'The age of wood': Fuel and fighting in French forests, 1940-1944

Environmental History

Volumn 11, Issue 4, 2006, Pages 775-803

  Pearson, Chris ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY; FOREST; FOREST MANAGEMENT; HABITAT; WAR;

CENTRAL EUROPE; EURASIA; EUROPE; GERMANY; ITALY; SOUTHERN EUROPE;

EID: 33751169585     PISSN: 10845453     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/envhis/11.4.775     Document Type: Article

References (209)

1. Jean Giono, The Man Who Planted Trees (London: Harvill Press, 1995). The story originally appeared in the 1950s and since has been published in New Zealand, Kenya, Finland, and the United States, among other countries. Giono's own wartime history is somewhat murky, and after the war he appeared on a "black list" of writers who had collaborated.
2. See Julian Jackson, France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 87, 92, 201, 208, 591.
3. René Diderjean, "Il faut reboiser," Le Bois, January 25, 1942, 1.
4. For instance, Tamara L. Whited's Forests and Peasant Politics in Modern France (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000),
5. stops in the 1930s and Michael Bess's account of French environmentalism largely restricts itself to the postwar period: The Light-Green Society: Ecology and Technological Modernity in France, 1960-2000 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003). Other environmental histories of France tend to overlook the influence of war in shaping the French landscape.
6. See, for example, A. Cadoret, ed., Protection de la nature: histoire et ideologie, de la nature à l'environnement (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1985);
7. and René Guilbot Neboit and Lucette Davy, eds., Les français dans leur environnement (Paris: Éditions Nathan, 1996).
8. Andrée Corvol and Jean-Paul Amat's edited volume Forêt et guerre (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1994) focuses overwhelmingly on World War I. The one article on World War II limits itself to a single case study and is written from the reductive perspective of "forest improvement";
9. see Frédéric Fesquet, "Les reboisements de protection dans la guerre: le massif de l'Aigoual," 155-61.
10. For more on the ecological impact of World War I on France's forests, see Jean-Paul Amat, "Guerre et milieux naturels: les forêts meurtries de l'est de la France, 70 ans après Verdun," L'Espace Géographique 3 (1987): 217-33;
11. and Hugh Clout, After the Ruins: Restoring the Countryside of Northern France after the Great War (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1996).
12. For instance, the environment does not feature in France: The Dark Years, Jackson's otherwise extensive overview of the vast range of the secondary literature that exists on Vichy France and the Occupation. The closest this historiography approaches environmental history is through considerations of Vichy's "back to the land" philosophy, wartime rural history, and the geographical context of rural resistance units. On the "back to the land" ideology, see Jackie Clarke, "Homecomings: Paulette Bernège, Scientific Management and the Return to the Land in Vichy," in Vichy, Resistance, Liberation: New Perspectives on Wartime France, ed. Hanna Diamond and Simon Kitson (Oxford: Berg, 2005), 171-82;
13. and Christian Faure, Le projet culturel de Vichy (Lyon: Presses universitaires de Lyon, 1989).
14. On rural France, see Isabel Boussard, Vichy et la corporation paysanne (Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1980);
15. Michel Gervais, Marcel Jollivet, and Yves Tavernier, Histoire de la France rurale. Tome 4: la fin de la France paysanne de 1914 à nos jours (Paris: Seuil, 1976);
16. and Don Kladstrup and Petie Kladstrup, Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and France's Greatest Treasure (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001).
17. On the resistance, see Jean-Marie Guillon and Pierre Laborie, eds., Mémoire et histoire: la Résistance (Paris: Éditions Privat, 1995);
18. H. R. Kedward, In Search of the Maquis: Rural Resistance in Southern France 1942-1944 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993);
19. François Marcot, ed., La Résistance et les Français: lutte armée et maquis (Paris: Annales littéraires de l'Université de Franche-Comté, 1996);
20. and Jacqueline Sainclivier and Christian Bougeard, eds., La Résistance et les Français: Enjeux stratégiques et environnement social (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 1995).
21. On environmental histories of war, see Lisa M. Brady, "The Wilderness of War: Nature and Strategy in the American Civil War," Environmental History 10 (July 2005): 421-47;
22. Edmund Russell, War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War 1 to Silent Spring (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001);
23. and Edmund Russell and Richard P. Tucker, eds., Natural Enemy, Natural Ally: Toward an Environmental History of Warfare (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2004).
