Winston Churchill's image of France and the French

Francois Bedarida
Comite International des Sciences Historiques

Although fascinated by France all his life, Churchill was more familiar with the country than with its inhabitants (he mainly knew members of the upper and governing classes). His apprenticeship began early as he learned the language which he liked to speak so much. Both the warrior and the statesman in Churchill admired the military past and the grandeur of Britain's neighbour, but his strategy towards France always combined realpolitik with genuine friendship. This article concentrates on three periods in Churchill's relationship with France: 191132, 193345 and 194555. It concludes that Churchill's `nest hour' won him the lasting admiration of the French people.

Abstract

In the exhilarating atmosphere of a triumphal day in Paris, on 11 November 1944 (the French capital had been liberated just a few weeks before), Churchill asserted: `For more than thirty years I have defended the cause of friendship, of comradeship and of alliance between France and Great Britain. I have never deviated from that policy throughout the whole of my life'. Since the two countries `have become indispensable to each other', he continued, `the alliance with France should be unshakable, constant, and eective'.1 However, some months earlier, in a letter to General de Gaulle, he had used somewhat dierent language: `Ever since 1907, I have in good times and bad times been a sincere friend of France, as my words and actions show, and it is to me an intense pain that barriers have been raised to an association which to me was very dear'.2 Even if we keep in mind the many storms which had burst between the head of the Free French and the prime minister, these two quotations undoubtedly express the intricacy and the contradictions of Churchill's attitude towards his neighbours across the Channel. Between two poles on the one hand feelings and emotionalism, on the other realpolitik lies a large zone made up of both oscillations and continuities; and no wonder, since this article deals with a period extending over more than three-quarters of a century.3
1 Winston S. Churchill: his Complete Speeches, 18971963, ed. R. Rhodes James (8 vols., New York, 1974), vii. 70301. 2 Charles de Gaulle, War Memoirs, ii: Unity, 19424 (1959), pt. 2, p. 345, Letter from Winston Churchill to General de Gaulle, 16 June 1944. 3 It is to be noted that 2 excellent studies have recently appeared on that very topic: D. Johnson,

