740.0011 European War 1939/26856½: Telegram
The Chargé in the United Kingdom ( Matthews ) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 1—11:05 a.m.]
1. Press discussion following the arrests7 by General Giraud in North Africa has served to emphasize with greater clarity the basic British policy with regard to France namely that British prestige requires that General de Gaulle be given and maintained in a position of political primacy both during the war and in any early transitory period following the liberation of continental France. The British Government accepts the President’s and the Department[’s] often enunciated policy that the people of France alone must choose their form of government. But this is accepted with the reservations that some French authority, in effect if not in name a provisional government, must reign in France from the time the Allies first arrive until conditions permit the establishment of that permanent Government and during this period it must be de Gaulle who exercises authority. I have been told by several sources, including a high British secret intelligence official in direct contact with France itself and an escaped French Officer who left the country only a fortnight ago, that the name of Giraud and our operations in Africa are firing the imagination of the people of France. But we must realize that the British Foreign Office will persist in its buildup of General de Gaulle and in its full support of his demands that all who bear the stamp of Vichy must be eliminated from the “unified” France for which they so loudly call. If de Gaulle is a “symbol” to the people of France, he is also a “symbol” to the British Government, a symbol of justification for its whole French policy since June 1940. British prestige requires that “the one Frenchman who stuck by us in the dark days of 1940” must be installed in France when the day of liberation comes, however fleeting his tenure may be and whatever the consequences for the people of France.
[Page 25]It was this policy which lay behind the Madagascar agreement.8 It was this policy which motivated the determination that Djibouti must join the Fighting French. It was this policy which caused the Foreign Office to oppose the combined effort of General Eisenhower, Admiral Cunningham9 and Darlan to bring over Godefroy’s10 Alexandria fleet to the North African authorities. It was this policy that made the Foreign Office so insistent that Macmillan or some other political officer of Cabinet rank be sent to Algiers without delay. And it is this policy which is behind the present campaign to emphasize Giraud as the military man and de Gaulle as the political leader. The diplomatic correspondent of the London Times MacDonald, who is closer to the Foreign Office than any other London journalist, has the following to say this morning:
“If anyone thought for a moment that Darlan’s murder would simplify affairs in North Africa he must have been given a sharp jolt towards reality yesterday. General Giraud as briefly reported in the later editions of the Times yesterday announced on Wednesday.11 that, convinced that other would-be assassins were preparing their weapons, he had acted first. He had arrested 12 Frenchmen. Four of them were police officials, two or three others were men who had helped the Allies before the landing, and some of the others were considered to be pro-Vichy to the British and apparently to the American peoples. The whole affair appears on first hearing to be wildly confusing. How is it that pro-Allied Frenchmen can be arrested? An American broadcaster from Algiers attempted an answer in remarkably frank terms. According to Reuters, Charles Collingwood of the Columbia Broadcasting System declared yesterday: There is an impression here that the fault of the present government in North Africa is that it is made up of pro-Vichy and anti-de Gaulle men. General Giraud said yesterday that he did not see many pro-Vichy men in power. Be that as it may, the impression still remains here; and acts like the arrest of a number of pro-Allied persons do not help to remove that impression. I have talked to a great many people about these arrests but I have heard no one blame Giraud. He is still held by all parties here to be an incorruptible soldier, a man who has dedicated himself to the task of defeating Germany. What worries people here is not Giraud but the men who are General Giraud’s government. That appears to be a fair summary of opinion in some sections in Algiers. Among other sections the habit of Vichy still persists and probably these sections are trying to increase their power now that the High Commissioner does not touch politics. The whole affair, still puzzling in some details increases the need for establishing agreement between all forces of France now ranged against the common enemy. Only after such agreement can a worthy and representative civilian authority be set up.”
The quotation from Collingwood’s broadcast appears in every London paper this morning and was given prominence by the British Broadcasting Company. Vernon Bartlett in this morning’s News Chronicle comments on Collingwood’s broadcast and says:
“There is no doubt that Giraud and de Gaulle hold each other in high esteem. They would gladly cooperate but they have three obstacles to overcome: one is this bitter hostility in North Africa to the revival or development of democracy in France. The second is the question who should take military and political precedence. The third which depends less upon them than upon us and the Americans, is that in some quarters de Gaulle is looked upon as the British candidate for power and Giraud as the candidate of the United States.”
I have given the Department this somewhat lengthy review of British policy not in any spirit of criticism but because I think it essential that it should have an accurate picture for its guidance. If we are prepared to go along with the British view that something resembling a de Gaulle government should be set up in Algiers, there will be no divergence between us and it probably can be brought about. If we are prepared to continue what seems to me to have been our past policy, of opposing the establishment of any French political authority which may even “temporarily” impose its political will upon the French people, there will be sharp differences which we must face. There will be efforts here to depict General Giraud as a high minded but politically innocent tool of “pro-Vichy and Fascist minded jobholders,” de Gaulle (who not so long ago was himself in many circles charged with having “dictatorship” or extreme right tendencies) will be displayed as the upholder of democracy, the hope of the front populaire elements, and the legitimate continuation of the third republic. Parenthetically the picture is causing considerable anxiety to such objective and dispassionate Frenchmen as Roger Cambon:12 They think the ground is being laid for civil war in France. Be that as it may one thing seems clear; if we do not intend to go along with the French policy of our British friends we must take prompt, firm and articulate steps so to indicate. Otherwise the dangers of a split between us, with all that it means for the future of the war and the peace, are obvious and serious.
I respectfully request that no summary of this telegram be inserted in the special telegram.
- For an account of the assassination of Adm. Jean François Darlan on December 24, 1942, and the arrest of several Frenchmen a few days later, see Henri Giraud, Un Seul But, La Victoire: Alger, 1942–1944 (Paris, 1949), pp. 69–81.↩
- For correspondence relating to British occupation of Madagascar, see Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. ii, pp. 687–708, passim.↩
- Adm. Sir Andrew Cunningham, British Naval Commander of Allied Expeditionary Force in North Africa.↩
- Vice Adm. René-Emile Godefroy, Commander of French fleet at Alexandria.↩
- December 30, 1942.↩
- Minister Plenipotentiary and Counsellor of the French Embassy in London, 1924–1940; in residence in London during World War II.↩