24. On environmental histories of war dealing specifically with forests, see John R. McNeill, "Woods and Warfare in World History," Environmental History 9 (July 2004): 388-410;
25. Richard P. Tucker, "The World Wars and the Globalization of Timber Cutting," in Natural Enemy, Natural Ally, ed. Russell and Tucker, 110-41;
26. and Joshua West, "Forests and National Security: British and American Forest Policy in the Wake of World War I," Environmental History 8 (2003): 270-94.
27. The administrative départements under study are the Alpes-Maritimes, Basses-Alpes (now the Alpes-de-Hautes-Provence), Bouches-du-Rhône, Drôme, Hautes-Alpes, Isère, Var, and Vaucluse. Following the defeat of France, these départements lay in the Unoccupied Zone. Between June 1940 and November 1942 Italy annexed the frontier area of the Alpes-Maritimes, before taking control of the whole of the region in November 1942. The expanded Italian Zone lasted until the collapse of Italy in 1943 when it was subsequently occupied by the German army. For the social and political history of this region during the war see Jean-Marie Guillon, "La France du Sud-Est," in La France des années noires. Tome 2: de l'occupation à la Libération, ed. Jean-Pierre Azéma and François Bédarida (Paris: Seuil, 1993), 159-76.
28. In 1940 Pierre Caziot, Vichy minister for agriculture, renamed Eaux et Forôts as the Direction des Forôts, de la chasse et de la pêche (it reverted back to its previous name in 1943). For simplicity's sake I refer to Eaux et Forêts as the forestry administration throughout this article.
29. Charles Colomb, "Preface," in Roger Blais and Gérard Luzu, Les métiers de la forêt (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1941), 3-4;
30. and Archives départementales de la Drôme (hereafter ADD) 61 W 6, M. Pucheu, Pierre Caziot, and M. Lehideux, to regional and departmental prefects, "Réparition des bois," January 10, 1942. For more on general material shortages, see H. R. Kedward, Resistance in Vichy France: A Study of Ideas and Motivation in the Southern Zone, 1940-1942 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 18;
31. Alan S. Milward, The New Order and the French Economy (Aldershot: Gregg Revivals, 1984), 34;
32. and Dominique Veillon and Jean-Marie Flonneau, eds., "Le temps des restrictions en France (1939-1949)," Cahiers de l'Institut d'Histoire du Temps Présent, 32-33 (May 1996).
33. A. Lepoivre and G. Septembre, La gaz des forêts: carburants forestiers gazogènes (Paris: Société nationale d'encouragement à l'utilisation des carburants forestiers, 1938), 11.
34. "Actes officiels," Revue des Eaux et Forêts 79 (September 1941): 689.
35. On promotional activities in favor of gazogène, see Archives départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône (hereafter ADBDR) 194 W 29, André Huart, president of the Automobile-Club of Marseile and Provence, to forestry conservator, Aix-en-Provence, April 2, 1941;
36. and Dominique Veillon, Vivre et Survivre en France 1939-1947 (Paris: Éditions Payot & Rivages, 1995), 94.
37. For a fuller explanation of the gazogène system, see Veillon, Vivre et Survivre en France, 194. Pétain himself published a 1936 leaflet in favor of gazogène in which he argued that "the industrial production of the gas of the forests could contribute to the revival of the French economy [and] could immediately provide precious support for national defence."
38. Quoted in Les Eaux et Forêts du 12e au 20e siècle (Paris: CNRS, 1987), 629.
39. Interview by author with Elvio Segatto, Pizançon, August 3, 2005, notes and tapes in author's possession.
40. Centre des Archives contemporaines of the Archives Nationales (hereafter CAC) 19800470/168, M. Formery, inspector general of finances to vice-admiral general commissioner of power, "Quelques observations sur l'approvisionnement en bois," March 24, 1942, 1.
41. The figures come from Commission consultative des dommages et des réparations, Dommages subis par la France et l'Union française du fait de la guerre et de l'occupation ennemie (1939-1945) (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1951), 10 vols.,
42. vol. 6, Monograph M.P. 18, "Prélèvements allemands de matières premières: bois et produits forestiers" (Imprimerie nationale, 1947), 29.
43. "La revanche de la forêt," L'Action forestière et Piscicole 43 (October 1940): 1.
44. Charles de Lassuchette, "L'organisation forestière au sein de la corporation nationale est realisé," L'Action Forestière et Piscicole 72 (March 1943): 1.
45. J. Jagerschmidt, "Le programme forestier de la France qui va renaítre," L'Action Forestière et Piscicole 39-40 (July 1940): 2.
