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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
During the closing stages of the second world war in Europe, the British and the Americans, together with the governments they supported, were often faced with the problem of dealing with armed resistance movements which they themselves had actively fostered to help in the fight against the Germans. Despite significant national and even local variations, the root cause of the problem was the same everywhere: the resistance was a political as well as a military phenomenon. Many of its members did not regard their task as complete with the departure of the last German soldier. They saw defeat and occupation as the inevitable result of pre-war political, social and economic structures which they were determined to transform. While the allies and the governments they supported were themselves often in favour of change, they were rarely prepared to go either as far or as fast as some elements of the resistance desired. Confrontation was therefore almost inevitable.
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12 S.H.A.E.F. Mission (Belgium) report, 17 October 1944, cited in note 2, above.
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16 Procès-verbal de la réunion tenue chez le Général-Major Erskine, le Ier novembre 1944 …, Gérard papers, Section 3, File Ia.
17 Erskine had already received suggestions from the Belgians that the allies should disarm the resistance. See his letter of 21 October 1944, cited in note 13, above.
18 De Standaard, 3 November 1944, p. 1.
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33 Knatchbull-Hugessen diary, 28 November 1944, Knatchbull-Hugessen papers, Churchill College, Cambridge.
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46 At a meeting of the party's central committee on 21 October 1944, its secretary-general, Edgar Lalmand, called for a regroupment of the left on the basis of a common programme. The same meeting authorized the despatch of a memorandum to Pierlot expressing the party's dissatisfaction with his performance so far. Le Drapeau Rouge, 24 October 1944, p. 1; 25 October 1944, p. 1.
47 Knatchbull-Hugessen despatch, 21 November 1944, cited in note 28, above.
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50 Harrison minute, 1 December 1944; Roberts minute, 3 December 1944; Warner minute, 4 December 1944; all in F.O. 371/38898/C16118.
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54 News Chronicle, 4 December 1944, p. 2.
55 JIC SHAEF (44) 20 (Final), 1 January 1945, cited in note 53, above.
56 King-Salter memorandum, 10 January 1945, United States National Archives, Record Group 331, S.H.A.E.F.-G2/J.I.C. Committee Subject File 1944–45. A photocopy of this document, which was declassified under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act on 17 February 1977, was kindly made available to me by Mr James Michael of the Polytechnic of Central London.
57 Knatchbull-Hugessen letter, 28 November 1944, cited in note 32, above.
58 Harvey minute, 4 December 1944, F.O. 371/38898/C16118.
59 Achille Van Acker, Willem Schermerhorn and Ferruccio Parri.
