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00:00On Friday the 14th of June 1940, Adolf Hitler's armies marched into Paris.
00:08Barely a month since France had been stunned by a German invasion,
00:12it seemed the final defeat of the French government and its armed forces could only be days away.
00:18But in Britain, Winston Churchill, leader of France's key ally, still hoped to prevent this disaster.
00:26Churchill was prepared to do and say almost anything to keep the French in the war.
00:33In the next 48 hours, Churchill proved that was the case
00:37by backing an extraordinary plan to keep France in the fight against Hitler.
00:43Churchill's government declared,
00:44France and Great Britain shall no longer be two nations, but one Franco-British union.
00:50It's difficult to overstate the magnitude of the proposal.
00:54It's a moment of mind-boggling radicalism.
00:56It meant the end of separate British and French nationhood.
01:00Churchill's war cabinet also proclaimed,
01:03Every citizen of France will enjoy immediately citizenship of Great Britain.
01:07Every British subject will become a citizen of France.
01:11And you're saying, what the hell is going on here?
01:13Set at the darkest moment in the history of Western Europe,
01:16this is a story of shocks.
01:18Churchill is completely stunned.
01:21And devastating defeats.
01:23It's an almost immediate catastrophe for the French.
01:25It features moments of near despair.
01:29Churchill looked at him and he said, in three months, you and I will be dead.
01:33And it highlights bitter recrimination.
01:35And there was absolutely that feeling that the British had led France and the French army down.
01:40The film uncovers the role of a giant of French history in the astonishing attempt to unite Britain and France
01:47as one country.
01:49And it explains why leading French ministers preferred peace terms dictated by Hitler to a bond with Britain.
01:56Marshal Philippe Pétain described Franco-British Union as marriage to a corpse.
02:01It shows how the failure of the Union plan finally triggered the fall of France.
02:06A defeat which had consequences across the globe.
02:09It is undoubtedly a world historical event.
02:12You can draw a line between this story and the attack on Pearl Harbor.
02:15And this film shows why and how Winston Churchill tried to end Britain's history as an independent nation.
02:23This is a desperate act by a desperate ally.
02:37In Britain, the summer of 1940 is celebrated for the epic evacuation from Dunkirk
02:42and the heroics of the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain.
02:47But there is another overlooked story from those dramatic months.
02:52In 1940, Churchill proposed absolute union of France and Britain.
02:58Britain placed paramount importance on the alliance with France
03:01when the struggle against Hitler began in 1939.
03:05But while this alliance had defeated Germany in the Great War of 1914 to 18,
03:11the coalition had fractured in the following decades.
03:15Because the French really felt, with some justification,
03:18that the British were not really supporting them in their foreign policy aims.
03:23After suffering dreadful loss of life and terrible devastation in the Great War,
03:28the overriding French priority was protection against another invasion from the East.
03:34In 1930, an anxious French government began construction of a frontier barrier,
03:40140 kilometers long,
03:43a wall of steel, concrete and guns known as the Maginot Line.
03:48But France still looked at Britain to guarantee its security.
03:52And the British are unwilling to commit themselves
03:55because they don't want to be dragged into another war.
03:57So the relations between the two countries are tense and tetchy.
04:02But as the 1930s progressed,
04:04international events demanded more effective Anglo-French cooperation.
04:09Britain and France drew closer together
04:12because of the rise of Nazi Germany in Europe.
04:14And there's a lot of propaganda to talk about the alliance between the two countries.
04:19France maintains a standing army of more than half a million men.
04:23Five million more reservists can be called to the colours fully trained.
04:26A system of conscription for every able-bodied youth
04:29has given her one of the finest armies the world has ever known.
04:34There isn't, even then, great affection,
04:37but there is a sense, really, that, you know, a war is more than possible
04:42and they're going to need to fight it together.
04:44That need became a reality when Hitler invaded Poland on the 1st of September 1939.
04:51Two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany.
04:55But then, once both the French and the British are at war,
05:00the question is, what do they do?
05:01And the answer is not a huge amount.
05:05Newsreels hailed the arrival in France of Britain's modest expeditionary force.
05:11While drawing on lessons from the previous conflict,
05:14an Allied Supreme War Council was created.
