‘France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain’

A brilliant history that also poses complicated, important questions

French leader Philippe Pétain believed his pact with Hitler was the only way to save his country’s people. Bild Bundesarchiv/ CC BY-SA 3.0 de

“It was more complicated than that.” That phrase is often repeated in Julian Jackson’s new book, “France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain,” and it is indicative of the subject. This is not to suggest that Jackson’s book is difficult to follow; rather, he has approached the subject with the same complexity as that which surrounded the man on trial in July of 1945.

This complexity centers around whether or not Marshal Philippe Pétain, leader of the Vichy government, betrayed France by signing an armistice with Nazi Germany. It would be easy to nod in the affirmative because it was the Nazis, after all, and how could one collaborate with them? But that is the knee-jerk reaction. That is the response given when one wishes to ignore the details, the facts, and the difficulties behind making impossible choices. That is the substance of show trials. Furthermore, as Jackson’s title suggests, Pétain wasn’t the only one on trial; France was on trial.

Life or Honor

This trial became an attempt to retrieve the soul of the nation. As the author describes in his book, the French, Parisians in particular, felt that the armistice signed with the Germans left France, especially Paris, intact, but the nation soulless. And this is arguably the great question of the book: What takes precedence? The honor of a nation or the lives of its people? It is a debate referenced at the end of the book between Pétain and Charles de Gaulle: Pétain believed that life was more important than honor; de Gaulle believed otherwise.

After his military exploits at Verdun during World War I, Pétain became the embodiment of courage, leadership, and honor. He had been, as he stated to his countrymen at the time of signing the armistice, the nation’s “sword.” With the signing of the armistice, he was now the nation’s “shield.” The armistice appeared to replace honor with preservation. To his critics, none more vocal than the communists, he had also abandoned courage and leadership. The marshal, however, refused to believe he had done so. If honor had been sacrificed, it had been his own on the altar of national preservation.

(L–R) Marshal Philippe Pétain, British Field Marshal Douglas Haig, Maréchal Ferdinand Foch, and American Gen. John Pershing, in 1918. Public Domain

His trial had been scheduled to be conducted in absentia, but Pétain wished to stand trial in person (proving that perhaps his courage was still very much intact). Jackson notes that the octogenarian remained silent almost entirely for the three-week trial but did offer some words to the court at the onset, now known as the Pétain Declaration:

“History will reveal all that I spared you while my adversaries only think of blaming me for what was unavoidable. … What would have been gained in liberating a France in ruins, a France of cemeteries?”

Jackson, I don’t believe, is presenting Pétain’s case as mere history. I believe he is presenting it as a timeless question, and one that no leader ever wishes to be presented with. What must be preserved: honor or lives? In a sense, as the verdict showed, there is no answer. What good is a nation’s honor if the preservation of its people is contingent on a deal with the devil? What good is the preservation of its people if they are left with no honor? Lastly, how can there be national honor if that nation is destroyed?

Historical and Metaphysical

As the author courses through the details of the trial and the history of the Vichy era (1940–1944), he consistently reflects on the overarching theme of the moment. “The trial of Marshal Pétain is not ‘historical’ but ‘metaphysical,’” Jackson writes, quoting the French journalist Maurice Clavel. “That is the source of the anguish that grips us and divides us all.”

Jackson balances these two elements: the historical and the metaphysical. But even these two elements are broken into parts. There is the historical aspect of what Pétain did and didn’t do, and what the Vichy, under his authority, did and didn’t do, including its treatment of resistors, communists, and Jews; there’s also Pétain’s perplexing resistance to joining the Allies after the Americans landed in North Africa. The metaphysical aspect is why Pétain and his regime chose to do what they did―from the extent they collaborated with the Nazis to the extent they resisted some of their demands.

“France on Trial” compiles the voices of the prosecution and defense, the witnesses and jurors, the journalists and ideologues, resistors and collaborators, all of whom believed they were right. But if they were all right, then indeed they must all be wrong. According to Jackson, this was the defense’s perspective. Jacques Isorni, one of Pétain’s attorneys, believed “that the faith that had led the entire political class to shelter under [Pétain’s] myth in 1940 had left deep traces; that if he was guilty, so was all of France.” Isorni, quoted in his final words of the trial, referenced both the historical and metaphysical elements of France by intertwining them into the fabric of the man who was both “sword” and “shield,” suggesting to the jury, and indeed to all of France: “When have we ever opposed Saint Geneviève, protector of the city of Paris, against Saint Jeanne who liberated our land?”

An Uncertainty

Jackson has woven a story so rich in both the historical and the metaphysical that it leaves the reader with a sense of uncertainty about how to view Pétain. But we are in good company, as it appears France itself possessed this sense. Pétain was given a verdict that echoed the sentiments of both the prosecution and the defense, the critics and the supporters. He was found guilty and sentenced to death, but with the request that due to his age the sentence not be carried out.

It seems, however, that deferring the sentence to life imprisonment was less about age and more about that uncertainty—the uncertainty that Isorni might have been right: we are all guilty; the uncertainty because Pétain was juggling both the historical and the metaphysical; the uncertainty between Pétain’s and de Gaulle’s view of life and honor. Indeed, this uncertainty continues today as French polling consistently shows that a majority believe Pétain acted in the best of the country, while simultaneously believing the court arrived at the right verdict.

Jackson demonstrates to near perfection that history is not always black and white. Indeed, it rarely is. Sometimes it is “metaphysical.” It leaves us with questions we can’t answer and with the overwhelming temptation to make assumptions that we shouldn’t. People today, just like those who watched the trial in 1945, wish for history to provide a narrative that follows a straight line. But history doesn’t do that. It can’t do that. It’s more complicated than that.

"France on Trial" reveals the impossible situation that French Vichy leader Marshal Philippe Pétain faced when choosing to collaborate with the Nazis.

‘France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain’ By Julian Jackson Belknap Press, Aug. 22, 2023 Hardcover: 480 pages