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Actually, it seems more appropriate, in Churchill's case, to concentrate upon his image of France rather than his image of the French, for the way in which he pictured the French came more from historical imagination, if not stereotype, than from sociological observations. Although he knew the country quite well, when it came to French society, he was only familiar with the upper class the aristocracy and political e lites or, at the other end of the social scale, the small world of domestic servants. Consequently he had no acquaintance with le Franc ais moyen in other words, he ignored the common people. Churchill had contact with some aristocratic families, but he moved most frequently in political circles and was in touch with political gures on the left and right, from Clemenceau to Paul Reynaud, from Aristide Briand to Georges Mandel, from Emmanuel d'Astier de la Vigerie to Pierre Mende s France. This was where his knowledge of the French ended. Accordingly this article will examine three main topics: Churchill's apprenticeship in France; his search for a dening French identity; and his grand strategy. If Churchill was so familiar with France, if he travelled and stayed there so much and so often, it was because he had a twofold training: rstly an apprenticeship focused on the knowledge of language and culture, and secondly a real worship of French history. In accordance with the traditions of the English nobility, Churchill started to learn French while still a young child at the age of eight or nine, both with a mademoiselle and at school. Whilst boarding at Brighton, he explained proudly in a letter of 1887 to his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, that he had just acted in Molie re's Le Me decin malgre lui, in which he took the role of Martine, Sganarelle's wife, a key gure of the comedy.4 A few weeks later he assured his mother: `I get on all right with Mademoiselle'. During his years at Harrow he used to get good marks in French in contrast with other subjects.5 Around the age of fourteen or fteen he went as far as writing a French poem lamenting the sad destiny of Alsace-Lorraine. But in 1891 the situation took a turn for the worse when his mother planned to send him to France in order to stay with a family during the summer vacation. Winston rebelled immediately, arguing that he did not want to ruin his holiday staying `with some horrid French family'. In the end Lady Randolph gave up. She contented herself with entrusting her son to a `French tutor' from Cambridge, who coached him four days a week, while the teenager promised to `re chauer' [sic] his French. The blow, however, fell at the end of the year. It was decided to send Winston to France for four weeks during the Christmas holiday. In spite of
`Churchill and France', in Churchill, ed. R. Blake and W. R. Louis (Oxford, 1996), pp. 4155; D. Dilks, `Churchill et la France: une aaire de coeur', Lecture at the British Embassy, Paris, 12 Nov. 1998. 4 R. S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill, i: Youth (1967), pt. 2, p. 143, Letter 8 Oct. 1887. 5 Letters dated 20 Nov. 1887 and 11 Dec. 1888 to Lady Randolph Churchill (ibid., pp. 149, 175).
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outbursts of lamentation and despair (`I beg and Pray that you will not send me to a vile, nasty, fusty, beastly ``French Family'' '),6 Lady Randolph this time remained inexible and Winston landed at Dieppe on 22 December. He judged the railway travel `tre s incommode' and took lodgings in Versailles, where he was immediately enthralled by the number of the military cuirassiers, chasseurs, gunners (in all a 6,000-strong garrison). It was his rst contact with the French army and the beginning of a lasting admiration. He rode horses, visited Paris, went to the theatre, and was cared for by two of Lady Randolph's admirers, the marquis de Breteuil and Baron Hirsch. The result was that he was delighted with his holidays in France, although in his opinion `the food is very queer'.7 Churchill was to enjoy speaking French throughout his life. Indeed he mastered the language much better than is commonly appreciated, even if his own use of it was rather peculiar. (As for Clementine Churchill, she had a rst-class knowledge of French, which she had taught for some time during her impecunious youth.) With regard to Winston, his rich vocabulary, his gift for colourful expressions, his mastery of rhetoric and his strong accent all contributed to the winning of French hearts.8 The most famous of Churchill's speeches is probably the one addressed to `le peuple franc ais' that he delivered in French on 21 October 1940 in a B.B.C. broadcast, while Britain was still under the threat of invasion:
Franc ais! Pendant plus de trente ans, en temps de paix comme en temps de guerre, j'ai marche avec vous et je marche encore avec vous aujourd'hui, sur la meme route . . . Maintenant nous attendons l'invasion promise de longue date. Les poissons aussi . . . N'oubliez pas que nous ne nous arre terons jamais, que nous ne nous lasserons jamais, que jamais nous ne ce derons et que notre peuple et notre Empire tout entier se sont voue s a la ta che de gue rir et de laver l'Europe de la pestilence nazie et de sauver le monde d'une nouvelle barbarie . . . Allons, bonne nuit; dormez bien, rassemblez vos forces pour l'aube car l'aube viendra. Elle se le vera, brillante pour les braves, douce pour les de les qui auront souert, glorieuse sur les tombeaux des he ros. Vive la France!9

