TRANSCRIPT FROM “The History Mysteries audioweblo” co-hosted by Joseph Vanderwelt and Paul Zhao
JASON: So a few years ago Louis Robert got arrested for stealing the statue of Billy Penn that was on top of the Peacock Building. You remember that right?
PAUL: Yeah, they didn’t put it right back and the Flyers lost their game 11-0.
JASON: And then when they finally replaced it they went on a 9 game tear.
PAUL: As a Rangers fan, that was deeply offensive to me.
[mild laughter]
JASON: So in order to get to that Robert had to freeclimb over 900 feet, and then get back down. Without getting caught. Or falling and dying.
PAUL: Wow.
JASON: I know right? And just two months ago de Beers lost like what? 90 million pounds after that theft in Liege?
PAUL: Was that the one where the thieves had those fake Howitzers?
JASON: No that was the one in Botswana. They didn’t get as much, but it made for a good story in what was turning out to be a slow news week.
PAUL: Speaking of Diamonds, did you know they arrested Ernest Shackleton’s brother because they thought he stole the Irish Crown Jewels in the early 1900s?
JASON: No I didn’t. Did he actually?
PAUL: They could never prove anything and he got released. To this day no one knows who took the jewels or where they are.
JASON: Sounds like a future episode.
PAUL: Quite possibly. Right after my Amber Room special.
JASON: How do you steal an entire room?
PAUL: Very carefully.
JASON: I won't even dignify that with a groan. Let alone a laugh. But speaking of large thefts, I learned last week that a gang in Singapore once tried to steal that Merlion statue. They drove their trucks into the park where its held and they uh...tied some ropes around it and pulled it down with the trucks. But the police caught them first before they could load it on.
PAUL: Wow when was this?
JASON: The Asian Spring.
PAUL: Sounds about right.
JASON: So let's look back on the thefts we've talked about so far. We've had a blow to a city's pride, massive financial loss, priceless cultural heritage lost, and some truly impressive scale heists.
PAUL: Yup.
JASON: And do you know what I say to all of these heists?
PAUL: What?
JASON: Small potatoes.
[Intro Music, Singt dem großen Bassa Lieder by Mozart, Plays]
JASON: This is the History Mysteries. We’re your hosts Jason Vanderwelt...
PAUL: ...and Paul Zhao.
JASON: And welcome to Season 2 Episode 7, Whatever Happened to the Eiffel Tower?
[Music ends]
PAUL: Today’s episode is brought to you by SprinX, the Goreweb’s favorite watch!
JASON: Even in the age of the touchphone, nothing can beat the class and sophistication of a good wrist watch. But those things are so expensive. Aren’t they Paul?
PAUL: Yes they are Jason. Rolex, Omega SA, Patek Philippe. All of these big brands charge hundreds of dollars for watches. But what if I told you there was an option that worked just as well and looked just as good, but was only a fraction of the price of a big name brand?
JASON: Well I’d certainly be interested.
PAUL: That option is SprinX. SprinX is a brand of watches manufactured right here in the USA, in the great state of New Hampshire. They come in all shapes and sizes. From swanky gold ones, to affordable and reliable options, no matter your watch needs, SprinX had you covered.
JASON: Long time listeners will know that Paul and I are very satisfied with our SprinX watched. They’ve never cracked once, nor have they ever stopped working.
PAUL: And even if they did, we could always get them repaired by SprinX’s mail order repair service, free for the first year you have a watch.
JASON: And, just for listeners of this audioweblo, there is a very special offer. Go to www.sprinx.us/historym and type in the promo code “mystery” and you’ll get 15% off your first watch. No matter the size, no matter the material, 15%.
PAUL: That again is www.sprinx.us/historym, promo code “mystery.” Now, on with the show.
JASON: So Paul and I, we are both children of the 90s are we not?
PAUL: That we are.
JASON: And I'm willing to bet that most of our listeners are a little on the young side. So I think I speak for most of us when I talk about how weird it is to not see Marrianne standing there by the Seine in old photos.
