France on trial The case of Marshal Pétain

This is a magnificent work on the 1945 trial of Marshal Philippe Pétain. Jackson (emer., Queen Mary Univ. of London, UK), author of France: The Dark Years, 1940--1944 (CH, Apr'02, 39-4803), marks himself as a top scholar of the Vichy period with this volume. He identifies Pétain as the war hero of Verdun before detailing the events of May/June 1940, which put Pétain in charge of seeking an armistice and led to the fateful meeting with Hitler at Montoire. Jackson meticulously details Pétain's trial, which sentenced him to death by a margin of one vote but recommended leniency, which de Gaulle granted, revealing the split in France in 1945. Jackson delves further, showing the continued division of Gaullists and Pétainists through the Vietnam debacle of 1954, Algerian independence in 1962, and the fateful referendum of 1969, which removed de Gaulle from French politics. He then delivers the coup de grâce: France belatedly recognizing its own role in deporting French and foreign Jews to German concentration and extermination camps in 1942--43. The debate over Pétain's and the Vichy regime's guilt continues in the present with French politicians taking different positions. Jackson is to be commended for presenting a fair, balanced view of the evidence and letting readers make the final judgment. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals --Andrew Mark Mayer, emeritus, College of Staten Island/CUNY

A captivating account of the 1945 trial of the French marshal who had agreed to an armistice with the Nazi regime in 1940. Jackson, a professor emeritus of history and author of the prizewinning De Gaulle, reminds readers that Philippe Pétain (1856-1951) "was unanimously viewed as a savior when he took over as head of the so-called Vichy regime"--although opinion was far more divided by the end of the war. The trial was obviously a political event with a guilty verdict almost guaranteed, but it was not a charade. Pétain's lawyers mounted a vigorous defense, and the trial that obsessed the nation was compared to those of Louis XVI and even Joan of Arc. Jackson begins with the events following August 1944 when, with Allied armies sweeping across France, the Nazis forcibly evacuated Pétain and many loyal followers to a castle in Germany, where they occupied themselves with fantasies about returning after Hitler recovered from this temporary setback. Leaving in April 1945, Pétain returned to France, where preparations for his trial in absentia were already in progress. Few French officials, de Gaulle included, welcomed his arrival. Readers will be intrigued by Jackson's lucid explanations of the unfamiliar French legal system in which both judge and jury can quiz witnesses. He was tried for treason, and the author delivers a dense, informative account that confronts broad moral and philosophical questions, enlivened by the witnesses' often bitter hatred of Pétain and each other. Convicted, he was sentenced to death, which de Gaulle commuted to life imprisonment, "as the court had recommended and as he had always privately intended." Readers will not be surprised to learn that this was a controversial decision, and they will thoroughly enjoy Jackson's final 100 pages, which recount the persistent, often grotesque efforts to rehabilitate Pétain and Vichy that continue to this day. A highly insightful work of French history. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.