The explanation is simple. Neither the Cagoulards, nor the editors of Je Suis Partout, nor the French officers who were in relations with them, ever believed at any moment that they were traitors. If history sets them down as having betrayed France, the verdict will be incomprehensible to them. They believed themselves to be patriots. It is our privilege, if we wish, to see them rather as pitiful victims of German Propaganda.
What happened was this: Long before the war, the Nazi secret service realized that both the Cagoulards and the staff of Je Suis Partout were worth cultivating because of their connections with members of the French General Staff, and with officers of influence close to such leaders as Pétain, among others.
Friendly relations were established, and the Germans hammered away with arguments like these:
“You Frenchmen consider that we Germans are your hereditary enemies. There’s no reason why you should think so. Our two peoples should be able to live and work side by side without friction. It’s true we’ve had trouble in the past, but why? Because England, who can only maintain her influence on the continent if the continental nations are divided, has constantly stirred us up against each other.
“Besides that, we have not fought against the real France. Our wars were against the French Republic. For 150 years that regime has usurped the place of the real France. In 1789 the English provoked the French Revolution to weaken your nation, and since then your people seem to have forgotten its great destiny.
“The Revolution of France started in the lodges of Freemasonry, which were implanted in your country by England. The Freemasons operated with English and Jewish help; for the last 150 years, you have been under the control of the same powers. For the last twenty years these powers have been cooperating with international Communism and thus have brought another danger into your country.
“Wake up! Denounce the English alliance, expel the Jews from important positions, suppress Freemasonry, as we have done in Germany. The danger of Communism will be over, and there will be no obstacle to a happy and peaceful understanding between France and Germany.”
This bait was eagerly taken. It made no difference that this account was inaccurate, and might easily have been refuted. It was the sort of thing that right-wing Frenchmen of anti-Republican and antidemocratic leanings were ready to hear, and it provided a moral basis for cooperation between them and the Germans. Supplied with a patriotic motive for destroying their domestic political opponents, convinced that in so doing they would not open the way to the hereditary enemy but on the contrary make him a friend, these Frenchmen no longer had any scruples about accepting subsidies for the arming of the Cagoulards and the publication of Je Suis Partout from an ally in the common cause of continental peace and friendship.
The Germans had found the ideal sophism with which to gain friends within the French Army. They realized, of course, that they could not hope to influence a majority of General Staff officers, but they knew also that an active minority, so convinced it is right that it is willing to use any methods to achieve its aims, can arrive at its objectives at decisive moments by obstructing the course of action decided upon by the majority. And among the officers whom German propaganda had reached were many so placed that they could easily block the complicated intermeshing gears of the army machine at the critical juncture.
Relationships between the Germans and their friends in France were maintained even after the beginning of the war through various neutral countries. Ferdonnet continued to communicate with Mouton and the staff of Je Suis Partout. Michelin, the big automobile tire manufacturer whose name was whispered all over France as that of one of the men behind the Cagoulards, sent frequent messengers to Switzerland. Pétain himself was French Ambassador to Spain, and several members of his entourage maintained contact with members of the German Embassy in Madrid. There were even rumors that Pétain had secret meetings with the German Ambassador, though this was denied. The theme the Germans were singing to their French friends now was a development of that which they had dinned into them earlier. It had evolved into this: