First Crisis

France, though a beaten State, still regards itself as sovereign, whether or not any other nation does. The Government at Vichy promulgates laws, regulates commerce, commands the lives of 20,000,000 citizens in unoccupied France and the hopes of 20,000,000 others in the occupied zone. Vichy also sends diplomatic envoys to foreign sovereign States. In interim diplomatic relations with Germany, France has definite bargaining points which, though they might mean suicide for France, might also mean serious checks and stumbles to Germany. Last week sovereign France used these points to advantage in her first post-armistice crisis with Germany.

The crisis was over that dusty seesaw of contention, Alsace-Lorraine. The whole area was French from the mid-18th Century until Bismarck seized it in 1871, fell to France again after World War I, and was last week being forcibly Germanized again. When the Nazis began bearing down on Lorrainers last week--contrary to the letter of the Franco-German armistice, according to Vichy--the men of Vichy were angry.

Germans ordered French-speaking Lorrainers to choose between evacuating to unoccupied France or being sent to Poland, Germany's Siberia. Almost all of the 800,000 Frenchmen naturally chose France. The Germans, under Gauleiter Josef Burckel, gave them a few hours to pack a suitcase and acquire not more than 2,000 francs in cash, then shoved them across the border. Each day five to seven trains, flying the medieval cross of Lorraine, carried some 6,000 Lorrainers to Lyon, thence south to the Midi. Mostly the evacuees were farmers, welcome to the fallow land of southern France.

Premier Marshal Henri Philippe Petain acted fast and with surprising firmness. Calling Vice Premier Pierre Laval from Paris, he convened his Cabinet and with it composed the following communique concerning the Lorrainers' evacuation:

. . . They have unquestionably been told by persons without proper authority that this measure was taken in conformity with an accord reached between the French Government and the Government of the Reich.

The French Government issues the most formal denial to this implication. No measure of this kind was ever under discussion at the Franco-German meetings.

As concerns the facts themselves, the French Government has addressed itself to the German armistice commission.

Two Sharpened Fears. Next day Pierce Laval went back to Paris to implement this protest, to bargain for the Lorrainers and on other matters. He might not get his way on everything, but there were two German fears which might win him some concessions. They were: 1) French colonies in Africa might somehow fall into British hands; 2) French territories in the Western Hemisphere might be"taken"by the U. S. Both fears were sharpened a little last week.

After a brief visit from Rear Admiral John Wills Greenslade. U. S. N., engaged in touring Western Hemisphere bases recently acquired from Britain, the Government of strategic Martinique announced there had been a "consolidation of good relations" with the U. S. In Washington it was announced that some French funds frozen in the U. S. would be released so that Martinique might purchase in the U. S. necessary supplies such as flour, newsprint, fish, medical supplies, and low octane gasoline. There was no flour on the island. It leaked out that the 100 undelivered planes at Martinique, which according to armistice terms cannot be delivered to any other power, had been left by Martiniquais in exposed places so that they had already deteriorated badly and might soon be unusable. As a concrete symbol of all this friendship, warships of the British West Indies squadron relinquished their patrol of waters near Martinique, and off Fort-de-France in their place appeared destroyers of the U. S. Navy.

In Africa the situation was more disquieting for the Germans. Not only did General Charles de Gaulle continue his consolidation of Free Frenchmen there, but also the old fighter on whom the Germans really counted, Maxime Weygand, was behaving mysteriously. Sent to North Africa early in October by Petain, General Weygand sat tight and apparently refused to go back to France.

Berlin showed signs of anger. The German radio said: "Perhaps General Weygand . . . has been too precipitate in imagining all is settled." Hermann Goring was reported to have demanded of M. Laval that General Weygand return. Colonies Minister Rear Admiral Rene Platon flew to Algiers to get him. Weygand cabled Petain assuring the latter of his loyalty-- but made no like assurance to the French Government, as such. But to France as such, he pledged everything. He stood by his two fundamental promises: "France will cede not one inch of her colonial empire. . . . France will do nothing against her honor or her national sovereignty."

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