PAUL: So weird. In all the old movies there's just this weird spire thingy instead. Confused the hell out of me when I was a kid.
JASON: Not just the movies. All sorts of old photos have it in them, tourism ads and stuff. Heck the Nazis took pains to get photos of Hitler and company in front of it. If you grew up with Marrianne there, it's so odd.
PAUL: So my girlfriend in college, her name was Claude, and her grandmother was French. One winter break we went to Paris and took all the photos and stuff.
JASON: Like you do.
PAUL: But when we went to send them back to her family, she wouldn't let me send the photo we took at Marrianne. Because her grandmother would flip.
JASON: Really?
PAUL: Yeah I asked the grandmother about it later, and she went on this huge rant about ugly and hideous Marrianne is and how they never should have built her.
JASON: Wow.
PAUL: I know.
JASON: So like the Eiffel Tower isn't something that became famous because it disappeared. No, it was a big deal before that. Hell, it was the tallest building in the world for a few decades. It was a national symbol of France and a major moneymaker for the people that ran it. So how did it disappear? Where is it now? Who knows? That's what we're here to find out.
But first some history. In 1889 Paris was hosting the World's Fair. And they were looking for some uh cool new thing to show off. Now there were a lot of ideas proposed, some of which were pretty badass. Like a giant Guillotine for the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution.
PAUL: That would have been cool.
JASON: I know right? Big ass Guillotine in the middle of Paris. Invite all the crowned heads of Europe to see it. Would have been hella fun. But instead, they went for the tower. Wanted something Steel. Modern industry and all that. So two engineers Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, create the plan for the tower, and then sell the idea to Gustave Eiffel.
PAUL: Who naturally gets naming rights.
JASON: Naturally. Now Eiffel had actually been born Alexandre Gustave Bönickhausen on December 15, 1832, in Dijon, although from birth he used the name Eiffel as was traditional in the family. In 1855 he graduated from the prestigious École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in Paris with a focus on Chemistry. He bounced around a bit after this, which I can sympathize with, before eventually winding up as an architect and engineer. In particular he designed railways and bridges, and he was good enough to get his own company by the 1860s. His most famous project, aside from the tower and a botched Panama Canal, was probably the internal framework for the Statue of Liberty.
PAUL: Botched Canal?
JASON: Yeah there was a failed French effort before the Americans dug ours. But that was after the Tower got built. Anyway the tower was a symbol of industrial progress and the modern age, being as it was a towering spire of iron built in two years by modern architecture and science. Contrast this with Sacré-Cœur, which took much longer to complete, and was a conservative religious symbol. Of course, it wasn’t just stodgy reactionaries who were skeptical. Many felt the Eiffel Tower was an ugly design and would be a blight on the Paris skyline.
PAUL: Honestly? I don’t blame them. It’s spindly and weird looking. Definitely would have gone for the Guillotine if it was me.
JASON: I think it looks kinda cool, but as we established last time my architecture tastes are pretty freaky. Anyway, a group of artists wrote a protest letter against it, but it was too late. They took solace in the fact that the tower would soon be decommissioned. The design contest called for something that could be taken down relatively easy after the world’s fair, and the tower fulfilled the requirement, something that the French would later come to regret. The tower took around two years to build, and was the work of hundreds of workers. Iron rods were forged just outside of Paris, numbered, and then sent into the city to construct the tower.
When it was completed the tower stood 1,063 feet tall and weighed around 7,000 tons, although that number would rise and fluctuate based on antenna and other occasional add ons. When it reached 555 feet, it passed a very significant milestone, passing the Washington monument as the tallest man made structure ever built. Eiffel even compared it to the pyramids.
PAUL: Ego much?
JASON: Well, it was quite the accomplishment.
