On Friday the 14th of June 1940,
Adolf Hitler's armies
marched into Paris.
Barely a month since France had been
stunned by a German invasion,
it seemed the final defeat of
the French government
and its armed forces
could only be days away.
But in Britain, Winston Churchill,
leader of France's key ally,
still hoped to prevent
this disaster.
Churchill was prepared to do
and say almost anything to keep
the French in the w*r.
In the next 48 hours,
Churchill proved
that was the case by backing
an extraordinary plan to keep France
in the fight against Hitler.
Churchill's government declared
France and Great Britain
shall no longer be two nations,
but one Franco-British Union.
It's difficult to overstate
the magnitude of the proposal.
It's a moment
of mind boggling radicalism.
It meant the end of separate
British and French nationhood.
Churchill's w*r cabinet
also proclaimed every citizen
of France will enjoy immediately
citizenship of Great Britain.
Every British subject will become
a citizen of France.
And you think,
"What the hell is going on here?"
Set at the darkest moment
in the history of Western Europe,
this is a story of shocks...
- Churchill is completely stunned.
- ..and devastating defeats.
It's an almost immediate catastrophe
for the French.
It features moments of near
despair...
Churchill looked at him and he said,
"In three months you
and I will be dead."
..and it highlights bitter
recrimination.
And there was absolutely
that feeling
that the British had led France
and the French army down.
The film uncovers the role of
a giant of French history
in the astonishing attempt to unite
Britain and France as one country,
and it explains
why leading French ministers
preferred peace terms dictated
by Hitler to a bond with Britain.
Marshal Philippe Petain described
Franco-British Union
as marriage to a corpse.
It shows how the failure of
the Union plan finally triggered
the fall of France,
a defeat which
had consequences across the globe.
It is undoubtedly a world
historical event.
You can draw a line
between this story
and the attack on Pearl Harbour.
And this film shows why and how
Winston Churchill
tried to end Britain's history
as an independent nation.
This is a desperate act by
a desperate ally.
In Britain,
the summer of 1940 is celebrated
for the epic evacuation from Dunkirk
and the heroics
of the Royal Air Force
in the Battle of Britain.
But there is another overlooked
story from those dramatic months.
In 1940,
Churchill proposed absolute union of
France and Britain.
Britain placed paramount
importance on
the alliance with France.
When the struggle
against Hitler began in 1939.
But while this alliance
had defeated Germany
in the Great w*r of 1914-18,
the coalition had fractured
in the following decades.
Because the French really felt,
with some justification,
that the British
were not really supporting them
in their foreign policy aims.
After suffering dreadful
loss of life
and terrible devastation
in the Great w*r,
the overriding French priority
was protection against
another invasion from the East.
In 1930, an anxious
French government began construction
of a frontier barrier 140km long,
a wall of steel, concrete and g*ns
known as the Maginot Line.
But France still looked to Britain
to guarantee its security.
The British,
unwilling to commit themselves
because they don't
want to be dragged into another w*r,
so the relations between the two
countries are tense and tetchy.
But as the 1930s progressed,
international events
demanded more effective
Anglo-French cooperation.
Britain and France
drew closer together
because of the rise
of not see Germany in Europe.
And there's a lot of propaganda
to talk about
the alliance between the two
countries.
France maintains a standing army
of more than half a million men.
Five million more reservists
can be called to
the colours fully trained.
Her system of conscription
for every able bodied youth
has given her one of the finest
armies the world has ever known.
There isn't, even then,
great affection,
but there is a sense, really, that,
you know,
a w*r is more than possible,
and they're going to need
to fight it together.
That need became a reality
when Hitler invaded Poland on
the 1st of September 1939.
Two days later, Britain and France
declared w*r on Germany.
But then, once both the French
and the British are at w*r,
the question is, what do they do?
and the British are at w*r,
the question is, what do they do?
And the answer is - not a huge
amount.
Newsreels hailed the arrival in
France of Britain's
modest expeditionary force.
While drawing on lessons from
the previous conflict,
an Allied Supreme w*r Council
was created.
Members included the French commander
in chief, General Gamelin,
and politicians such
as British Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain and first Lord
of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill.
But very few plans for the offensive
are formulated during this time.
Then in March 1940,
a new government took office
in Paris.
It was led by Paul Reynaud,
a centre-right politician who had
a long track record
of opposing Hitler's aggression.
Reynaud takes over with a huge
amount of hope behind him.
He's a man
with real moral convictions,
high intelligence, and one of
the first things he wants to do
is to make a statement
about the British alliance.