46. Henri Rieuf, "Organisation forestière: mobilisation des ressources forestières," Le Bois National, December 115, 1941, 393-96.
47. Minister for agriculture, Agriculteurs, voici ce qu'en un an le gouvernement du Maréchal a fait pour vous (Éditions de Sécrétariat Général à l'Information et à la propagande: [n.d]), 6;
48. Eaux et Forêts du 12e au 20e siècle, 628-30;
49. "Loi fixant la possibilité à exploiter chaque année par tous les propriétaires," in "Actes officiels," Revue des Eaux et Forêts 78 (July-September 1940): 334;
50. and "Décret relatif à la production forestière en temps de guerre," L'Action Forestière et Pisicole 35 (February 1940): 1.
51. GIFs consisted of two forest owners, two timber merchants, and two state foresters and were charged with assessing the state of timber resources and fixing timber prices and distribution. See "Actes officiels," Revue des Eaux et Forêts, 336-37.
52. Jagerschmidt, "Le programme forestier," 2. Since at least the nineteenth century, state foresters had been deeply concerned about deforestation, especially on mountain slopes, which they blamed for flooding on the plains and in the cities.
53. For an in-depth analysis of reforestation policies and their impact under the Third Republic, see Whited, Forest and Peasant Politics.
54. "Séance du samedi 28 mars 1942: conference de M. l'Inspecteur des Eaux et Forêts Dugelay sur le retour à la terre et le problème sylvo-pastoral dans les Alpes-Maritimes," in Annales de la Société des Lettres, Sciences, & Arts des Alpes-Maritimes, tome 36, 1942-1943, 17-18.
55. For more on Vichy's "retour à la terre" philosophy, see Clarke, "Homecomings";
56. Faure, Projet Culturel
57. and Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-44 (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1972), 200-209
58. L. Padré, "Preface," in Société française des amis des arbres, Guide du reboiseur (Paris: Pierre André, 1941), 1.
59. See also Association nationale de bois, Le Reboisement par les Particuliers, Quatrième Partie, Region des Alpes (1941).
60. Raoul Blanchard, "Deboisement et reboisement dans les Préalpes françaises du Sud," Revue de la Géographie Alpine 32 (1944): 372.
61. Indeed, it seems that the January 1942 reforestation legislation was applied in an extremely limited fashion. See Eaux et forêts du 12e au 20e siècle, 642.
62. The law of January 21, 1942, had elevated reforestation to "a work of general interest" and made it obligatory in zones determined by ministerial decree. Eaux et Forêts du 12e au 20e siècle, 631.
63. Archives départementales du Var (hereafter ADV) 1790 W 122, Charles Colomb, director general of forestry administration to forestry conservator, Aix-en-Provence, "Objet: trauvaux d'améliorations pastorales et forestières," October 5, 1940, 1.
64. In 1942 alone the Chantiers cut 440,400 tons of wood and produced 13,000 tons of wood charcoal. Centre historique des Archives nationales, Paris (hereafter CHAN) AJ39 1 "Bulletin du presse du secrétariat général de la jeunesse," 4 March 1941;
65. CHAN AJ39 166 General de la Porte du Theil to prefect of the Haute-Loire, 21 November 1941;
66. CHAN AJ39 168 Mourey, for General de la Porte du Theil, "Note pour les Commissaires Régionaux concernent l'emploi de la main d'oeuvre," May 4, 1943.
67. For more on the Chantiers de la Jeunesse and Vichy's youth policies, see W. D. Halls, The Youth of Vichy France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981).
68. As Jean-Pierre Azéma notes with reference to the "National Revolution," "seldom can there have been greater discrepancy between intentions and results"; see From Munich to the Liberation 1938-1944 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 62.
69. 3 (based on the years 1941-1943 and excluding Eastern and Northern departments). Commission consultative, Dommages subis par la France et l'Union française, vols. 6, 5, 11.
70. Formery, "Quelques observations," 1.
71. On the situation in Grenoble, see Archives départementales de l'Isère (hereafter ADI) 2101 W 28 "Procès-verbal de la reunion du 8 janvier 1942."
72. See also CHAN AJ 39 54, "Prescriptions et Directives du Commissaire Général," Bulletin périodique officiel des Chantiers de la Jeunesse, No. 54, August 18, 1941, 1-5.
