UNION PLAN: ITS ORIGIN, PROMISE, AND COLLAPSE

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25738, 25 February 1949, Page 6

UNION PLAN: ITS ORIGIN, PROMISE, AND COLLAPSE

VICTORIOUS DEFEA TISM

[By

the Rt. Hon. WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL,

M.P.]

XVIII

In these days the War Cabinet were in a state of unusual emotion. The fall and the fate of France dominsted their minds. Our own plight, and what we should have to face and face alone, seemed to take a second place. Grief for our Ally in her agony, end desire to do anything in human power to aid her, set the prevailing mood. There was also the overpowering importance of making sure of the French Fleet. It was in this spirit that the proposal for “an indissoluble union” between France and Britain was conceived. ORIGIN OF THE UNION PLAN I was not the prime mover. I first heard of a definite plan at a luncheon at the Carlton Club on the 15th, at which were present Lord Halifax, M. Corbin, Sir Robert Vansittart, and one or two others. It was evident that there had been considerable discussion beforehand. On the 14th Vansittart and Desmond Morton had met M. Monnet and M. Pleven (members of the French Economic Mission in London) and been joined by General de Gaulle, who hed flown over to make arrangements for shipping to carry the French Government and as many French troops as possible to Africa. These gentlemen had evolved the outline of a declaration fora FrancoBritish Union with the object, apart from its general merits, of giving M. Reynaud some new fact of a vivid and stimulating nature with which to carry a majority of his Cabinet into the move to Africa, and the continuance of the war. My first reaction was unfavourable. ’I asked a number of questions of a critical character, and was by no means convinced. However, at the end of our long Cabinet that afternoon the subject was raised. I was somewhat surprised to see the staid,’ stolid, experienced politicians of all Parties engage themselves so passionately in an immense design whpse implications and consequences were not in any way thought out.. I did not resist, but yielded easily to these generous surges which carried our resolves to a very high level of unselfish and undaunted action. When the War Cabinet met the next morning we first addressed ourselves to the answer to be given to M. Reynaud’s request sent the night before for the formal release of France from her obligations under the AngloFrench Agreement It was dispatched from London at 12.35 p.m. on the 16th. DECLARATION DRAFTED Early in the afternoon a second message in similar terms was sent by the Foreign Office to Sir Ronald Campbell (June 16, 3.10 p.m.). We reassembled at 3 p.m. that same afternoon. I recalled to the Cabinet that at the conclusion of our meeting the day before there had been some discussion on a proposal for the issue of some further declaration of closer union between France and . Great Britain. I had seen General de Gaulle in the morning, and he had impressed on me that some dramatic move was essential io give M. Reynaud the support which he needed to keep his Government in the war, and suggested that a proclamation of the indissoluble union of the French and British peoples would serve the purpose. Both General de Gaulle and M. Corbin had been concerned-at the sharpness of the decision reached by the War Cabinet that morning, ana embodied in the telegrams already dispatched. I -had heard that a new declaration had been drafted for consideration, and that General de Gaulle had telephoned to Monsieur Reynaud. As a result it had seemed advisable to suspend action for the moment. A telegram had therefore* been sent to Sir Ronald Campbell instructing him to suspend delivery accordingly. 7 The Foreign Secretary then said that after our morning meeting he had seen Sir Robert Vansittart, whom he had previously asked to draft some dramatic announcement which might strengthen M. Reynaud’s hand. Vansittart had been in consultation with General •de Gaulle, M. Monnet, M. Pleven, and Major Morton. Between them they had drafted a proclamation. General de Gaulle had impressed upon them the need for publishing the document as quickly as possible, and wished to take the draft back with him to France that night. De Gaulle had also suggested that I should go to meet M. Reynaud next day. The draft statement was passed round, and everyone read it with deep attention. All the difficulties were immediately apparent, but in the end a Declaration of Union seemed to command general assent. I stated that my first instinct had been against the idea, but that in this crisis we must not let ourselves be accused of lack of imagination. Some dramatic announcement was clearly necessary to keep the French going. The proposals could not be lightly turned aside, and I was encouraged at finding so great a body of opinion in the War Cabinet favourable to it.

The War Cabinet approved the final draft proclamation of an AngloFrench Union, and authorised its dispatch to M. Reynaud by the hand of General de Gaulle. This was telephoned to M. Reynaud forthwith. The War Cabinet further invited me, Mr Attlee and Sir Archibald Sinclair, representing the three British parties, to meet M. Reynaud at the earliest moment to discuss the draft proclamation and related questions. Of all this Parliament was informed in due course. But the issue by then had ceased to count. I did not. as has been seen, draft the statement myself. It was com-, posed around the table, and I made my contribution to it. I then took it into the next room, where de Gaulle was waiting with Vansittart, Desmond Morton, and M. Corbin. The General read it with an air of unwonted enthusiasm, and as soon as contact with Bordeaux could be obtained, began to telephone it to M. Reynaud. * »