It was in London
that the sixth meeting of
the Supreme w*r Council was held.
The outstanding feature of
the meeting was the declaration
which was issued to
the effect that neither Britain
or France would negotiate
for peace except by
mutual agreement.
This public reaffirmation
of allied unity
was made at the suggestion
of the new French Premier.
In a matter of weeks,
after a botched military
intervention in Norway
and a consequent political crisis,
Britain would also be
under new leadership.
Goodbye, Mr Chamberlain, and thanks
for all you've tried to do.
We welcome the new Prime Minister,
Mr Churchill.
In some ways, the British have
turned to him as a last resort.
The British ruling class, they know
all of Churchill's problems.
They know he's going
to give them hell.
But they know, you know,
Winston's the only thing left.
Then, in the early hours of the 10th
of May,
before Churchill
had chaired his first
cabinet meeting as prime minister,
the w*r and the world changed.
Without even bothering
to declare w*r,
the German armies launched a
coordinated attack
across the neutral borders of
Luxembourg,
Belgium and Holland, from
the Maginot Line, north to the sea.
And indeed, the Germans did attack
in Holland and Belgium,
so the French sent
in their best troops into
Holland, Belgium to meet them,
and they performed extremely well.
But of course, what the French don't
realise is that the real
thrust of the German
invasion is going
to come lower down through
the forest of the Ardennes.
It is a route
that France knows is possible
because they've speculated
about this in the interwar years,
but they just don't believe
that anybody will actually take
that route.
The German invasion caught
the French completely flat footed.
It's an almost immediate catastrophe
for the French.
On the 13th of May,
German troops struck into France,
crossing the River Meuse
and making a decisive breach
in the French line.
And therefore the way to Paris
or wherever is open.
And you could say it's all over
in five days.
This induced a tremendous
lack of morale
and confidence on
the part of politicians in Paris.
A dramatic, strategic
military strategic error
has taken place.
And there's nothing really
that can be done to remedy it.
On his sixth day as Prime Minister,
Churchill was still based here at
Admiralty House
when he was woken by terrible news.
He takes a call from Paul Reynaud,
the French prime minister,
who says,
"The battle is lost.
We are beaten."
Churchill is completely stunned.
This is the French army,
arguably the strongest in Europe.
The idea that it could have collapsed
in five days
is completely unimaginable.
The day after the dramatic call from
France's premier,
Churchill flew to Paris to assess
the situation
for himself and confer
with the French leadership.
And in the conference,
Churchill asks the French commander
in chief,
the hugely respected
General Maurice Gamelin.
"Where is your strategic reserve?"
Gamelin had replied, "Aucune."
There aren't any reserves.
And Churchill later wrote that this
was one of the greatest shocks of
his life.
Meanwhile, the speed and scale of
the disaster
was placing enormous strain on
the relationship between
French and British commanders.
The co-operation between France and
Britain is shaky, to say the least.
Partly because they're dealing
with unexpected events,
partly just
because kind of liaison between
the two sides begins to break
down a bit.
The British become increasingly
worried about the French,
increasingly kind of dismissive of
the French.
This lack
of understanding really fuelled
an Anglophobia
in the sections of French army.
an Anglophobia
in the sections of French army.
The French feel
that the British haven't committed
as much as they should have done.
And there was absolutely
that feeling
that the British had led France
and the French army down.
The French felt, well,
the British talk a good game
and they say we're with you.
But in the end, how many divisions
had the British there?
When the Germans invade
on the 10th of May,
1940, the British had ten divisions
in France,
which is compared to, what,
120 French divisions,
something like that.
So it's a tiny contribution.
French resentment only
intensified at the end of May.
With the German advance threatening
to trap hundreds
of thousands of allied troops,
Britain launched an evacuation
operation centred on
the port and then the beaches of
Dunkirk.
The story of which is presented
in heroic terms,
the small boats and so on
the British side were seen by
the French as the British bravely
running away.
And as the phrase went, "Being ready
to fight to the last French body."
In fact, on the 29th of May,
Churchill informed his commanders
it was essential
that French troops should be part of
the evacuation,
not least
to avoid French recrimination.
Within days,
Churchill's desire to keep
the French alliance alive would
lead Britain's prime minister
to send thousands
of troops back across
the channel and then to try
and unite his country with France
as one nation.
In June 1940,
with German tanks driving
relentlessly across
French territory,
British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill would make
an extraordinary attempt to unite
Britain and France as one country.
The plan, backed by the w*r Cabinet
in London,
demonstrated Churchill's
desperate hope
to keep France in the w*r,
but also reflected a lifelong
passion.
