REPEATED INSPIRATION

See Also: WINSTON CHURCHILL Gonging Trousers; RADIO B.B.C.; SECOND WORLD WAR

On 17 June 1940 Charles de Gaulle arrived in London.¹ Churchill offered the recently appointed junior minister of war an opportunity to broadcast to France on the B.B.C.. However, the Foreign Office was then in negotiations with Marshal Pétain's collaborationist Vichy regime. As a result, portions of the Cabinet were of the view that the brigadier-general should not be allowed the platform. On the following day de Gaulle made his L Appel du 18 Juin address. It took him less than three minutes to deliver its 400 words.² The speech played a crucial role in engendering the belief in France that one day the country would regain her freedom.

For many years there were two discrepancies that related to the broadcast. The first of these was that the text that was inscribed upon a wall of the De Gaulle Institute in Paris was different from the speech that the commander had delivered. The second one was that the soldier's memoirs referred to his having sat down in front of a microphone at Bush House at 6 p.m., yet his speech had been broadcast at 10 p.m..

A solution was proffered by the writer Jonathan Fenby in 2010. He argued that de Gaulle had delivered the address at 6 p.m. but that it had not been broadcast. Subsequently, the general had learnt of this and had returned to the building and made a second, live speech. He may not have wished it to be known that originally he had been censored.

Location: Bush House, Aldwych, WC2B 4PH (blue, purple)

The Foreign Office, King Charles Street, Whitehall, SW1A 2AH (blue, brown)

Website: www.charles-de-gaulle.org

¹. Between the wars de Gaulle had developed a reputation for being an intellectual soldier. He had written Vers l’Armée de Métier (Towards A Professional Army) (1932), a treatise on tank tactics. The volume had sold far better in Germany than it had in France. In 1945 a copy of de Gaulle's opus was found in Hitler's bunker. Approving annotations had been made to it.

². De Gaulle proved to be an adept radio performer. By 1944 he had developed a large listenership in France.

David Backhouse 2024