What's The Scuttlebutt Podcast
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What's The Scuttlebutt Podcast
“Free France’s Forgotten General: The Epic of Louis Dio”
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What's up everybody? Tonight Dennis and I sit down with Dr. Monique Seafree and Colonel James R. Mistine, PhD, U.S. Army retired, and together they teamed up to bring us the translation of General Louis Dio, the wartime epic of one of Free France's greatest soldiers from 1940 to 46. Dr. Monique Seafree is not only the goddaughter of General Louis Dio, but also one of the stewards of his legacy. She studied ancient history at Saborn, later taught and served as a museum curator at Emory University. And she is positioned to uniquely tell this story with both scholarly rigor and a personal insight. Colonel Jason Misteen, U.S. Army retired, brings both battlefield experience and historical expertise. He enlisted in 1990, was commissioned in 1994, and has held a wide variety of command and staff roles, from leading a cavalry regiment to serving in the war zones in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Horns of Africa. He later became a professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he served as chief military historian along other roles. So we're excited to get into this book and get into this interview. But real quick, I just want to remind you if you haven't done so, head over to WTSPWorldWar II.com, click on the Patreon link, sign up and subscribe, or simply go to patreon.com and look for D410 Media. And while you're on the internet, please head over to YouTube.com, search for D410 Media in the search bar. You can find our channel, view all the what's the scuttlebutt videos, plus all the other content we have over at D410 Media. So somebody who's been carrying a firearm for over 13 years daily, one of the biggest inconveniences is when you come home, you need to take your firearm off of yourself and put it somewhere safe, somewhere secure, especially if you have kids. Now I know most of us are responsible. We have a gun safe somewhere, but let's be honest, usually these gun safes are big, they're bulky, they're kind of out of the way because they are a bit of an eyesore. Your wife doesn't want them where everybody can see them. So sometimes in your closet behind some clothes, sometimes they're in the garage, sometimes in the mud room. And let's be honest, taking your firearm out and walking to those locations to secure it is a pain in the butt. But you have to be a responsible firearm owner, especially if you have kids in the house. That's why you need to get yourself a stopbox pro portable gun safe. You can make it non-portable, you can drill some holes in it, mount it to a place of convenience in your house, but it requires no batteries and no electricity. You simply come in your house, walk up your safe, choose your finger button combinations, open a safe, remove your firearm from your person, put it in the safe to close your safe. Just that easy, it's secure. So do yourself a favor, head over to stopboxusa.com forward slash D410 and get all the information today on your stopbox pro. When seconds count, trust the only non-fail firearm storage box, stopbox pro at stopboxusa.com forward slash D410. Welcome everybody to another episode of the What's the Scuttlebutt Podcast, your favorite World War II based podcast, and we are excited for tonight's guest. But before I enter them, I want to say Jeff is not going to be available with us tonight, but Dennis is here as always. Dennis, sir, how are you doing tonight?
SPEAKER_03Doing great. Doing great. Excited about the uh podcast tonight. The guests we have. Yeah, ready to get going.
SPEAKER_02Joining us tonight to discuss their book is Monique Seafried and Colonel Jason R. Mustine. Jason, Monique, thank you guys for joining us. And real quick shout out, this would not have happened if it wasn't from our very good friend, and think he still holds the record for most repeat uh guest appearances on the what's the scuttlebutt, Dr. Jared Frederick. So, shout out for Jared for uh making this interview possible. Um, Monique, Jason, thank you guys for coming on the show tonight. Obviously, we're gonna discuss your book here shortly. This is a fantastic book, and I also gotta say, this is a topic that we have yet to cover really on the what's the scuttlebutt podcast because we don't have experts on this. And boy, howdy, did we find some. This is a fantastic book, and before we get into it, the amount of information about those involved in the organization of the Free French is astounding. I mean, this isn't this is a book about Luis Dio, but this is also a very, very good informational book. If you're wanting information on those responsible for forming and holding ranks of the part of the Free French, this book is for you. I was blown away on the amount of information you guys put in this book, and congratulations on that. But Monique, explain to me how this English version of this book came to be.
SPEAKER_04I first need to explain to you how the French version came to be. Which is that uh Luigi was my godfather, and just when I I I when I we finished the commemoration in France of the World War I centennial, I was I met General Michel, which is the other author of the book, and he was the president of the foundation of the Maréchal Leclerc. And we started talking, and he told me I really would like to write a book about General Dio, because all the other companions of Leclerc are well known, and he is not. And will you help me? He knew that I am an historian, that I have a PhD in history from the Sorbonne, and I will say that most of the footnotes are due to the research I did with him, but it was my doing to make this book such an historical book, because I was already thinking about the fact that in the United States or in the English speaking world, there are only five books on the Free French and Leclerc, which for French people seems inimaginable. You know, every small town has a Place Leclerc, and rue Leclerc is known all over, you know, is just part of our heritage. And so I really wanted to ensure that this book will be an incredible resource for future historians. And so this is why you find this story and you find it so well documented. As a World War One Centennial Commissioner, I had had the pleasure to meet Jason Mustin with a group of students because I had wanted to invite cadets at West Point to the inauguration to the groundbreaking of the National World War I centennial in Washington. And so I wrote to the chair of the history department, and she told me she would send uh a group, I think a dozen of cadets, and who came with them? It was Jason. And so afterwards I realized how well he spoke French, and afterwards, uh, when we had um, you know, when I had work, when I had found a publisher in the UK for the book, it was much easier, in fact, to find a publisher once I could tell them that I had a translator. And I have to say from the start, because this is an amazing fact, is that Jason did that out of the goodness of his heart. In really, I am so grateful to him because he you know he did not get any compensation, and he must have worked quite a long time because it's not an easy book to translate. And so this is how, if you want, it all started, and also uh the the book club director of the AUSA, the American Association of the US Army, Joe Craig, was the one who introduced me to the British publisher. So I think that I I really found in you know in in uh in some Americans an incredible support because there is such lack of knowledge about this period, uh this part of the war, I would say.
SPEAKER_02Does that come as a a positive and a negative when trying to sell this book on this particular topic? Because A, as you said, there's only five previous books on this topic, and at least in American format, and so that is a topic that has not been done to the ground. I mean, let's be honest, a lot a lot of the primary subject matter of American-based World War II books cover pretty much the same eight or nine, you know, campaigns, whereas we you said previously, the uh the Free French and the French campaigns aren't aren't covered a lot. Is it a benefit and a kind of a a disbenefit because a you got content that has been published multiple thousands of times, but then again, some American publishers say, well, because it has been published so much so many times, maybe there's not that much interest in it here?
SPEAKER_01I I'll I'll answer that if I can. Yes, absolutely. One of the things I hope we can we can demonstrate to an English-speaking audience, but particularly Americans, is that the history of the French 2nd Armored Division is American history.