Churchill saw himself
as a great admirer of France
and of French culture.
He loved France.
He believed in France both
as a great power
and as a civilising force.
Churchill's desperation
and emotional commitment
to France are so great
that it leads him to make
the cardinal strategic error,
and that is to reinforce failure.
Following the disastrous
campaign against
the invading Germans,
the rescue
of the British Expeditionary Force
from Dunkirk had begun at
the end of May.
But on only the 2nd of June,
Churchill told his generals,
the BEF in France must immediately
be reconstituted,
otherwise France will not continue
in the w*r.
So after Dunkirk. After the British
army had miraculously been got out,
Churchill sent another 200,000 men
to France,
very much against the wishes
of the generals,
very much against logic.
Churchill wanted to show Britain's
commitment to the French alliance,
as he told General Alan Brooke,
reluctant commander
of the troops heading for France.
He said to Brooke,
"We've got to make the French feel
that we're supporting them."
And Alan Brooke said,
"You can't make a corpse feel."
And Alan Brooke said,
"You can't make a corpse feel."
As Churchill's generals had feared,
the arrival of more
British and Canadian troops
in western France did nothing
to stem the German advance.
The soldiers were soon brought back
across the English Channel.
And the reason we were
able to get them back was
that the Germans were preoccupied
with finishing off the French army.
On the 10th of June, the French
government left Paris
and headed south along roads crowded
with millions of refugees.
The chaos on the nation's highways
was mirrored
by confusion within
a deeply divided cabinet.
The argument within the French
government is do we
or do we not sign an armistice
with Germany?
An armistice would mean the French
government accepting
peace terms dictated by Hitler.
So you have quite a strong
contingent of individuals
who favour an armistice.
One of the two
most significant members
of this contingent was
the new commander
in chief of a French army,
reeling from the German as*ault.
After General Gamelin
was sacked following
the catastrophic response to
the German invasion,
General Maxime Weygand
took charge on the 20th of May.
Weygand soon concluded that in
the face of the armed
might of n*zi Germany,
both France and Britain were doomed
to defeat.
Weygand's famous phrase
is "Britain will have
its neck wrung like a chicken."
But that's, you know,
not an unrealistic thing
to expect to happen at this point.
The other major figure determined
to end the fighting was a newly
installed deputy prime minister
and a great hero of
the First World w*r,
84-year-old Marshal Philippe Petain.
Reynaud appoints him thinking
he'll be simply
a kind of figurehead,
that people will rally around him.
And in practice, Petain
is unexpectedly interventionist.
Saying that to continue
to fight on would lead to
the destruction of France,
and that to ask for an armistice
was the only way to save France.
Against this backdrop of defeatism,
on the 11th of June,
Churchill and his escort
of 12 Spitfires flew to
the town of Briare,
temporary home of the retreating
French government.
Churchill put a considerable amount
of emphasis on personal diplomacy.
He believed that he could
make a decisive
difference at key moments
of history.
Here in the Loire Valley,
Churchill tried to convince
Weygand and Petain
that victory was still possible.
He said, "This is not the decisive
moment.
"The decisive moment will come
when the n*zi's
"throw their air
force against Britain,
"and we defeat them,
"and we will win it all back
for you again."
They just replied, um,
said to him,
"Blah, it's a joke!"
Back in London on the 12th of June,
Churchill told his cabinet
that Petain was a dangerous man,
adding he had always been a
defeatist, even in the last w*r.
Churchill reported that France
was near the end
of organised resistance,
but anticipated a campaign
of guerrilla warfare
would soon begin.
Churchill is always
very fascinated by
the idea of sort of insurgency
with some kind of partisan warfare.
Churchill expected
that this guerrilla
fighting would be led by
a French general he called young
and energetic,
and who had made a very
favourable impression.
This general would shape
the future of France for decades.
But in June 1940,
he would play a key role in the plan
for Franco-British Union.
His name was Charles de Gaulle.
It's amazing to go back to June 1940
and realise at the beginning
of this period,
de Gaulle is actually
a comparatively junior army officer,
brought into the government
as a very junior minister.
And one of his tasks was to build
up and keep
up relations with the British.
As the w*r went on,
Churchill and de Gaulle's
relationship would become
extremely difficult.
But when they first met
in June 1940,
Churchill responded
to de Gaulle's defiant outlook.
And according to Churchill,
on one occasion he looked at
de Gaulle who'd arrived rather late
for a meeting and said, "Ah, l'homme
du Destin," the man of destiny.
