Lionel

Louis Marlio

Description

The exceptional circumstances of Lionel MosseIri's short but remarkable life and military career are described by his stepfather, Louis Marlio, in the Preface to letters which Lionel wrote home to his family.Highly-intelligent, articulate and revealing a disciplined, philosophical and visionary mind, Lionel's letters are sufficiently thought-provoking and well-written to justify publication. He had received an English public school education and was trained and served in both British and French armies. When he was killed on 25 November, 1944, Lionel MosseIri was leading a French detachment into Masevaux, the first city in Upper Alsace to be freed from the German Occupation. He was just twenty-three years old. Who knows the future there might have been for him in the peacetime Europe for which he fought so hard?This book is dedicated by his step-father and brothers in honour of his memory, and to his fallen comrades who are remembered with him.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Military history
• Diaries
• World War II

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 15 janvier 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781906509750
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page
LIONEL
by
Louis Marlio



Publisher Information
First published in 1946 in French with a Preface by Louis Marlio
First published in an English translation in 2013 by
Uniform Press, an imprint of Unicorn Press Ltd
66 Charlotte Street
London W1T 4QE
www.unicornpress.org
Digital edition converted and distributed in 2013 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Translation Copyright © 2013 Gérard Mosséri-Marlio and Claude Mosséri-Marlio
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.



Mother, Father, Lionel, Gérard and Claude c. 1932



Foreword
This book was first published in French in 1946 by our stepfather Louis Marlio, a leading French Industrialist as well as a member of l’Institut de France, a branch of l’Académie Française. His purpose was to honour the memory of our brother Lionel, killed in action just two years earlier in November, 1944.
The reader must keep in mind that he wrote the preface very soon after the Second World War - a time when the scars of that devastating conflict were still fresh.
Gérard Mosséri-Marlio
Claude Mosséri-Marlio
2013



Acknowledgements
Many people have helped the editor and publisher of this book with translation of the letters and with advice. Our thanks to all, especially A. Dumont, Sarah Patey of Le Mot Juste, Georgia de Chamberet of Bookblast, Ann Wadham, Danielle Thorn and David Evans.



