Churchill and De Gaulle

Abstract

From the very beginning to the very end of World War I, Churchill was constant in his support of France. As First Lord of the Admiralty, he was among the first ‘interventionists’ – those who believed that both selfinterest and honour obliged London to back France and Belgium. Once hostilities were declared, he took personal charge of the air and landdefence of Dunkirk, and went several times to Paris to talk with members of the French government. After he left the government as a result of the Dardanelles debâcle, he disembarked at Boulogne to take part in the war of the trenches as a reserve officer. He fought there for six months, and French and British alike were struck by his courage, his determination, his energy, his luck . . . and his drinking capacity. He in turn would always be impressed by the gallantry and tenacity of the French soldier. But it was from the summer of 1917 onwards, when Churchill became armaments minister, that his closest links with France were forged. He went there many times to inspect the front, supervise joint arms production, and talk with leading civil and military figures. Two of them left an unforgettable impression on him: General Foch, the commander-in-chief of the Allied armies, and Clemenceau, the Tiger, whom he described as follows:As much as any single human being, miraculously magnified, can ever be a nation, he was France. Fancy paints nations in symbolic animals – the British Lion, the American Eagle, the Russian double-headed ditto, the Gallic Cock. But the Old Tiger, with his quaint stylish cap, his white moustache and burning eye, would make a truer mascot for France than any barnyard fowl. He was an apparition of the French Revolution at its sublime moment . . .2