La Cagoule (French pronunciation: [la kaɡul], "The Cowl"; founded in 1936) was a French fascist-leaning and anti-communist militant group. It opposed the left-wing Popular Front (in office, June 1936 to 1938) and used violence to promote its activities in the final years of the Third Republic and into the Vichy Regime. La Cagoule was founded by Eugène Deloncle and bankrolled, among others, by Eugène Schueller, the founder of L'Oréal.
La Cagoule committed assassinations, and undertook bombings, sabotage of armaments, and other violent activities, some intended to cast suspicion on communists through false flag operations and to add to political instability. Planning a November 1937 overthrow of the French government, La Cagoule was infiltrated by the police, and the national government arrested and imprisoned about 70 men. At the outbreak of World War II (September 1939), the government released the men to fight in the French Army. Some supported other right-wing organizations and participated in the Vichy government of 1940–1944; others joined the Free French of Charles de Gaulle. It was not until 1948 that the government tried surviving members for the charges of 1937.
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Names
Originally the Secret Organisation for Revolutionary National Action (Osarn or OSAR, Organisation secrète d'action révolutionnaire nationale), the group's name was later officially changed to the Secret Committee of Revolutionary Action (CSAR, Comité secret d'action révolutionnaire).
Third Republic
The group was founded in 1936 or 1937 by Eugène Deloncle and enjoyed privileged relations within industrial circles (National Federation of Ratepayers, Lesieur, L'Oréal etc).
An important member was Joseph Darnand, who later founded the Service d'ordre légionnaire (SOL), the forerunner of the Milice, the collaborationist paramilitary of the Vichy regime. His nephew Henri Charbonneau was also a member.
Another member was Jean Filiol, who was appointed as the head of the Milice in Limoges. He fled to Spain at the end of World War II and he worked in the Spanish subsidiary of L'Oréal. Gabriel Jeantet was a lover of a sister of François Mitterrand, who later recommended him for the Order of the Francisque. Dr. Henri Martin was a physician suspected of having forged the Pacte synarchique and worked for the Organisation armée secrète (OAS) after World War II.
Mohamed el-Maadi, the head of La Cagoule for French Algeria, started the antisemitic newspaper Er Rachid and organised the North-African Brigade, known as SS-Mohammed, in 1944.
The group drew most of its members from Orléanists disappointed by the lack of action by the Action française founded by Charles Maurras. It opposed the Popular Front government, created from an alliance of left-wing groups. Historians believe that many low-level members were recruited in the belief that it was an auto-defense organization, which was intended to fight against a communist takeover.
In Nice, new members were initiated in a formal ritual. In the presence of the Grand Master, dressed in red and accompanied by his assesseurs dressed in black, with their faces covered, new members stood before a table draped with a French flag. A sword and torches were placed on it. Each man raised his right arm and swore the oath, Ad majorem Galliæ gloriam ("For the greater glory of France"). This oath echoed the Jesuit motto, Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (For the greater glory of God). Disloyalty was punished by death. For instance, the arms suppliers Léon Jean-Baptiste and Maurice Juif were murdered by Cagoulards in October 1936 and February 1937, respectively, for attempting to enrich themselves by lying about the price that they had paid for the arms.
Organization
Premier Bureau: Eugène Deloncle and Jacques Corrèze
Deuxième Bureau (intelligence): Dr. Henri Martin, Alfred Corre (Dagore)
Troisième Bureau (operations): Georges Cachier
Quatrième Bureau (recruits and equipment): Jean Moreau de La Meuse
Sources of funding: Eugène Schueller (L'Oreal), Louis Renault, Lemaigre Dubreuil (owner of table oil Lesieur and department stores Le Printemps), Gabriel Jeantet (Lafarge cements), Pierre Pucheu (Comptoir Sidérurgique)
The Cagoule was organised into cells. Light cells had eight men, armed with submachine guns (typically one per light cell), rifles, semi-automatic pistols and hand grenades. Heavy cells had twelve men, armed with a heavy machine gun and the individual weapons. A group of three cells formed one unit, three units a battalion, three battalions a regiment, two regiments a brigade and two brigades a division. Battalions could be divided into automobile squads of about fifty men. Written communications were avoided as much as possible.
The "street fighting" handbook was titled Secret Rules of the Communist Party to avoid revealing the Cagoule in case the booklet was found by the police.
World War II
At the outbreak of World War II, the French government released imprisoned Cagoulards to fight in the French Army. Some entered the Milice, such as Jacques de Bernonville.
During the Occupation of France in 1940, the Vichy government arrested Marx Dormoy, as he had refused to vote for full powers for Pétain, and it eventually interned him under house arrest at Montélimar. He was assassinated on 26 July 1941 by a clockwork bomb set off at the house. It was believed to have been done by Cagoule terrorists in reprisal for Dormoy's arrests in 1937 and his attempt to suppress the organization.
The members of the Cagoule were divided. Some of them joined various Fascist movements; Schueller and Deloncle founded the Mouvement Social Révolutionnaire, which conducted various activities for Nazi Germany in occupied France. It bombed seven synagogues in Paris in October 1941. Others became prominent members of Philippe Pétain's Vichy Regime. Darnand was the leader of the Milice, the Vichy paramilitary group that fought the French Resistance, and enforced antisemitic policies. He took an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler after he had accepted a Waffen SS rank.
Other cagoulards sided against the Germans, either as members of the Resistance (such as Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, Pierre Guillain de Bénouville or Georges Loustaunau-Lacau in the Maquis), or as members of Charles de Gaulle's Free French Forces, such as General Henri Giraud or Colonel Passy. After the war, the politician and writer Henri de Kérillis accused de Gaulle of having been a member of La Cagoule and said that de Gaulle had been ready to install a fascist government if the Allies let him become France's chief of state.
Postwar
The cagoulards arrested for the 1937 conspiracy were not brought to trial for those charges until 1948, after the liberation of France. By then, many had served in the Vichy government or the Resistance, and few of them were brought to trial.