Ukraine War Day #792: French Odessa Is Macron’s Phantom Limb – Part I

Dear Readers:

This historical piece by reporter Matvei Malgin helps to explain France’s obsession with defeating Russia in Crimea. Yes, I said France, not England. Although the English are obsessed as well. Neither former colonialist power seems to be able to just let it go and mind their own business.

This seems to happen every time a colonial power is kicked out of a place by people whom they consider, if not necessarily subhuman, at least folks not deserving of any subjectivity or agency of their own; inferior people whose destiny is to obey the superior nation; inferior people like Africans… or Russians… The colonizer, once kicked out, experiences a sort of “phantom limb” sensation, as if the former colony were one of its limbs, now cut off forever. And sometimes they simply cannot accept the fact that the limb is gone!

Case in point: France ruled the city of Odessa for 100 days. They lost it, they can’t just let it go, and now they want it back!

Malgin: 105 years ago, in late April of 1919, a rebellion broke out among French sailors quartered in Sebastopol. Many historians believe that this rebellion put an end to France’s decision to cease its intervention against Soviet Russia, and to finally withdraw from Crimea.

Modern-day France is moving in the opposite direction, hinting that they would like to send their troops to Odessa. As if, by doing so, they could somehow avenge their century-old humiliation and reinstate themselves as a power to be reckoned with on the Black Sea.

The Intervention

In 1918, Britain and France, acting together as allies, decided to occupy Russia, dividing up their spheres of responsibility.

French propaganda (1919) claimed that Bolsheviks would steal children from the villages, in order to indoctrinate them in Communist ideology.

The French would manage Bessarabia, Crimea, and the Northeastern sector of the Black Sea. The main goal was to prevent the Germans from seizing the shoreline and its ports. Allied troops had already been dispatched, but before they even landed, the war ended with a peace treaty; and with it, the raison d’être for this operation.

In November 1918 the French troops disembarked in Novorossijsk initially, then in Sebastopol and Odessa. By the start of 1919 the interventionists had succeeded in subduing Kherson and Nikolaev.

The French, like all good colonizers, sought support among the local population. While this was going on, the Bolsheviks were busy concluding a separate peace with Germany. The French cooperated with the Whites, and also actively supported Simon Petliura in Ukraine. Not having a clue how to work through all the complexities and sort out all the different players, they found themselves entangled in the Russian Civil War.

The one thing the French were clear about, is that they wanted to colonize Russia, their recent ally in the Entente. To further this goal, they quickly took under their control local resources and the transportation network. What the French did not understand, was that the end of WWI also put an end to the traditional era of European colonization of other countries. It didn’t put an end to colonialism per se, just to the standard model wherein the colonizing nation exerted direct control over the resources and infrastructure of the colonized nation.

This was not yet understood. (The new era of neo-colonialism, wherein things were done more delicately, was only just dawning.)

As historical documents have illuminated, the French government demanded of its troops in the South of Russia, that they obtain the transfer “of the right to exploit all the railroads of Russia, and all of the tariffs and fees for all the ports of the Black and Azov Seas; that all excess grain from the Ukrainian and Kuban Provinces be shipped to France; all the oil fields and production of benzine should be placed under French control and exploitation; and all the coal that is mined in the Donetsk region.”

The leaders of the White movement understood quite well these goals of their “allies”, but they were not able to accomplish any of these tasks for their new masters.

Next: The Bolsheviks organize a rebellion.

[to be continued]