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_01It's you from Morocco all the way through the French campaigns and into Germany, the 2nd Armored Division was a part of the United States Army. And uh and and so this is a part of our own history that we've we've missed and we've left out. And and so I I think I want to I would like to use that as the way into the American audience, and particularly American World War II enthusiasts. That yeah, here's a part of the of our story that you might not know. And in in coming to learn it, what we'll also learn is hopefully we get to break down some of that myth that in World War II the French didn't fight because these French certainly did, and for a lot longer than than any American did, and in a lot, a lot of really difficult circumstances. So I'm I'm hoping to make that case as we continue to promote the book.
SPEAKER_02Well, the only reason I bring that up is I know, particularly in the movie and television industry, Hollywood is only interested in pre-existing IPs. And so I'm sure you know publishing could be similar. Where so when you come to them with a great story and content that hasn't been done a lot, there may be a little hesitation to take on that quote-unquote risk. That's the only reason I bring it up. But I uh I love the book. We're excited to help share with our audience because once, as I said before, this isn't a topic that we've covered, and almost a little bit in the aspect of almost the American Civil War, you got the free French that sometimes come up against opposition that are their own countrymen in certain battles, and that in similar to the American Civil War, you have brothers and countrymen fighting against brothers and countrymen, and that in and of itself needs more spotlight shined on it.
SPEAKER_04Yes, go ahead, Jason.
SPEAKER_01In the in in the early days of of this whole story, and I know we're we're jumping in without the context, so as listeners or watchers are here, you know, maybe they're still wondering who is Louis Dio, but uh early on in what is clearly an epic story, he was in Gabon trying to rally French colonials to to free France at the beginning of this war. And one of Dio's big concerns was fighting against other Frenchmen. He didn't want to call them enemies, he wanted to call them adversaries, and you know, saw it as an opportunity to reach out to try to convince others to join Free France, and knew that at that in 1940 that there was a lot of conflicted loyalties and uncertainty about where the war was going and what to do about it. And you know, France had fallen in May of 1940, but established the government in Vichy under Philippe Pétain, whose reputation from World War I was beyond reproach, and yet it's hard to exaggerate how important a character Philippe Petin was in France. And so, on the one hand, you've got Pétain leading the legitimate government of France, and then on the other hand, this unknown guy de Gaulle, who's calling for Frenchmen to fight and resist that. And so then add on to that the layer of being on the continent of Africa and large amounts of territory in space, French colonial troops scattered about, and indigenous soldiers uh in in those units as well, and so there was a lot of uncertainty, particularly in 1940, early 41, about which side are you on, and can I convince you to join my side? Uh, or do I do I take orders from my commander who is on this side, but I'm leaning the other way, you know, and so there was a lot of that going on, and early on in 1940, early 41, you know, Dio did did there were engagements with other French soldiers, and uh it was something I think he regretted at the time, or regretted that it had to happen. Not that he regretted that he that he made the right decision in joining Free France, but yeah, it's certainly a tough time, certainly a difficult challenge.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and the name of the book is General Louise Dio, the wartime epic of one of Free France's greatest soldiers from 1940 to 1946. And with that, let's get into it. Let's go kind of not to the beginning, but let's discuss where uh you know Louise Dio was at when the fall of France happened and how he ended up finding himself as being a playing a critical role in the organization and the um hierarchy of the uh free French military.
SPEAKER_04So he had been um once he got out of Saint Cyr, he chose to serve in the mounted camel troops. He was a Maharist. And so for 11 years he served with the the Mayorist in the in the Sahara and as well as in African, you know, at the limit of um African other African countries. And so he was called back uh to France when the for the Battle of France in 1940, nine in March 1940, he was reassigned to a unit and the regiment uh the tirailleurs senegalais and he was asked to embark to go to France. For some reason there were some issues with the boats and he could not go uh uh he could not depart. But to give you a sense of the size of the of the terrain he was covering, when he was called back to go to Cameroon to embark to France, he had to cover two hundred two thousand kilometers. So that was not a short distance, and that had to be covered by Camel, because that was their means of transportation. So, anyhow, he um you know by by early June of 1940 the news were worrying, he was wondering what was going to happen. The French government left for Bordeaux, and um then on June 17, Maréchal Pétain addressed the French people to tell them that he wanted an end to the hostilities. The news spread very rapidly into Douala, where Dio was, and it started already discussion among the French community, and some of the people, in fact, decided right away to cross over to Nigeria to so that they could right away go and fight with the British. No one knew exactly what he was going to do, and Leclerc had been sent by de Gaulle after. Um, in fact, we are not yet there because on June 18 was the famous speech of De Gaulle: France has lost a battle but has not lost the war, there is a French Empire, and so on. And so, in that uh French Empire, uh, you had people who were, as I just said, thinking, Are we going? Are we not going? What are we doing, and so on. And the goal decided to send Leclerc and another military uh gentleman, Etienne Bois Lambert and a politician, Pleven, on a mission to Africa to try to recruit, if you want, the core of what could constitute a French army. And he was told before arriving that if when while he was speaking to the people during the meeting, if in the room was a certain officer named Joe, they should make sure he should make sure that he came on to their side. Because he was told if Joe is with you, then you have a chance. And so Leclerc saw someone told him Joe was by the door, and he saw him walking away, and so he called Captain Joe, Are you with us? And Joe turned around and answered, I'm on the way to get my company. And this company was really the beginning, you know, the the the birth of the second armored division. Jason, do you want to to add something to that?
SPEAKER_01No, that's that's it. Yeah, he'd he'd been he'd been a camel soldier in the Sahara for 10 years. Uh and when the war started out, you know, for some of those colonial troops, it was maybe an easier decision to continue to fight and resist than it was for those in the Metropolitan Army who were caught up in the Battle of France, but um certainly not an easy decision for him. But he was an experienced uh an experienced Saharan soldier by the time the war started.
SPEAKER_04And he was admired by a lot of the the French soldiers around because he had already earned two citations for his courage in fighting in some. But the interesting thing is that one of the person, um the father of one of my best friends with whom I grew up, and I often had to take the train with him to join his family and my friend in uh Brittany. So during those long train trips, he was also mayorist and he served under Jo. And I am go now I'm going to say a story, especially for you three men. If you want to cut that story, please do, because it's absolutely not appropriate. And this the story is that Joe was so worried of any kind of infection among his troops that if he realized that one of these his soldiers had gone out and had intercourse with an African woman, he would force them to dip their penis in alcohol. So that shows you the type of attitude of rough guy he was. He also had uh all his teeth pulled out because it was so complicate to when you had an emergency and you were in the middle of the desert that he preferred to have his teeth pulled out and a dantier i don't know you call a dontier dentro than to um you know than to run the risk to have those kind of problems so he he had this style um which endeared him very much to his men and not always to his superior and here jason can can tell you also how amazing it is that this couple of lecler and duo came into existence because duo spoke constantly about uh they are going to get at my balls and he was using all all that type of vocabulary and lecler jason can explain that more to you was of such a different type yeah i i think i think if you'd ask if you were to ask central casting to come up with these characters and say you know i want two men who couldn't be any more different from each other uh one of them needs to be kind of crude and dirty and this this old colonial soldier who would pull his teeth out and and and go for months without bathing you know somewhere in the Sahara that's that's one side on the other side I want you to create this aristocratic you know French cavalryman who who's smug and and has airs about him you know it and and then you tell the casting directors come up with those people then I think you they would come up with exactly Louis Dio and and uh Philippe Leclerc well I know during their first meeting per se when when Leclerc was kind of giving his join us speech and Dio kind of sat back in the corner he he wasn't so high on his own opinion that he interrupted or put his own two cents and he kind of sat back heard the spiel kind of got the the feeling of the room and then only when once asked his opinion and whether or not he was going to join that he he thought over carefully because once again you know it's one thing for yourself to want to join up but there's some danger joining up right you're you're essentially going against the rule of your government that's been taken over in France and not only for yourself but for your men.