Within the French government,
de Gaulle was not alone in arguing
that the nation must fight on
in some way.
You have the French premier,
Reynaud,
who is not in favour of an armistice
and really favours continuing
the struggle, perhaps from abroad.
And if there's not an armistice,
what's the alternative to
an armistice?
The alternative is to move
the government and
as much ammunition and materiel
as you can rescue to North Africa,
because North Africa is French.
Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.
Just because the French army had
been defeated in mainland France,
it was still possible
for the government to retreat to
it was still possible
for the government to retreat to
North Africa and carry on the w*r
from the French Empire,
and that's certainly.
An option that Reynaud might want,
and that some of the people
around him definitely do want.
But beset by crisis,
Reynaud struggled to set out
a clear policy for his government.
Reynaud's very up and
down in this period.
He's pulled one way by one faction,
another way by another faction.
There's also the controversial
role played by his mistress,
Madame de Portes.
And there's no doubt
that Madame de Portes
definitely is the patron of
what you might call the defeatist
faction.
And she kept urging
the Prime Minister
to make peace come what may,
and certainly to avoid any kind
of entanglement with the British.
On his visits to meet with
the French government,
Churchill was also subjected to
the pleading of Madame de Portes.
Who was always rushing up to him
when he arrived,
saying, "It is France
who appeals to you.
"France is bleeding to death.
We must surrender,
"we must surrender."
And as Churchill says after one of
the meetings
he has had with Reynaud, he says,
"Well, what can I do? Every time I go
and inspire him,
"this woman undoes all the good work
I do at night."
Despite the upheaval around
the French premier,
Churchill still hoped
to keep Britain's ally in the fight.
On the 13th of June,
Churchill flew to France
for the second time in three days,
landing on a heavily bombed airfield
in the city of Tours,
latest headquarters
of Reynaud's administration
as it continued to flee south.
And we have the French
government tearing itself apart
as to what to do next.
When Churchill and Reynaud met
in the city's prefecture,
the French prime minister told
his British counterpart he wanted
to continue fighting whatever,
and he still hoped
for a dramatic intervention from
President Roosevelt
of the United States,
following a last ditch plea
for American help.
However, Reynaud then confirmed
that several
of his ministers wanted to end
the w*r.
There were a very few moments
in the w*r
when Churchill's wonderful spirit
nearly succumbed,
and one of them was faced with
the French collapse.
As the British party headed back
to London,
Churchill surrendered to a moment
of pessimism
in conversation with his closest
military adviser, General Ismay.
And Ismay said something about
what they might do
in three months time.
And Churchill looked at him
and he said,
"In three months you
and I will be dead."
But even as Churchill spoke,
a spectacular plan was underway
in this London office.
A plan intended to keep
French forces
in the fight against Hitler
by uniting Britain and France
as one nation.
Sunday, the 16th of June 1940,
would be a day
of remarkable political drama
for the governments of
Britain and France.
That drama began in London
in the early morning with
the backing of French Prime Minister
Paul Reynaud.
General Charles de Gaulle
had travelled through
the night to reach the British
capital.
And why is he in London?
He's in London
because Reynaud's still hoping
there's not going to be
an armistice.
So Charles de Gaulle was in charge
of coordinating the possibility
for the French government to move to
North Africa.
De Gaulle had a lunch
meeting scheduled with Churchill,
but that meeting would take on
a new purpose
when two unexpected visitors arrived
here at the General's Hotel.
One was Charles Corbin,
the French ambassador in London.
The other was Jean Monnet.
If anyone lit the fuse on
Franco-British Union in June 1940,
it was the French businessman
and civil servant, Jean Monnet.
He had been in London
since the beginning of the w*r,
in charge of economic coordination.
And he becomes an extremely
important figure
in dealing with the economic side of
the w*r
for the Franco-British alliance.
Based in a London office at
the heart of government,
Monnet was chair of the Anglo-French
coordinating committee with
an administrative rather than
an overtly political role.
But in this desperate crisis,
Monnet had political
and military objectives.
Monnet is keen to keep the French
in the fight.
So when Jean Monnet
and other French officials
in London realised
that there is a real danger
that France is going
to stop fighting,
they come together
and lobby British civil servants
for this idea of a Franco-British
Union.
On Friday the 14th of June,
Monnet and colleagues working here
at 3 Richmond Terrace produced
a forthright memorandum.
Writing on the day the Germans
marched into Paris,
they argued that to keep France
fighting
and to prevent a German invasion of
the British mainland,
there was an indispensable
condition.
Real unity of
Great Britain and France,
dramatically expressed and fully
realised by the two peoples.