Mother And Stepfather, Louis Marlio, c. 1936



Preface
It was shortly after the French Armistice, June 22, 1940, that my stepson Lionel Mosséri, at the age of nineteen, volunteered as a private in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps. Three years later he had risen to the rank of captain in a parachute regiment. Then, at his own request, he transferred to the French army as a second lieutenant in the 1 st Commando Unit.
Lionel fell on 25 November, 1944 as he led a French detachment into Masevaux, the first city in Upper Alsace to be freed from German Occupation. He was twenty-three.
During his period of armed service, he wrote many letters. I have a number of reasons for publishing them. First, I wish to pay due honour to his memory. At a time when many wonder about the future of France, it seems that a country able to produce young men of such a calibre as Lionel, is entitled to be optimistic about its future. It is also a stark reminder to those who survived the carnage of the Second World War, of the debt they owe to those who did not - a debt which can only be repaid by efforts designed to bring about the political and social reforms needed to achieve the lasting peace for which they sacrificed their lives. In publishing this book, I am mindful not only of Lionel, but his comrades who also fell and are remembered with him.
The letters he left with us are sufficiently thought provoking and well written to justify their publication. I was asked by the publisher to supply a few pages to introduce Lionel to the reader, and describe the environment in which he was writing. I have done this only to enable the reader better to understand and appreciate the letters, and elucidate the events to which he often makes only passing allusion. It is important to point out that because of torpedo attacks, and frequent troop repositioning, half the correspondence has been lost. And of course it must also be remembered that in compliance with the strict rules governing specific squadrons and commandos, full details of the operations in which he took part were never given. A description of the context is therefore necessary if the reader is to appreciate and understand these letters, which are brimming with ideas, enthusiasm and good will. I have tried to do this, though I doubt I have fully succeeded.
The operations in which he took part were secret, and carried out in small units that were often altered and redeployed, so the information I have from the British army is limited. Enquiries to the French army were more fruitful, as he only served in one corps. The best source of information has been the personal accounts of his army comrades - those who saw him in action and his close friends, to whom he unburdened himself when secrecy was no longer needed.
His letters were not intended for publication. I present them here as they were written, simply omitting those that are of interest only to close friends and family. Lionel wrote English as well as he wrote French - perhaps even better. About ten of his letters were written in English. [1]
In bringing Lionel’s letters to the public, I have tried to avoid romanticising his life in any way. My main concern has been to show the truth about his short yet remarkable career. It has been a challenge to leave to one side the tremendous affection I had for him, and the bonds of common thought that led me to promise him that after the war he would share in the intellectual work I envisaged.
This is not my book, but his. I trust the reader will find it as interesting to read as I have found it moving to put together. The subject matter of the book is the four-year period of Lionel’s war as it is described in his letters and in the memories and personal reminiscences I have been able to assemble. To enable the reader better to understand his words and his actions, this biography will start with a brief portrait of the hero of this book, showing how his personality emerged between childhood and manhood.
***
A child has no history. Lionel’s childhood and adolescence were free of major drama so is there no need for a lengthy description. This is just a brief summary of the key stages in his story, so we can see the evolution from child - to adolescent - to the man he became. Lionel’s father, Jacques Mosséri, was a banker in Cairo, and belonged to an old Jewish Portuguese family, which immigrated to Livorno during the Inquisition and then settled in Egypt in the early 19 th century.
He grew up in a villa full of flowers and sunshine. The house was welcoming and happy, and friends were entertained in a library that held manuscripts, carefully stored, dating back to Ptolemaic times. Several times a year, in the evenings, the great hall would fill with guests whom Lionel’s parents had invited to hear artists visiting Cairo. Lionel, a handsome child with dark curls, dressed in a black velvet suit with a lace collar, would bow to greet the grand ladies. Arab servants, most of whom had been with the family for many years, would treat the young master with deference. This life of apparent ease was his during those early years.
Up to the age of eleven, he was educated in French, and then for two years he attended the Italian school to learn Italian. His father died in 1934. Lionel was thirteen. In keeping with the tradition of his father’s family, he left Egypt to attend Gresham’s, an English public school which had modern ideas in spite of its long history. He stayed on for a year after his final exams to study literature and history, and won a place at Balliol College, Oxford.
The ominous clouds of political gloom were however, gathering over Europe. Lionel wished to strengthen his ties with France, to which he felt so drawn.
In the spring of 1939 he acquired French nationality, which he had requested, and settled in Paris, hoping to take his baccalauréat two months later. Given that he had never studied in France, friends were sceptical that he would pass, but with great determination he gained a ‘Mention bien’, (honours), a considerably higher achievement.
It was in September of that year that war was declared. With his Mother’s agreement, Lionel decided to defer his place at Oxford, stay in France, and enlist as soon as he was nineteen. He applied for officer training courses in Tours and Paris, but was told he was too young, and that there was no shortage of officers. Not willing to take ‘no’ for an answer, he went back to the recruitment centres, sought interviews, and laid siege to the colonel, who told me, ‘I’ve never come across such determination.’
Lionel also took advantage of this last year of waiting to study at the Paris law faculty and at Sciences Politiques, [2] where he was fascinated by the intellectual and moral atmosphere. There, he developed a keen appetite for economics, politics and social studies, and was able to sharpen his thinking considerably while still finding time for sports and cultural activities, going to the theatre and concerts. He was particularly drawn by the intellectual rapport with his teachers, alongside whom he hoped to work some day.
I recall his enthusiasm and almost childish pride when asked to take part, as translator, in a symposium I organised with a few friends to discuss with Walter Lippmann the ideas he published in his challenging book The Good Society (translated into French as La Cité libre ). This energetic and intelligent defence of liberalism was published at the same time as my own work developing a similar thesis, Le Sort du Capitalisme ( The Fate of Capitalism ). About twenty economists from a wide range of countries took part in the compelling discussions, which lasted three or four days. The participants included Robbins, Cunliffe, Hayek, Rappard, Ropke, Beveridge, Jacques Rueff, Louis Baudin, Von Mises and Louis Rougier. They all condemned the doctrines of state control and autarky that were poisoning economic life and, at the same time, bringing political disaster. All of this was fascinating to the young translator who, eyes fixed on the speaker, seemed to be experiencing the seeds