While reading through Parson's section on Nazi Rule in France, one thing that continued to stick out to me had to do with Vichy France. For as much as I can remember with Europe, this was one of the first times that indirect rule had really been applied. There had been times when Monarchs would place their family members over states, or force states into alliances with them, but Vichy France seemed different.
As we have studied in the Atlantic empires, and particularly the case of Britain in Africa, a common form of government was to set up a government that was run by the locals while overseen by representatives of the imperial state so as to minimize cost and effort. This is exactly how things panned out with Vichy France. The government of Vichy was established using French people, led by Marshal Petain a French WW1 hero, who were then overseen by the Nazi government. Rather than just occupy all of France Germany decided to occupy the northern half while setting up a government in southern France that was very similar to what had been seen during the Imperial era.
Was Germany trying to use the models that had been used during the Imperial era? Is this the first time that someone had attempted this model in Europe? For all its success in Africa, it did appear while it lasted to be a successful move by the Germans in controlling France while minimizing the amount of effort that they themselves had to put in. Did Germany really establish an Imperial age Indirect Rule system over France?
No comments:
Post a Comment