A little known episode in 1942 testies to Churchill's command of French. Early in the year the prime minister summoned General de Gaulle in order to vent his anger about the Free French policy, especially the taking over of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon in spite of warnings from London and Washington. Immediately Churchill started bombarding de Gaulle with scathing rebukes. As he grew more and more furious, his tone became so brutal and so
Letter from Winston Churchill to Lady Randolph Churchill, mid Nov. 1891 (ibid., p. 287). See the letters exchanged between Winston and his mother, Dec. 1891Jan. 1892 (ibid., pp. 28697). 8 On one memorable occasion in 1914, Winston was so proud of his magnicent dress as Elder Brother of Trinity House that he said to a stunned French general: `Je suis oune fraire ehnay de la Trinitay' (quoted in H. M. Pelling, Winston Churchill (1974), p. 183, relying on I. M. Poore, Recollections of an Admiral's Wife, 190316 (1916) ). 9 W. S. Churchill, L'Entre e en Lutte: Discours de Guerre (1943), pp. 3457.
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oensive that the interpreter, the diplomat Frank Roberts, attempted to mollify the terms used by the prime minister. Straightaway, however, Churchill turned to his interpreter telling him curtly: `You have no right to modify what I said. I order you to translate word for word'.10 At the same time Winston was an expert on and connoisseur of French culture. He admired France's brilliance in the arts and letters, her contribution to the ideals of enlightenment, liberty and democracy. Moreover he was captivated by the traditions which lent the country a specic mark, avour and charm. In his memoirs Lord Moran related how, during a dinner at Yalta on 5 February 1945, as the talk reverted to the granting to France of an occupation zone in Germany, Stalin who scorned France and measured countries according to the number of military divisions had described it as a country without an army, to be ranked below Yugoslavia. Later, when alone with his physician, Churchill let loose his indignation: `Do you suppose Stalin reads books? He talks of France as a country without a past. Does he not know her history?'. Moran commented: `Winston loves France like a woman. When Stalin said he did not know what France had done for civilization, he felt bewildered. In Winston's eyes France is civilization'.11 History, his favourite province, had taught Churchill from his youth how much the French and British pasts were intermingled through rivalries, wars and sometimes alliances. He became acquainted very early with the great neighbour's fate. The boy was only eight when he visited Paris for the rst time in the company of his father. As he recalled sixty-three years later in a speech delivered at Metz:
It was the summer of 1883. We drove together through the Place de la Concorde. Being an observant child I noticed that one of the monuments was covered with wreaths and crepe and I at once asked him why. He replied: ``These are monuments of the Provinces of France. Two of them, Alsace and Lorraine, have been taken from France by the Germans in the last war. The French are very unhappy about it and hope some day to get them back''. I remember quite distinctly thinking to myself ``I hope they will get them back''.12

It was not only that Churchill's knowledge of French history was matchless, but that he was fascinated by the turns of fortune it exhibited: the end of French domination in Europe under Louis XIV, thanks to the military genius of Winston's glorious ancestor, John Churchill, and the springing up of English power the beginning of Albion's success story. One cannot help quoting here the famous page in the Life of Marlborough, where Winston in magnicent style a kind of triumphant paean celebrated the downfall of the Sun King and the rise of Britain on the European scene:

10 Sir Frank Roberts's testimony to the author, 5 April 1995. For a more detailed account of the episode, see F. Be darida, Churchill (Paris, 1999), p. 381. 11 Lord Moran, Winston Churchill: the Struggle for Survival, 194065 (1966), p. 224. 12 See M. Gilbert, `Never Despair': Winston S. Churchill, 194565 (1988), p. 247.

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If anyone in 1672 computed the relative forces of France and England, he could only feel that no contest was possible; and the apparent weakness and humiliation of the pensioner island was aggravated by the feeble, divided condition of Europe. No dreamer, however romantic, however remote his dreams from reason, could have foreseen a surely approaching day when, by the formation of mighty coalitions and across the struggles of a generation, the noble colossus of France would lie prostrate in the dust, while the small island, beginning to gather to itself the empires of India and America, stripping France and Holland of their colonial possessions, would emerge victorious, mistress of the Mediterranean, the Narrow Seas, and the oceans. Aye, and carry forward with her, intact and enshrined, all that peculiar structure of law and liberty, all her own inheritance of learning and letters, which are to-day the treasures of the most powerful family in the human race.13

