FRANCE: No Other Choice?

In Vichy last week grey old Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain and his North African commander General Maxime Weygand, a great little judge of horseflesh, drove up the river and out to the races. Perhaps this was intended to stifle persistent rumors of a rift between General Weygand and the Vichy Government, for otherwise it did not seem like the week for Vichymen to go frivoling. Adolf Hitler was bearing down harder than ever for outright Nazi-Vichy military collaboration in North Africa.

The Nazi-controlled Paris press howled for just that, and castigated General Weygand for going no further "than an oath of loyalty to the Marshal." It was rumored that two Nazi Panzer divisions with 1,000 tanks had crossed from Spain to Spanish Morocco, ready to force Hitler's will, if necessary, on Vichy's North African forces.

At home, Vichy was worried about the formation of a volunteer French legion to fight Russia, headed by Eugène Deloncle, leader of the prewar, monarchist Cagoulards ("hooded men"—TIME, Dec. 6, 1937). Such a force might be useful to the Nazis if they wished to foment an anti-Pétain revolution. Last week Vichy's Vice Premier Admiral Jean François Darlan forbade the legion to bear arms until it had crossed France's borders en route to Russia.

Vichy's rifts—or lack of them—were as uncertain last week as Vichy's African intentions. And Vichy's attempts to find diplomatic phrases that would satisfy both the London-Washington Axis and Berlin seemed pretty dismal. On the one hand, Washington was assured that Vichy would defend the French Empire "alone, wherever possible." On the other hand, Vichy announced that Germany might get "port facilities and transport privileges" within the scope of the collaboration promised the Nazis at Montoire-sur-le-Loir last year (and never publicly defined). Vichy also allowed its envoy to Paris, Fernand de Brinon, to make the flat statement that Vichy was following Germany's conception of the coming world order rather than that of Great Britain or the U.S.

If there was any power in Vichy—General Weygand or anyone else—who was determined to oppose Germany's African ambitions, he had his apologia written for him last week by Pundit Walter Lippmann. Said he: "The Netherlands are also occupied territory and Dutch soldiers are also prisoners of war and the Dutch people on the Continent are also at the mercy of the German Army and of the Nazi Party. Nevertheless the Dutch Empire stands firm and nothing Hitler threatens to do to the Dutch in the occupied territory causes the Dutch in the free world to think of surrendering. Belgium is an occupied country, her King and her Army are prisoners of war, her people subject to all the indignities and reprisals of the Nazi conqueror. But the Belgian Empire overseas continues to be at war with Hitler.

"There is nothing that Hitler can do to Frenchmen which he cannot do also to the Dutch and the Belgians."