains why Ouistreham was chosen for the first official, 8 May celebration outside the capital. Why not go to the bloodiest beach, Omaha? Or to Courseulles, where General Charles de Gaulle landed on 14 June?
The explanation is that, of the 156,000 soldiers who landed on D-Day, 177 – or 0.11 per cent – were French. They came ashore at Ouistreham. A small force of French commandos, led by Commandant Philippe Kieffer, successfully stormed a German strongpoint in the Ouistreham casino. They helped to clear the way for the British troops to move inland and relieve the glider-borne soldiers holding Pegasus Bridge a few milesto the south.
The bravery of the "Kieffer Commando" is worth recalling. By the end of the battle of Normandy in August, all but 33 of them had been killed or wounded. Many other French soldiers came ashore later in June and July 1944 to take part in the defeat of Nazism.
It may seem strange, all the same, for President Sarkozy to commandeer the D-Day beaches, where so many thousands of Allied soldiers fought, to pay such an elaborate and ostentatious tribute to a relatively small French unit. Moving the ceremony out of Paris is part of M. Sarkozy's drive to abandon tradition for tradition's sake and do things differently from his predecessors. Fair enough.
His speech at Ouistreham beach will announce that a new unit of marines is to be named the "Kieffer Commando". Fair enough.
By drawing attention to a small but heroic French action, which is sometimes overlooked, President Sarkozy is pursuing another part of his agenda. M. Sarkozy wants not just to reform French government but to reform the French collective mind. He wants to sweep away defeatism and introspection and make France a proud and can-do nation once again.
That may also seem fair enough but M. Sarkozy's approach comes close at times to reviving the heroic myths of wartime France deliberately fostered by De Gaulle, with often unfortunate results.
In any case, heroism has its limits, it appears. If the weather forecast for Thursday is poor, the beach ceremony is to be abandoned and moved back to the Arc de Triomphe.
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Copyright 2008 Independent News and Media Limited
Mr Lichfield's sarcastic comment about French troops representing only 0.11 pct of the forces which landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944 should lead to the question of "where was the French army at the time ?"
The answer is that the 120,000-strong French Expeditionary Corps in Italy had just helped liberate Rome two days before, while the First French Army was preparing for the August 15 Allied landings in southern France to which it ultimately committed 250,000 men who fought on to southern Germany and Austria.
The Supreme Allied commander General Dwight Eisenhower also wrote in his memoirs that the aid provided to the Normandy and Provence landings by Resistance groups which came out in the open at the time, attacking German forces and key installations throughout France was equivalent to 12 infantry divisions.
Posted by Bernard Edinger | 08.05.08, 11:40 GMT
The Nazis were defeated by the Red Army. Action on D-Day amounted to little more than skirmishes in comparison. 85% of the Wehrmacht were in action in the East on that day. Wehrmacht troops in Normandy were certainly not top notch. Of course, Hollywood has told us that it was John Wayne, and later Tom Hanks, who won the war. But Hollywood is not exactly known as an institute for history. A short mentioning of the Russian sacrifice in the article would have been in order.
Posted by Bruxman | 05.05.08, 10:02 GMT