An assassination at Christmas

In the upper outer corridor of the Summer Palace, with its views of the palm fringed courtyard below, the young man was waiting with his gun. It was a no frills 7.65 Ruby automatic pistol, one of thousands a Spanish small arms manufacturer had supplied the French Army during the First World. Some of the offices along the narrow corridor were already deserted for the holiday. Nonetheless he had been assured that, however long his Christmas Eve lunch, the admiral would be back because he would want to read his latest telegrams. At about 3.30pm he heard footsteps, the murmur of voices then, rather surprisingly perhaps, laughter.

The assassination of Admiral François Darlan on 24 December 1942 came 44 days after he had given the Allies an enormous strategic advantage by ordering a ceasefire that gifted Vichy French North Africa to an Anglo-American invasion force.  ‘Darlan’s murder,’ admitted Churchill in his history of World War Two, ‘relieved the Allies of their embarrassment for working with him and left them with all the advantages he had been able to bestow.