05:18Members included the French Commander-in-Chief, General Gamelin,
05:22and politicians such as British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain,
05:26and First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill.
05:30But very few plans for the offensive are formulated during this time.
05:35Then, in March 1940, a new government took office in Paris.
05:40It was led by Paul Reynaud, a centre-right politician
05:43who had a long track record of opposing Hitler's aggression.
05:47Reynaud takes over with a huge amount of hope behind him.
05:51He's a man with real moral convictions, high intelligence,
05:56and one of the first things he wants to do
05:58is to make a statement about the British alliance.
06:04It was in London that the sixth meeting of the Supreme War Council was held.
06:07The outstanding feature of the meeting was the declaration which was issued
06:11to the effect that neither Britain nor France would negotiate for peace,
06:14except by mutual agreement.
06:19This public reaffirmation of Allied unity
06:22was made at the suggestion of the new French Premier.
06:26In a matter of weeks,
06:28after a botched military intervention in Norway
06:31and a consequent political crisis,
06:33Britain would also be under new leadership.
06:38Goodbye, Mr Chamberlain,
06:39and thanks for all you've tried to do.
06:41We welcome the new Prime Minister, Mr Churchill.
06:46In some ways, the British have turned to him as a last resort.
06:49It's a British ruling class.
06:50They know all of Churchill's problems.
06:52They know he's going to give them hell,
06:53but they know, you know,
06:55Winston's the only thing left.
06:57Then, in the early hours of the 10th of May,
06:59before Churchill had chaired his first cabinet meeting as Prime Minister,
07:03the war and the world changed.
07:08Without even bothering to declare war,
07:11the German armies launched a coordinated attack
07:13across the neutral borders of Luxembourg, Belgium and Holland,
07:18from the Maginot Line north to the sea.
07:21And, indeed, the Germans did attack in Holland and Belgium,
07:25so the French send in their best troops
07:27into Holland and Belgium to meet them,
07:28and they perform extremely well.
07:30But, of course, what the French don't realise
07:32is that the real thrust of the German invasion
07:35is going to come lower down through the forest of the Ardennes.
07:37It is a route that France knows is possible,
07:41because they've speculated about this in the interwar years,
07:44but they just don't believe
07:46that anybody will actually take that route.
07:48The German invasion caught the French completely flat-footed.
07:52It's an almost immediate catastrophe for the French.
07:55On the 13th of May,
07:57German troops struck into France,
08:00crossing the River Meuse
08:02and making a decisive breach in the French line.
08:06And, therefore, the way to Paris or wherever is open,
08:09and you could say it's all over in five days.
08:12This induced a tremendous lack of morale and confidence
08:17on the part of politicians in Paris.
08:20A dramatic, strategic, military-strategic error has taken place,
08:25and there's nothing, really, that can be done to remedy it.
08:29On his sixth day as prime minister,
08:32Churchill was still based here at Admiralty House
08:35when he was woken by terrible news.
08:38He takes a call from Paul Renault, the French prime minister,
08:43who says,
08:43The battle is lost.
08:44We are beaten.
08:46Churchill is completely stunned.
08:48This is the French army,
08:50arguably the strongest in Europe.
08:51The idea that it could have collapsed in five days
08:54is completely unimaginable.
08:56The day after the dramatic call from France's premier,
09:00Churchill flew to Paris to assess the situation for himself
09:03and confer with the French leadership.
09:07And in the conference,
09:08Churchill asks the French commander-in-chief,
09:11the hugely respected General Maurice Gamalat,
09:14Where is your strategic reserve?
09:16Gamalat replied,
09:18You're now aucun.
09:19There aren't any reserves.
09:21And Churchill later wrote
09:22that this was one of the greatest shocks of his life.
09:25Meanwhile, the speed and scale of the disaster
09:28was placing enormous strain on the relationship
09:31between French and British commanders.
09:33The cooperation between France and Britain is shaky,
09:37to say the least.
09:38Partly because they're dealing with unexpected events,
09:41partly just because kind of liaison between the two sides
09:44begins to break down a bit.
09:45The British become increasingly worried about the French,
09:49increasingly kind of dismissive of the French.
09:51This lack of understanding really fueled an anglophobia
09:56in the sections of French army.
