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Xavier Tartakover ou Lt Cartier dans la France libre www.chesshistory.com 
" 5140. Tartakower/Cartier (C.N. 4331)
Further to G.H. Diggle’s reference to Savielly Tartakower in C.N. 4331, Hassan Roger Sadeghi (Lausanne, Switzerland) asks if more information is available about Tartakower’s service in the Fighting French Forces during the Second World War under the pseudonym ‘Cartier’.
We offer some notes, beginning with a paragraph by Harry Golombek on page iii of his Translator’s Foreword to the second volume of Tartakower’s Best Games:
‘It might perhaps surprise those who do not know him that at the age of 53 the learned doctor was actively engaged in the battle against Hitler and that, after having been decorated for gallantry in the First World War whilst fighting for Austria, he should now have been just as hotly and bravely engaged on what might be termed the other side. But he has always regulated his behaviour on strict principles of right and wrong. Nothing will ever deter him from embarking on a course which he thinks to be his duty.
Coming through the war unscathed, he resumed his chess activities with undiminished vigour.’
In that source, as well as on page 67 of Chess Treasury of the Air by Terence Tiller (Harmondsworth, 1966), Golombek related his wartime meeting with Tartakower in England. The following appeared in the Tiller book:
‘In 1941 I was stationed in an artillery unit in Northern Ireland, and my service there was relieved by a weekend trip to Nottingham where I was due to play on top board for the British against the Allied Forces. I anticipated an easy victory, as my opponent was an unknown Lieutenant Cartier of the Free French Army. I had the delightful disappointment of discovering that le lieutenant Cartier was no less a person than my old friend Dr Tartakower. When France fell, he had made his way to England via Oran and a British battleship; and there he was, looking just as quizzical as ever, incongruously attired in British battle-dress. Though by now approaching his middle fifties, he was as gallant and determined as ever in his fight for what he believed to be right.’
The chess match was played at the Borough Club, Nottingham on 15 November 1941, as reported on pages 305-306 of the December 1941 BCM, and the score of the game between ‘2nd/Lt. G. Cartier’ and ‘Bdr H. Golombek’ was supplied. The BCM wrote:
‘It is divulging no secret to say that 2nd/Lt. “G. Cartier” is the pseudonym of one who is universally loved and admired wherever chess is played.’
In all, the BCM published about a dozen games by Lieutenant Cartier during the War. The match described by G.H. Diggle took place in London on 22 April 1944 and was reported on pages 107-109 of the May 1944 BCM. His opponent was G. Wood. The pseudonym ‘Cartier’ was no secret; for instance, page 268 of the December 1942 BCM referred to ‘Lt. G. Cartier of the Fighting French, better known in the chess world as Dr Tartakower, the great international’.
We still seek substantiation of the claim that Tartakower was several times ‘dropped by parachute behind enemy lines on secret missions’ (see page 331 of Kings, Commoners and Knaves). More generally, what else is known about Tartakower’s activities during the Second World War?" 
Laurent Laloup le lundi 20 octobre 2008 Contribution au livre ouvert de Savielly Tartakower alias Georges Cartier | |
