In so far as millions of deaths, impoverishment and political decline permit celebration, we can celebrate our shared victories in 1918 and 1945: the consequences of defeat are too appalling to contemplate. Common struggles brought the French and British people closer together than they have ever been, and rightly so. The fundamental causes of war in 1914 are still hard to grasp, yet it seems unlikely that France and Britain, even if their relationship had been closer, could have prevented it. By the standards of the time, and even those of our time, they could hardly keep out once war began. Their culpable failure, it seems to us, begins after 1918, and the arguments are as plain now as then.
Between the Wars
RT: Much of Europe was ravaged by war, and it needed cooperation and reconstruction. Germany was inherently too powerful to be restrained for ever by force, and surely the idealists were right that the only hope was a new democratic order based on self-determination and international cooperation, with the League of Nations as the symbol and forum. There was a hunger all over Europe for reconciliation and an end to the old systems of rivalry and power politics. One can understand French fears, but the fact is that they did poison the atmosphere and probably weaken democratic forces in Germany, not only by their demands at Versailles, but even more by covert territorial ambitions in the Rhineland, by sabre-rattling, by actual use of force in 1923, and by setting up alliances with eastern European states that proved effective only in giving a pretext for German rearmament and a subject for Hitler’s rhetoric.
IT: This is naïve. It is clear that relying on permanent German good will was not a guarantee of peace. A reasonable deterrent – alliances, the garrisoning of the Rhineland, and firm prevention of illegal rearmament – would not have been oppressive, and could even have strengthened German democracy by showing that there was no future in aggression. This worked after 1945. The problem was not French ambition, but self-indulgent British idealism combined with idiotic francophobia and a strong dash of duplicity. Franco-British solidarity was the indispensable core of a peaceful system, but the British slid out of the guarantee they had given at the peace conference. Their deplorable failure of vision and responsibility, whether under
Liberal, Labour or Conservative leaders, culminated at Munich. The British – even the most clear-sighted of them – saw the error of their ways much too late, and bear a heavy responsibility for subsequent disaster.
The Second World War
The defeat of 1940 was truly shared, and with the worst will in the world we can find no reason to quarrel substantially. If France exposed its political sores, Britain demonstrated its military irrelevance. The former has been reproached to France ever since; the latter has been effaced by the Battle of Britain. But the fact is that they let each other down, and neither has entirely forgotten it. Victory in 1945 was as complete as it was moral. It had none of the shadows of 1918, and it largely – though not completely – effaced the trauma of 1940. Yet alliances rarely lead to affection: they create too much friction.
RT: I hesitate to criticize France’s national hero, and I admit to admiring his grand gesture of defiance in 1940; but thereafter de Gaulle was a pernicious nuisance. Why does a democratic republic need a Man of Destiny? Denmark, Norway, Holland, and Belgium somehow managed to resist, be liberated and rebuild their post-war societies without one. Not only did he ‘assume’ the burden of France, he also ‘assumed’ the credit for what was being done by a large number of brave people quite independently of him. What did de Gaulle actually do, apart from fostering a myth that subsequently gave much satisfaction to nationalists? Surely his inflated reputation is due for a critical re-evaluation? But that is more a Franco-French than a Franco-British issue. As far as our mutual relations are concerned, could he not have made a more responsible and positive contribution to an Allied war effort that was trying to save millions of lives and liberate Europe? Would not a small sacrifice of his own ambition and even of national dignity have been a more genuine cause for patriotic pride than his sullen and paranoid intransigence?
IT: In fact France did need a ‘man of destiny’, because it was one of Europe’s two largest democracies and was facing unprecedented dangers and temptations – to betray its democratic traditions and collaborate with Nazi Germany. De Gaulle had to persuade a demoralized nation to refuse what seemed inevitable defeat and prepare its own liberation. Did not Britain also need a ‘man of destiny’ when it was facing defeat in 1940, even though unlike France all its symbols of nationhood, principally the monarchy and Parliament, were intact? The main cause of de Gaulle’s intransigence was the mistreatment that he and the Free French received. Admittedly this was primarily due to perverse American insistence on maintaining ties with a dishonest and discredited Vichy regime. But Churchill connived, and went against his own francophile instincts to pander to an ungrateful Roosevelt – a template for the ‘special relationship’ to come! De Gaulle was right to insist on French sovereignty and his equal status as an ally. He showed great determination and dignity in impossible circumstances, and thus preserved France’s self-respect, which was of huge value for the country’s long-term post-war recovery – and, indeed, for the long-term future of a Europe that wanted to be more than a mere dependency of the super-powers.
The experiences of the war from 1940 to 1944 left a different imprint on each country. On Britain, a durable sense of pride and unity, perhaps combined with a tendency to complacency and self-delusion. On France, a mixture of pride and shame amounting to a chip on its collective shoulder; festering internal divisions; but also a willingness to change its ways. This difference would have long-term consequences for Franco-British relations. But let us end on a positive note. The two nations together had survived the greatest danger in their history, and had helped to save the world from what Churchill rightly called a new Dark Age. Genuinely shared effort, involving hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, created mutual affection and respect. It has not been entirely forgotten. Whatever their disagreements, France and Britain lived the greatest moments of their modern history together.