SPEAKER_02And so he took all that into consideration and only then did he agree to join up. And to that point that's kind of a that was kind of a risky mission for like Claire to get put on too because all he did was come wrong a wrong the wrong group of French soldiers who didn't want to join up and he could have been arrested or you know brought up on charges for um treason or um you know failure to follow orders.
SPEAKER_04Which he which he was he was in fact condemned to death and he was also extremely worried for his mother who was a widow in France and he was afraid that when his name got out you know and out the the Leclerc Leclerc was not his name he he he he had to adopt this name to protect his family but very quickly it leaked out and again he was uh condemned to this and um by the Vichy government was yeah and and Don to your point um when when Leclerc arrived on the continent of Africa you he he rode ashore in a canoe kind of you kind of ignominiously you just got a he and he and a handful of men rode ashore in this canoe and then even tumped it over as they were trying to to reach the shore you know so he kind of kind of came onto the continent onto the land a little bit wet and underarmed just a small group of people and and he really did need Dio's company that was that was in Dyala in Douala and and so he laid it all out you know here's what I'm trying to do here's all I want to accomplish and Dio was a man of few words so he sat as you said and and listened to this whole thing and he could have very easily said all right why don't you wait right here I'm going to get my company to arrest you you know but instead he listened and and uh came to the conclusion that this is right he'd already decided for himself that that it was right to join Free France but he did as you said have some concerns for his men you know can I can I speak on behalf of my soldiers and many of them were indigenous Chadians and so he he thought for a while and decided I'll go get my company but to join you.
SPEAKER_01And so yeah it was it was a tense moment that could have gone either way and it would have completely changed the history of World War II for the French.
SPEAKER_03I think it might be lost on readers if they haven't been to Africa um I just uh the Herculean effort that it was and how much it speaks to his character and his leadership ability that he couldn't get indigenous men to follow him I spent time in the Congo and it is incredibly difficult to get people motivated and to then to get them motivated to fight for a land that's not even within sight that they can't even travel to buy land and to care about it it's just impressive and and and also the fact that I mean we landed in Douala we didn't get out in Dwala but you know I I did remember looking out the window and it's it's very different than the Sahara even and so that speaks also to his adaptability and I just so impressed with that leadership ability you know and especially with the the negativity of the whole colonial thing and um you know and you and here you've got these guys how do you win their their trust well you you win it by being a good leader and not being a dictator and and uh that's pretty awesome speaks so highly and it seems to me you know as as I was reading the the history that Monique uh had had written you know was trying doing the translations I was thinking some of these same things because I I will I'm gonna go back and say you we learned how how the book came to be and how the translation came to be I will say that Monique gave me the the chapter on the liberation of Paris as yeah here he goes just just see if you're willing to do this for me.
SPEAKER_01And you know it was a history that we know a little bit about you and and I I'd lived in Paris yes so I was able to translate the chapter on Paris and then I told her yeah okay this I can do this I think this will be all right and then she gave me the whole book and I got into chapter one and I thought oh my word you know we were we were all over Chad and Tunisia and Cameroon and I didn't know most of the context and the words you know it got pretty hard but I I learned a lot and what I what I learned you was that this is a lot to learn. And so imagine somebody like a young lieutenant Dio who was sent first to Tunisia and he had studied Arabic at the Military Academy of Sunsir but then he got to Tunisia and continued to perfect his Arabic but not only his Arabic but his local dialects of Arabic and local languages and so he learned multiple ones and then you know he was sent on to to Chad and to Cameroon. So he he learned and he had this ability to learn not just languages but cultures and customs who the important players were you know how to show your respect to the the leaders and so he it it was rather than compulsion that brought indigenous soldiers to his side it was I think respect that here's somebody who's trying to learn from us and to learn like us. And and of course there are all sorts of negatives that come with colonialism but when you get down to the individual man I think Louis was was doing his best to learn and uh and and to to make himself a part of the culture rather than imposing his culture on the people he was working with.
SPEAKER_04He was in fact sorry just one point he was even so respected by the religious leaders that he was authorized to to pronounce some canons which were sort of legal decision on their behalf to their men. So that sort of showed an amount of trust that very few I have not heard of other French that other French officers got this kind of relationship. Because he on one hand he he people respected him they liked him but they knew they couldn't trust him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah that's what I was going to point out too as you pointed out in the early chapters of the book because he had spent so much time in those regions and not only you know got to know the the local leaders but to truly know their customs and their their dinner procedures and how to you know show his appreciation and respect for their cultures that as Dennis pointed out and Jay's pointed out that's why he was able to get some of the indigenous people to to um follow him without question because he he truly showed his appreciation for their culture and respect for their culture and not just kind of play it off like a lot of leaders do you know just to get what they want he truly lived it and and they appreciated that I I feel that his childhood hadn't really played a role there.
SPEAKER_01He was a loner and the reason he was a loner was that we mentioned it briefly in the book but uh there was a huge tragedy for with him as a child and his father had been an officer in one of the largest garnisons in in in western France and on the day of mobilization you know he was working very hard on the mobilization of the troops and on the day the the Germans entered France his father took a pistol and killed himself at home and you was five years old his brother was eight he became a chaplain but uh you know is there imagine what it meant for a boy of five when he has to go to school during all those next years and they are his companion all the kids in the classroom room around him if you think of the 1.3 million Frenchmen who died in World War I and here he was the son of an officer who shot himself and didn't fight so there was on one hand a desire to prove that he could fight but I think there was also a desire to get to understand the people around him and to act as they were otherwise he would not have chosen Arabic as yeah that was also something not so many officers were doing he just wanted to get to another world after having been uh suffering through all those years we often hear about how the impact of World War I um impacted the civilian and the American populace and American military at the time world war two rolled around what was the impact on the French military by 1938 1939 from World War I and those losses that you just talked about to the French populace and the French military Jason may speak about that because he's he's right now working on something wonderful so I let him talk the uh the the the first world war whatever we think about it of it in the United States you know magnify that infinitely and and you see the impact that the first world war had on the French i mean it happened in france there were large swaths of french territory that took years and years to to rehabilitate and return to life there were there were villages that never came back to life and so in the in the in the French memory there are not just individuals who died for France but villages that died for France as well and 1.3 million uh dead um some some some numbers are even a little bit higher than that of of French and you the evidence is still on the ground you can see the pock marks to this day of from the from the craters you can see the trenches are still there some of them and the cemeteries are there not just of Frenchmen but of the British Empire and of Americans and Germans and Belgians you know these cemeteries are all over France. But there was another thing and and that was at the end of the war finally Alsace and Lorraine had been regained that that had been taken by the Germans in the Franco-Prussian war. And so there's this moment of of liberation of Alsace and Lorraine in 1918 when the war was over but then when world war two started they're lost again and so we're gonna get to that part in the story where we see that there's a focus on Alsace and its capital Strasbourg for uh Leclerc and Dio and and their men um but but that there's it's not just World War I that was impacting memory going into World War II. It was World War I and its predecessor the the the the Franco-Prussian war and then you could even go back in some cases into the Napoleonic Wars and see that you know that this Franco-German conflict had been going on for quite some time and and loomed large in French memory.