09:59The French feel that the British haven't committed
10:02as much as they should have done.
10:04And there was absolutely that feeling
10:06that the British had led France and the French army down.
10:09The French felt, well, the British talk a good game
10:13and they say, we're with you,
10:14but in the end, how many divisions had the British there?
10:18When the Germans invade on the 10th of May, 1940,
10:22the British have 10 divisions in France,
10:25which is compared to, what, 120 French divisions,
10:28something like that.
10:29So it's a tiny contribution.
10:31French resentment only intensified at the end of May.
10:35With the German advance threatening
10:37to trap hundreds of thousands of Allied troops,
10:40Britain launched an evacuation operation,
10:43centred on the port and then the beaches of Dunkirk.
10:48The story of which is presented in heroic terms,
10:52the small boats and so on on the British side,
10:55was seen by the French as the British bravely running away.
11:00And as the phrase went,
11:03being ready to fight to the last French body.
11:06In fact, on the 29th of May,
11:09Churchill informed his commanders it was essential
11:13that French troops should be part of the evacuation,
11:16not least to avoid French recrimination.
11:19Within days, Churchill's desire
11:21to keep the French alliance alive
11:23would lead Britain's prime minister
11:25to send thousands of troops back across the Channel.
11:29and then to try and unite his country with France as one nation.
11:35In June 1940,
11:37with German tanks driving relentlessly across French territory,
11:41British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
11:43would make an extraordinary attempt
11:45to unite Britain and France as one country.
11:49The plan, backed by the War Cabinet in London,
11:52demonstrated Churchill's desperate hope to keep France in the war,
11:56but also reflected a lifelong passion.
11:59Churchill saw himself as a great admirer of France and of French culture.
12:04He believed in France both as a great power and as a civilizing force.
12:11Churchill's desperation and emotional commitment to France
12:15are so great that it leads him to make the cardinal strategic error,
12:20and that is to reinforce failure.
12:22Following the disastrous campaign against the invading Germans,
12:26the rescue of the British expeditionary force from Dunkirk
12:29had begun at the end of May.
12:31But on only the 2nd of June,
12:33Churchill told his generals,
12:35the BEF in France must immediately be reconstituted,
12:39otherwise France will not continue in the war.
12:42So, after Dunkirk, after the British army had miraculously been got out,
12:48Churchill sent another 200,000 men to France,
12:51very much against the wishes of the generals,
12:55very much against logic.
12:57Churchill wanted to show Britain's commitment to the French alliance,
13:01as he told General Alan Brooke,
13:03reluctant commander of the troops heading for France.
13:06He said to Brooke,
13:07we've got to make the French feel that we're supporting them.
13:11And Alan Brooke said, you can't make a corpse feel.
13:14As Churchill's generals had feared,
13:17the arrival of more British and Canadian troops in Western France
13:20did nothing to stem the German advance.
13:24The soldiers were soon brought back across the English Channel.
13:27And the reason we were able to get them back
13:29was that the Germans were preoccupied with finishing off the French army.
13:33On the 10th of June,
13:35the French government left Paris and headed south,
13:37along roads crowded with millions of refugees.
13:40The chaos on the nation's highways was mirrored by confusion
13:45within a deeply divided cabinet.
13:47The argument within the French government is,
13:50do we or do we not sign an armistice with Germany?
13:55An armistice would mean the French government accepting peace terms dictated by Hitler.
14:02So you have quite a strong contingent of individuals who favor an armistice.
14:06One of the two most significant members of this contingent
14:10was the new commander-in-chief of a French army reeling from the German assault.
14:16After General Gamelin was sacked following the catastrophic response to the German invasion,
14:22General Maxime Weygand took charge on the 20th of May.
14:27Weygand soon concluded that in the face of the armed might of Nazi Germany,
14:32both France and Britain were doomed to defeat.
14:35Weygand's famous phrase is,
14:37Britain will have its neck run like a chicken.
14:39But that's, you know, not an unrealistic thing to expect to happen at this point.
14:44The other major figure determined to end the fighting
14:47was a newly installed deputy prime minister
14:50and a great hero of the First World War,
14:5384-year-old Marshal Philippe Pétain.