There was a belief that the two
powers would be stronger
working together
in this way than they would
as separate empires.
But according
to Churchill's private secretary,
when the idea reached the Prime
Minister that Friday evening,
his reaction was bored and critical.
Jean Monnet had a plan
to change that.
One of the striking
things about Monnet is
that he always manages
to exercise influence
slightly behind the scenes.
Monnet and the French ambassador knew
that Churchill admired de Gaulle.
On that Sunday morning, they wanted
the General to use his influence
on Britain's sceptical
Prime Minister.
For them, it was only de Gaulle
who could speak to Churchill
and make the project turn into
an actual declaration of a union.
Today, Charles de Gaulle seems
an unlikely advocate of uniting
France and Britain.
As a political and military leader
in the fight against n*zi Germany
and its allies,
and as post-w*r president
for more than a decade,
de Gaulle was an uncompromising
champion of French national
identity.
If ever a man
in human history believes
in French sovereignty,
that man is Charles de Gaulle.
But under the circumstances,
he supports the idea of
Franco-British Union.
De Gaulle is not doing it because he
believes it, he's doing it for
tactical reasons. "If it'll
help Reynaud, I'm willing to do it."
But even as de Gaulle assessed
the Union proposal, the political
situation confronting Reynaud
had changed significantly.
By now, a French government still
fleeing
the German
advance had reached Bordeaux.
Opponents of the embattled
prime minister
had become ever more strident
in demanding an end to the w*r.
And then an apparent
compromise emerged,
winning majority support
in the French Council of Ministers.
The government would not ask
the Germans for an armistice to
end the fighting,
but through a third party it would
inquire what
the terms of an armistice might be.
Paul Reynaud
believed this proposal amounted
to asking the Germans for peace terms
and seriously considered resigning.
By this stage, Reynaud
is completely played out.
He is emotionally exhausted.
He has not been getting the support
from his cabinet that he requires,
nor necessarily that he deserves.
But Reynaud felt honour-bound to tell
the British that his cabinet
had voted to approach the Germans.
Given that only weeks earlier,
France and Britain had pledged
that neither would make
a separate peace deal.
And therefore,
on the 15th of June,
Reynaud formally requests
the British government
for permission to seek terms with
the Germans.
At 10.15am on Sunday,
the 16th of June,
the British w*r Cabinet convened
to consider the French request.
The British could have just said
"No. No armistice."
That would have been a perfectly
logical British response,
but in some ways it's more useful to
the British to actually try
and leverage something out of
the situation.
And as they discussed
how British interests
might best be served,
Churchill's ministers had a clear
priority.
They were desperate to ensure
that the French
fleet did not fall into
the hands of the Nazis,
and Churchill was prepared to go
to any lengths
to prevent that from happening.
The French had the second
largest fleet
in Europe after the British.
And if the British are going
to survive
the imminent threat of invasion,
it is crucial that these ships do not
fall into the hands of the Germans.
When the June crisis was
at its most intense,
Churchill himself told
the w*r Cabinet
the main point
is to secure the French fleet.
So when a telegram was sent
from London on that Sunday morning,
consenting to French talks with
the Germans,
the British government added
a major condition.
Our requirement is that the French
fleet first be moved out
of French waters into British waters,
so that it cannot fall into
the hands of the Germans.
When de Gaulle and Monnet
met Churchill
for lunch in London's Pall Mall,
the French fleet was soon
under discussion.
The two men told Churchill
that to guarantee French
warships would never fall under
German control,
France must keep fighting.
And they convinced him
that some incredibly
dramatic gesture is needed if France
is going to remain in the w*r.
According to Churchill,
de Gaulle then stated
what that dramatic gesture should be.
A proclamation of the indissoluble
union of
the French and British peoples.
Churchill is highly sceptical of
the idea
of a Franco-British Union,
and yet he is persuaded of
the psychological
benefit of making it.
A key thing about this,
as Churchill says,
is we need to do something dramatic,
flamboyant,
that will kind of revive
Paul Reynaud's fighting spirit
and revive his chances
with his own government.
Churchill was somebody
who liked dramatic gestures,
often not wanting
to put too much detail on the bones,
thinking that it would
only lead people
to quibble and to put obstacles
in the way.
As the lunch
in central London came to an end,
the British government sent another
telegram to Bordeaux.
This withdrew the consent
to French contact with the Germans,
granted just hours earlier.
And de Gaulle rang Reynaud
and said something stupendous
was about to happen.
