Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill, De Gaulle

[Marla_Singer]

I've just read a book about the relationship between Churchill and De Gaulle from the June 1940's debacle untill the End of the war. What was especially interesting about it was to compare the different visions each one had of Europe after the war.

By the way, it's really interesting to see that neither Churchill nor De Gaulle had doubted the war would be won by the allies. In June 1940, when France had capitulated and an invasion of Britain seemed as much imminent than unavoidable, both men considered Germany couldn't resist to the industrial powerhouse of the United States once it would join the war.


But anyway, let's talk about serious things. How those 4 men were seeing Europe after the war ?

According to Roosevelt and Stalin, it was clear that the upcoming Europe would be powerless and reduced under both of their influence. Roosevelt considered all continental traditional powers had to be weakened. As such, he was thinking about dismantling Germany with an independant Bavaria and an autonomous Prussia.

But Germany wasn't the only country which was supposed to lose all its power in Roosevelt's vision. Indeed, Roosevelt considered France as a vanquished country, and he will spend all the years of the war to insure France will lose its status of European power once the war ended. As such, Roosevelt wanted not only to dismantle the French Colonial Empire, but he wanted also to divide France itself. Indeed, Roosevelt wanted to create a new country he was calling "Wallonia". That country consisted into French speaking Belgium, Luxembourg, Alsace and Lorraine.

There's no need to say Churchill didn't see all those changes in a good way. Churchill is perfectly aware that once Hitler defeated, Europe will be divided between the US and the USSR. From the British point of view, such a situation is highly uncomfortable for obvious reasons. To keep a powerful Britain, Churchill needed a powerful enough Europe. And such a powerful enough Europe was requesting at least a powerful enough France.

Roosevelt knew that and that's the reason why he was seeing De Gaulle as Churchill's creature. As a result, from 1940 to 1945, Roosevelt and his secretary of state Cordell Hull made everything to maintain De Gaulle out of anything looking like power. However, what Roosevelt hadn't seen is that De Gaulle wasn't at all Churchill's puppet actually. Indeed De Gaulle didn't want a powerful enough France, he wanted to keep France as powerful as it was before the war. And that makes a huge difference.

Because of that, De Gaulle actually spent most of his time to struggle against Britain and the US than against Germany. And there were good reasons for that. An interesting event about it is the conference of Casablanca. The conference was a meeting between Roosevelt and Churchill to discuss of the organization of the post-war Europe. Besides, they considered it as a good opportunity to solve the French issue. Roosevelt had his puppet to put in power in France, the General Giraud, and he was considering De Gaulle as Churchill's puppet. Roosevelt finally decided to invite De Gaulle and Giraud at the conference to get an agreement... the point being actually to get rid of De Gaulle. Roosevelt wanted "to marry both brides" (he used that expression many times). But even if Giraud was undoubtedly Roosevelt's toy, De Gaulle wasn't at all Churchill's toy... and the conference didn't go at all in the direction Roosevelt wanted.

Once again, Roosevelt was victim of his misinterpretation of De Gaulle/Churchill relationship. Roosevelt considered De Gaulle existed only because he was financed by the British Government... but at that time, De Gaulle was already a well-known Freedom combatant. He was controlling a part of the French colonies, and he had just united the French Resistance with Jean Moulin. In other words, De Gaulle had already aquire enough freedom of movement to not be so easy to get rid of. Especially that De Gaulle was symbolizing the fight for the Liberation as much to the French opinion than to the most important British and American opinion.

After Casablanca, both Churchill and Roosevelt united their energy to get rid of De Gaulle as a political strength. But that hasn't been enough. The Free French knew perfectly the situation and they knew the two leaders of the Free world couldn't afford an open war with France as long as Germany wasn't vanquished yet. As a result, De Gaulle succeeded to install Free France as the de facto authority on the liberated France. Of course, it's been more complicated but I won't write you the whole book.


Anyway, on the November, 11th 1944, the day celebrating the end of WW1, Churchill is invited in Paris by De Gaulle. And during this meeting, both men will determine what will be the main international politics of their country for the next 50 years !