14:57Renault appoints him thinking he'll be simply a kind of figurehead,
15:00that people will rally around him.
15:01And in practice, Pétain is unexpectedly interventionist.
15:05Saying that to continue to fight on would lead to the destruction of France
15:09and that to ask for an armistice was the only way to save France.
15:13Against this backdrop of defeatism, on the 11th of June,
15:17Churchill and his escort of 12 Spitfires flew to the town of Briar,
15:22temporary home of the retreating French government.
15:25Churchill put considerable amount of emphasis on personal diplomacy.
15:30He believed that he could make a decisive difference at key moments of history.
15:38Here in the Loire Valley,
15:40Churchill tried to convince Weygand and Pétain that victory was still possible.
15:45He said, this is not the decisive moment.
15:47The decisive moment will come when the Nazis throw their air force against Britain
15:52and we defeat them and we will win it all back for you again.
15:56They just replied, it's a joke.
16:00Back in London on the 12th of June,
16:04Churchill told his cabinet that Pétain was a dangerous man,
16:08adding he had always been a defeatist, even in the last war.
16:13Churchill reported that France was near the end of organised resistance,
16:17but anticipated a campaign of guerrilla warfare would soon begin.
16:22Churchill is always very fascinated by the idea of sort of insurgency with some kind of partisan warfare.
16:28Churchill expected that this guerrilla fighting would be led by a French general he called young and energetic,
16:35and who had made a very favourable impression.
16:39This general would shape the future of France for decades,
16:43but in June 1940, he would play a key role in the plan for Franco-British Union.
16:49His name was Charles de Gaulle.
16:53It's amazing to go back to June 1940 and realise at the beginning of this period,
16:57de Gaulle is actually a comparatively junior army officer,
17:00brought into the government as a very junior minister.
17:03And one of his tasks was to build up and keep up relations with the British.
17:11As the war went on,
17:13Churchill and de Gaulle's relationship would become extremely difficult.
17:18But when they first met in June 1940,
17:21Churchill responded to de Gaulle's defiant outlook.
17:24And according to Churchill,
17:27on one occasion he looked at de Gaulle,
17:29who'd arrived rather late for a meeting,
17:31and said, ah, l'homme du destin, the man of destiny.
17:35Within the French government, de Gaulle was not alone
17:39in arguing that the nation must fight on in some way.
17:42You have the French premier,
17:44Reynaud, who is not in favour of an armistice
17:47and really favours continuing the struggle perhaps from abroad.
17:52And if there's not an armistice,
17:53what's the alternative to an armistice?
17:55The alternative is to move the government
17:58and as much ammunition and material as you could rescue
18:01to North Africa, because North Africa is French.
18:03Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.
18:06Just because the French army had been defeated in mainland France,
18:10it was still possible for the government to retreat to North Africa
18:15and carry on the war from the French Empire.
18:19And that's certainly an option that Reynaud might want
18:23and that some of the people around him definitely do want.
18:26But, beset by crisis,
18:29Reynaud struggled to set out a clear policy for his government.
18:32Reynaud's very up and down in this period.
18:34He's pulled one way by one faction,
18:36another way by another faction.
18:38There's also the controversial role played by his mistress,
18:42Madame de Porte.
18:43And there's no doubt that Madame de Porte
18:45definitely is the patron of what you might call the defeatist faction.
18:48And she kept urging the Prime Minister to make peace,
18:53come what may,
18:54and certainly to avoid any kind of entanglement with the British.
18:59On his visits to meet with the French government,
19:02Churchill was also subjected to the pleading of Madame de Porte.
19:06Who was always rushing up to him when he arrived,
19:09saying, it is France who appeals to you.
19:11France is pleading to death.
19:12We must surrender.
19:13We must surrender.
19:14And as Churchill says after one of the meetings he has had with Reynaud,
19:18he says, well, what can I do?
19:19Every time I go and inspire him,
19:21this woman undoes all the good work I do at night.
19:25Despite the upheaval around the French Premier,
19:28Churchill still hoped to keep Britain's ally in the fight.
19:32On the 13th of June,
19:35Churchill flew to France for the second time in three days,
19:39landing on a heavily bombed airfield in the city of Tours,
19:42latest headquarters of Reynaud's administration,
19:46as it continued to flee south.