We must now pass to-.the other end of the wire. The British Ambassador delivered the two messages in answer to the French request to be released from their obligation of March 28. According to his account, M. Reynaud, who was in a dejected mood, did not take them well. He at once remarked that the withdrawal of the French Mediterranean Fleet to British ports would invite the immediate seizure of Tunis by Italy, and also create difficulties for the British Fleet. He had got no further than this when my message, telephoned by General de Gaulle, came through. “It acted,” said the Ambassador, “like a tonic.” Reynaud said that for a document like that

he would fight to the last. In cam* at that moment M. Mandel and M Marin. They obviously were equally relieved. M. Reynaud then left “with a light step” to read the document tn the President of the Republic. My telegram instructing the Ambassador io delay the presentation of the two stiff messages, or anyhow to suspend actiem upon them, arrived’ immediately after the Premier had gone. A messenger was therefore sent after him to say that the two earlier messages should be considered as “cancelled.” “Suspended” would have been a better word. The War Cabinet had not altered its position in any respect. We felt, however, that it would be better to give the “Declaration of Union” its full chance under the most favourable conditions. We could not tell what was going on inside the French Government, nor know that this was the last time we should ever be able to deal with M. Reynaud. FRUSTRATION I had spoken to him on the’’telephone sometime this day proposing that I should come out immediately to see him. In view of the uncertainty about what was happening or about to happen at Bordeaux, my colleagues in the War Cabinet wished me to go in a cruiser, and a rendezvous was duly arranged for the next day off the Brittany coast, I ought to have flown. But even so it would have been too late. Our War Cabinet sat until six o’clock on the 16th, and thereafter I set out on my mission. I took with me tha Leaders of the Labour and Liberal Parties, the three Chiefs of Staff, and various important officers and officials. A special train was waiting at Waterloo. We had taken our seats in the train. My wife had come to see me off. There was an odd delay in starting. Evidently some hitch had occurred. Presently my private secretary arrived from Downing Street breathless with the following message from Campbell at Bordeaux: Ministerial crisis has opened. . . . Hope to have news by midnight. Meanwhile meeting arranged for to-morrow impossible. FAILURE The final scene in the Reynaud Cabinet was as follows: The hopes which M. Reynaud Had founded upon the Declaration of Union were soon dispelled. Rarely has so generous a proposal encountered such a hostile reception. The Premier read the document twice to the Council, He declared himself strongly for it, and added that he was arranging a meeting with me for the next day to discuss the details. But the agitated Ministers, ;ome famous, some nobodiea; torn by division and under the terrible hammer of defeat, were staggered. Some, we are told, had heard about it by a tapping of telephones. .These were the defeatists. Most were wholly unprepared to receive such far-reach-ing themes. The overwhelming feeling of the Council was to' reject the whole plan. Surprise and mistrust dominated the majority, and even the most friendly and resolute were baffled. , , „ We are assured that Reynaud s statement of our proposal was never put to a vote in the Council. It collapsed of itself. This was a personal and fatal reverse for the struggling Premier which marked the end of his influence and authority upon the Council. All further discussion turned upon the Armistice, and asking the Germans what terms they would give; ana in this M. Chautemps was cool ana steadfast. Our two telegrams about , the Fleet were never presented to the Council. At about 8 o’clock Reynaud, utterly exhausted by'the physical ana mental strain to which he had for so many days ’been subjected, sent his resignation to the President and advised him to send for Marshal Petain; CHURCHILL MEASURES DE GAULLE On the afternoon of June 16 M. Monnet and General de Gaulle visited me in the Cabinet Room. Monnet was very active upon a plan to transfer all French contracts for munitions in America to Britain if France made a separate peace. He evidently expected this, and wished to save as much as possible from what seemed to him to be the wreck of the world. His whole attitude in this respect was most helpful. Then he turned to our sending all our remaining fighter air squadrons to share in the final battle in France, which was of course already over. I told him that there was no possibility of this being done. My two French visitors then got up and moved towards the door, Monnet leading. As they reached it de Gaulle, who had not hitherto uttered a single word, turned back, and taking two or three paces towards me, said in English: “I think you are quite right.” Under an impassive, imperturbable demeanour, he seemed to me to have a remarkable capacity for feeling pain. I preserved the impression, in contact with this very tall, phlegmatic man, “Here is the Constable of France.” He returned tpat night to Bordeaux. But not for long. Forthwith .Marshal Petain formed a French Government with the main purpose of seeking an immediate armistice from Germany. AN AEROPLANE’S FREIGHT On the morning of the 17th I mentioned to my colleagues in the Cabinet a telephone conversation which I haa had with General Spears, who said he did not think he could perforin any useful service in the new structure at Bordeaux. He spoke with some anxiety about General de Gaulle. Spears- had apparently been warned that as things were shaping it might be as well for de Gaulle to leave France. I readily assented to a good plan being made for this. So the next day—the 18th—de Gaulle strolled out of his office in Bordeaux without even a dispatch-case, and went to the airfield to see his friend Spears off. They snook hands and said good-bye, and as the plane began to move de Gaulle steppea in and slammed the door. The machine soared off into the air, while the French police and officials gaped. De Gaulle parried with him in this small aeroplane the honour of France. (To be continued) Copyright 1949 in U.S.A. by The New York Times Company and Time, Inc. (publisher of Time and Life); in the British Empire by the Daily Telegraph Ltd.; elsewhere by International Cooperation Press Service, Inc. World rights reserved. Reproduction in full cr in part in any language strictly prohibited.