73. Formery, "Quelques observations," 4.
74. CAC 19800470/168 Charles Colomb, "Note sur les réformes nécessaries au développement de la production forestière," March 21, 1942, 1;
75. R. Berthon, "Le problème de la main d'oeuvre forestière," Revue des Eaux et Forêts 83 (April 1945): 219;
76. Formery, "Quelques observations," 1;
77. ADBDR 194 W 25 G. Perdrizet, secretary general of GIF Central Committee, and Charles Colomb, forestry director general and president of GIF Central Committee, "Lettre Circulaire No. 144, Objet: contrôle des nouvelles déliverances de cartes professionelles-Révision des cartes antérieurement attribuées" to regional forestry conservators, presidents of GIF regional committees and presidents of Departmental Services for Forestry Products, April 25, 1944.
78. On the local level, see ADV 1790 W 130 Boutière, Forestry Inspector Draguignan, "Rapport trimestriel sur l'activité de l'Adminstration, October 11, 1943, 2;
79. and ADBDR 194 W 30, Controller Juré Bartoli, "Rapport de vérification dans la rassort de la 26e conservation des Forêts du 5 au 21 février 1942, département des Bouches-du-Rhône," 8.
80. See "Prescriptions et Directives du Commissaire Général," 1-5;
81. and CHAN AJ 39 56, "Prescriptions et Directives du Commissaire Général," Bulletin périodique officiel des Chantiers de la Jeunesse, No. 129, June 1, 1943, 521-24.
82. CHAN AJ 39 166, Mourey, adjacent general commissioner for General de la Porte du Theil, "Note pour Messieurs les Commissaires Régionaux," August 5, 1941, 1-2;
83. Berthon, "De quelques réflexions sur le problème de la main d'oeuvre forestier," 489-93;
84. CHAN AJ 39 168, Colonel Bervété du Génie to Forestry General Inspector Salvat, August 4, 1941; CHAN AJ 39 168, Chantiers de la Jeunesse general commissioner to forestry inspector general, August 6, 1941; CHAN AJ 39 54, "Prescriptions et Directives du Commissaire Général," 3. The Chantiers had their own grievances and accused Eaux et Forêts officials of being "generally too parsimonious" and not "taking into account the important contribution that [our] exploitations provide." CHAN AJ 39 168, Chantiers de la Jeunesse Commissariat General, Forestry Service, "Compte-rendu," August 20, 1941.
85. CAC 19771461/41, "Prestations en bois de chauffages éffectuées aux troupes d'opération, hiver 1940-1941." A stere equals one cubic metre of timber.
86. See Formery, "Quelques observations," 1; and various reports in ADBDR 194 W 25.
87. CAC 19800400/26 Army General Dosse, delegated administrator for Touring Club de France in the free zone to minister for agriculture, March 27, 1942;
88. and M. Arbaud, forestry adjacent inspector, Grenoble, "Coupes abusives? Chablis," April 1, 1942.
89. Paul Durand, "D'une decade à l'autre," Le Bois National, 15, no. 8, March 15, 1943, 95.
90. Commission consultative, Dommages subis par la France, vol. 6, 25, 48-49.
91. Henri Vergnaud, "Une croisade quis'impose," L'Action Forestière et Piscicole 87, June 1944, 1.
92. "Chronique forestier," 323.
93. Whited, Forests and Peasant Politics, 22-23.
94. See also Robert Pogue Harrison, Forests: The Shadow of Civilization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 117;
95. and Peter Sahlins, Forest Rites: The War of the Demoiselles in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 50-53.
96. For an example of a concerned forester, see A. Dugelay, "Les deboisements et les reboisements dans les Alpes-Maritimes (suite)," Revue de la Géographie Alpine 31 (1943): 166.
97. CAC 19800470/168, forestry conservator, head of Second Bureau, "Note pour Monsieur l'Inspecteur-Adjoint Proust, "réponsea à la demande de renseignements du 17 avril 1942, relative au rapport No. 33 du Commissaire du Pouvoir Formery," April 21, 1942;
98. and ADI 2109 W 64, M. Gobert, forestry conservator, Grenoble, to prefect of the Isère, "Rapport: bois de feu," May 19, 1944.
99. For other examples of foresters placing production over conservation concerns, see archives départementales des Alpes-Maritimes (hereafter ADAM) 521 W 9 forestry inspector, Head of Service Toulon to M. Lambert, branch secretary of forestry products, Draguignan, "Objet: Commune de Pardet: Besoins en bois de chauffage," December 29, 1941;
100. and ADAM 521 W 7, M. Caubel, forestry adjacent inspector, Nice Ouest, "Rapport, Commune de Mougins, Réclamation de Monsieur le Maire," November 12, 1940.