In conclusion, for Churchill, if France was not `la grande nation', she was a great nation. In order to understand how Churchill sympathized with and became attached to France to such a degree, three components of his personality have to be taken into account: the statesman, the soldier and the painter (one should mention that he knew the country thoroughly according to Martin Gilbert, in 1939 he had already crossed the Channel more than 100 times). This article will rstly consider the statesman. With his wide historical grasp and his long political experience, Churchill shrewdly distinguished two Frances, divided and frequently conicting through their heritage and their values, but he shared the same respect for both of them. On the one hand, there was a France of liberty, on the other a France of delity a France of the Revolution and a France of tradition. One was the homeland of the Enlightenment and free thought, the other of Christianity and faith. To illustrate his analysis, Winston picked up two symbolic gures which he associated in a talented diptych: hence the parallel between Clemenceau and Foch drawn with insight in Great Contemporaries, a volume of essays published in 1937:
The truth is that Clemenceau embodied and expressed France. As much as any single human being, miraculously magnied, 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, before it was overtaken by the squalid butcheries of the Terrorists. He represented the French people risen against tyrants tyrants of the mind, tyrants of the soul, tyrants of the body; foreign tyrants, domestic tyrants, swindlers, humbugs, grafters, traitors, invaders, defeatists all lay within the bound of the Tiger; and against them the Tiger waged inexorable war. Anti-clerical, anti-monarchist, antiCommunist, anti-German, in all this he represented the dominant spirit of France. There was another mood and another France. It was the France of Foch ancient,
13

W. S. Churchill, Marlborough: his Life and Times (4 vols., 19338), i. 82.

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aristocratic; the France whose grace and culture, whose etiquette and ceremonial has bestowed its gifts around the world. There was the France of chivalry, the France of Versailles, and above all, the France of Joan of Arc. It was this secondary and submerged national personality that Foch recalled. In the combination of these two men during the last year of the War, the French people found in their service all the glories and the vital essences of Gaul. These two men embodied respectively their ancient and their modern history. Between the twain there owed the blood-river of the Revolution. Between them towered the barriers which Christianity raises against Agnosticism. But when they gazed upon the inscription on the golden statue of Joan of Arc: ``La pitie qu'elle avait pour le royaume de France'' and saw gleaming the Maid's uplifted sword, their two hearts beat as one. The French have a dual nature in a degree not possessed by any other great people.14

As one can see, with hindsight Churchill's analysis appears as sagacious as it is judicious. This dual visage of the `une et indivisible' French Republic fascinated him throughout his life. Basically Churchill was, and remained, a soldier to the core. No wonder then that he identied France with her military, past and present. From the early days of the entente cordiale he was an admirer of the French army. In spite of the 1940 defeat, he retained a soft spot for the `poilus'. For him, the successes of Bir Hakeim and the Garigliano erased the shame of the deba cle. Deeply imprinted in his mind were the memories of past victories, from Bouvines to Verdun. Let us also remember that for a long period of time his strategy was based upon the combination of the might of the Royal Navy and the French army. In the speech delivered at Metz on 14 July 1946, mentioned above, he evoked, with a shade of thrill, his vivid memory of the French manuvres to which he had been invited in 1907:
I was already a youthful Minister of the Crown. In those days the soldiers wore blue tunics and red trousers and many of the movements were still in close order. When I saw, at the climax of the manuvres, the great masses of French infantry storming the position, while the bands played the Marseillaise, I felt that by those valiant bayonets the rights of man had been gained and that by them these rights and also the liberties of Europe would be faithfully guarded.15

When Hitler's rise started threatening the European scene, Churchill railed endlessly against MacDonald's blunder in thinking that the main danger for peace was French military power, instead of opening his eyes towards German ambitions. It was at this time that Winston exclaimed in the house of commons, `Thank God for the French army!', to the strong displeasure of many M.P.s. In September 1936, when he was more isolated than ever, he attended the French manuvres and visited the Maginot line, paying compliments to the French military leaders, his friend General Georges and the commander-in-chief, General Gamelin. In 1939 he travelled
14 15