That day, De Gaulle proposed to Churchill a special partnership between both of their country. Both men agreed it couldn't be good for Europe's stability to be divided this way between the USSR and the USA. As such De Gaulle offered to Churchill to unite each other to become a counter-power in the middle between the two Giants.

To this proposal, Churchill answered that in his opinion it would be wiser and more efficient to remain a close ally of the United States and influencing its decisions. According to him Britain could easily make change the US opinions on several hot topics if there are real reasons to do so. As such, Churchill rejects De Gaulle's proposal even if he knew that France, as the loser of the war, will never be able to follow the same path as Britain since it doesn't have the same credibility in Washington.

You know what has been the result of that disagreement. Britain has followen the direction given by Churchill. And finally the special partnership proposed by De Gaulle had been finally made between France and Adenauer's Germany.


De Gaulle will spend the rest of his life to struggle for France's independance towards the United States, which didn't get rid of the idea to make of France a country under US guardianship : He will fight against the French dollars issued from Washington as official currency in France. He will fight so that France occupy a zone in Germany beside the UK, the US and the USSR. He will fight for France to get a permanent seat at the UN security council. He will fight to keep certain colonies long enough so that he could insure France couldn't be put aside of the international affairs so easily. And he will fight to devellop France's nuclear arsenal, the ultimate tool guaranteeing the independance of any country.

If I consider all that story so interesting, it's because I consider it explains quite well today's world. Since WW1, France always had a special place in the heart of Churchill, and even if it was against his policy towards Washington, it is sure that De Gaulle alone couldn't have the zone of control in Germany, and he couldn't have also the permanent seat at the UN security council. Anthony Eden, which was at this time at the head of the British Foreign Office, was also De Gaulle's best ally even if the General was too proud to ever admit it. Without Churchill and de Gaulle, it's obvious Western Europe would have never come up in the international scene as it is the case today.

 

[amadeus]

From your article, it seemed like De Gaulle was more interested in sticking it to the U.S. -- the liberators -- versus Germany, who was their actual enemy. De Gaulle to me, is at best, an ingrate.

 

[philippe]

It was a special time that those 4 countries had leaders who were the best leaders for their time at that time for that war.
Nice thread marla, i enjoyed reading it.
de Gaulle was a great leader, Sharpe.
A bit excentrix nonetheless but he helped reassure France and germany would never do war again by connecting each others economy. the steel pact.
He solved the problem in Algeria (it could had been a lot worse )

 

[amadeus]

Splitting Germany in two and having foreign troops on the ground there is what prevented Germany from going to war again. Militant nationalism doesn't work too well when there's hundreds of thousands of foreign soldiers just 20 minutes away from the capital.

 

[~Corsair#01~]

Splitting Germany in two and having foreign troops on the ground there is what prevented Germany from going to war again. Militant nationalism doesn't work too well when there's hundreds of thousands of foreign soldiers just 20 minutes away from the capital.

LMAO!
You're saying that you actually believe that Germany would've entered into a third world war, in the direct knowledge that America, Britain, France and the USSR would be on top of them almost instantaneously? You're insane.

 

[philippe]

Splitting Germany in two and having foreign troops on the ground there is what prevented Germany from going to war again. Militant nationalism doesn't work too well when there's hundreds of thousands of foreign soldiers just 20 minutes away from the capital.

now that is something you are wrong in.Those forces were to get the nazi leeches out .
But You can't occupy a country forever and degaulle realised that

 

[amadeus]

LMAO!
You're saying that you actually believe that Germany would've entered into a third world war, in the direct knowledge that America, Britain, France and the USSR would be on top of them almost instantaneously? You're insane.

Actually, I said the exact opposite.

 

[amadeus]

You can't occupy a country forever and degaulle realised that

It's a shame he didn't apply that knowledge to Indochina and Algeria.

 

[Cilpot]

Splitting Germany in two and having foreign troops on the ground there is what prevented Germany from going to war again. Militant nationalism doesn't work too well when there's hundreds of thousands of foreign soldiers just 20 minutes away from the capital.