The tower was actually very popular. The fair total brought in more than 32 million visitors and 80 million francs, and a lot of that success was attributed to the Tower being there. The tower itself had nearly 2 million visitors climb or ride up. So clearly there was some popularity. After the Fair, some people still really wanted it taken down, but Eiffel had a lease on the land for 20 years, which kept it up, and it continued to draw visitors, although not at the scale it once had. In 1900 Paris hosted another, far less successful, World’s Fair which featured the tower getting a newer elevator system. Eiffel also had the bright idea of using the tower as a radio hub. It’s height made it extremely useful for this purpose. This convinced the French government to keep the tower standing after the original expiration date.
Obviously, once WWI started they weren’t going to waste resources taking it down, especially one the Germans started closing in on Paris. In fact, the tower played a crucial role in the Battle of the Marne, jamming German radios, which turned it into a symbol of French resilience against forign invaders. It was around this time, before during and after the Great War, that the tower began becoming synonymous with Paris itself. People tried to parachute off of it, or fly under it. It became something of a cliched establishing shit when film became a thing.
PAUL: So very much like Marianne.
JASON: Yeah. Now, come World War Two and the occupation of France the tower is again an important symbol of France. During Hitler’s infamous tour of the city following France’s surrender he intended to go to the top, but Resistance members cut the elevator lines, and he decided against taking the stairs.
PAUL: Lazy Hitler strikes again!
[chuckling]
JASON: And of course, in 1944 Hitler ordered the city destroyed, an order that presumably included the Eiffel Tower. Thankfully Dietrich von Choltitz, the German commander in Paris, refused the order. I mean can you imagine what might have been lost?
PAUL: We’d have enough material for a hundred seasons. At least.
JASON: Although, there wouldn’t be much mystery about what happened to shit, if the Nazis just burned it all.
PAUL: I’m sure some stuff would mysteriously disappear into private art collections rather than just burn.
JASON: France after World War Two had its highs and its lows. Economic progress was made, and remained a player on the world stage. But it wasn’t the player it used to be. The French Empire was in decline. Decolonization in particular was rough for France, with humiliating a defeat at Dien Bien Phu forcing them out of Vietnam. Independence movements rocked their African holdings as well, and by 1960 France let go of most of its colonies, but not all. Because to really tell the story about the mystery of the Eiffel Tower, we’re going to have to talk about Algeria.
Algeria had been colonized by France before the Scramble for Africa, during the 1830s. It was also a settler colony, with a large number of French citizens moving there over the course of the decades of French occupation. These were the “pied-noirs”. However they never constituted anything close to a majority in Algeria and the Native Arabs did not take kindly to being colonized. Thus a brutal guerrilla war was launched, starting in 1954.
The war was long, bloody, and intensely controversial in France, with right wing forces wanting victory at any cost, while others wanted to decolonize. And because this is France, it brought down the government. In 1958 what amounted to a military coup was staged and General Charles De Gaulle was brought to power, ending the Fourth Republic and inaugurating the Fifth. There was hope among the pied noirs that De Gaulle would be the hardliner they’d been missing. However De Gaulle recognized the futility of the war, and began the process of withdrawal.
PAUL: Bet they loved that.
JASON: Oh boy. You know the Rhodies, or Retornados from Portuguese Africa? How a lot of them were reactionary dipshits who couldn’t give up the ghost?
PAUL: Yeah.
JASON: They didn’t have anything on these guys. They along with the General Rippers of the French Forces in Algeria, formed Organisation Armée Secrète, or OAS, a far right organization aimed at stopping the transfer. They tried everything from a military coup to murdering De Gaulle.
PAUL: Wait are these the guys from Day of the Jackal?
JASON: It’s based off of them yeah, although the exact events aren’t based on any real incident. Anyway, by 1963 the OAS had started to fade, but there was still a current or far-right terrorism under the surface.
So all of that brings us to the 1967 World Expo in Montreal.
PAUL: Sudden swerve there
JASON: It’ll make sense I promise.
So what was a World Expo? It was, ironically, pretty much a World’s Fair, just like the one that had spawned the Eiffel Tower. Now originally the expo had been awarded to Moscow, the Soviets wanted to celebrate the October Revolution anniversary, but they ended up canceling. So in theory it then fell to the runner up: Montreal. But it took a lot of lobbying from Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau. Now Drapeau is actually a very interesting guy. Montreal born and raised, worked his way up. Despite origins in Quebec Nationalism he forged a coalition of English and French speakers and eventually ran to city virtually without opposition.
