On the eve of Operation Torch, a very important question arose for the Allies. What would be the attitude of the two opposing French camps towards a possible intervention in North Africa? The Allies needed a suitable military general to lead the French side into the war, but President Roosevelt suspected de Gaulle of having dictatorial tendencies. He also hoped that the Vichy leaders would seize the first opportunity to resume their country’s war against Germany. In the end, General Henri Giraud was favored by the Americans. An admirer of Pétain and its National Revolutionary regime, he was preferred to de Gaulle, whose judgment and methods were considered unreliable. Contacted by an American envoy, Giraud agreed to participate in the operation. The OSS, the American secret service, then contacted the French resistance in North Africa, but instructions were given not to talk to the Gaullist networks. Agreements were officially signed during a clandestine meeting held at the Sitgès farm near Cherchell in Algeria during the night of October 21 to 22, 1942.
The day after D-Day, De Gaulle put on a brave face by delivering a speech in praise of the Allies, not without taking some credit for this adventure: “Our American allies are at the head of this enterprise. The timing is very good. Indeed, after a crushing victory, our British allies, assisted by French troops, have just driven the Germans and Italians out of Egypt and penetrated Cyrenaica (…) Everywhere, the enemy is faltering and weakening. Frenchmen of North Africa, if, through you, we get back in line from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, the war will be won thanks to France!”.
In truth, according to his private secretary Mr. Crémieux-Brilhac, whom we interviewed in 2014, General De Gaulle became very angry in the early morning of November 8, 1942 when he learned that Allied troops had landed on the coasts of Algeria and Morocco. He was upset that he had not been informed and that General Giraud had been preferred to him. Was De Gaulle subsequently informed of all the details of the operation and in particular of the sacrifice of convoy SL 125? That is another story. If he did know, what did he think of the sacrifice of the 260 French sailors who sank with the Doumer? To this day, no one is able to say if the General knew about the thesis of the sacrificed convoy…