W. S. Churchill, Great Contemporaries (1st edn., 1937), pp. 2367. Gilbert, Never Despair, p. 247.

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to Paris for the 14 July parade and again inspected the Maginot line, including the most secret underground equipment. It was only after Sedan, when he paid a dramatic visit to Paris on 16 May 1940, that he measured the dimensions of the French collapse and of the military disaster. If, after Churchill the soldier, we turn to Churchill the painter, France meant for him enchanting places and landscapes. This was the case not only for Paris, with its imposing monuments, or for the famous historical battleelds scattered from Flanders to Lorraine, but also for the small towns and villages with their ancestral way of life, their squares and their fountains, their open-air markets and their playgrounds. France also meant glistening colours, carefully cultivated elds and vineyards, long straight roads lined with plane trees, the ocean and the Mediterranean. It was indeed the South which held the most allure for him: Provence and the Cote d'Azur, where he stayed so often, were the main places for his painting (Clementine always hated le Midi),16 even if he did also paint many canvasses of the Basque country or of the Sorrento-Amal peninsula in Italy or of the Atlas mountains in Morocco. For years Winston toyed with the idea of buying a mansion overlooking the Mediterranean in that corner of France where a part of his heart lay, but this `villa des re ves' never materialized. Nevertheless the Cote d'Azur, from Cannes to Menton, was, until his last years, his favourite abode, rivalled only by the Aix-en-Provence region for which he had a special liking and where he used to meet up from time to time with his friend and contributor William Deakin. The time has now come to examine, with a close and critical mind, the ways in which action and aection combined or conicted when Churchill was in power. Was realpolitik in harmony with emotion? In other words, how can we disentangle representation and reality? Here three stages have to be distinguished: 191132, 193345 and 194555. The rst stage began with the Agadir crisis in the summer of 1911 and the appointment of Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty. For him it was a metamorphosis, a turning point in his life. His way of thinking, his strategy and his career were completely overturned. Up to that point he had supported a line of appeasement and retrenchment, even irting one or twice with the idea of a rapprochement with Germany, but thereafter he became a convert to the motto `Si vis pacem, para bellum': the very symbol of a passionate and uncompromising patriot. During the Agadir crisis Churchill wholeheartedly backed France against William II's claims, to the point of writing to Lloyd George that Britain should at all costs prevent France `from being trampled down and looted by the Prussian junkers'.17 At the same time he wrote a premonitory memorandum for the Committee of Imperial Defence in which he described how
16 A. Montague Browne, Long Sunset: Memoirs of Winston Churchill's Last Private Secretary (1995), p. 147. 17 Letter from Winston Churchill to David Lloyd George, 31 Aug. 1911 (quoted in R. S. Churchill, Young Statesman: Winston Churchill, 190014 (1967), p. 531).

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operations would unfold on the continent in the event of a major European war involving, on one side, the Central Powers Germany and Austria on the other side the Triple Entente countries France, Britain and Russia. In this document, in which he argued that the key battle would take place between the German and French armies, Churchill forecast that the German forces would invade Belgium and cross the Meuse twenty days after the declaration of war, but that a change in fortunes forty days into the war would restore France's chances and that she could exploit this opportunity for winning a decisive battle.18 During the Great War the entente cordiale strengthened. On 10 September 1914 Churchill was the rst cabinet minister to cross the Channel. In France he inspected the defences around Dunkirk and sent the Royal Marines there. Some weeks later, during the rst Ypres battle, at the time of the `course a la mer', he put all his energies into stimulating the ghting spirit. After the Dardanelles asco, Winston decided to join the army in order to go and ght on the front line in France, serving rst with the Grenadier Guards in Artois, then in the trenches in Flanders, on the Franco-Belgian border, as a lieutenant-colonel commanding a battalion of Scots Fusiliers. There, his stylishness manifested itself in the wearing of a French infantry helmet, instead of a Tommies' helmet. In 191718, after his appointment as Minister of Munitions, he worked in close co-operation with his French counterpart, Louis Loucheur, taking every possible opportunity to travel to France (he even managed to have at his disposal a cha teau near Saint-Omer). In March 1918 Churchill was lucky enough to be on the spot at the Allied headquarters at the time of the dramatic exchanges between the British and French high commands, following the success of the German oensive and the opening of a large breach in the Allied front. In contrast he played no part in the peace negotiations, for he was then completely taken up with his activities as Secretary of State for War and his obsession with an intervention in Russia. Conversely, during the period when Churchill was Secretary of State for the Colonies (19212), Franco-British rivalry and quarrels ourished, especially in the Middle East, a region looked upon from London as a British preserve. In these years Winston's francophilia did not hold out against imperial interests, which for him always came rst. Consequently the entente cordiale deteriorated a great deal: a situation which did not change much during the twenties, although Winston did spend several months in Cannes at the luxurious villa Re ve d'Or (not counting several visits to Mimizan, Saint-Jean de Luz and Cap d'Ail). However, it was in Paris in 1921 that the rst exhibition of his paintings was held, under the pseudonym of Charles Morin. In 1933 the year Hitler seized power a new phase began, characterized by major changes. The extent to which Churchill relied on the French army
18 `Military aspects of the continental problem', 13 Aug. 1911 (the document is reproduced in full in W. S. Churchill, The World Crisis (6 vols., 192331), i. 604).