That's not a fact but an opinion. Nobody can possibly know this.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Anyway, this topic is rather pointless. At the end of the war, Germany was destroyed and it was obvious that the whole Europe was now a dwarf in the middle of two Giants... the US in the West and the USSR in the East.

I do believe that the division of Germany did contribute to that feeling Europe had no more power in itself. As such, the division of Germany between two Giants did participate to the upcoming of a Peaceful Europe.

But anyway, it's also obvious that when De Gaulle and Adenauer decided to bring their country closer, they did much for the European reconciliation. Of course both needed the other one, Germany was destroyed and France reduced as a dwarf. But that doesn't mean they didn't accomplish a big step together, especially that it's been done so close to the end of the war.

 

[privatehudson]

Hmmm... Intruiging since there was something of a long standing dislike between De Gaulle and Churchill. I'm not that sure Churchill was pro-french though, but rather a realist who knew that De Gaulle and the free French were important. Churchill was quite prepared to support France, witness his sacrifice of British troops in Normandy during 1940 t rather than withdraw them. At the same time, he was more than prepared to do things against France when he felt that they were needed such as the attacks on French fleets. Churchill tended to do things because they were necessary, or in Britain's interests rather than to support De Gaulle.

As for De Gaulle himself, he was not so much interested in sticking it to the US as keeping the French independent of US influence. That's hardly ingratitude IMO. He did do some rather unfortunate things though, like veto British entry into the common market and so on

 

[Vrylakas]

All my books are in boxes scattered across our new home at the moment but my understanding of Roosevelt's and Churchill's attitude towards De Gualle was far less conspiratorial and much more circumspect. France was a defeated ally that had formed a collaborational government with the enemy (Vichy); the Allies wanted to maintain a French component of the alliance even if only for propaganda purposes but still the British had to destroy the French fleet anchored at Mers-el-Kebir (Algeria) in July 1940 and the late 1942 Anglo-American landings in North Africa were resisted by the Vichy forces, causing some 1500 Allied casualties. The French resistance to Nazi and Vichy rule was very small and disorganized in the first few years, only developing into a real and effective organized resistance in 1943-44.

To London arrived (among others) De Gaulle after the May-June defeat of 1940, a temporary Brigadier General who had commanded a tank brigade who claimed leadership of the Free French and ultimately of France itself. He wasn't even a full general, had never been elected to any post in a French government (though he'd been briefly appointed) and was only one of many who claimed leadership of French resistance efforts - so it should be no wonder the Allies would distrust him initially. He also had many enemies within France who conspired against him in London, and the Brits & Americans either sometimes played along with these schemes or didn't understand them, such was his manner even among his fellow countrymen. Add to that the fact he proved to be extremely obstinate and often treacherous - I recall how he tried to create a Franco-Soviet alliance secretly behind his British and American allies' back, though Stalin never took him seriously - and you can see why both Washington and London both wished for someone else. They only fully accepted him after it became clear by 1943 there was no one else (for now), and even then there was a fear he would try to install himself as a French dictator after the war. I recall reading one incident where Eisenhower almost had De Gaulle arrested for breaking orders and disseminating sercet information to unauthorised personnel, to which De Gaulle reacted by sending a lengthy message to Eisenhower apologising profusely.

It should also be noted that while the French often portray the Alliance as an "Anglo-Saxon" conspiracy against France, but in reality the Brits and Americans also had loads of distrust for one another and the alliance several times was saved from collapse by level-headed people like Eisenhower and King. The two sides often used De Gaulle against one another as when the Americans recruited De Gaulle to pressure the British into acquiescing to the 2nd front in France at Marsailles.

At several points in the 1940-45 crisis for France De Gaulle proved to be the absolute right man for the moment, but from the standpoint of the alliance (i.e., the interests of the whole alliance) he more often than not acted in his or France's own interests to the exclusion of London's or Washington's, with the knowledge that any successful scenario for the alliance required a liberation of France anyway. He proved a critical component to the alliance in the French phase of the war and sometimes even proved his allies wrong when he ignored their decisions, as for instance with the liberation of Paris - the 60th anniversary of which I believe we are celebrating this week. In the over-all war effort though, De Gaulle more often than not proved a liability than a help to the alliance even though I'm sure he thought his motives correct. I say this of De Gaulle, not France. Contrary to what he may have believed, there was a difference.

