Background
Darlan was born in Nérac, Lot-et-Garonne, to a family with a long connection with the French Navy. His great-grandfather was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar.
Darlan was born in Nérac, Lot-et-Garonne, to a family with a long connection with the French Navy. His great-grandfather was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar.
He graduated from the École Navale in 1902.
Throughout the war of 1914-18 he commanded a battery of naval guns on various fronts. For 10 years after being promoted to rear Admiral in 1929 Darlan had almost total control over rebuilding the French Navy into a powerful, modem force that was virtually his fiefdom. Having learned something about politics from his father, Darlan developed what an admiring Churchill called an “obsession to keep the politicians in their place as chatterboxes in the Chamber of Deputies”. Leon Blum made the admiral chief of the navy’s general staff in 1936, and Darlan was admiral of the fleet commanding all French maritime forces as of 1 Jan 1937. This new rank was created to put Darlan on a level with Britain’s first lord of the Admiralty (Larousse).
A frustrated by Gamelin’s failure to plan joint operations of naval, air, and ground forces, the admiral used his ships to support the Royal Navy in the Atlantic (to include support of the Narvik expedition) and the Mediterranean (to include bombarding Genoa). Like most French naval officers Darlan was notoriously anti-British; but Churchill hoped as late as 12 June 1940 that the little admiral was even more anti-German. As French leaders moved toward requesting an armistice, Darlan expressed determination on 14 June to continue resistance at sea (Larousse). But he sided with Laval in opposing the idea of a government in exile, which would be toothless without the French Navy. On 16 June 1940, when the Reynaud government was ousted, Pdtain named Darlan minister of the navy and of the merchant marine. In this capacity the admiral countermanded orders for French ships to join the Allies or head for neutral waters. But on 19 June he assured the British he would never deliver his fleet to the Germans, and the next day he issued secret orders, confirmed 24 June 1940, to sabotage ships if the Germans tried to seize them in violation of the armistice agreement. But Article 8 stipulated that French ships would return to peacetime home ports, most of which were in German hands. The anglophobia of Darlan, his officers, and other Frenchmen was fired by what the admiral called the “odious assault” ai Mers el Kebir on 3 July 1940 and de Gaulle’s failed attempt to take Dakar, 23-25 Sep 1940.
Like Petain, Darlan believed Germany would win the war. He therefore pursued pro-German policies in hopes of winning a better postwar position for France than could be expected from a victorious Great Britain (Larousse). The admiral remained minister of the navy until February 1941, when he succeeded Pierre Laval as vice premier and foreign minister. The admiral also took over the ministries of the interior and defense, and by an act on 10 Feb 1941 was designated as Petain’s successor. Although he subsequently dominated Vichy France, Darlan failed every test as a politician.
Laval returned to the Vichy government on 17 April 1942, when Darlan surrendered all cabinet posts but remained Petain’s dauphin. Although past retirement age, the admiral was retained on active duty as commander of all French armed forces.
Visiting French Africa 21-29 Oct 1942, Darlan exhorted officers to resist the expected American attack on Dakar. But the admiral let the Allies know a few days later he was prepared to cooperate with them, and the US State Dept authorized Robert Murphy to “initiate any arrangement with Darlan which . . . might assist the planned military operations”.