101. CAC 19800400/15, general secretary and president, Société d'Émulation du Bourbonnais, July 7, 1941;
102. CAC 19800400/15, director of National Forestry School to forestry general inspector, "Objet: projet de réserve naturelle en Forêt de Tronçais," April 27, 1942;
103. and CAC 19800400/15, forestry director general to Forestry Inspector General Salvat, "Constitution d'une réserve naturelle dans la forêt dominale de Tronçais," June 3, 1942.
104. Formery, "Quelques observations," 1, 4-6.
105. "Visite de la Forêt domaniale de Tronçais par le chef de l'État," Revue des Eaux et Forêts 79 (January 1941), 59.
106. On these traditionalist-technocratic divisions, see Paxton, Vichy France, 259-73; 352-57.
107. James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), 11-13.
108. Jacques Chevalier, La forêt de Tronçais en Bourbonnais (Paris: Éditions de la Chronique des Lettres françaises, 1940), 2, 6. Chevalier's musings on trees and tradition are by no means uncharacteristic of the symbolic appropriation of trees.
109. As Douglas Davies suggests, the tree is "a living entity, spanning many human generations. As such it avails itself as a historical marker and social focus of events." Douglas Davies, "The Evocative Symbolism of Trees," in The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design, and Use of Past Environments, ed. Denis E. Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 34.
110. See also Stephan Daniels, "The Political Iconography of Woodland in Later Georgian England," in ibid.
111. Jagerschmidt, "Le programme forestier," 1. The "National Revolution" was Vichy's attempt to transform France, replacing the French republic's motto of "Égalité, Libérté, Fraternité with "Travail, Famille, Patrie" (Work, Family, Fatherland).
112. For more on the "National Revolution," see Paxton, Vichy France, especially 357-83;
113. Miranda Pollard, Reign of Virtue: Mobilizing Gender in Vichy France (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1998);
114. and Andrew Shennan, Rethinking France: Plans for Renewal, 1940-1946 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
115. Blais et Luzu, Metiers de la forêt, 5, 56-58, 61. A 1943 article in Revue des Eaux et Forêts also argued that "living in nature is the 'best school' and working in forestry teams countered individualism and selfishness, cultivating instead the qualities of sacrifice and charity."
116. Berthon, "De quelques réflexions sur le problème de la main d'oeuvre forestier," 489-93.
117. CHAN AJ39 166, "Allocution prononcée devant chacun des Groupements (18e Région) de la Jeunesse Française (du Ie et IIe août)-30 à 35 Groupements-16,000 hommes," [n.d.];
118. and CHAN AJ39 177 General do la Porte du Theil, Les Chantiers de la Jeunesse (Ministre de l'Information [n.d.]), 6.
119. Chantiers de la Jeunesse, Groupement No. 1, Inauguration en forêt dominale de Tronçais du chêne dédié au commissaire Furioux, fondateur de groupement no.1, November 22, 1943.
120. Ibid.
121. CHAN AJ 39 56, "Prescriptions et directives du Commissaire Général," Bulletin périodique officiel des Chantiers de la Jeunesse, no. 129, June 1, 1943, 529.
122. Yvonne Estienne, illustrated by M. de Montfalcon, La belle histoire d'un chêne (Grenoble: Éditions de la Revue "Les Alpes," 1943).
123. Chevalier, La forêt de Tronçais, 155.
124. Pétain's oak stood thirty-five meters high, boasted a circumference of just under three meters, and was 260 years old with good foliage. Forestry Inspector Dubois de la Sablonière, "Le maréchal Pétain en Forêt de Tronçais," Revue des Eaux et Forêts 79 (February 1941): 126-27.
125. Chevalier, La forêt de Tronçais, 154.
126. "Visite de la Forêt domaniale de Tronçais par le chef de l'État," 59-60.
127. Georges Merlin, a private forester, also argued that degraded forests were evidence of France's wider decline under the Third Republic. After years of neglect, France's mountains that were once covered in trees now stood "wounded, ravaged, eaten away by water," leaving only "bare rocks" on display. For Merlin, these mountains were "silent witnesses, but how expressive, how accusatory, how damning for a regime! Formal and constantly present proof of its weaknesses and powerlessness." Georges Merlin, "Problème du jour: croisade pour le reboisement," Le Bois National, September 5, 1941, 273-74.
128. Herman Lebovics, True France: The Wars over Cultural Identity, 1900-1945 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1992), 9.
129. Andrée Corvol, "The Transformation of a Political Symbol: Tree Festivals in France from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Centuries," French History 4 (1990): 463-65.
