Problem GIs and the GI Problem

Drunken and brawling GIs behind the lines ended up providing the greatest irritant to good Franco-American relations. The warm welcome accorded to the liberators sometimes turned to active dislike as GI crime mounted. The French, used to low levels of crime before the war and “correct” German behavior during the occupation, were shocked by the criminality and boorishness unleashed by GIs. When French police proved powerless to stop drunkenness and rowdiness on the streets, outraged French officials demanded that the US Army impose order. Some commanders took effective steps to curb indiscipline, while others did less.

Black Markets and War Booty

Deciding who was entitled to keep materials captured from the Germans proved to be a sore issue between the French and the Americans that was not resolved until the Americans’ departure rendered the question moot. Both sides were interested in keeping war booty and American supplies out of French black markets. Cigarettes and gasoline vanished into these black markets in alarming quantities. However, the profits to be made by dishonest GIs, French civilians, and government officials proved too alluring, and it was impossible to stamp out illicit sales. Well-meaning GIs who gave away army property as small gifts ensnared many unsuspecting French civilians in police sweeps.

Axis Prisoners of War

The handling of Axis prisoners of war (POWs) became an unavoidable irritant in Franco-American relations. The US Army was obliged to follow the Geneva Convention on the treatment of POWs, which the French populace saw as leniency. They especially resented the generous food rations allotted to enemy POWs while the French went without, and no one wanted POW camps nearby. Although separating French citizens from Axis POWs was easily accomplished, the French SS posed another problem. The French demanded that German POWs undertake the dangerous work of clearing land mines, and they resented liberties granted to Italian POWs.

Epilogue

Despite discord and mutual hostility between the heads of state of France and the United States, French officials worked easily with American officers, who generally proved accommodating to the French, when possible. Some problems defied resolution and had to be managed by these officers and officials to the best of their abilities. The reservoirs of goodwill on both sides made winning the war and restoring normality to France easier for all involved. Relations between GIs and average French citizens, however, did not reveal the same level of accord. Battle-weary and bored GIs too often behaved like bad guests. By VE Day, American soldiers were tired of being in France and wanted to go home; French attitudes mirrored those of the Americans. Levels of indiscipline reached new lows when GIs gathered in France to ship out.

The Port of Marseille

In August 1944 Marseille eclipsed Cherbourg as the principal supply port for Allied armies on the western front. Records left by French port administrators, especially Chief Engineer Le Bel, reveal close and effective cooperation between the French and Allied military staff, despite enormous hurdles such as German sabotage. Labor relations proved to be one of the most vexing challenges facing French and American staff responsible for keeping the port working. The Allies used POWs to address the shortage of workers, much to the dismay of the French.

Introduction

Despite the mutual hostility of General Charles de Gaulle and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, France and the United States needed to cooperate to win the war against Germany. The French needed the help of the Americans more than the Americans needed the French; nevertheless, good working relations between the two were obviously in the best interests of both. Fortunately, US Army officers and French officials proved to be ready and willing to work closely and amicably together. Even so, certain areas of disagreement and friction appeared repeatedly in French and American official reports, memos, and correspondence. GI indiscipline ranked high on the list of issues on which the French urged immediate action. This work examines those issues as discrete subjects.

The American “Occupation”

French public opinion about the American presence waxed and waned, sometimes driven by events. Much of the French disquiet proved to be fleeting and overestimated; at other times, it was the product of unrealistic expectations. Treating France as a second-rate power by leaving de Gaulle out of the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences offended many French. Suspicions about the intentions of French Communists united many French—including de Gaulle—with the Americans. Cultural differences between the two nations aggravated unavoidable clashes of interests. Still, the Americans’ maladroit handling of sensitive situations sometimes unnecessarily irritated their French hosts.

The 101st Airborne Division in France

American paratroopers unleashed more chaos on French civilians than other GIs did. The 101st Airborne Division’s stay in Auxerre in the summer of 1945 was extraordinarily violent, even compared with the appalling levels of GI misconduct elsewhere in France. The French demanded justice after several vicious rapes by paratroopers. When American commanders failed to take these offenses seriously and did not render justice, US headquarters in Paris stepped in. The failure of the US Army’s justice system proved to be the last straw for many French, who were fed up with the inconvenience of having the American military in France.

Requisitions

As soon as they arrived, American forces began to requisition French property of all kinds to serve the war effort. Both French officials and civilians showed themselves remarkably accommodating to American demands—so long as they perceived them as reasonable, which was not always the case. The mechanism for requisitions left the French government to handle payments, which became the largest irritant to civilians caught between the Americans and their own government. Requisitions by the French themselves proved just as exasperating as those of the Americans.

France and the United States, Allies in War

General de Gaulle transformed the Free French from a minor committee in London into France’s provisional government in the face of enormous obstacles. These included President Roosevelt, who planned to impose an Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMGOT) in France, replacing the German occupation and the Vichy regime with an Anglo-American occupation. This never happened because it was vigorously opposed not only by de Gaulle but also by the Allied military chief who would have been responsible for it, General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower had faced this same dilemma in French North Africa in 1942 and had managed to avoid assuming responsibility for governing French domains. He replicated this modus vivendi in France in 1944.