“Believe me, he speaks to you with knowledge and says that nothing is lost for France. The same means that defeated us can bring us a day of victory. Because France is not alone! He can form a block with the British Empire, which controls the sea and continues to fight. She, like England, can use the vast industry of the United States without restriction. The flame of resistance must not go out and go out! ”
This was what Charles de Gaulle said on June 18, 1940. It was only 14 days after the British and French armies had to evacuate themselves from the northern French Dunkirk, where the Germans were surrounded, at the last minute, with the help of many English volunteers and their small vessels. The future French president also spoke from English exile at a time when everything seemed lost after the Nazi lightning campaign in Europe.
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After the surrender of Prime Minister Philippe Petain, the French Republic fell into Hitler’s hands. General Charles de Gaulle then served as Under Secretary of the Ministry of Defense. Pétain, like him, was one of the veterans of the First World War and was one of those who held a protective hand over the young de Gaulle. For example, while he was working for him, de Gaulle wrote speeches to him.
After signing an armistice with the Germans, however, Pétain became the head of a collaborating government in Vichy, while the Nazis occupied the northern part of the country. De Gaulle did not want a truce, so he fled to London on June 15, when it became clear that Pétain wanted to reach an agreement with the Nazis. There he became the leader of the free French forces.
Three days later, he received special permission from Winston Churchill to broadcast a speech on the BBC, despite the British government’s objection that such a speech could provoke Pétain’s government’s efforts for a closer alliance with Germany. At the same time, he was not only close to Churchill with similar twists in their careers, when they returned to popularity in their own countries.
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Just about a month before de Gaulle, Churchill himself had to speak to his own people and support them in the face of the threat of Nazism. “I can promise you nothing but blood, toil, sweat and tears,” he said on May 13, 1940, in his speech after he became prime minister. He, too, opposed his country from submitting to Hitler’s demands and giving in to him.
His words are especially famous: “We will defend our island at any cost, we will fight on the beaches, we will fight in the fields, in the cities and in the hills, but we will never give up.” A month later, de Gaulle joined him. His position was somewhat easier because he could reassure his French listeners that she was not alone in the country’s struggle. In the fight against the Nazis, they were supported by Britain together with the United States, both economically and militarily.
The cooperation of both states was commemorated by their leaders in June this year on the eighty-year anniversary of the speech. French President Emmanuel Macron met with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London, but instead of a strategy against Germany, they worked together to combat the covid-19 pandemic and Britain’s future relations with the European Union after Brexit.
As in today’s fight against the global disease, de Gaulle had a long way to go 80 years ago. In his speech at the time, he reminded that it was not just the unfortunate territory of France, that it was a world war. He also called on those who wanted to fight the Germans to join him, so the Free France movement emerged.
He was demoted by the government in Vichy for this, later sentenced to death in absentia. However, the French believed the rebels. Churchill recognized him ten days later as the leader of the free French. This paved the way for France, then defeated, to become a victorious power.
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