130. Kedward, In Search of the Maquis, 13-16.
131. Emphasis in original. Quoted in ADV 1 J240, "Le Pélanq selon Bénédite," November 1983, 23.
132. On the history of the camp, see also ADV 1 J240, "Le Pélanq selon Taillefer," May 1983;
133. and Jean-Marie Guillon, "La Résistance dans le Var: Essai d'histoire politique" (Doctorat d'État, Aix-en-Provence, 1989) part 3, chap. 2, 5-6.
134. Philippe Hanus, Je suis né charbonnier dans le Vercors: petite histoire des hommes dans la forêt (Lans-en-Vercors: CPIE Vercors, 2000), 122-23.
135. Ironically, a German company took over the exploitation at Ambel in February 1944, so the maquisards' timber production fed the German war machine. See ibid., 123-24.
136. See also Lieutenant Stephen, Vercors: Premier Maquis de France (Valence: Imprimerie Nouvelle, 1991), 26, 86-87.
137. Hanus, Je suis né charbonnier dans le Vercors, 124.
138. Roger Chassaingt, La vie en forêt de Tronçais de juin 1940 à octobre 1944 (Nice: published by the author, 1999), 102. Chassaingt dismisses reports that resistors opened fire on Pétain's oak.
139. "La forêt de Tronçais," website of the Office National des Forêts, http://www.onf.fr/foret/dossier/troncais/ 3-p1.htm, consulted November 10, 2005.
140. One member of the camp apparently wrote to Bénédicte in 1945 admitting that he would "happily exchange [his] current situation to go back to the time when [he] was a bûcheron." "Le Pélanq selon Bénédite," 13-14, 35.
141. For a wider exploration of the ideological links between Vichy and the resistance, see Christopher Flood, "Pétain and de Gaulle: Making the Meanings of Occupation," in France at War in the Twentieth Century: Propaganda, Myth, and Metaphor, ed. Valerie Holman and Debra Kelly (New York: Berghahn, 2000), 88-110;
142. and Dominique Veillon, "The Resistance and Vichy" in France at War: Vichy and the Historians, ed. S. Fishman, et al. (Oxford: Berg, 2000), 161-77.
143. Stephan, Vercors, 26.
144. Quoted in ibid., 27.
145. "Chronique forestier," Revue des Eaux et Forêts 83 (May 1945): 294.
146. "Chronique forestier, Nécrologie: Morts pour la France," Revue des Eaux et Forêts 83 (July 1945): 419-22.
147. Archives départementales des Hautes-Alpes (hereafter ADHA) 1042 W 3, M. Cusin, forestry inspector, Gap-Est, "Rapport: documentation pour l'Histoire de la Guerre," June 10, 1948.
148. As the report came from within Eaux et Forêts ranks, it should be treated with caution, although there is collaborative evidence in the Briançon area that foresters supported resistance activity. See ADHA 1042 W 3 [Illegible], adjoint-délégué for the mayor of Briançon, "Documentation pour l'Histoire de la guerre," June 7, 1948.
149. Harrison, Forests: The Shadow of Civilization, 61.
150. Philippe Barrier, Forêt légendaire: contes, légendes, coutumes, anecdotes sur les forêts de France (Évreux: Christian de Bartillat, 1991), 164.
151. Sahlins, Forest Rites, 29-30.
152. See ADAM 521 W 57, Lieutenant Lafforgue, head of Forest Fire Service, to Commandant Chaudière, "Renseignements sur l'organisation des dispositions de protection contre les incendies de forêts," [n.d.];
153. and ADAM 521 W 57, president of Special Delegation for Castellar to Prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes, "Objet: Incendie de 3 août 1943";
154. mayor of Lucéram to prefect of Alpes-Maritimes "Objet: Incendie de 3 août 1943," August 6, 1943.
155. One town mayor praised the "beautiful attitude" of a detachment of Italian troops highlighting their "drive, calmness, energy, and determination."ADAM 521 W 57, mayor of Turbie to prefect of Alpes-Maritimes, "Rapport sur une incendie qui s'est declaré dans la région du Mont Bataille," July 20, 1943.
156. ADAM 521 W 6, M. Leroy, interim forestry adjacent inspector, Nice-Est, June 19, 1943. These concerns need to be seen in the light of foresters' longstanding belief that peasant practices threatened mountain forests. See Whited, Peasant Politics in Modern France.
157. ADAM 521 W 6, forestry inspector Nice Ouest, "Note de service," January 26, 1943.
158. See, for example, ADAM 521 W 6, M. Leroy, interim forestry adjacent inspector, Nice-Est, "Rapport," June 24, 1943;
159. and Forestry Guard Michel, Mougins, "Procès-verbal de constat no. 6," August 5, 1944.