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has been outlined above. He depended on it rstly to hold in check Nazi diplomacy and its claims, and secondly, with the darkening of the international arena, and in case of war, to ght the Wehrmacht in alliance with the Royal Navy and the R.A.F. From a political point of view, Winston vigorously advocated an entente between the two great democracies opposing tyranny. For that reason he came to Paris in September 1936 to deliver an outstanding lecture at the The a tre des Ambassadeurs where he celebrated the principles of liberty and democracy and asserted that Britain and France, two countries faithful to these ideals, `should stand shoulder to shoulder against aggression'.19 This was a theme that would return constantly in Churchill's rhetoric. In 1940, the new prime minister, whatever his amazement and grief at the sight of the French deba cle and withdrawal from the common struggle (such an eventuality had never been considered either by him or by the chiefs of sta), remained faithful to the alliance against all the odds in spite of Oran and Dakar, in spite of the secret talks with Vichy emissaries. Churchill's determination to be true remained unbroken, as testied by the famous speech, in French, of 24 October 1940 quoted above. This intention was also revealed in the speech delivered on 10 November 1942 at the banquet for Lord Mayor's Day, in which Churchill eloquently expressed his hopes for France within the future Europe. Evoking the French suerings under the enemy's heel, he asked this crucial question: was France, a country endowed with such a glorious history, bound to sink into the ocean of the past or would she recover and win back her rank within the `European family'? For Winston the answer was unequivocal: `I have faith in the revival of France'. And he concluded that his only goal was to see a strong and free France, surrounded by her empire and reunited with Alsace-Lorraine.20 But behind the conventional warm language of the public speeches, inevitably inuenced by circumstance, we have to examine thoroughly ocial papers and practical action. There is one highly signicant document, a condential memorandum that Churchill addressed to Roosevelt in May 1943, in which he expounded his plans for the future. After emphasizing the necessity of a `fraternal association' between Britain and the United States (the `special relationship'), he outlined the conguration that should be set up after the war, comprising a `Supreme World Council' formed by the `Big Three' U.S.A., Britain, U.S.S.R. and three `Regional Councils' (Europe, America and the Pacic). With regard to Europe, Winston advised the rebuilding of `a strong France, whatever we might think about French deserts or the probable diculty of achieving our purpose'. It is easy to read between the lines and see strong reservations about France (with de Gaulle's shadow perhaps in the background), but the crux of the matter probably lies in one sentence: `The prospect of having no strong country on the map between
The lecture was given on 24 Sept. 1936 (Rhodes James, vi. 578890). W. S. Churchill, The End of the Beginning: War Speeches Made During 1942, comp. C. Eade (1943), Speech of 10 Nov. 1942.
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England and Russia is not attractive'.21 Others would say soon: between the white plains of Russia and the white clis of Dover. As for Churchill's behaviour and actions, there is no doubt that at Yalta he made every possible eort to restore France among the leading European countries. He felt that, without the counterweight of a strong France on the continent, relations with the Soviet Union would be still more unsure. This is why he `fought like a lion' in order that France should be given a zone of occupation in Germany and a seat at the Allied Control Council in Berlin an originally unplanned move. Some time later, when the U.N.O. was being framed, British pressure played a major role in securing for France one of the ve permanent seats on the Security Council. Among other friendly gestures, one may mention the order given by the prime minister to the R.A.F. in the spring of 1944 to minimize the bombing of French cities and choose the targets very carefully, as he had received several reports about the suerings of the civilian population.22 The nearer to victory, the more Churchill became anxious about the state of Europe, particularly when American troops had departed and Britain would remain alone facing the Russian empire. He believed that no stability could exist in Europe if France was not united and powerful. In this he concurred with Eden's belief that France was a `geographical necessity'. During the last phase of Churchill's career 194555, with six years in opposition, four in power his attitude towards France was directed by two conicting paradigms. The rst was the `special relationship', which Winston desperately attempted to cultivate. This was one of the two aims of the famous Fulton speech of March 1946. It is a mistake to interpret the speech only as a warning against the `iron curtain' and a denunciation of Soviet tyranny, for the Anglo-American alliance was an equally important concern. On another plane, it should be acknowledged that in the `three circles' theory which was to become axiomatic in British policy France was relegated to a secondary position; the entente between English-speaking countries came rst, then the empire and Commonwealth, while the third party Europe was composed merely of a conglomeration of undierentiated nations. But Churchill never managed to restore the special relationship, either with Truman (who was completely allergic to his rhetoric and grandiose visions) or with Eisenhower, on whom he had pinned his hopes following the companionship of the war years. Eisenhower, however, remained deaf to Winston's suggestions and preferred to rely, like Truman, on a system of multilateral relations within N.A.T.O. Secondly, Churchill was inuenced by concerns about the future of Europe, and France came to his mind rst. For Churchill the key to peace lay in reconciliation between France and Germany. At Zurich University, on
21 Churchill and Roosevelt: the Complete Correspondence, ed. W. F. Kimball (3 vols., 1984), ii. 2223, Letter of 28 May 1943. 22 See J. Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries, 193955 (2 vols., 1985), ii. 107, 27 April 1944; M. Gilbert, The Road to Victory (1986), p. 784, 30 May 1944.