SPEAKER_02And just as a reminder to some of our younger audience nowadays when you hear the word million doesn't mean as much as it used to when the global population was a lot smaller than what it is today. And so when you talk those numbers millions that's a huge swath of their population especially men and boys of military fighting ages.
SPEAKER_04You know when you think that at the end of World War I in nineteen nineteen in France you had fifteen women for one man between the age of eighteen and thirty that give you the percentage of the men that were killed in the war.
SPEAKER_01And I've got a a another way another metric for looking at that comes from a bit of fiction but there's a a great film called La Vie et rien d'autre life and nothing but a French film that that is about the efforts to identify the the missing after World War I and to establish the tomb of the unknown is is part of all that but uh the the main character who's the the single man who'd been tasked with finding and identifying all the missing Frenchmen and then burying them recognizing this is an impossible task you know he he he considered the the parade that happens every year on the Champs-youze for Bastille Day there's a French military parade and uh he he considered the amount of time it takes for soldiers to march down the Champs-Elysées and he said that if you took the dead of if you took the French dead from World War I and had them parade down the Champs-Sy, he did the math and calculated that that parade would last for 11 days and 11 nights and of just a continuous parade of the dead gracious you could just like almost imagine this giant pit in front of those soldiers and then just continuously just falling into that just gone forever just vanished all their dreams their hopes uh aspirations what they could have done what they would have invented what they would have cured what they would have built families they would have made just gone yeah man and and and you know the French economy was suffering from from you know fighting the war and then having to rebuild the country and just like just so many things that World War I had done and the recovery was I would say only just beginning as the Nazis came to power and the realization hit that you know there's probably another war coming. Something else we don't really give much thought to obviously back then farming worldwide was a huge source of income not to mention food supply right the amount the amount of you're talking about the pockmarks the the bombing the destruction of the soil the polluted soil how you probably couldn't grow a lot of the the farms that existed prior to world war one now they're their soil is basically tainted and it probably had a huge effect on their local food economy and what they could grow and feed their people yeah I I think so and and you I don't know about the numbers or the the specific evidence for that I can give another anecdotal bit and say that even to this day in 2025 there are still casualties from the First World War occurring when farmers are out digging in their field and either chemical chemical weapons explode or just artillery explodes and they're today I mean every year there are Frenchmen who are wounded or killed Frenchmen and Belgians who are wounded or killed from World War I ordinance still in their fields.
SPEAKER_02Thank goodness so let's fast forward a little bit so you know Dio and Leclerc they're starting to build getting more and more of these armies that are spread out through the African continent together. You know everybody's agreeing to join sides and get the free French going.
SPEAKER_01And you discussed earlier how the armor division was part of our history and you know played a big role in this let's kind of fast forward to that area and how we get those treads up and running and some of the the um more important contributes to the war and campaigns that they helped win and and move the war along yeah I'll I see Monique is is coughing here so I'll I'll cover some of this and very quickly go through uh 4041 in just a couple of sentences is that you that uh you know this small man this captain with his company and he met up with Leclerc uh down in in Douala they went into Gabon you know so very quickly the the they were able to rally French equatorial Africa and that's um you know Cameroon down to Gabon that's rally them to to free France and then uh based on that success de Gaulle appointed Leclerc to be the military commander of Chad so they went back north having gone down south all the way down to Gabon back up north to Chad which borders Italian Libya and so after rallying uh French equatorial Africa they're sent up north to prepare to invade into uh into Libya and so in is if we get into 19 the the middle of 1941 into the beginning of 1942 uh they conducted a series of raids and this is still just a collection of of soldiers that were called Colon Leclerc or Colonel Leclerc eventually to become called Force L. You know so it was still kind of a uh a unique unit you know not a normal standard unit and just a gathering of of people who'd come together they got whatever vehicles they could find you had regular trucks that they'd cut the cabs off of so they could look up to see when when aircraft were coming, they could mount machine guns on them. So they're making all these modifications and and uh figuring all this stuff out on the fly so that by uh by the beginning of 1942 then they were prepared to attack into Italian Libya and there were a couple of things to to deal with one is move off to the east into Libya and there was a base called Kufra that had a supporting air base uh at uh at uh mrzouk rather that was there and an Italian air base and those Italian aircraft were causing problems for the British who were operating in the area but also the the French as well and so in early 42 uh the the there was the attack on the Italian base at Kufra and and on the way you just to give you a sense of what this what this epic was was like you've got French soldiers uh soldiers from Chad uh indigenous uh Chadans indigenous cameroonians who who had had come together there was a British long range um uh reconnaissance group that was out there that had some some new zealand soldiers as a part of that group that had been operating and doing these desert raids they all kind of came together and some of these Frenchmen were still mounted on camels attacking into you know we're talking like 1942 attacking into Italian Libya to attack an airbase and so you've got camel mounted soldiers with all this this eclectic group of of men who had come together to attack this airbase and they succeeded and then moved on to the fort at Kufra uh that uh that that they were also able to take and and there's some personal stories now that we can share about Dio but I'll speed through this quickly and we can come back to some of this if we want but but took the base at Kufra and then eventually came back to the western side of Libya and attacked through a the an area called Fezan all the way up to the Tunisian border where the this French group that became known as Force L for Leclerc joined the British Eighth Army under Montgomery for the Tunisian campaign fought on uh Montgomery's flank for the Tunisian campaign and then from Tunisia moved through uh over Morocco, and at that point in Morocco were put under American command uh to prepare for movement to Britain and then the invasion of France and Normandy. So that's that's kind of how they got through the whole African campaign. Now that that took two and a half years to get there, you know, all of that over vast territory, vast amounts of space, and a whole lot of learning on the fly.
SPEAKER_02But when you think back on it, it's almost the war could have been completely different if prior to the fall of France, if they didn't have so many little pockets of military assets spread out through the continent of Africa, to have the ability to have these little groups form up and decide, hey, we're we're gonna fight for France and do something about this and not fall in line, things could have been a lot different if they didn't have those those groups and those assets spread all out through the African continent.
