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ABSTRACT
In July 1940, shortly after the fall of France, Winston Churchill insisted that the British high command organize immediately, in coordination with General Charles de Gaulle, strong forces of French exiles who wanted to continue the war against Germany. The British army's liaison mission to these Free French forces, named the ‘Spears Mission’ after its commander General Edward Spears, struggled to achieve this goal. In the Franco-British campaign to take Syria in 1941, the Free French fought not against Germans, but fellow Frenchmen of the Vichy garrison. Worse still, the British were unable to provide sufficient transport or artillery to their ally. However, in 1942 the 1st Free French Brigade joined the British Eighth Army in Libya. By now the Free French were one of the best equipped forces in the desert and performed outstandingly at the defence of Bir Hakeim. How does an army integrate foreign soldiers, overcoming the differences of language, culture, training and equipment? Taking the Free French forces in the Libyan campaign as a case study, this article will examine the problems resulting from Allied units serving under British command and how they were resolved. In particular, it will examine the work of the Spears Mission, which played an important role in Free French success in 1942. The liaison officers of the Spears Mission represented Free French needs and problems to the British high command, while also having responsibility for ensuring that the Free French followed British procedures and orders. Managing Franco-British military relations was a difficult task and sometimes the Mission was the victim of both sides’ frustration. Yet, this article will show that despite setbacks, or perhaps because of them, interallied military cooperation gradually improved during the 1942 Libyan campaign, which saw the first sustained large-scale deployment of Free French forces under British command.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Professor Guillaume Piketty for all his advice and help, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their comments on the first draft of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Institut National de l’Audiovisuel, Sir Edward Tomkins, interview by Pierre Haneuse, 25 August 2000, available from https://www.ina.fr/video/CPD04002927/sir-edward-tomkins-video.html (accessed 2 July 2017).
2. Ibid. See also Philpott, “The Benefit of Experience?,” 209–26.
3. See Imperial War Museum, 6938, diary of O. A. Archdale for May–June 1940; Reid, Last on the List, 26–7, 29–30, 47; Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, 148, 160; see report by Commandant Vautrin, French liaison officer, in Reynaud, Au coeur de la melée: 1930–1945, 551–3.
4. Vincent, Les Forces Françaises Libres en Afrique, 182.
5. See Johnston, The British Commonwealth and Victory, chs 14–16.
6. Quoted in Barr, Eisenhower’s Armies, 11.
7. Zamoyski, The Forgotten Few, 92.
8. See, for example, Jackson, The British Empire; Johnston, The British Commonwealth and Victory; Fennell, Combat and Morale in the North African Campaign; Fennell, Fighting the People’s War.
9. See for example, Zamoyski, The Forgotten Few; Brown, Airmen in Exile; Conway and Gotovitch, eds., Europe in Exile; Bennett and Latawski, eds., Exile Armies. On foreign integration in the British armed forces, see O’Connor, Irish Officers in the British Forces, ch. 5; O’Connor and Gutmann, “Under a Foreign Flag.”
10. See for example, Kersaudy, Churchill and De Gaulle; Crémieux-Brilhac, La France Libre; Albertelli, Les services secrets; Muracciole, Les Français Libres; Piketty, ed., Français en Résistance; Bennett, The RAF’s French Foreign Legion, 1940–45.
11. See the special issue guest-edited by Charlotte Faucher and Laure Humbert, “Beyond de Gaulle and Beyond London.”
12. Recent works have integrated the French into post-1942 Allied campaigns. See, for example, Le Gac, Vaincre sans gloire; Miot, “Sortir l’armée des ombres.”
13. Vincent, Les Forces Françaises Libres en Afrique; Comor, La 13e Demi-Brigade.
14. Jenkins, Churchill, 600.
15. National Archives of the United Kingdom (NA), Prime Minister’s Office (PREM), 3/43, Churchill to Chiefs-of-Staff, 12 July 1940.
16. For the terms of the agreement, see NA, Admiralty 116/4270.
17. Muracciole, Les Français Libres, 137, 148.
18. Clayton, “French Exile Armies 1940–44,” 21.
19. NA, War Cabinet Papers (CAB) 66/14/9, “Report on the Organisation of Allied Naval, Army and Air Contingents,” 14 December 1940.
20. This summary is derived mainly from Vincent, Les Forces Françaises Libres en Afrique.
21. Muracciole, Les Français Libres, 148.
22. NA, War Office (WO) 193/32, C. Lambert to Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces, 23 June 1941.
23. Diego Brosset gives a typical Free French view of Spears in his diary of July 1942, reproduced in Piketty, Français en résistance, 236. See also de Larminat, Chroniques Irreverencieuses, 217. For Spears’s early career, see Spears, Liaison, 1914; for his disenchantment with de Gaulle, see Spears, Fulfilment of a Mission, 133–7.