Reynaud explained he could delay
a decisive cabinet meeting on
the armistice issue until 5pm,
but no later.
When the British w*r Cabinet
convened at 3:00,
Prime Minister Churchill
set the tone
for what was surely one of the most
extraordinary meetings
in British government history.
"We must not be accused,"
he tells his colleagues
in the w*r Cabinet,
"of a lack of imagination
"in this supreme crisis
of European civilisation."
The declaration of indissoluble
union between Britain and France,
now presented
to Churchill's w*r cabinet,
was the work of Monnet, de Gaulle
and civil servants
from both countries.
It set out a dramatic new future
for the two nations.
It's difficult to overstate
the magnitude of the proposal.
It would have involved the complete
mergers of Britain and France
and their respective empires.
It's a moment of
mind-boggling radicalism.
Ministers immediately
express broad support
for the principle of union,
and a desire to keep the declaration
as simple as possible.
However, as soon
as you raise this issue,
you start to think about
the details.
If the two countries are going
to be merged,
well, who is going to be the
head of state?
France was a republic
while Britain had a king sitting
in Buckingham Palace.
You only have to say the word
subject of the British crown,
citizen of the French Republic.
And you think,
what the hell is going on here?
Churchill's w*r cabinet
sidestepped such tricky
constitutional issues.
No effort was made that afternoon
to tell the British monarch about
the dramatic plans for his empire.
What, exactly the status of King
George VI
would have been
was somewhat uncertain, let us say.
And no attempt was made
to communicate
with members
of Britain's Parliament.
Lots of people who reasonably might
have been consulted
were not consulted,
but there simply wasn't time.
And Churchill's ministers
only shared their dramatic plan with
the empire's self-governing
dominions
after they'd finalised the text.
The response of
Australian Prime Minister
Robert Menzies was a measure
of the gravity of the crisis.
Prime Minister Menzies
replied with his entire approval.
He understood the magnitude of
what this meant.
He understood that it meant the end
of separate
British and French nationhood.
But nonetheless, he understood
the military imperative.
Churchill's w*r cabinet
made changes to
the first draft of the declaration.
The idea of a common currency
for Britain and France was dropped.
While a pledge to raise a new
army of several million men
was made rather more vague.
But Churchill's ministers
quickly concluded that,
overall, the amended document did
not present
any insuperable difficulties.
And within minutes, the w*r Cabinet
find themselves agreeing to
the most profound change
in British constitutional history.
The final draft of the Declaration
of Union stated it was
addressing "this most fateful moment
in the history of the modern world."
It continued,
"France and Great Britain
"shall no longer be two nations,
but one Franco-British Union.
"Every citizen of France will enjoy
immediately
"citizenship of Great Britain.
"Every British subject will become
a citizen of France."
"The constitution of the Union
"will provide
for joint organs of defence,
"foreign financial
and economic policies.
"The Union will concentrate its
"whole energy against
the power of the enemy,
"no matter where the battle may be.
And thus we shall conquer."
Churchill was clutching at straws.
He was prepared to do
and say almost anything to keep
the French in the w*r.
This is a desperate act by
a desperate ally.
But at the end of a meeting
which aimed to change history,
the Prime Minister's mood
was buoyant.
the Prime Minister's mood
was buoyant.
Churchill burst out of the cabinet
room into the anteroom
where de Gaulle was waiting
and said, "Nous sommes d'accord."
Rather than saying
in English, we are in agreement.
And then when there was some
discussion about
whether de Gaulle will become
commander-in-chief,
presumably of both countries forces,
Churchill muttered,
"Je l'arrangerai." I will fix it up
in his usual mangled French.
In Bordeaux, France's Prime Minister,
Paul Reynaud,
had been told
to expect something stupendous.
But would the prospect of union
with Britain see off
Reynaud's opponents
within his own government
and keep France
in the fight against the Nazis?
When the British w*r Cabinet
agreed the text
of the Declaration of Union on
that summer Sunday afternoon,
the details were immediately shared
with the French premier.
De Gaulle got on the telephone
to Reynaud
and dictated the agreement to him.
Paul Reynaud was extremely surprised
and very, very enthusiastic.
For him, this was the solution
that would allow his government
to stay in the w*r.
But he actually just
can't believe it.
Reynaud sort of says, you know,
"Is this real?
Does Churchill know about this?"
And so the phone is snatched out
of de Gaulle's hands,
and then Churchill says, yeah, yeah,
this is what the British
government have formally agreed.
So it's an extraordinary moment.
The two leaders confirmed they would
meet the next
day off the coast
of north west France,
near the town of Concarneau.