SPEAKER_01And and not all of them decided to join with the free French either. Yeah, and uh and that was always a part of the equation, just as we'd said down in Gabon, but yeah, as the uh as as Leclerc and Dio prepared to invade into Italian Libya, to their left flank in the west was the British, the was was French Niger, and Niger was was still loyal to Vichy. And so as they moved into Libya, they had a potentially exposed flank that they weren't really sure whether you know these Frenchmen are going to attack us or if they're gonna remain neutral or if they're gonna join us. And in the end, they they they they more or less remained neutral as uh Colum Column Leclerc moved into Italy or uh to Libya.
SPEAKER_02It just has to be so surreal, especially like if you're just a infantry soldier on the the the VC French side, you know, you're following orders, but you don't have any choice to follow orders. Just the the struggle there, like I'd rather be okay with them, but I got this commander here and I'm getting kind of stuck and don't have a choice in the matter. It's just the whole the whole concept of potentially fighting against your own countrymen because where you were stationed at when things went awry. It didn't your own political beliefs really didn't matter unless obviously you were close enough you had the opportunity to sneak out at night, which wasn't very often an opportunity, but just the fact that the countrymen against countrymen side of this is just I think is under overlooked trem tremendously, especially in the American history culture side of French contribution to the war.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I I think so. Um, and I'll give you another really quick anecdote from the book is way back in Gabon early on, one of the first uh Vichy French units that that Dio came across was commanded by one of his classmates from Saint-Cyr, a man named Baylon. And and the two of them got together and kind of discussed things. And hey, hey, what are you gonna do? I'm coming through with my force. Are you gonna shoot at me? And and they had to kind of negotiate this out. And and Baylon's position was, yeah, I think I agree with you, Tio. I think that I think that whoever the De Gaulle guy is, I think, I think he's got it right, and that that free France is the way to go. However, my commanding officer disagrees, and I can't disobey with my commanding officer. So when he joins Free France, then I will. And there was some fighting that took place down there, but but ultimately that's that's what happened. So it seems like a lot of the younger officers who didn't uh live under the mystique of of Pétain and and had had not experienced World War I in the same way, they were more willing to throw their lot in with Free France. And those who who were more entrenched in the military tradition of obedience and who understood who Pétain was, they were more reluctant to join with Free France.
SPEAKER_02And plus I'm sure there especially in the commanding roles, there's also the aspect of stay with the well-funded military side that we're part of. Or as you mentioned, go with the ragtag group of guys who are finding any sort of vehicle camel, donkey, what have you, guns from wherever to try to take us on. I mean, that had to get into mindset too, because the funding in and of itself, as you know, military funding is a huge thing, and to basically try to win a war with whatever you can find as you travel plays a big role in role in it as well.
SPEAKER_03But you feel like that would probably benefit um D Dio's men because right, because then you know the guys around you have that character and that moral um resolve. And so they're a little bit harder, I would imagine. But I would imagine they probably had a lot harder resolve uh because they had to face a lot of really hard decisions, and each man had to do that in his heart and weigh the the results uh and and the possible ramifications, and he at the end of the day had to do what he felt was right, and that's a lot harder to beat someone when they're fighting for something they absolutely believe in. So I imagine that that probably made his men even a better lot to have.
SPEAKER_02I can't remember the American general who was quoted in saying it, but it kind of goes to that same independent and um free spirited give me a division of uh brig rats and I'll win the whole damn war. You know, you you have the guys who are a little independent, have a little bit of you know, problem with authority, but though they get the job done because they got a lot of people.
SPEAKER_03Well, I'll tell you, as a Texan DO would be our guy. That's right up our alley, the guy like that. Let's strap on the six guns and let's go at it.
SPEAKER_04They can there is a moment in in the book where we explained that there were so many recruits coming to them in in Morocco, and uh Joe had the charge to interview them, and he obviously didn't always choose the people who had the best reputation because he really preferred someone who had the courage to fight than someone who didn't.
SPEAKER_01And I'll I'll uh I'll give you kind of a picture of what this army was or this this division. By the time by the time they they uh you were in Morocco under American command and were about to go on to England, that the Americans had equipped them as a an armored division. So they get they received American Sherman tanks, tank destroyers, all that, and and Dio commanded the infantry portion of this 2nd Armored Division, so getting ready for uh for Normandy. But by that point that it had built up to become a division, an armored division, there were there were the French, some of them were French colonial soldiers, and some were French metropolitan soldiers who had escaped after the Battle of France and made their way down to the colonies. Some of them had had gone to Nigeria and were fighting with the British before they then fell under French command. There were the indigenous Chadians, Cameroonians, um, from soldiers from West Africa, from Equatorial Africa. There were some French sailors who no longer had ships, and so they they just they got off their ships and mounted tank destroyers and and fought with the 2nd Armored Division, to include de Gaulle's son, who was an ensign in the Navy, and and he was now one of the tank destroyer commanders in in uh Leclerc's division. There were some Greeks who who showed up and they got a company of Greeks attached to them, and there were some Spaniards who were who were exiles from the Spanish Civil War who after after they'd lost the Republicans had lost the Civil War, these Spaniards were exiled to Africa and they wound up joining. And their captain who commanded this company of Spaniards had been a general in the Spanish Republican Army. So all of this craziness came together to form this this group of people who probably wouldn't have the greatest reputation if you if you brought them all home uh to to meet your family. But at that place in that time, they seemed to be the right mix.
SPEAKER_02And and not to mention the fact that they're able to do what they did with the wide variety of different languages and culture and the communication of what it was at that time, you know, a lot of uh different communication formats compared to what we have now, and that's a lot of different people, a lot of different demographics, and a lot of different languages to to move and to uh be proficient in movement at that time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02And as Jason can attest to, um an armor division is only as good as our infantry. Without infantry, armor are sitting ducks. You need quality infantry with quality training and quality movement to make sure the armor is safe from the enemy and vice versa.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, um, yeah, we we you see throughout this story, you know, because it started as such a small group. So imagine Dio himself, whose experience before the war was vast, but it was 10 years worth of small unit leadership on camels with a few dozen, maybe up to a hundred men on camels moving through the Sahara Desert. And by the time he got to France, you know, he was leading a regiment of mechanized infantrymen in a tank division, uh, in an American army, this massive army in a in an Allied, an Allied force moving across the Western Front. And so as they moved throughout this campaign and the campaigns in Africa and then into France and in Germany, you can see at each step they're learning something new, learning something new. And parts of it, it was how to integrate the artillery early on before they had tanks. You know, how do you how to maintain trucks for some of them who'd always been on camels, you know, so now having to deal with with mechanized forces and the pros and cons that came with having machines now, and then you know, integrating the artillery. And then you know, finally, once they got to Tunisia and were fighting against the Germans, you they'd come across landmines for the first time. Now, how do you deal with that? And uh incorporating aircraft because the Royal Air Force were flying and and Dio and Leclerc were were were bringing bringing aircraft into the fight as well, and on and on. So at each step you see this, and and all the way, it never ended, all the way through the war. You know, you're adding one more element, one more element, and so it's constantly learning as you grow. And and so it is just on its own astounding to think that somebody like like Luizio, who had been this camel soldier in 1940, by 1945, early 46, was a general commanding an armored division.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01In in just six years.
