The Financial Link

Abstract

Until the union of the French in 1943 Free France did not have enough resources to become self-supporting. Even after its establishment in Algiers the French were dependent on the Anglo-Americans for the rearmament of their military forces, for emergency assistance in liberated areas, for trade, and in fact for almost all of their economic needs. One can safely assert that without this economic assistance in its early days Free France would not have survived and that even in its later days its position would have been precarious. When Charles de Gaulle arrived in London in June 1940, he was not only a man without a country, he was also a man without a salary — and one who had a wife and three children. He was able to become the head of a great movement because the British government, at least at the beginning, paid his salary. Most Free French volunteers were in the same position as de Gaulle, and, while most of them did not have families to support, they all needed to eat. For those Frenchmen who refused the armistice but who did not possess the connections, talents or linguistic skills to integrate into Anglo-American society, there was virtually no choice but to join Free France or to be deported to Vichy. By the same token, most of the colonies that rallied to de Gaulle were either in grave economic crisis or already economically linked to Britain, and they were offered important economic incentives in order to gain their adherence to de Gaulle. When Cordell Hull or William Leahy, or even the Vichy Government, referred to Free France as a British creation, they were basically correct.