Now Drapeau was a big promoter of Montreal, and wanted to make it into a global city. He built new museums and theatres, and would later push for the Montreal Olympic bid. And so he, despite opposition, pushed hard for the Expo, and got it. The process was difficult. The Expo was, of course, ludicrously expensive. It involved building, and I kid you not, a brand new Island in the St. Lawrence. And that’s before you have to pay for the pavilions and other buildings. Some of these were themed to specific countries, some were about industries and back by rich corporations.
PAUL: Like EPCOT.
JASON: Yes, a “Permanent World’s Fair” is one of the ideas behind EPCOT. Also, if you search “USA Pavilion 67” on Lewis and Clark you’ll see that our pavilion was big geodesic dome.
PAUL: So?
JASON: That’s what the EPCOT ball is.
JASON: Yeah. And a lot of times these Expos had some big central monument to them. The Eiffel Tower is the most famous, but London in 1851 had the Crystal Palace, and Brussels in 1958 had the Atomium. And Drapeau wanted his own. He tried to get a 325 foot tall tower built, but couldn’t get support.
Now France obviously was going to put on a show. This was Quebec after all, and Francophone pride compelled De Gaull’s government to go big. And, everyone forgets about this, there actually was a French pavilion at the fair. It was a circular thing, with slanted beams coming out all around it. Very pretty.
But at some point, and it’s unclear when, Drapeau or someone else involved in the planning of this Expo, had an idea. What if they just brought the Eiffel Tower over for the fair? Wouldn’t that be funny. But, of course, then someone does research about how it was supposed to be easily dismantled. And suddenly hey, what if we just brought over the Eiffel Tower?
Now Montreal did some outreach, some feasibility stuff with the Eiffel Tower people, and to their delight found that hey, it was actually feasible. And so they start actually talking to people about it. Drapeau manages to get a verbal agreement from DeGaulle that the French Government would back the temporary move to Montreal.
Of course now the issue lands in the lap of the people who run the Eiffel Tower on behalf of the city of Paris, the Société d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel. Now they were iffy on the idea. They were afraid that if the tower left it would return to the original position. Now there were probably still some “Eiffel Tower is ugly and shouldn’t exist” people around, but I think the concern was more that the City might try to move the tower in a poorly conceived effort to make it more accessible. Nearer to the airport or train station. But, after some prodding, they agreed to turn the question over to the city.
Now Paris at the time didn’t have a Mayor, because the French government liked to keep a tight leash on Paris.
PAUL: Hey we’re nearing 1968, they may well have had a point.
JASON: Hell, look at the drapeaus violets, they may have a point up until today. But in any event, the Mayor equivalent, the prefect of the Seine was a National Government appointee, and so nodded along pleasantly with DeGaulle. The real question lay with the Council of Paris.
The Council had their own concerns, most prominently the financial issue. You don’t really think about this much, but massive tourist attractions are big money earners for governments and business. Stonehenge is estimated to bring in billions of dollars a year to the UK, and the Coliseum even more than that for Italy. The Council of Paris didn’t have the exact calculations in front of them, but they knew the economy of Paris would take a hit if it lost the most famous landmark in town just wasn’t there for months on end. But there was the pressure of “international goodwill” and of course, attention when the tower returned.
The City leaders apparently originally wanted a lump sum payment, the exact amount is still undisclosed, but Drapeau refused. The Expo was expensive enough already, and changing the plans to include the Gower would only make it more so. He countered with a revenue sharing proposal. Special tickets would have to be purchased in order to climb the tower, and the profits would be split. The end deal was 53% Paris, 47% Montreal. Employees of the aforementioned Société d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel would still work the tower. It was agreed that France would pay for the dismantling and shipping of the tower to Canada, while Canada would do the reverse upon the Expo’s completion.
PAUL: So it’s all set then?