SPEAKER_04And he was 37. He was 37 at the time. And he's the youngest French general of the 20th century.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_02All more reason to shine the spotlight on him and to make his contribution to the war effort more known. And the definitely in the the American um World War II community as well as the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, for sure. The American um perspective on France's involvement in World War II is you know, some of the bullet points are, you know, of course, the fall of France and then the uh the um the underground.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I was I was gonna say it's like almost in our in our purview of the the French war, it's almost like the French resistance get more credit than than the Free French do.
SPEAKER_03The monkey, and then um I remember when I lived in Iceland, my dad was uh Air Force uh career uh cop, and uh we lived in Iceland in '83, '84, and and uh across the bay from Reykjavik. And the first one of the first movies I ever remember seeing was um Von Ryan's Express with Frank Sinatra, but also um The Longest Day with dozens and dozens and dozens of everybody actors, right? And as a kid, I was 10, and and I and um and and Monique, this uh just to let you know how impactful that moment was for me, this this particular moment in the movie, I remember 10 years old, I'm watching the movie, and there's the scene in France uh in this hidden underground area, and they're listening to the radio. The fighters are all listening to the radio, and I remember I still remember the words. It's ici long, ici long. Je répète, ici long que and then you know, and it's and I I just perked up and I because I saw all the fighters, they had been listening to the radio, all the messages, just nonchalantly and and sipping on wine and eating bread and casual conversations, but when they heard those words, they sprung to action and they started grabbing their rifles. And and and as a child, as a 10-year-old, I was like, whoa, what is going on here? And uh anyway, I that doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking about, but it it that that that perfectly encapsulated for me as an American kid, um something special was going on there in France, and it just one of the things that really sparked my desire to get into World War II history was um scenes like that, moments like that in time and history.
SPEAKER_04Yes, and for me, all of that is very moving because when De Gaulle arrived in Paris and created his government, he obviously had a hard time doing that because the Americans had even prepared a currency they wanted to use to treat France like they were treating going to treat Italy and Germany and so on. And the goal succeeded to ascertain himself. But what is interesting when you speak about knowing about the resistance and not knowing about the others is that when the De Gaulle came in Paris and formed his cabinet, the person that became his chief of cabinet was Gaston Palevsky, who had been with him in London. And the deputy chief of cabinet was in fact my father, who had been with the résidence, and the chief of cabinet of the at that time it was Jean Moulin, it was Georges Bidot, because Jean Moulin had died, and so he wanted to have at the same level the one who fought from outside France and the one who fought from inside France. So he always tried to establish this equilibrium, and I think that is something which is very difficult for Americans to understand and was also to me uh to understand once I'm an American citizen now and so on, but I had really to realize that if de Gaulle had allowed the French to think that only the American, you know, sort of allied troops had liberated France, he was in fact losing the complete morale of the French people. What he had after those devastating years of Vichy, he had to recreate the morale of the French population.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01If if uh if I can, I'll I I've got one quick story from the book and then one personal story to illustrate uh kind of the American understanding of the French during World War II and uh the and and the one from the the book is this idea that it was a resistance, you know, that that that France during World War II was the resistance. And there's some truth to that. You know, there were there were multiple resistance organizations as well that didn't always cooperate and get along as also. But as the American forces were coming close to Paris, Eisenhower did not want to liberate Paris. He wanted to continue to pursue the Germans, and and I think that's fairly well known. Uh Omar Bradley felt the same way, you know, that that stopping to liberate Paris means we've now got a lot more mouths to feed. We have governance, we got to take out the trash, we got to deal with with sewage and water and all that kind of stuff, and and we we need to continue to pursue the Germans and and destroy them. Well, of course, that would be unacceptable for de Gaulle and Leclerc and and others, you know that we these are our people, you know, who are who are being held by the Germans, you know, and and we must do this, we must liberate it. So that became a point of contention, and and eventually de Gaulle and Leclerc were able to convince Bradley and then Eisenhower to do it, you know, to go in and liberate Paris. But one of the reasons for that was that the resistance in Paris had already risen up and was fighting in the street against the Germans. And so there became a moral imperative as well, and the an understanding that this French resistance, that's our side. You know, those may be irregular soldiers, but they're soldiers nonetheless, men and women who are in the streets of Paris fighting right now, and to bypass Paris would leave them uh at the hands of the Germans. And in in 1944, earlier in the year, the the the attempt, the Montgomery's attempt at Operation Market Garden to liberate the Netherlands that didn't succeed, left a lot of Dutch people in a bad situation when the Germans enacted reprisals on them for the audacity of supporting the Allied invasion of the Netherlands. And so there was this this hunger winter where a lot of Dutch citizens died as a result of the German persecution for an attempted liberation. And so to bypass Paris would also potentially mean the same thing for the Parisians. And even practically, if no food was able to get in on the German lines, you know, then who's going to be eating in Paris? And so there was the resistance was important and was a part of the calculation here that led to the liberation of Paris, which was done by the French 2nd Armored Division. And Louis Dio had the right the heart of the city to the Ecole Militaire, to the Eiffel Tower, to Les Ambalides, uh, and the uh the National Assembly. You know, he had the center part of Paris there. And so it became an important part of the liberation. Important part of liberating Paris was this consideration of the resistance who was fighting in there. So that's the story from the book. I made it longer than I intended to. I'll give you the personal story is that in 2005, I'd taken some cadets to France and we were studying uh World War II. Uh that we were comparing the 1940 Battle of France with the 1944 Battle of the Bulge, both both of in both of them in the Ardenne Forest. So we're on the same piece of terrain looking at these two different battles. And at the end, we met up in Paris with some veterans of the French 2nd Armored Division, some of some of Leclerc's men. And I was sitting at a table with this man who uh told me that his story, which was he had he had been in metropolitan France, he he made it to Africa and then fought with Leclerc all the way through, you know, all the way through the campaigns in France and Germany. And then after the war, he decided I'd haven't I'd had enough of war. So he moved to the colonies where he became the manager of a rubber plantation in Indochina, and the war then found him there. And so he stayed there for as long as he could try to manage this this plantation before he left and decided I'm really going way out to the fringes of the colonies and get away from all this mess. And he went to Algeria as the war as the war started up immediately. And when all that was done, he's finally came back to Paris and decided I'm just settling here. And he'd been staying in Paris ever since the 60s. So he's telling this amazing story, and I'm like listening and just enthralled by this and seeing for the first time in person, these are the Frenchmen who fought. You know, they they these were the Frenchmen who fought, and they've got an amazing story. But the whole time he was telling it to me, on the left were these two women, and I didn't quite understand why they were there. And and I eventually I asked, you know, who are they? And he said, Well, they were they were our medics. And and I said, Oh, so they they had ambulances, you know, kind of got the story, but he said, Yeah. I said, So they followed behind the division as your medics, and he got mad at me. He said, No, they were in the division, and and they were, you know, they were this amazing story of the Rocham Bell who who fought in the second armored division uh and were as close to the front lines as they needed to be. And he said, See, this woman here, you when I first met her, I was coming back to consciousness after being wounded, and she was patching me up as the bullets were still flying all around us. She was in the division. And so this that day solidified for me that there were French men and French women who fought heroically and valiantly to liberate their own country. And we, the United States, was of course a a great assistance in that. And and and certainly the the the bulk of the power in in the in the in that western fight was not the French forces, but I think the spirit was the French, and uh, and and so it's just an amazing story. Wow. Goodness.
