western France. The assembly of theThird Republicgave full power to the
emergency prime minister, Henri Pe ́tain, who had been perhaps France’s
greatest military leader in the First World War. However, he rapidly declared
himself head of the French state, and organized, or acquiesced in the organiza-
tion of, a semi-fasciststate along authoritarian lines. The Vichy regime was by
no means as unpopular as post-war French propaganda has suggested. There
had always been a strong element of distaste on the right for the Third
Republic, and indeed, among many sectors, a refusal quite to accept the
principles of the French Revolution and its democratic republican spirit.
Pe ́tain himself, and he was old and feeble before the war even started, came
under the influence of deliberately pro-Nazi leaders, especially Laval, a third
republican politician, and Admiral Darlan. These men and their followers co-
operated actively with the Germans, even when, in 1944, the German army
occupied the area of France officially under Vichy control. Their police force,
the Milice, was hardly less enthusiastic than the Gestapo in carrying out anti-
resistance, and at timesanti-Semiticmeasures. To many industrialists Vichy,
unhampered by free trade unions and supported by a strong and resourceful
administration and civil service, was a positive improvement on the semi-
anarchy of industry under the Third Republic. The essence of the Vichy
regime, with its authoritarian and reactionary ideology, is well represented by
the symbolic replacement of the traditional revolutionary slogan of the
Republic (Liberty, Equality and Fraternity) with one of Pe ́tain’s devising,
‘Work, Family and Country’. The Vichy regime was entirely discredited once
France had been liberated, and its leading members tried for treason. However,
their counter-argument, that they were trying to preserve at least some vestige
of French autonomy and were essentially patriots forced to accept and
moderate the consequences of a military defeat for which they were not
responsible, cannot entirely be dismissed.
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a struggle between North and South Vietnam in which
the USA was directly involved in the defence of the South, and which had
severe repercussions both on the politics of South-East Asia and on US
domestic politics. Civil war in Vietnam had been developing since the French
withdrawal from Indo-China in 1954 following the humiliating military defeat
of the French forces at Dien Bien Phu. The ensuing peace settlement set up
two states, North and South Vietnam, with the North governed by the
nationalist leaders of the anti-French campaign who were also, but incidentally,
communist. The South was theoretically democratic, though corruption was
rife, much of the population indifferent to who ruled and from the outset
reliant on US economic and military aid. Military aggression by the commu-
Vietnam War