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19 September 1946, he unveiled with emotion an imposing plan appealing for union. The remedy, he said, `is to re-create the European family . . . and provide it with a kind of structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe'. Then he went on:
I am going to say something that will astonish you. The rst step in the re-creation of a European family must be a partnership between France and Germany. In this way only can France recover the moral leadership of Europe. There can be no revival of Europe without a spiritually great France and a spiritually great Germany.23

In 1948, during the rst European Congress in the Hague, Churchill reiterated the same views, but when he returned to Downing Street in 1951, he very soon lost all interest in the European construction. While France and Germany became reconciled, British policy during the fties was to keep aloof from the continent and revel in `splendid isolation'. If on the whole Churchill is to be ranked among `les amis de la France', in spite of the many bones of contention, the French have maintained a reciprocal regard for him to this day. Certainly, one can mention venomous attacks, such as Alfred Fabre-Luce's lampoon, or preposterous grievances, as developed by Yves Rochas in a recent book.24 All in all, however, the image of Churchill in the French collective memory is a attering one. An indication of this high reputation is given by a public opinion poll carried out in 1990 on the occasion of the centenary of General de Gaulle's birth. Among the questions posed was one asking the respondents to draw up a list of the major gures of the twentieth century. Out of fteen names Churchill ranked third after de Gaulle and Kennedy, and before Gandhi, Hitler, Eisenhower and Roosevelt, leaving Lenin, Mao or Adenauer far behind.25 The conclusion is obvious: if Hitler, Stalin or Mao are in a relatively lowly position, and if Churchill is so aectionately considered and enjoys such a favourable image, the reason is that the French people remain grateful to the hero of 1940.

The Speeches of Winston Churchill, ed. D. Cannadine (1989), pp. 31013. A. E. A. Fabre-Luce, La Fume e d'un Cigare (Paris, 1949); Y. Rochas, 1940: Churchill et les Franc ais un Ete Fertile en Le gendes (Paris, 1998). 25 Institut Charles de Gaulle, De Gaulle en son Sie cle: Sondages et Enque tes d'Opinion (Paris, 1992), p. 26.
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