SPEAKER_03I think that's kind of one of the one of the things that France. Did not do well after World War War II was uh telling America their story. Um because I, you know, and this is why I'm so thankful for what you all have done, because no matter what happens in the future, 200 years from now, that that book is going to be evidence of what happened and who was there and the key players and the sacrifices that were made. And who knows what the future looks like. But one thing that excites me about books is that they they serve as a testament, and you you can never remove that. It's it's truth, and you guys made it happen for France and for Dio and his men, and um I'm just very grateful, very grateful for what y'all have done.
SPEAKER_02And as I pointed out at the top of the show, for the sake of our audience, um, we're only talking, we've only mentioned a few names of the people. This book goes through great detail to mention a lot of the men who helped create the the free French army and the roles they played. There is a ton of information in this book that can lead you to other other areas to do research on other projects. So, yeah, this book, you know, it sounds like the main character is General Dio and Leclerc, but there's a lot of names and a lot of important people mentioned in this book. And it's the research on this is just mind-blowing. And you did you guys did such a great job on that. So definitely pat yourselves on the back, Monique, for the amount of effort and historical importance that this book has in it.
SPEAKER_04You see, I am an archaeologist by training, so I always dig and dig and dig.
SPEAKER_01I love it, I love it. And I just love I just love a good story, and this is a great story.
SPEAKER_04Yes, but it will not be in English without you, Jason, and that is what is the most important is to reach the Anglo-Saxon public uh or the English speaking public, uh, because this will make a big difference.
SPEAKER_02To that point, Jason, when it comes to translating a book of this magnitude um into our language and our vernacular, was there a lot uh was there some changes that you kind of had to to manipulate to make it kind of work in our understanding of you know um military hierarchy or just our own vernacular or in and of itself? And perfect example, um jokingly before the show started, last week's episode we were talking about uh the Pacific and how during the invasion of Guadalajanal the only maps they had was from a 1934 edition of National Geographic, and we're joking how all of us own that book now. But if you go through old Time Life magazines and even this National Geographic, just the the writing styles from the authors in 1939 and 1940 read so much different than what we read now in 19 in 2025. So, did you find that you kind of had to change the the wording a little bit to make it more palatable for modern day reading, or just was it kind of a just straight up translation?
SPEAKER_01Uh there were there were times when so my my goal was to stay as close to the original as possible, but if doing so meant that it didn't make sense, you know, then I would have to try to make some adjustments. And in working with the publisher, one of the ways we came up with doing that was in some cases just adding a translator's note. So there were a lot of things that were specific that wouldn't have made sense. Like it might say that um Baylon was in was in Dio's promotion at Censor. Well, that doesn't make any sense, uh, even though that's what the words are. Promotion means class. It's that three years while they were at the military academy at Censor. And and so instead of just translating it directly, I might say something like you know that they had that they've been classmates together at Censor. Uh but then there were also those who didn't go to Censor but went to the Echo Polytechnique and became engineers, technicians in the army. And and so an example might be that so and so was a polytechnician, and so I'd change that to was a graduate of the Echo Polytechnique. So some of those were pretty small, but then there were idioms that just made no sense to me whatsoever. And the great thing with this translation is that I had the two authors who were right there with me. So with each chapter, I would do the translations, I would send it to them. I had my notes on there that would say, I have no idea what this means. Or I would say, Here's what I think this means. And in some cases, I was close, in some cases I was right, in some cases I was completely wrong. And so having the authors there to help me out, and and when you know my fellow American who also speaks great English was able to say, you know, I think maybe this or this. And between the two of us, we taught each other some expressions that we didn't know in the languages. So there was some of that. But then there were also times where uh it that there was a little bit of the well, the military, a lot of military terms that wouldn't have made sense, and so I I changed those to a way that wouldn't make sense. Uh um, but there were there were weren't really any times where it I just really had to feel like I need to change this completely. Uh the the closest that came to that might be that you the the the way of describing indigenous African soldiers might be the noir, the the blacks, which at the time and in and in the French language, it it it it it doesn't have the same negative feeling that it does in English. Sure. And so I changed that to the indigenous soldiers or the local soldiers from Chad, something along those lines, not to not to try to hide some racism that was built into it, but to just to not introduce some that wasn't implied by the initial by the original text. Um but but no real drastic issues with it. But I did learn a lot of terminology about the French colonial army and and a lot of uh a lot of geography across Western Africa.
SPEAKER_02Just find yourself looking on a lot of Google Maps just to get an idea of the troop movements and how things were going.
SPEAKER_01I did, and to make it worse, some of the some of the these proper names that changed after the end of the French colonial period, they've changed to something else. But also some of those names are they they have one spelling in French, they have a different spelling in English, and it's slightly different, but if it's changed, that makes it harder. And then just you just you what which name do I use for this place? And and in the end, you know, I'd I'd spend sometimes like two hours trying to track down something that's just one word that as you read it, you're just gonna go right past it. You but but still it's like what what what do I call this place?
SPEAKER_03How long may I ask a question about your the the work that you did? Yes. Um I I've interviewed probably 400 World War II veterans, and does France have uh a uh effort to like we the Library of Congress has a um oral history program all across the country where they collect the the the the interviews with with the veterans? Yes, yes. Did France make an effort to get those stories from the veterans preserved?
SPEAKER_04You know, I don't know, I don't I know that the second armored division does the and uh and they have more and more files, but there was never the effort that I have seen in the US where they go on purpose to interview uh people. But if if you go to the French archive in Versailles, you also find quite a lot of documents, but it's not the same principle, if you want, to to go to.
SPEAKER_03Jason, were you able to uh interview some guys?
SPEAKER_01I I did not um for for this. The the ones I'd met in France, I I didn't interview them on uh on record. We had I was teaching at West Point at the time, and we do have a Center for Oral History at West Point uh in the Department of History that collects such interviews, but we did not at that time make an effort to uh to get some of the French veterans. I wish we had. Because I'm at a different time, I mean I could tell you some of the great stories that they told me is you know, they were pointing out where they had fought in Paris, and right here I shot this and I did that, you know, and I wish I'd had all that on camera in some way.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, or at least a digital recorder or something. Yeah. Um how about the their letters home that they sent and and journals and stuff? Are the are people preserving those?
