'THE FEARFUL LOGIC OF THIS WAR'

LONDON,25 NOVEMBER1940

Charles de Gaulle

THE SPEECHES OF GENERAL DE GAULLE pp. 34 36.

The terrible logic of war is finally dissipating the mists with which the enemy and his Vichy agents sought to blind France.

The terrible logic of war is exposing before the eyes of the French people the full extent of the crime known as the armistice.

While the Fascist army is proving itself powerless in Abyssinia as well as on the frontier between Libya and Egypt, while our British Allies are destroying Mussolini's ships at Taranto, and the Italian troops are retreating all along the line before the onslaughts of our Greek Allies, the people of France realize, not without anger, of what a glorious and decisive role their arms have been cheated. The people of France realize, not without anger, the importance of the role that might have been played in the war, from the French African

and Syrian bases, by our Empire troops, our air force and our fleet, which were all intact when the armistice was signed, and which have now, by an act of treason, been disarmed, delivered into the hands of the enemy, or led astray.

The terrible logic of war is showing in its true light that much-vaunted 'European Order' which the enemy and his Vichy slaves are trying to impose on France. The mass deportations from Lorraine, following those of Alsace— significant foretastes of what may happen in Flanders, Picardy, and Champagne—the foul detention of two million young French prisoners, the murder of students in Paris—all these things have served to open the eyes of the world.

The terrible logic of war has brought to light the empty conceit of those would-be leaders who have the effrontery to proclaim they are going to 'reconstruct' France, when it is thanks to them that the country has been delivered up in chains to the enemy. A fine 'reconstruction' that can show as its achievements nothing but laws trampled in the dust, the destruction of all liberty, political, civil, and social, incompetent braggarts holding public office, and the threat of economic collapse and starvation hanging over every home in the land!

But this terrible logic of war, while opening the eyes of the French people, has roused in them a healthy passion which will bring about their deliverance. It is a passion of fury— sound and fruitful fury—against the enemy and his collaborators. It is this vigorous French fury which, notwithstanding the so-called armistice agreements, the military occupation, the armistice commissions, the Gestapo, an enslaved Press and a submissive radio, still keeps France in the war. It is this strong French fury which surrounds the invaders and their Vichy accomplices with an atmosphere, first of exile, then of anxiety and, finally, of menace. Such an atmosphere is a very powerful factor, and it is growing from day to day.

It is this noble French fury which animates our Free Forces now serving under the three national colours and the Cross of Lorraine, our sailors in the North Sea, the Channel, and the Atlantic, our airmen in the skies above London, Libreville, or Addis Ababa, our troops on the frontier between French Chad and Italian Libya, or in Egypt or the Gaboon, and our merchant ships sailing the seven seas.

It is this sacred French fury, the same that once stirred Joan of Arc, Danton, and Clemenceau, which restores our hope and inspires us to find new weapons.

Let us foster this sacred fury that we may hasten the day when might will bring to justice our enemies and their friends in Vichy.