How can a man who was once a national hero become a traitor just a few years later?

Question

I was thinking of Pétain, who was a great man during the First World War, for which he received numerous honours and was even made a Marshal of France

That same man, who had fought heroically against the Germans, decided in 1940 to surrender France to Germany and set the country on the path to collaboration

It is quite simply staggering

How can a man who was once a national hero become a traitor just a few years later?

MrChinaski · Accepted Answer

You see it constantly though, right.

The cold, hard reality is that until countries face war they have a military sitting around gazing at their navels and losing capability

WW1 was meant to be over in weeks. Then they realised their opponents had machine guns against which neither side had any offensive fighting capacity. Eventually tanks allowed creeping advances against entrenched machine gun positions.

WW2 rolled around and France was the most powerful army in the world. If it was WWI again. But the Germans used tank units to burst through lines instead of supporting creeping infantry advances. France had no defensive capacity.

Russia invades Ukraine as if it is still WW2. Big tank armies should win the day. Then they run into drones. They have no fighting capacity.

And it's not just the military. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention spent half a century thinking deep thoughts about pandemics. Then COVID arrives. They have zero capability to respond.

On the one hand, you could argue that the French army was still as strong as that of the Germans when they surrendered. But they had absolutely no capacity to do anything with it.

There is a line of argument that it was a collapse of character, gumption, virtue, valor, etc. A descent into French pusillanimity, from which they are yet to recover. Fair. But the clearer lesson is that it was an utter failure of military doctrine. The type of failure that happens over and over again around the world.

RavVid · Accepted Answer

I agree it was staggering. That period is difficult to make sense of to me. Reynaud took an offer of Franco-British Union which I would take meaning that Britain would defend French soil as if it was their own. Which it would have been under a Union.

Petain was opposed to such preferring to negotiate with Hitler and to form Vichy France.

After WWI I could see that France wasn't capable of a repeat. Being generous as possible perhaps he saw this as a way of preserving France? His politics seems to have aligned with authoritarianism and dictatorial regimes.

Lets not forget that Edward VIII was... ah... was sympathetic to Nazi philosophy. There were quite a number of British Nazi sympathizers around that time. Had Edward VIII not wanted to marry a disreputable American Mrs Simpson it would have 'awkward' for Churchill to have a pro Nazi king. There's a what if :)

WWI was the German Emperor trying to repeat 1870 whereas WWII was about political philosophy for Petain is the only sense I have able to make of it. I remember my astoundment as child, when I learnt that the British navy shelled the French Fleet at harbor. I have never really recovered from that amazement and disbelief..

I will be highly interested in your thoughts on why Petain did what he did.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

France was beaten in the summer of 1940 and we'll beaten. Surrender was the only option and the British were forced to retreat.

Put it into perspective, in the summer of 1940 France had the most powerful army in the world, more powerful that the Soviet Union. At least on paper.

France lost 600,000 people in WW2, compare that to Russia who lost over 20 million and Poland who lost 5 million.

Twalli · Answer

The situation was vastly different in each war. In The Great War, France had an ally of Russia on the other side of Germany, which kept Germany from being able to devote their full force against France. In World War II, The USSR was not part of the war until they were invaded which was after France and an attempt at Britian. Even then, The USSR would have lost if Hitler could commit, as would have Britian. Surrendering to Germany in World War II probably saved a lot of lives and destruction. There are numerous books regarding the effectiveness of the German war machine in World War II, and the fact that Hitler's changing plans gave The USSR's nominal allies to send aid before Germany reached their major cities. Likewise, if Hitler hadn't changed his mind about what to bomb in Britian, they would have surrendered too. Eventually The U. S. probably would have won the war, we were truly massive in terms of military capability, and actually on reached 80% military production by the end of the war.

Zack-Bann · Answer

A leader’s job is NOT to sacrifice the sons and daughters of his country in a hopeless war.

France made a lot of mistakes starting from the Armistice, and all throughout the dictate years.
By the time war started with the Nazis it was already too late

The army was defeated, Paris was taken, the idea that Pétain could have done anything different is just nationalist pride talking.

The reality is he did the one thing he could do to save lives and allow for a resistance to even exist later.

History was far too hard on him. Calling him a “traitor” implies he planned to sell out his country.
There is no evidence of that.
France needed a fall guy to say that the nation itself is not weak as he was: so he was prosecuted.

That way we can say
De Gaulle = hero.
Pétain = villain.

BadApple69 · Answer

Let me say this. In WWII the French had no chance. If he didn’t surrender a lot of French people would have been killed, France blown up and burned and the end result would have been Germany marching through France anyway.
Germany was at its peak strength at that moment. If there was a NATO back then it would have been a different story. France was on its own. As a leader you need to make the hard decisions, and the decision to surrender wasn’t an easy one, but probably most wise.

AviatorTom · Answer

@julie07 You know much more about France and its history than I do. I wonder if Pétain believed he was saving French lives by giving in to the Germans rather than fight them. Having seen the carnage of the First World War, he didn't want to see that again, and he recognized how much stronger the Germans were than his French.

QuietRunner · Answer

Maybe he made the choice between total destruction of France and giving some people at chance of survival. It is easy to look back to past decisions and know what is the right course of action. Since he lived that moment he made the best possible decision according to the situation for France.

genericname85 · Answer

cause the psychological traits one has to have to be a hero are the same one has to have to become a traitor. you gotta have insane courage to do something that's extremely risky for an outcome you deem worth it.

Just_Ken · Answer

France lost. He did all he could to see france survived the war.

strateguy632 · Answer

surrendered is not traitor. he just knew it was impossible to win.

Guanfei · Answer

Because there are no such things as heroes. He acted in his own interests, which in 2 different situations, lead to 2 different actions and results.

Staximus · Answer

Did they say least give him one of those silly little sticks after WW1?

How can a man who was once a national hero become a traitor just a few years later?

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