That's my final point, which is that the ultimate issue between the Americans, British and De Gaulle was one of perspective. The British and even moreso the Americans did not have the immediacy of a homeland under occupation so they felt they had the room to plan and study things extensively before acting while De Gaulle represented a country under foreign occupation by a ruthless foe. The Anglo-American perspective certainly had its validity, as they were planning (the Normandy invasion) the largest seaborne invasion ever launched with logistical nightmares on a scale never experienced before and against an enemy who had all the natural defense advantages (coast, inland roads, shorter supply lines, the bocage, experienced troops, etc.) but De Gaulle faced the prospect of liberating his country and as well making sure that liberation really was a liberation. In Paris and some other towns the leading edge of the French resistance were the communists, and there was a real danger they would/could seize power in the vaccuum of a German expulsion from France. This is one of those historical ironies that will never be "resolved", that De Gaulle represents a critical figfure for France in this time and yet was also such a liability for his allies, giving them much reason not to trust him.

Also, De Gaulle made much of the (especially American) plan for a post-liberation military governance of France, but this was not due to American ambitions to rule France or keep France "down", but rather Roosevelt's view that all post-war political matters should be discussed at a post-war peace conference rather than being settled during the war. This was due to a great distrust Roosevelt had of Churchill and the British, as he feared they would try to expand the British empire after the war. Much has been made of this because it led Roosevelt to put greater trust in Stalin - a strategic error that caused Washington grief in 1945-47 - than Churchill. This is the underlying cause behind the division of Germany and Korea, the American belief that border and political issues should be postponed until after the war, with all decisions made during the war being for immediate military necessity alone - in other words, temporary. These arbitrary lines drawn on military maps in 1943-45 solidifed into permanent political borders in the Cold War because of Roosevelt's short-sightedness during the war. (This is a topic that is studied at great length in Eastern Europe, because it had very obvious consequences for us; "Yalta to Malta".) But as regards France, the Americans simply planned a standard military government until French (non-Vichy) civil authorities could be re-established and elections held. In comes De Gaulle who demanded immediate French sovereignty with himself as (unelected) ruler; should it be surprising that London and Washington would hesitate? After his parade down the Champs Elysees both the Brits and Americans knew there was nothing they could do now short of shooting him so they just accepted De Gaulle, but I think there were many valid reasons for having reservations about him.

In the later years of the 4th and 5th republics De Gaulle would continue to play a similar role - saving France from the Algeria quagmire for instance - but at least in those years he paid closer and more diplomatic attention to his allies and the overall alliance's needs, even with his 1966 withdrawal from NATO's military structure stunt. I personally see him as a kind of spoiler, having the vision of the coal agreement but also promoting what really was just another form of nationalism on a continent that did not need more nationalism.

 

[Serutan]

It's a shame he didn't apply that knowledge to Indochina and Algeria.

He wasn't in a position to. From IIRC 1946 to 1958,
DeGaulle was not in the government at all. So he
certainly cannot be held responsible for Indochina. And
when he did come into power, he set up French
withdrawal from Algeria, causing the OAS crisis of 1962.

As to his being an ingrate - privatehudson is right.
His real goal was to be independent of, but not hostile
to, the US.

@Marla - Nice article.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

...I'm not that sure Churchill was pro-french though,..

Churchill was a great Francophile - it was just De Gaulle that gave him problems.

Churchill BTW, just before France fell in 1940 proposed that France and the UK should be united as one country, presumably so that even if France proper was completely overrun by the Germans, she wouldn't be forced to surender completely. Not surprisingly, at this point no-one was interested.
An interesting point for alternate historians was that returning from France after proposing this, churchill's plane was almost shot down by a German fughter.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

...but in reality the Brits and Americans also had loads of distrust for one another and the alliance several times was saved from collapse by level-headed people like Eisenhower and King.

Surely you don't mean US admiral King? He was notoriously Anglophobic.

