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Fighting a coalition war: the experience of the Free French soldier in the British 8th Army

p. 151-166

Résumé

In 1942 two Free French brigades joined the British 8th Army in Libya. This chapter will focus on the experiences of these French soldiers fighting a coalition war in the desert. In particular, it will try to assess how well integrated the Free French were in this British-led force. It will do so by examining several themes: the difficulties created by an alliance in which there was a gross imbalance of military power, French perceptions of the British and vice versa and the ways in which the Free French units maintained their own distinctive characteristics despite their dependence on the British for equipment and training. The study is mainly based on 8th Army censorship summaries of soldiers’ letters and liaison officers’ reports.

Remerciements

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 703854.


Extrait

1In June 1940, after Germany had defeated the French and British armies, France led by Marshal Philippe Pétain negotiated an armistice with Adolf Hitler. Pétain accepted German occupation of the north and west of France and moved his government to the town of Vichy. From London General Charles de Gaulle, a French army officer, called on French people to continue the war. Several thousand went to Britain to join his external resistance movement, the Free French forces. Two years later the Free French joined the British 8th Army in the Libyan desert. After victories during 1940 and 1941 in Italian South-East Libya and East Africa, on the one hand, and in Vichy’s Gabon and Levant, on the other hand, the Free French were finally confronting their main adversary, Germany. They found themselves serving in a British-led coalition composed of Britons, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, Indians, Poles, Czechoslovakians, Yugoslavians and Greeks. This chapter tries to assess how

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