740.0011 European War 1939/3545½: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 6—9:25 a.m.]
1047. Personal for the President. Reynaud was enormously pleased by his conversation with you on the telephone this evening. As he told you the fighting is going well. The French infantry have held all the German attacks in spite of German superiority in material and especially in planes. I had a long talk with Reynaud this afternoon in the course of which he said to me that he had sent this morning the stiffest note that he could compose to Winston Churchill on the subject of the withdrawal of the British pursuit planes from France.
He added that a number of British bombardment planes were still operating in France but the British had withdrawn their entire pursuit force. This made it easy for the German bombers to drop as many bombs as they could carry on the French troops.
Reynaud said that he considered it utterly shocking that the British should withdraw these planes and added that Churchill gave as an excuse the conviction that British pursuit planes must be based on British bases, that it was unwise to base them on French flying fields and that since they could not operate in the present battle except from French flying fields they should not operate at all.
Reynaud was expecting a reply from Churchill to be delivered shortly after I left him tonight. He said to me, before I left, that if Churchill’s reply should be in the negative he would attack Churchill tomorrow as violently as he could. Either the British were allies or they were not. If they were allies, they could not, with honor, withdraw their planes from the crucial battle of the war any more than King Leopold with honor could withdraw his soldiers.
Reynaud also told me that he had decided that he must eliminate Daladier from the Government since Daladier was becoming the scapegoat for the difficulties of the French Army at the outbreak of the war.
Reynaud asserted that Bérenger, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate, had called on him this morning to say that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would refuse any longer to receive Daladier.
Reynaud added that he intended to keep both the portfolio of Foreign Affairs and the portfolio of War. He intended to direct the Ministry for Foreign Affairs himself and to let General de Gaulle run the Ministry of War.
[Page 241]Two weeks ago this General was a Colonel in the tank corps. He showed great initiative and courage in stemming the German advance on Paris. One day last week when I was talking to Reynaud he called him in to introduce him to me. He is a young man who appears to be vigorous and intelligent.
I handed Reynaud myself this evening the latest recent information of the General Staff which indicated that the Italians have made a large concentration of troops at Cuneo and that they may attack the French Alps in the region of the Riviera.
If Italy should enter the war the French need for planes would be desperate especially if the British should continue to refuse to send their pursuit planes to France.
Personally I feel that the question of sending the British pursuit planes to participate in the present battle is the touchstone with regard to future British policy. If the British continue to refuse to send their planes I believe it indicates that they have decided not to give any further serious support to France in her terrible struggle against Germany (and potentially, Italy) but to give just enough to keep France fighting to the bitter end.
The determination of France to fight to the bitter end is absolute, as Reynaud said to me this evening.
If the British now refuse this essential support it will mean, I believe, that the British intend to conserve their fleet and air force and their army, and, either before a German attack on England or shortly afterwards, to install eight Fascist[s] trained under Oswald Mosley92 and accept vassalage to Hitler.
The consequences of such a British policy to the United States would be extraordinarily grave, and I believe that we cannot afford to permit the British to refuse to send their pursuit planes to France any more than the French can afford to permit it.
- Leader of the British Union of Fascists.↩