160. ADHA 1043 W 74, M. Allouard, forestry inspector, Briançon, "Rapport," October 15, 1943.
161. ADAM 521 W 6, forestry conservator, Nice, "Note de Service: Ravitaillement en Bois de Chauffage et de Cuisine des Troupes italiennes en Opérations dans les Alpes-Maritimes," November 18, 1942;
162. ADAM 521 W 6, forestry inspector, Draguignan, to forestry inspector, Nice, July 7, 1943;
163. ADHA 1043 W 74, M. Arnaud, forestry inspector, Embrun, "Rapport: occupation par les Italiens: coupes abusives," September 4, 1942;
164. and forestry conservator, Gap, to forestry inspector general, April 9, 1942.
165. ADAM 521 W 6, mayor of St-Saveur, "Extrait du Registre des Délibérations du Conseil Municipal de la Commune de St-Saveur, séance du 11 juillet 1943: exploitation par l'autorité italienne de la forêt du Bois noir."
166. ADAM 521 W 6, M. Février, forestry adjacent inspector, Nice, "Rapport," March 17, 1943.
167. On the Alpes-Maritimes, see ADAM 521 W 52, "Bulletin de renseignements sur l'incendie constaté le 20 juillet 1943";
168. ADAM 521 W 52, "Bulletin de renseignements sur l'incendie constaté le 5 janvier 1944";
169. and ADAM 521 W 57, police commissioner of Vallauris to prefect of Alpes-Maritimes, "Objet: feu de forêt," June 5, 1943.
170. On the Bouches-du-Rhône, see ADBDR 76 W 33, Gendarme nationale, 15th legion, Company of Bouches-du-Rhône, No. 1805/2 "Confirmation messages téléphonés ce jour 9 juillet 1943 à 19h."
171. On the Var, see AD 1790 W 130, M. Millischer, forestry inspector, Draguignan, "Rapport trimestriel," October 23, 1942.
172. ADAM 521 W 6, Joseph Ezojani and Roger Millo, "Procès-verbal de délit," March 22, 1943;
173. and M. Beaugerie, forestry general guard, Nice-Ouest, "Rapport: coupes et dommages causés par les troupes italiennes," March 25, 1943.
174. ADAM 521 W 5, interim forestry inspector, Nice Ouest, to M. Bensa, April 20, 1943; ADAM 521 W 5, forestry brigadier, Contes, to forestry inspector, Nice Ouest, April 22, 1943; and ADAM 5216, forestry adjacent inspector, Nice Ouest, to forestry conservator, Nice, July 6, 1943.
175. ADBDR 51 W 25, Service dommages assimilés, dossier CA 42.442 Ag, "Objet: Incendies de forêt du 19 au 23 août 1943," June 2, 1947.
176. CAC 19771461/41, M. Deslandres, forestry conservator, Amiens, to forestry director general, "État d'avancement de la livraison du chauffage à l'Armée d'occupation," September 25, 1941.
177. See also general secretary of GIF Central Committee to Öberlandforstmeister Haussmann, head of German Forestry Service, "Objet: Exploitations forestières par des Services Allemands," May 27, 1942.
178. On the Ordonnance, see CAC 19771461/41, GIF Central Committee to
179. CAC 19771461/41, For the military governor, head of the Military Administration Haussmann to GIF Central Committee, "Objet: Enquête sue l'acheminement de bois brut pour carburants solides et de bois de feu dans la région parisienne," July 23, 1944.
180. Commission consultative, Dommages subis par la France et l'Union française 6, 72.
181. ADAM 109 W 8, prefect of Alpes-Maritimes to under-prefect of Grasse and mayors of the Alpes-Maritimes, "Objet: Engins incendaires utilisés par certains aéronautiques." [n.d.];
182. and ADAM 109 W 8, minister for war to prefects, "Objets: programme de défense passive," April 17, 1941.
183. ADBDR 76 W 33, Squadron Chief Grassy, commander of Gendarme Company for the Bouches-du-Rhône, "Rapport sur les nombreux incendies allumés dans les forêts du Département depuis le début de juin 1942," August 29, 1942.
184. Richard Tucker also suggests that refugees and resistance fighters lit forest fires to thwart German operations in "World Wars and the Globalization of Timber Cutting," 122.
