Another milestone : 75 years ago, on August 25th 1944, Paris was liberated, by French troops, under the command of General Leclerc. At first, the Allied command had intended to drive around France’s capital, hence evading the risk of bloody street fighting. But since half August, strikes and armed uprising had broken out in Paris. So, reconsidering the political importance of capturing a capital, the Allies had changed their mind.
Hitler did not want Paris to fall into Allied arms undamaged. So he had ordered the commander of Paris, General Dietrich von Choltitz, to prepare massive destruction of infrastructure. Choltitz however, delayed the order long enough to prevent it from happening.
Everybody is relieved that this destruction never took place.
But have the French always be so careful with their beloved capital themselves?
Flashback to thirty years earlier. August 25th 1914 is considered the last day of the so called Battle of the Frontiers. A battle, of unseen scale in history, that had swept from east to west, from Lorraine, through the Ardennes, along the Sambre and Meuse rivers, to Mons. With the British Expeditionary Forces having abandoned their positions at Mons, the whole Allied front line was on retreat. France got invaded and its army was threatened with encirclement. The retreat would take 400 km, and the German right flank approached Paris.
The French government then decided to make Paris a stronghold. General Joseph Gallieni was appointed as its commander.
While thousands of inhabitants and government officials were fleeing Paris (the stanza of the Marseillaise ‘Aux armes citoyens, Formez vos bataillons’ (Citizens, get your weapons, assemble your batallions), was mockingly turned into : ‘Aux gares, citoyens, Montez dans les wagons’ (To the train stations, citizens, Get into the carriages’)), Gallieni had to organize the defense – initially with troops he only had on paper.
With the Germans approaching, Gallieni was called to the Ministry of War, and received by the minister, Alexandre Millerand. He told Gallieni that his orders were clear and simple : defend Paris ‘à l’outrance’ (to the extreme). When Gallieni remarked that, in his profession, ‘à l’outrance’ meant : bloody street fighting, buildings burning or getting destroyed, bridges over the Seine getting blown up, Millerand repeated : ‘à l’outrance, general!’
The German advance got stopped east of Paris, at the Battle of the Marne, early September 1914. Yet, if history had turned different, then Millerand’s order could have saved von Choltitz from his conscience objection to carry out Hitler’s order during the next war.