JASON: All set. There are of course some local protestors who oppose the move, some are loons, some are nearby businesses owners about to see their livelihood dry up.
PAUL: Understandable. So the French tore it down when?
JASON: Now the French Governments both at the National and Local Level, were very insistent that this was nothing more then a “temporary disassembling for transportation purposes.” The process started almost immediately, this had all occurred in early 1965 or so, and well, the Eiffel Tower had taken two years to complete the first time around. Now there had been improvements in construction since then, and now they all knew what parts went where. But still, they wanted a time cushion. By November 1965, the tower had been completely dismantled, packaged and sent on a train to La Harve.
PAUL: And that left what in Paris?
JASON: They cordoned off the site, and posted signs around it reading, quote
“In the Spirit of International Peace and Francophone Cooperation, the Eiffel Tower has been temporarily sent to Montreal, Quebec for the 1967 World Exposition”
It was mostly noted at the time for being confrontational with the Canadian Government, since it mentioned Quebec but not Canada.
PAUL: Of course it never got there.
Jason: Nope.
Now to undertake the task of transporting the disassembled tower across the Atlantic, De Gaulle and company turned to the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, also known as the French Line. And just from the name alone you know it’s a big deal.
Originally De Gaulle had wanted to send the tower with a full military escort. But this was deemed “too jingoistic” and “against the cooperative spirit of the Expo.” Instead he turned to the most respected name in French Shipping.
CGT had been founded in 1885, and soon became one of the premier Transatlantic lines in France. It had the contract for French mail, which was a pretty common prestige tactic for ocean liners. The Titanic had it as well. TGT didn’t have the largest volume of passengers or ships, nor was it engaged in the race for the fastest crossing. But it did have that most classic of French things: style. Luxury and beauty were TGT’s lifeblood. The first Art-Deco ship was a TGT product. Now, World War II had eaten into their profits, but in 1962 they sprung back with the SS France.
The SS France was, at the time, the largest cruiser ever built. It was a luxury liner making the crossing from La Harve to New York in under a week. It combined style, speed, and size. It was a visible symbol of the country for which it was named. It was not, however, a freighter. But De Gaulle wanted it to carry the Eiffel Tower to Halifax. Denied his military escort, De Gaulle still wanted a major propaganda set-piece, and zeroed in on the SS France. Despite reluctance from The French Line and Captain Georges Croisile, they were eventually persuaded to take the job.
This was not the first time the SS France had taken a powerful symbol of France, as it had once taken the Mona Lisa to an American Tour. But it was a substantial deviation from the norm. For one the France was headed to Halifax, not New York. This would have, no offense to the fine people of Halifax, Nova Scotia, severely limited the number of interested passengers. Except, of course, there were no passengers. This was purely an escort for the tower.
The France, of course, had hold space. But not enough for the entire tower. So some parts were stored in odd places, like unused card parlors. This, and a lack of passengers, left the ship with an unusual weight distribution. Nothing the experienced Croisile couldn’t handle, but worth noting nonetheless.
With no passengers, there was no need for the staff who normally served them. Of course, all the people still sailing the thing remained, but this left the SS France emptier than usual. Less people poking around closets and such. This is important.
PAUL: Chekov’s gun.
JASON: I mean, it’ll fire pretty quickly.
On January 4th, 1966 the SS France departed La Harve, seen off by De Gaulle and other major personages. When it arrived in Halifax less than a week later it was to be greeted by major Candaian figures, including Prime Minister Pearson and Governor General Georges Vanier, a Quebec man himself. Of course, it would never arrive.
For you see, there were some stowaways aboard. They were members of a far right group called Occident. Occident meaning west, as in White Western Europeans are the master race.
PAUL: Just lovely.
JASON: Yeah, pretty nasty stuff. A lot of these people will wind up in the National Front later on.
Now, Occident had been founded by breakaway students from the white Nationalist group Federation of Nationalist Students, itself a splinter of Europe-Action. It was in essence a recreation of Jeune Nation, a far-right party notably dissolved by De Gaulle during the Algerian Crisis.