SPEAKER_04Yes, I think that for that there there are quite a lot of good archives, and uh the they have the the French archive at Vincennes have digitized really quite a lot of things, and that is what, for example, for the second armor division, they are now trying to digitize as much as they can.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the French have done that for the first and second world war, they've been continually digitizing with uh I think starting with the the the records of those who were died for France, those who were killed in in action, and then they've been adding more and more um to that digital to their digital archives. I've been using some of that for the research I've been doing in the first world war. I haven't done the second world war with that, but uh I know that they are in the process of making those records available to the public.
SPEAKER_03That's amazing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's it's beautiful that um those obviously the records being digitized for easy access, but preservation, as we've mentioned so many times, the fire that wiped out the United States Army's archives and records from World War II is such a tremendous loss. My grandfather worked grave registration over in Europe, and you know, I've I've been able to track down like his um registration card when he joined, and I have his serial number and all that, but very few, very little information can I find on him because a majority of his paperwork was lost in the fires. And so to be able to get the same for my great grandfather, yeah.
SPEAKER_03The same for him. He was in the 30th Infantry and and he he came through France, Mortan. He was in the Battle of Mortain and uh with the 30th Infantry, 120th Regiment, and then they moved up into uh Holland and then Belgium, and he was killed in action on October 27, 1944. He's buried in um Henri Chapelle in Belgium, and uh yeah, so I was fortunate to meet some folks who knew him. Um and um yeah, I I was I when when when we were all here and I was listening to you all speak and and talk about these amazing people, I I couldn't help but wonder if we could test our blood and see the stories that intertwined with all of our Europe European roots. Um perhaps I had family in France that you know that I'm related to that endured some horrific things in World War I and World War II. And I know I did for sure, unfortunately, in Germany, but um you know it's it's really something. And um I'm just thankful for you guys. I'm thankful for what y'all did. Um and um and thank you so much for being our guest tonight, goodness gracious.
SPEAKER_04And thank you for making your forum available to us because I think that without such opportunities, it will be more much more difficult to make this book better known.
SPEAKER_02And before we wrap it up, how how long did the process of translating this this beautiful book take from the project to get this book in my hands today? How long was the process from start to to publication?
SPEAKER_01It was it was about uh almost six months of translation. And there was a short interruption there because I retired from the army uh in uh at the end of 24. So in in May, not the end of 24, but in May of 2024. And I had already started at that point, but then the retirement wound up being a disruption because I had to move and everything else. And and at the time, uh West Point was working on a possible extension that would extend me past my mandatory retirement date. And we really thought that that was going to happen. So I was moving along as if I was going to still be in the army for a few more years, and and Monique and I had started the translation and then had to stop for about three or four months there while I had to quickly retire, get out of the army, move back home to Arkansas where I'm at now. And and uh, but because I had retired, I was able to work pretty much from nine to five every day for about six months. Uh and well, five months. We we finished up in December of this past year, so it was about five months straight of nine to five translating uh to get it to that point.
SPEAKER_04And we were really eager to have it coming out this year for the 80th anniversary of the year. Yes, that's right.
SPEAKER_03Wow. Wow.
SPEAKER_02So we've had a lot of authors on this show, and um Dennis has put out a few books himself, and so we've talked about process and word count and all that. What what was the overall word count on this book? And did the publisher try to minimize it or just let it go with the original format?
SPEAKER_04It took the original format. It's more or less the same word count in French and in English, uh, except that French has a tendency to be longer, but um so it may make a slight difference, but it's there was there was no request or effort of cutting the book.
SPEAKER_01That's great. Yeah, and in fact, uh Helian and company, the the publishers, they were they were great about our requests because we talked about maps and images, they were like, sure, whatever, whatever. And uh I'm I I'm accustomed to publishers not liking footnotes, but we insisted on footnotes rather than end notes, and they said no problem. So yeah, they were really good to work with. That's great. But I'm I'm looking at I'm looking at the Word document, and I mean it it's saying 221,000 words. Oh my god. But that that includes that includes all the appendices here as well.
SPEAKER_04And that includes also all the footnotes.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_04You know, in the in the French version, uh we had in the French version we we we did a different story. We had footnotes and endnotes depending on what they were what they were relating to. If it was to explain something military or some a terminology that people would not understand, we put it at the bottom of the page so that the people could look at it right away. But we knew that with the amount of footnotes that we were having in the that people would get overwhelmed uh with uh with that amount of footnotes, which was about um just looking at at the number. It was it was uh 1200, I think. Footnotes uh uh yes, one thousand and ninety-two footnotes plus all of the no, those were the end notes, plus uh we had probably about two hundred or three hundred footnotes. And with the translated notes, I think we probably arrived uh to one one thousand six hundred or something like that. Footnotes that just speaks to the scholarship involved, and that's just but we looked at a lot of archives, so there are books, but there is a vast amount of archivian material.
SPEAKER_03That's so good.
SPEAKER_02Before we wrap it up, um Monique, if there is one thing that you want to get across about uh Louis Duo to our audience, what would that be?
SPEAKER_04Really? It was his humility and the importance he attached to doing his duty, but without making himself important. He always wanted to remain a humble man. And I will just read as a last word, the you know, the last sentences of his will, which is I want to be laid to rest like an anonymous person which I have never ceased to be at the bottom of my heart during my whole life.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_02That speaks volumes with the uh kind of the society we have today where everybody's just trying to make themselves known.
SPEAKER_04Exactly. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03Wow. Amazing. I've really enjoyed this.
SPEAKER_02Where can people find you all? Um they want to get more information in your book, more information on you guys' future projects. I know uh as mentioned before, Jason, you got some you got a book and that uh works right now. So Monique, where can people find you and uh get more information on your book, any website, social media, etc.
SPEAKER_04Um I am on LinkedIn, but I am not really very much uh you know, I am a a strange person because I do so many things. Uh because I was an archaeologist, I was for 20 years a curator of archaeology at the museum at Emory. Then I went into education and the international baccalaureate. And now and that may be of interest to you, but I need to, I am on a steep learning curve. I have been appointed on the board of advisor of the American Revolution Institute, which is from the Society of the Cincinnati, and so now uh because they really wanted to have also a French person because their 14th society is the French society, and um, like that I can be a link if you want between the 13 colonies and France.
SPEAKER_03That's awesome.
SPEAKER_02And you, Jason?
SPEAKER_01Uh LinkedIn is probably the best way to find me. I don't have a separate uh a separate online presence other than that, but that'd be a good way to find me. And I'd be happy to happy to hear from people.
SPEAKER_02And as always, if you guys head over to WTSPworldwar 2.com while you're listening to this audio format, you can uh go to our page, find the link that represents this episode, and we'll have photos, links, and all the important stuff. Um, thank you guys so much for hanging out with us for another episode of the What's the Scuttle Butt podcast for myself, Mr. Dennis Blocker, Colonel Jason R. Misteen, and Monique Seafried. Thank you guys so much, and we will talk to you all next week. Great time, guys. I appreciate so much. Um, if you guys could reply to the email, um, any of the emails really that I sent this.