Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

FRANCE IS TO BLAME 705this conclusion from his experience in reorganizing his own country.Even England was willing to concede Hitler his three hundred thousandsoldiers — 'two or three hundred thousand soldiers,' said amemorandum of the Foreign Office published at the end of January.However, the truly important events of the period took place, notbetween the countries, but within the countries; the struggle was nolonger among the nations, but among forces and parties that werepresent in every nation. The beginning of 1934 witnessed significantuprisings and successes of the 'armed intellectuals' in at least threedifferent places. In Poland, dictatorship suddenly had overrunParliament on January 26. Eleven days later, democratic France was thescene of a bloody, not quite unsuccessful, assault against Parliament;within another week, Austrian fascism smashed the organizations of theworking class.French democracy was the outcome of a century-old resistance of thepeople against the privileged classes. Born of class struggles, thisdemocracy always has — or had — a marked class character. Howeverdeeply it influenced the history of France, French democracy was not somuch a national institution, but rather a powerful party, which alwayshad to defend itself against a hostile opposition. During the first decadesof the Third Republic, this hostile opposition was actually in powerseveral times. After the democratic tendency definitely gained the upperhand (about the turn of the century), the anti-democratic forces formedan opposition especially among the intellectuals; after the World War itfound its most noisy and colorful expression in the Action Francaise,which was composed mostly of students and young academicians. Itwas led by two unusual intellectuals, Charles Maurras, a master of prosestyle, and Leon Daudet, a master of vituperative polemics. Thismovement was unequivocally anti-parliamentarian and anti-Semitic.The Croix de Feu, a movement born after the World War, which wascomparable to the German Steel Helmets, gained a larger massfollowing. The Croix de Feu was originally a union of French veterans;after 1930, under the leadership of former Colonel Casimir de laRocque, it began to intervene in politics. In their struggle againstdemocracy and parliamentarianism, these groups found abundantoccasions for mockery and accusations in a country where the term