PAUL: And they say the Far-Left are the disorganized ones.
JASON: Now this wasn’t an exclusively pro-Algerian organization like the OAS had been, but obviously De Gaulle’s abandonment of the colony still hung over their heads. And some of them, the fascists without the neo bit, had never forgiven De Gaulle for not collaborating with the Vichy Government in WWII. So any chance to land a body blow against him was much appreciated.
Now there is a persistent myth that Occident hated the Eiffel Tower as a “secular symbol of modernity” as opposed to the holy nature of, say, Sacre-Cœur or Notre Dame. However there is no real evidence for this. The anti-Eiffel Tower movement had been dead for decades by this point, and in any event the French far-right was moving away from traditional catholic conservatism.
Now Occident had a history of violence, but this was above and beyond anything they had ever attempted. It was nothing less than the hijacking of one of France’s most famous ships and holding her most famous monument hostage. This was not some fistfight with left-wing protesters. In fact there is some evidence that originally this was some sort of protest action, before it slowly morphed into the act of terrorism it was and that Occident was really just the political wing of the independent cell that did this.
The details of how they got the weapons and how they got aboard remain classified, likely because they are almost certainly extremely embarrassing to the French government. But it is likely that it was via ex-Algerian networks.
Now De Gaulle had not left the Tower unprotected. There were some guards aboard. But these were mainly to prevent curious sailors from stealing bits and pieces of the tower as souvenirs. They had some sidearms, not machine guns like Occident had.
Two days into the journey, the bridge of the SS France reported bad weather ahead. A few hours later there was an offhand mention of some sort of stowaway, although it seems they were not entirely sure there actually were any.
A few minutes later the Captain himself sent an SOS. There were some sort of men with guns shooting up his ship, taking his crew hostage and killing those who resisted. A few minutes after that a new voice came over the radio.
The demands were harsh. An immediate commitment to maintaining all remaining French colonial holdings “in perpetuity.” Reparations for the “betrayal” of the pied noirs. Bans on a wide variety of leftist parties in France. And, of course, the resignation of Charles De Gaulle.
In return the human hostages would remain alive. And the Eiffel Tower would be returned.
Charles De Gaulle, being Charles De Gaulle was a stubborn bastard. He wasn’t going to resign or give into any other demands, ever. So the French government stalled for time, while they scrambled together a relief operation. However it was never going to be.
Because here we, finally, arrive at the mystery,
Occident were not skilled sailors, and they were now sailing into a large storm. In addition, the hostages do not seem to have been cooperative, and perhaps were organizing an attempt to retake the ship. The last real communication we have from the ship is a demand by Occident that the government order the SS France sailors to comply with their demands. However before the negotiation team could decide how to respond, the bad weather seems to have interfered with the communications.
PAUL: Could it also have been fighting?
JASON: There’s still one more transmission incoming, so probably not.
PAUL: Well, I mean there weren’t many Occident members on board, maybe the guy at the Communications hub guy had to go fight or something.
JASON: Huh, you’re right. Hadn’t thought of that. That’s a viable option I haven’t seen discussed.
Around 1:16 AM, shipboard time, a crackly, garbled message came over the radio. There was screaming about “a woman in red” and the “Marshal being avenged” and some French ethnic slurs that I will not translate nor repeat. Some gunshots. And then the thing cuts off. I’ll link a full transcript on the website.
And that’s the last anyone heard from the SS France, her crew, her hijackers, or the Eiffel Tower.
PAUL: And obviously all the focus is on the Tower, but there were around 500 people manning the ship right?
JASON: Yesh, 567 Crew Members. And probably 20 or so hijackers. All of whom almost certainly perished.
PAUL: And the SS France.
JASON: Yeah, even without the tower it’s a major mystery.
Actually now is the time to lay all my cards on the table. Despite years of searching by all sorts of groups, no one has ever found the wreck of the SS France and the remains of the Eiffel Tower. While it’s fairly obvious that all struggle for control of the ship and bad weather brought he down, we still don’t know the exact process by which the ship sunk, or where it landed on the seabed.