But even while Paul Reynaud was on
the line to London from Bordeaux,
the Union plan was being undermined
by someone very close to him.
Reynaud was taking
down notes feverishly
with a little pencil,
and every time he finished a page,
he sent it off to be typed up.
But Madame de Portes,
his mistress, was reading over
the typists shoulders,
and she didn't like this at all.
She wanted an armistice with
the Germans.
And secondly, she was very,
very anti-British.
Madame de Portes shared the news
from London with Marshal Petain,
while General Weygand,
another supporter of an armistice,
had tapped Reynaud's phone.
The opponents of the Franco-British
Union plan,
and were therefore able
to mobilise against it.
Reynaud expected to surprise
and delight his council of ministers
when he presented the British offer
at 5pm that Sunday afternoon.
He was rapidly disappointed.
One of those present at the meeting
says,
"Well, it would be better to be a
n*zi province
"because at least we know
what we were getting."
Well, that was obviously a sort of
a catastrophic error.
Others saw it as a bid
by the British
to get their hands on
the French Empire.
While some ministers dismiss
the Union proposal as pointless,
believing the German military would
follow victory in France
by crushing Britain.
Petain described the offer of
Franco-British Union
as marriage to a corpse.
Because for him there was no doubt
that Britain was going
to collapse very, very soon.
Faced with these unexpected
negative reactions,
Reynaud faltered in making the case
for the Union plan.
It would have taken a prime
minister of considerable
determination and energy
to force through this proposal
for a Franco-British Union,
and Reynaud simply did not have
that sort of gumption left in him.
He doesn't even call for a vote
on this proposal.
He simply allows it to die a natural
death.
The fate of the plan to unite
Britain and France remains a great
"what if" of 20th century history,
because within Reynaud's
cabinet there
was certainly significant support
for continuing the w*r.
Paul Reynaud did not put
the proposal to a vote,
and historians suspect that had he
actually asked his ministers
for their opinion and counted hands,
he would have had a majority.
He doesn't call a vote,
and then
the cabinet meeting is over.
And he doesn't even tell them
as he's leaving the room,
that he's going to see the President
of the Republic
to tender his resignation.
When Reynaud resigned
that Sunday evening,
Marshal Petain promptly took office
at the head of a new government.
And shortly after, in the very early
morning hours of the 17th,
he seeks armistice terms
with Germany.
Churchill's ambitious offer of union
had backfired,
and by resigning,
Reynaud had opened the door to
a regime which would make peace
with Germany
and collaborate with Hitler.
I don't think a day passed
when Reynaud didn't go over
and over in his head
what he'd done in that day.
The consequences of that decision
basically lived
with him till the day he died.
But in London, on the evening of
Sunday the 16th of June,
the British government
was unaware of
the drama in Bordeaux.
At the head of a party of political
and military leaders,
Winston Churchill was en route to
the meeting with Paul Reynaud,
scheduled for noon the
following day.
And so he is sitting at Waterloo
station in his special train
when he receives news
that Reynaud has resigned.
A telegram had arrived from
Sir Ronald Campbell,
Britain's ambassador in Bordeaux.
Campbell wrote,
"Ministerial crisis has opened,
"meeting arranged for tomorrow
impossible."
Staggered by this news,
Churchill refused to leave the train
for 30 minutes
Churchill refused to leave the train
for 30 minutes
before reluctantly returning to
Downing Street.
And he writes in his w*r memoirs
that there has rarely been a more
generous offer
that had been so rudely
and coldly rebuffed.
The dramatic attempt to unite
Britain and France had
lived and died
in little more than 48 hours.
But the French decision to spurn the
British offer in favour
of German peace terms
had enduring consequences.
The fall of
France would reverberate around
the globe for decades.
So this is not just the defeat of
a French army,
it is undoubtedly a world
historical event.
And one major outcome of
the failure to keep France
in the w*r against Germany would
play out within days of
the armistice being signed on
the 22nd of June.
The British are still worried about
the French fleet.
They become really increasingly
worried about the French fleet.
Peace deals with n*zi Germany
and its ally,
fascist Italy, left the Petain
regime controlling much
of southern France,
plus large overseas territories.
It also retained the French navy,
which the new
French government assured
the British would never be put at
the service of the Germans.
And the British are faced with
a great dilemma.
Do they trust the French?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Do they trust the French
sufficiently to prevent
the Germans from simply seizing it?
Probably not.
Conflict between the two former
allies came to a head
in early July over ships of
the French Atlantic fleet stationed
in the Algerian harbour of
Mers-el-Kebir.
