March 12, 2015

Finest Hour 158, Spring 2013

Page 50

By Terry Reardon

Churchill and De Gaulle: The Greatest Allies, by Clifford Alain Stossel. Headcorn Instrumentation, softbound, illus., 340 pp. In and out of stock regularly, is available for as little as £6 from Amazon UK.

Self-publishing is quite acceptable, but a book should conform to normal standards. In this case there is no index and no notes; the reader has no reference information to judge the accuracy of the material.

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Besides numerous spelling errors such as a Canadian premier (correctly shown as Mackenzie King, but also MacKenzie-King and MacKenzie King), there are many errors of fact. For instance, “the defeat of Dunkirk caused the unseating of Neville Chamberlain,” (Chamberlain resigned 10 May 1940, the Dunkirk evacuation began on 26 May). The Russo-German non-aggression pact was signed in August 1939, not January 1941. The islands St Pierre et Miquelon were occupied by the Free French on 24 December 1941, not prior to the Dakar attack of 23 September 1941.

De Gaulle’s famous snub of Churchill, who wished to meet with him in Marrakesh in early January 1944, gets a curious treatment by the author, who writes: “The truth of the matter is that de Gaulle was very ready to go and see Churchill, but his duties made a small delay necessary.” Harold Macmillan, the British resident minister in North Africa, recorded: “I went to see de Gaulle to give him the Prime Minister’s urgent invitation. He received it without much apparent enthusiasm, as I expected; and added that he was very busy and could not, of course, alter his plans at such short notice. Moreover, the PM had lately gone out of his way to insult and thwart him.” Duff Cooper, ambassador to the Free French, wrote in his diary: “De Gaulle suspected that he was being summoned to the Prime Minister’s presence in a way which might injure his dignity.” Thus de Gaulle did not meet with Churchill, enabling the Frenchman to retain his sense of importance.  

This was a minor incident, but just seven months later, and not noted here, de Gaulle again refused to meet Churchill. Duff Cooper wrote: “…he said that he thought nothing would be gained by an interview….I did my best to persuade him to change his mind.” Duff did persuade de Gaulle to write Churchill saying that he did not wish to disturb his short time in Algiers between flights. Duff concluded: “It is incredibly stupid on his part—one of the most foolish things he has done.”

Mr. Stossel makes something of Churchill’s support for French interests: A place “was finally secured for France at the Teheran conference, almost as an afterthought,” he writes, “slid through by Churchill when everyone else was tired and unfocussed on the real meaning of his efforts on France’s behalf.” The Teheran Conference was between the Big Three; I can find no evidence in any source that France was represented in any capacity.

A non-fiction book should be fully documented in order to substantiate the information it contains. The reader can then decide whether or not he accepts the author’s conclusions. When the reader is left in the dark on sources, the reading exercise is pointless.

Save your money: If you wish to learn more about the Churchill-de Gaulle relationship, I recommend two standards: Churchill and De Gaulle by Francois Kersaudy, and Allies at War by Simon Berthon—not to mention the pages of Finest Hour, particularly the previous issue.

Mr. Reardon, a FH contributor, is the author of the recent book, Winston Churchill and Mackenzie King.