And that’s not supposed to happen.
Even if there was no tower, no international incident, no hijacking, none of that, even if this was some random tugboat and not the most famous ship in France, this would still merit an appearance on this audioweblo. Ships are not supposed to disappear anymore. GPS systems, satellites, sonar, and other technology means ships either don’t sink, or get found if they do they get found and we cannot identify the causes. Since World War Two, it’s exceedingly rare to even have fishing boats disappear, let alone massive liners carrying the most important monument in France. But it did. And no piece of the tower has ever been found.
PAUL: I’m sure the French people were very happy with that.
JASON: Oh yeah, the tower became a major symbol used by students in the May 1968 protests in Paris. Huge paper mache replicas were erected and every other sign had one. The whole thing was a massive public embarrassment for De Gaulle, and probably why French counter terrorism agencies got reshuffled in 1969.
There was also a big lawsuit that I really don’t have time to get into. But the City of Paris, the French Government, CGT, the company that ran the tower, some individuals/businesses with shady ties to Occident, the Montreal Expo people and a bunch of insurance agencies over who owed who what for the thing. Cause the French Line had insurance for the SS France, but they argues they were bullied into it by the Government and weren’t liable for the tower. And the Expo people had assumed some degree of liability for any damage that occurred at the Expo, but it was unclear when this counted. And on and on it went. An undisclosed sum was eventually forked over and eventually put into the fund for Marianne.
PAUL: When did planning start for her?
JASON: Almost as soon as it became apparent that the tower was never going to be found, De Gaulle announced that a replacement something would be erected in the Champ de Mars. His original goal was 1974 the fortieth anniversary of the liberation, but eventually it got pushed back to the 190th Anniversary of the revolution in 1979, and even then they missed the mark.
PAUL: Building the world’s largest statue takes time.
JASON: That it does, that it does.
PAUL: So it’s theory time, is it not?
JASON: It is theory time Paul. As I said above it’s pretty clear a combination of bad weather and onboard violence took down the SS France, and sent the Eiffel Tower to the watery grave. The two main theories differ on what the main cause was.
The wave theory speculates that the storm and rough waters that accompanied it brought down the ship. Probably by capsizing it. The combination of unusual weight distribution, inexperienced hijackers, and the fighting aboard meant that even a storm that would not typically take down a ship like the France. Maybe even a rogue wave would have hit it.
The explosion theory speculates that a fight over the engine room produced some kind of explosion that tore a hole in the side of the ship, a problem that the storm exacerbated. The hijackers claimed to have some sort of way of sinking the ship if the French Government tried anything, and that could have been set off either by accident or on purpose.
Personally, I lean towards the former explanation, although I could see an element of the latter breaking in. Damage to the ship making it impossible to keep in upright during the storm. We’ve got a couple more years until the French declassify the relevant case files.
PAUL: See that just makes me think it’s the latter, just for the sheer embarrassment it would cause the French.
JASON: True.
So, having gone over the possible explanations, now it’s time to go over the impossible options. Which, as you know, is my favorite type of explanation. So first off let me reiterate, and I know Paul this is a pet peeve of yours, that the France was not in the Bermuda Triangle when it disappeared. I don’t care what you read online, the Eiffel Tower is not, I repeat not a victim of the Bermuda Triangle.
PAUL: Good to hear. Still could be aliens though. UFO looking to collect priceless human artifacts, picks up the tower and rebuilds it on Planet X. Would be fair turnabout for French stealing shit from everywhere else.
JASON: Reports of a freak storm could also be some sort of cover for alien tech.
PAUL: What else could there be on this front?
JASON: Aliens are stopping us from detecting the wreckage?
PAUL: Hah. There are political ones as well, I presume.