There's an attempt to negotiate, and
negotiation fails
and the British open fire and
therefore k*ll over
a thousand French sailors.
Mission accomplished.
The Royal Navy had reluctantly
crippled the French fleet.
It's a dramatic moment.
Britain has fired on a country
with which they're not at w*r,
and which was their ally
until very recently.
Churchill called the decision
to attack the French ships hateful,
the most
painful of his political career,
but he was cheered loudly by members
of Parliament,
delighted by this decisive
British action.
And yet, of course,
in France this is seen
in a totally opposite way
that the perfidious British
have turned upon them,
and it can be taken as proof
that the British
could never be trusted all along.
Barely two weeks
before attacking the French Navy,
Churchill's government had hoped
to combine
British and French strength around
the world.
Now both former allies were weaker,
and this would change
the course of the w*r across
the globe.
As Britain could no longer rely on
the French fleet to defend
the Mediterranean
against Germany's Italian allies,
the Royal Navy was forced
to redeploy ships from Asian waters,
a move which encouraged
the ambitions of Imperial Japan.
So because of the failure of
the Franco-British Union,
Britain was less able to send parts
of its navy to
the Far East to deter Japan
and therefore protect
Australia and New Zealand and
surrounding colonies.
While following the armistice
in Europe,
the French government of
Marshal Petain
lacked the will to defend its
possessions in south east Asia,
claiming it would be madness
to resist the Japanese.
Just three months after the failure
of the union
proposal and the fall of France,
Japan duly occupied
French Indochina,
beginning a drive
south which would lead
to w*r with the British Empire
and the United States.
So you can draw a line
between this story
and the attack on Pearl Harbour.
For Britain,
the crisis of June 1940 prompted
a major and lasting change
in its international diplomacy.
The most important thing, I think,
is the creation of the special
relationship between Britain
and the United States.
Until summer 1940,
Britain saw France
as its absolutely critical ally,
as the dramatic
offer of union clearly demonstrated.
Once France was out of the w*r,
Britain has no option.
The United States is Britain's only
chance of survival.
This suddenly brings America into
the forefront of British security.
But there is no previous special
relationship between
these countries at all.
In Europe, the spirit of the attempt
to unite
Britain and France would live on
in the work of Jean Monnet,
the French businessman and civil
servant
who from this London office
had championed
the Union proposal with its plan
for common citizenship
and shared government institutions.
This was something which
very much became part
of his vision for Europe.
Thanks to his work building economic
and political integration
in the post-w*r decades,
Jean Monnet would become known
as the father of Europe.
As for Winston Churchill,
on the 18th of June,
As for Winston Churchill,
on the 18th of June,
two days after the Franco-British
Union plan had failed,
and with France poised
to accept German peace terms,
the British Prime Minister
spoke to Parliament of the great
challenge now ahead.
A fight against the Nazis
in which the survival not only
of Britain
but of civilisation itself would be
at stake.
Let us, therefore brace ourselves
to our duties...
..and so bear ourselves,
that if the British Empire
and its Commonwealths last
for a thousand years,
men will still say,
"This was their finest hour."
But just moments
before his stirring conclusion,
the Prime Minister acknowledged
what he called
the offer of common citizenship
in this struggle,
which Britain had made to France.
So it's not something
that was hidden.
It was something
that was very much public.
Wartime events were moving
at bewildering speed.
But even before Churchill's speech
in Parliament,
the declaration
of indissoluble union
with France had been reported
in newspapers across Britain
and far beyond.
And the offer was really celebrated
in 1940.
Though, when Churchill came
to write his best-selling history of
the w*r,
he stressed that he had not been
the prime mover behind the scheme
for Franco-British Union
and that the text was not his work.
He maybe felt slightly awkward
about it because he would have
been revolutionary
in constitutional terms
had it actually been
put into effect.
But there is surely something of
Churchill's remarkable personality
in this extraordinary document,
not least his love of France.
One of his w*r aims,
even in the darkest hours of 1940,
was to restore France
to her greatness.
Above all, the Union
plan embodied Churchill's defiance
and his willingness
to embrace radical left-field ideas.
The Franco-British
Union proposal is quintessential
Churchill in that it is bold,
it is dramatic,
it represents some of
his key values,
and it is a not
very well thought through.
But the vain attempt to unite
Britain and France as one nation
demonstrated that in order to defy
and defeat Hitler,
Winston Churchill
was prepared to take
almost unimaginable
steps, even to sacrifice
the independence
and identity of his country.
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Churchill's Bid to Abolish Britain (2025)
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