24. Service Historique de la Défense (SHD), GR 4 P 5, “Historique des F.F.L., Tome 4: Operations au Levant,” 172–4; Koenig, Bir-Hakeim, 125–6.
25. NA, WO 202/104, “Minutes of a meeting held at GHQ on 24 October 1941.”
26. Archives New Zealand (ANZ), R20108269, “Minutes of a conference held between Lt-Gen Holmes and Gen Koenig … to discuss the Training Policy of the Free French Bde.,” 28 December 1941.
27. Koenig, Bir-Hakeim, 120.
28. Koenig, Bir-Hakeim, 124.
29. NA, WO 201/971, Middle East Command to Eighth Army, 23 May 1942.
30. Spears, Fulfilment of a Mission, 48.
31. NA, WO 202/104, CGS [Chief of the General Staff, General Arthur Smith] to all British Military Missions, 28 February 1942.
32. SHD, GR 1 KT 199, “Mémoires du général Hucher,” 40.
33. SHD, GR 1 K 940, box 2, undated note by Paul Hucher, “Souvenir du travail avec les Britanniques” [Recollection of the work with the British].
34. De Larminat, Chroniques irreverencieuses, 337.
35. Ibid.
36. NA, WO 202/104, Knox to Archdale, 5 November 1941.
37. NA, WO 202/104, Knox to Archdale, 6 March 1942.
38. See General John Dill quoted in Bell, A Certain Eventuality, 197.
39. NA, WO 202/104, Knox to Spears, 5 December 1941.
40. Koenig, Bir-Hakeim, 400; Spears, Fulfilment of a Mission, 79.
41. NA, WO 202/104, Knox to Spears, 5 December 1941.
42. SHD, GR 1 KT 199, “Mémoires du général Hucher,” 43. See also NA, WO 202/105, Archdale to Knox, 21 January 1943.
43. SHD, GR 1 K 940, box 2, undated note by Paul Hucher, “Note sur le passage du Colonel Vautrin à la 1ère Division Française Libre.”
44. NA, WO 202/82, Report for March on liaison with Free French forces, Appendix A, Major M Garrick, “Monthly report by SLO FFF Syria and the Lebanon,” 2.
45. NA, WO 202/104, Knox to Archdale, 6 March 1942. See also https://northernbankwarmemorials.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/knox-robert-kyle-junior.html (accessed 8 March 2018).
46. SHD, GR 1 KT 199, “Mémoires du général Hucher,” 33.
47. Ibid. See also GR 1 KT 199, undated note by Paul Hucher, “Plan de l’étude des difficultés rencontrées dans le rééquipement de la 1re Brigade.”
48. NA, WO 202/104, Knox to Archdale, 7 May 1942.
49. NA, WO 202/104, Knox to Archdale, 15 January, 28 January, 5 February 1942, 2 March 1943 and 19 April 1943.
50. NA, WO 202/104, Knox to Archdale, 19 April 1943.
51. SHD, GR 1 KT 200, Journal of Lieutenant Brunet de Sairigné, 42; GR 1 KT 199, “Mémoires du général Hucher,” p. 43.
52. NA, WO 202/104, CGS to all British Military Missions, 28 February 1942.
53. Australian War Memorial, 54 883/2/97, Censorship Summary no. 21 (1–7 April 1942), 13.
54. SHD, GR 1 KT 199, “Mémoires du général Hucher,” 33.
55. NA, WO 202/104, Knox to Archdale, 5 February 1942.
56. Ibid.
57. SHD, GR 1 KT 199, Journal of General Hucher, 8.
58. Hucher was convinced that the Spears Mission’s attitude to requests from the Free French command was dependent on whether there was a ‘favourable or unfavourable wind blowing through British high politics, in other words the state of relations between Churchill and de Gaulle’: SHD, GR 1 KT 199, “Mémoires du général Hucher,” 40.
59. SHD, GR 11 P 6, Lieutenant-Colonel de Roux to General de Larminat, 13 January 1942. Quartermaster General Souques had previously warned de Larminat that British rations were unsuitable for French colonial troops: Archives Nationales, 72AJ/1919, Souques to de Larminat, 11 September 1941.