JASON: As I said earlier the tower became a rallying cry in ‘68, which was largely a left-wing movement. Now the far-right weren’t huge De Gaulle fans, but they also didn’t want to get pinned with “lost the Eiffel Tower.” So there was a pretty wide array of right wing conspiracies over the issue, although passions have faded somewhat. One was Algerian terrorists posing as Pied Noirs. Or Corsican, Breton, or whatever other group nationalists. And then claims this was a Communist plot to destabilize De Gaulle. That last one is especially popular among those who are just itching to excuse the far-right of any and all crimes.
PAUL: And I presume there’s a left-wing conspiracy about right-wingers?
JASON: Not as many, the accepted story works well from that perspective. There are a few who claim that the CIA was behind it.
PAUL: Obviously to hurt De Gaulle, well known paragon of the French Left.
[chuckles]
JASON: There are a few Tankie types I’ve seen who like him withdrawing from NATO Command, although not many. There’s also some Quebec nationalist/anti-Quebec nationalist conspiracy fights out there about who stole the tower to discredit the fair. Of course the fair actually wound up quite successful, drawing in millions of visitors.
PAUL: Even without the tower?
JASON: Lots of people were already planning on going. Some even went to see where the tower was supposed to be.
PAUL: Was there the same deal in Paris?
JASON: Yes, but it was far less lucrative than actually having the tower would have been.
There’s only one really weird or unique one. The so-called “Lady in Red.” Most experts blame audio distortion for the final broadcast sounding like “la femme rouge.” However there are still persistent myths about another stowaway, this one a woman. She fits quite nicely into every other theory we’ve mentioned. Could be CIA, or KGB, or Québécois.
PAUL: Or an alien.
[laughter]
JASON: Either way, she would have gone down with the ship. You can’t hide the Eiffel Tower once it’s reassembled, no further demands have been made, and selling it for scrap isn’t worth your time and effort.
So that’s the story of the Eiffel Tower. It’s rise, it’s surprising longevity. A fall no one expected to be final. And a strange and violent disappearance. Any final thoughts?
PAUL: I mean, gotta say Marianne is an improvement for me. But still the idea of something that big just disappearing at sea. This has to be the biggest thing, in terms of size, we’ve covered on this show, right?
JASON: Depends on how you count the legions we discussed in, what was it, Episode 1.12? But in terms of “missing objects” yeah it’s the largest by a long shot.
PAUL: So what is the impact on history or this mystery?
JASON: Well there are a slew of Eiffel Tower imitators, notably Tokyo Tower. The loss of the tower played a key role in destabilizing France heading into 1968. There were also revisions to security for vessel boarding after this, both cruise ships and liners, but also cargo ships. And Marianne, I think, is the largest legacy. Both how the statue became the symbol of France we know and love today, but also in how she changed the norms. Previously a giant statue in the middle of the city was a sign of a megalomaniacle dictator. But Marianne opened the door to monumental sculptures in other countries. If the Eiffel Tower was still with us, we probably wouldn’t have the Liberators Statue in Tehran, or Kaipuru in New Zealand.
PAUL: On the flip slide, probably no giant wagon in South Africa, and you could visit Taipei without Chiang Kai Shek watching your every move.
JASON: True.
PAUL: All in all I think Marianne is a better centerpiece for Paris, but it was really interesting to hear the history behind the Tower. And it’s still so weird to think that this huge national symbol just up and disappeared at sea.
JASON: Glad you enjoyed it.
So what do you have in store for me next week?
PAUL: It’s a good one! Next week I’m gonna tell you all about the deaths of Emilio Mola and José Sanjurjo. Both men were key figures in the Nationalist movement in the Spanish Civil War. Both men were touted as future dictators of Spain. Both men died in plane crashes under mysterious circumstances. What happened? Why did it happen? And just how much did Fransico Franco know? Tune in next Monday for History Mysteries Season 2 Episode 8, Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s Rivals are All Dead.
JASON: That’s our show. Thanks so much for listening. Again you can support us by going to www.sprinx.us/historym and using the promo code mystery. Or you can check out our website at historymysteries.us, where you can find merchandise and a link to our Tribune page. See you next time.
[Outro Music, Singt dem großen Bassa Lieder, plays]