185. Quoted in Christian Durandet, Les Maquis de Provence(Paris: Éditions France-Empire, 1974), 215.
186. Claude-Marie Vadrot suggests that the German army lit fires to flush out resistance units and destroy their cover, such as in Fontainebleu forest, in Guerres et environnement: panorama des paysages et des écosystèmes bouleversés (Paris: Delachux et Niestlé, 2005), 219.
187. National Archives, London, WO 252/198, Inter-Service Topographical Department, "France-Mediterranean Coast: Special Report on Coast, Beaches, and Exits from Toulon to the Franco-Italian Border Including Abridged Descriptions of the Small Ports of St. Tropez, St. Raphaël, Cannes, Antibes, Villefranche, and Monoco," March 18, 1943.
188. On the history of the Allied landings, see Arthur Layton Funk, Hidden Ally: The French Resistance, Special Operations, and the Landings in Southern France, 1944 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1992);
189. and Philippe Lamarque, Débarquement en Provence: 15e Août 1944 (Paris: Le Cherche-Midi, 2003).
190. Amiral André-Georges Lemonier, Cap sur la Provence (Paris: Éditions France-Empire, 1955), 82.
191. See also Alfred Martin-Siegfried, "Le débarquement allié sur les côtes varoises," Forêt Méditerranéenne 2 (December 1980): 209-10;
192. and Alfred Martin-Siegfried, "Stratégie et environnement: le débarquement allié sur la côte varoise, août 1944: Un désastre évité de justesse" La Cohorte 75 (July 1982): 21-24.
193. ADAM 521 W 31, M. Loudes, "Rapport sur la forêt de Port Cros," [n.d.];
194. ADBDR 51 W 69, M. Arbuad, principal forestry engineer, "Rapport: Commune de Gémenos-Dommages de Guerre, demande de transfert d'indemnités," April 25, 1957;
195. and ADBDR 51 W 69, Etienne Olivier, "Procès verbal de constat de rapport d'expertise," December 4, 1947.
196. German units also used fire during their retreat from the commune of Roquefort-la-Bédoule. See ADBDR 51 W 73, "Rapport d'enquêteur agricole, Dossier CA H1917Z, 5 décembre 1953." The figure of 2,769 hectares comes from an analysis of forestry administration files in the archives départementales of the Alpes-Maritimes, Bouches-du-Rhône, and Var.
197. Commission consultative, Dommages subis par la France, vol. 6, 25, 44;
198. and Henry S. Kernan, "War's Toll of French Forests," American Forests 51 (September 1945): 442.
199. Kernan, "War's Toll of French Forests," 442;
200. and M. Bach, "Les forêts mitraillées en Lorraine," Revue forestière française 27 (1975): 217-22.
201. Foresters' reports outline this damage. See, for example, CAC 19880470/ 172 Pol. Loppinet, forestry conservator, Strasbourg, "Rapport," July 28, 1947.
202. In contrast, officials reported little or no damage to forests in the départements of Loiret, Hautes-Pyrénées, Pyrénées-Orientales, and Savoie. See, for instance, CAC 19880470/172 M. Parlier, forestry conservator, Chambéry, "Possibilité par volume des forêts françaises," June 20, 1947.
203. The figure of 200,000 hectares for World War I comes from Tamara L. Whited, "France," in Encyclopaedia of World Environmental History, ed. Shepard Krech III, J. R. McNeill, and Carolyn Merchant,3 vols. (New York: Routledge, 2004), 2:558-59.
204. Compare, for instance the Drôme and the Isère with the Var. See CAC 19880470/172, M. Gobert, Eaux et Forêts conservator, Grenoble, "Possibilité par volume des forêts françaises: départements de l'Isère et de la Drôme," June 23, 1947;
205. and CHAN F107103, Génie rural chief engineer to Génie rural inspector general, "Évaluation provisoire des dommages agricoles causés par la guerre," March 30, 1946.
206. For more on the FFN, see CAC 19880470/144, Recueil des lois, décrets, arrêtés et règlements financiers concernant le Fonds Forestier National (Paris: Maison Rapide, [n.d.]);
207. ADAM 521 W 78, Jean de Vaissière, "Le reboisement de la France dans le cadre du plan de restauration agricole" (Toulouse: Imprimerie régional, [n.d.]);
208. CAC 19880470/146, Meeting of Central Control Committee of the Fonds Forestier National, "Note pour Ministre de l'Agriculture: Projet de manifestation à l'occasion de la mise en boisement, par le F.F.N. du 500,000e hectare," October 27, 1955;
209. and Fonds Forestier National: 25 ans de travaux (Paris: Documentation Française/Ministre de l'Agriculture, 1972).