 

[Serutan]

@Crazy Eddie - Maybe he meant the King. You're right
about Adm. King's attitude towards Britain. Not to mention
he's the bozo responsible for the U-boat feeding frenzy off
the US East Coast in 1942...

 

[Marla_Singer]

To London arrived (among others) De Gaulle after the May-June defeat of 1940, a temporary Brigadier General who had commanded a tank brigade who claimed leadership of the Free French and ultimately of France itself. He wasn't even a full general, had never been elected to any post in a French government (though he'd been briefly appointed) and was only one of many who claimed leadership of French resistance efforts - so it should be no wonder the Allies would distrust him initially.

Your way to imagine De Gaulle as any French guy in London who no one cared about at the beginning is totally wrong.

De Gaulle has been in London thanks to the British government. Churchill has recognized De Gaulle as the representative of the Free France in 1940, and if he has picked him, it's because they were no one more serious than him in London. So yes, De Gaulle was alone, but he was fully supported by Churchill and Spears... in the beginning.

By the way, I'm quite amazed you call a "conspiracy" the fact the United States wanted to remove from France its status of "power". Because it means you haven't been aware of all the struggle between France and the USA from 1944 to 1970 !!

This is simply about realpolitik. France was vanquished and freed by the allies. There was no reason to let it become again what it used to be before 1940 without anything in exchange. The vision Roosevelt had about France after the war was the one of a country under a US guardianship. Something which wasn't really different than what happened in Germany or in Italy. And that was exactly what De Gaulle wanted to avoid.

They (London and Washington) only fully accepted him (De Gaulle) after it became clear by 1943 there was no one else (for now), and even then there was a fear he would try to install himself as a French dictator after the war.

You're also wrong in here. In 1943, De Gaulle wasn't at all accepted. Actually, Roosevelt had convinced Churchill right at that time that we should get rid of De Gaulle because he wasn't manageable (i.e he wasn't a puppet).

Actually, Roosevelt has simply never accepted De Gaulle ! After the landing in Normandy, it was prepared to install an AMGOT (Allied Military Government in Occupied Territories) in France. The same thing that in Italy or in Germany. In other words, Roosevelt wanted to install (of course temporarily) a US General at the head of France during the time necessary to make of France a country under guardianship (like Germany and Italy).

If it didn't happen this way, it's because when the Free French landed in Normandy on Sword Beach, they've brought with them politicians who self-proclaimed themselves as the new legal authorities in France. That has been done in the week after the June 6th... before the US could do any move. As De Gaulle and Free France was deeply popular in France, it was then too risky for the US to dismantle that authority.

By the way, don't forget that Washington has recognized De Gaulle's authority only in November 1944, three monthes after the liberation of Paris ! All other governments in exile had already recognized De Gaulle then.

No seriously Vrylakas, I strongly advise you to read this book. You don't picture at all things as they actually occured.

However, what is true is that Brits and Americans didn't agree at all about post-war Europe. I thought that appeared in my initial post !

 

[Marla_Singer]

Churchill was a great Francophile - it was just De Gaulle that gave him problems.

Churchill BTW, just before France fell in 1940 proposed that France and the UK should be united as one country, presumably so that even if France proper was completely overrun by the Germans, she wouldn't be forced to surender completely. Not surprisingly, at this point no-one was interested.
An interesting point for alternate historians was that returning from France after proposing this, churchill's plane was almost shot down by a German fighter.

Actually, the proposal for a unification of France and Britain as one country has been originally done by Jean Monnet, who became interestingly a "founding father" of what became the European Union. It's true that Monnet had convinced Churchill to pick this choice but unfortunately, the French authorities in Bordeaux had then capitulated and chosen Pétain as the new leader of the occupied France.

What is the real shame of France, is actually the generalized pessimism and defeatism which was making almost the unanimity then. If the General de Gaulle had been chosen to represent the Free French, it's actually because Churchill had found no one better who was ready to replace him.

 

[andrewgprv]

What's this book called Marla?

 

[bigmeat]

i think that if they put the resources of the maginot line into infantry and tanks we wouldn't be having this conversation