The Daily Alaska Empire

TRIAL OF PETAIN IS DRAMATIC
Sensational Testimony Is Presented at Trial of Old Marshal
By Louis Nevin
(Associated Press Correspondent)
PARIS, July 25—Former President Albert Lebrun testified today that Marshal Petain threatened to resign from the Reynaud Government unless it asked an armistice from Germany and later the same day took a complete cabinet list from a pocket when asked to form a new administration.
Before Lebrun told of the dramatic cabinet sessions of June 16, 1940, the court had echoed with mutterings and protests from jurors and spectators when Petain curtly refused to answer questions about telegrams congratulating the Germans for repulsing the Canadians at Dieppe and asking Hitler's permission to allow Vichy troops to fight alongside the Germans in the defense of France.
PARIS, July 25—Judge Paul Mongibeaux read into the treason trial of Marshal Petain today a telegram from the old soldier asking Hitler's permission for the Vichy regime to conduct its own defense.
Angry murmurs and protests arose from spectators and the 24 jurors when Petain stolidly refused to answer questions about the telegram. The Marshal said on the opening day of the trial for his life that he would answer no
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TRIAL OF PETAIN IS DRAMATIC
Sensational Testimony Is Presented at Trial of Old Marshal
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questions.
The telegram was read in response to a juror's questioning of Former Premier Edouard Daladier, who had testified that "all the traitors of France" flocked to Vichy after the armistice and that the Petain regime destroyed the republic. Daladier had declared that France was not unarmed when the Germans struck in 1940.
Juror Questions Witness
The same juror asked Daladier whether he knew of a telegram from Petain to Hitler congratulating the Germans on the bloody repulse of the Canadians at Dieppe.
"On June 2, 1940, we were told a new order was being constituted," Daladier told the court trying the aged soldier for intelligence with the enemy in plotting against the security of France.
"It consisted of destroying republican institutions of France."
Daladier was the second witness and continuing the statement he started yesterday.
Dramatic Stunt
The swarthy Daladier at one point picked up a chair and slammed it to the floor as his face flushed with anger. He was recounting the story of the Riom trials in which the Vichy regime tried unsuccessfully to pin the blame for the French collapse on him, Former Premiers Paul Reynaud and Leon Blum, and Gen. Maurice Gamelin.
As Daladier spoke, he shook his fist. His voice frequently rose to a shout. Reynaud listened intently to the man he succeeded as Premier.
Daladier Dramatic
Daladier turned to the American invasion of French Africa and said:
If only Petain had given the signal for an uprising of France on the day of the Anglo-American landings in North Africa! What a glorious page in the history of his long life he would have written. I would have kneeled in front of him."
Daladier pounded his chest and his voice rang through the crowded courtroom as he added:
it. Instead, he, Petain, ordered troops in North Africa to resist our allies."