60. De Larminat, Chroniques Irreverencieuses, 284.
61. SHD, GR 1 KT 199, Journal of General Hucher, 10; Koenig, Bir-Hakeim, 117.
62. NA, WO 169/3981, “Report on B.M.4,” 4 July 1942.
63. SHD, GR 1 KT 199, Journal of General Hucher, 28.
64. NA, WO 202/82, Report for June on liaison with Free French forces, Annexure C, Koenig to de Larminat, 14 June 1942.
65. NA, WO 202/82, Report for June, Annexure B, Snead-Cox to Knox, 14 June 1942.
66. SHD, GR 1 KT 199, “Mémoires du général Hucher,” 41–2; NA, WO 202/104, Knox to Archdale, 17 July 1942.
67. Koenig, Bir-Hakeim, 120.
68. See NA, WO 202/82, Report for May, Appendices E and F: regarding supply accounting, liaison officer Captain D Fitch remarked that ‘the first difficulty that jumps to my mind is the mentality of the Groupe d’Exploitation personnel (described by Lt.Col. Bouton as “illiterate Armenians”)’. Moreover, Vincent asserts that the Free French used to deliberately inflate their equipment demands, see Vincent, Les Forces Françaises Libres en Afrique, 50.
69. NA, WO 202/82, Report for June, Annexure A, undated memorandum by Colonel Knox, p. 2.
70. Ibid.
71. NA, WO 202/82, Report for June, Annexure F, Colonel Sherston, “Notes of a discussion at Beirut on 19 June 1942.”
72. NA, WO 202/82, Report for July, section 1.
73. NA, WO 202/82, Report for July, Appendix C, “2 Bde. Gp.,” 2.
74. NA, WO 202/82, Report for June, Annexure E, Knox to Spears, 17 June 1942.
75. NA, WO 202/104, Knox to Archdale, 10 August 1942.
76. NA, WO 202/82, Report for July, Section VI.
77. SHD, GR 1 KT 199, “Mémoires du général Hucher,” 39.
78. ANZ, R20111110, Censorship Summary no. 43 (3–9 September 1942), 20.
79. See ANZ, R20111109, Censorship Summary no. 35 (8–14 July 1942), 28; Censorship Summary no. 46 (23–29 September 1942), 17.
80. NA, WO 201/1944, “The Technique of Liaison,” Appendix B, 2. Emphasis in original.
81. NA, WO 201/1944, “The Technique of Liaison,” Appendix A, General Harding, “Duties of BMMs with Allied Forces,” 10 September 1942. Emphasis in original.
82. NA, WO 202/82, Report for October 1942, Appendix B, Major Garrick, “Report by S.L.O., 2 F. French Bde.,” 2.
83. NA, WO 202/82, Report for June, Annexure E, Knox to Spears, 17 June 1942.
84. NA, WO 202/104, Knox to Archdale, 2 March 1943.
85. NA, WO 202/82, Report for August 1942, Appendix I, “Report by Royal Corps of Signals Liaison Officer,” 1–2, 6–7 and Report for September 1942, Appendix B, “Monthly Report on F.F. Signals,” 2.
86. NA, WO 202/82, Report for March 1942, section 2. See also reports from April to August 1942.
87. NA, WO 202/104, Knox to Archdale, 10 December 1941.
88. SHD, GR 1 KT 199, “Mémoires du général Hucher,” 36, 40.
89. SHD, GR 1 KT 199, “Mémoires du général Hucher,” 39.
90. NA, WO 202/82, Report for September 1942, Appendix C, Colonel Knox, “Note on meeting between Gen Montgomery and Gen de Larminat on 19 Sept 42.” See also WO 202/104, Knox to Archdale, 8 June 1942; Koenig, Bir-Hakeim, 398–401.
91. NA, WO 201/2196, cable, “Mideast” to “Trooper,” 5 August 1942; WO 201/1579, Captain GF Hatch, Report on the Royal Yugoslav Forces in the Middle East, 19 August 1942; figure for Polish troops calculated from WO 169/3981, Captain Quintin Hogg, Report on the 2nd Polish Carpathian Brigade, 29 June 1942 and WO 201/2196, Major Kirkwood to Colonel Sherston, 29 June 1942, Appendix A. The figure excludes 20,000 former POWs newly arrived in Iran from Russia.
92. NA, WO 201/1954, Major HM Robinson, 211 British Military Mission report for July 1943, Appendix D.
93. NA, WO 201/2196, “Strengths Free French Units, Egypt and Western Desert,” 29 June 1942; figure for the Levant is from WO 202/82, Report for June on liaison with Free French forces, Annexure B, 28 June 1942.
94. NA, WO 201/1395, General Pownall to General Anders, 30 April 1942.
95. As early as mid-November 1939, Lieutenant Jamet remarked in his diary that “Anglophobia seems to be almost universal in the French army.” This was followed in late May by recriminations between British and French generals as the Allied strategy collapsed: Jamet, Carnets de Déroute, 44; Jackson, The Fall of France, 60–97.
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Steven O’Connor
Steven O’Connor is a maître de conférences en civilisation britannique (lecturer in British history and institutions) at Sorbonne University, Paris, France. His article is based on research carried out during his Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship at Sciences Po’s Centre for History, Paris from 2016 to 2018. He has a PhD from University College Dublin and has previously published a monograph on Irish Officers in the British Forces, 1922–45 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).