19:48And we have the French government tearing itself apart
19:51as to what to do next.
19:54When Churchill and Reynaud met in the city's prefecture,
19:58the French Prime Minister told his British counterpart
20:00he wanted to continue fighting whatever.
20:03And he still hoped for a dramatic intervention
20:06from President Roosevelt of the United States,
20:09following a last-ditch plea for American help.
20:13However, Reynaud then confirmed that several of his ministers
20:16wanted to end the war.
20:19There were very few moments in the war
20:21when Churchill's wonderful spirit nearly succumbed,
20:26and one of them was faced with the French collapse.
20:30As the British party headed back to London,
20:32Churchill surrendered to a moment of pessimism
20:35in conversation with his closest military adviser, General Ismay.
20:40And Ismay said something about what they might do
20:43in three months' time.
20:44And Churchill looked at him and he said,
20:46in three months, you and I will be dead.
20:48But even as Churchill spoke,
20:51a spectacular plan was underway in this London office.
20:55A plan intended to keep French forces in the fight against Hitler
21:00by uniting Britain and France as one nation.
21:04Sunday, the 16th of June, 1940,
21:07would be a day of remarkable political drama
21:10for the governments of Britain and France.
21:13That drama began in London in the early morning.
21:16With the backing of French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud,
21:20General Charles de Gaulle had travelled through the night
21:23to reach the British capital.
21:25And why is he in London?
21:26He's in London because Reynaud is still hoping
21:29there's not going to be an armistice.
21:31So Charles de Gaulle was in charge of coordinating
21:34the possibility for the French government to move to North Africa.
21:39De Gaulle had a lunch meeting scheduled with Churchill,
21:42but that meeting would take on a new purpose
21:45when two unexpected visitors arrived here at the General's Hotel.
21:50One was Charles Corbin, the French ambassador in London.
21:55The other was Jean Monnet.
21:57If anyone lit the fuse on Franco-British Union in June 1940,
22:02it was the French businessman and civil servant Jean Monnet.
22:06He had been in London since the beginning of the war
22:09in charge of economic coordination.
22:12And he becomes an extremely important figure in dealing with the economic side of the war
22:18for the Franco-British alliance.
22:20Based in a London office at the heart of government,
22:23Monet was chair of the Anglo-French Coordinating Committee,
22:27with an administrative rather than an overtly political role.
22:32But in this desperate crisis, Monet had political and military objectives.
22:37Monet is keen to keep the French in the fight.
22:40So when Jean Monnet and other French officials in London realise
22:44that there is a real danger that France is going to stop fighting,
22:48they come together and lobby British civil servants for this idea of a Franco-British union.
22:56On Friday the 14th of June, Monet and colleagues working here at Three Richmond Terrace
23:03produced a forthright memorandum.
23:06Writing on the day the Germans marched into Paris,
23:09they argued that to keep France fighting
23:12and to prevent a German invasion of the British mainland,
23:16there was an indispensable condition.
23:18Real unity of Great Britain and France,
23:21dramatically expressed and fully realised by the two peoples.
23:25There was a belief that the two powers would be stronger working together in this way
23:32than they would as separate empires.
23:34But according to Churchill's private secretary,
23:37when the idea reached the Prime Minister that Friday evening,
23:40his reaction was bored and critical.
23:43Jean Monnet had a plan to change that.
23:46One of the striking things about Monet is that he always manages to exercise influence,
23:51slightly behind the scenes.
23:53Monet and the French ambassador knew that Churchill admired de Gaulle.
23:58On that Sunday morning, they wanted the general to use his influence on Britain's sceptical Prime Minister.
24:05For them, it was only de Gaulle who could speak to Churchill
24:08and make the project turn into an actual declaration of a union.
24:12Today, Charles de Gaulle seems an unlikely advocate of uniting France and Britain.
24:19As a political and military leader in the fight against Nazi Germany and its allies,
24:24and as post-war president for more than a decade, de Gaulle was an uncompromising champion of French national identity.
24:32If ever a man in human history believes in French sovereignty, that man is Charles de Gaulle.
24:37But under the circumstances, he supports the idea of Franco-British Union.
24:41De Gaulle's not doing it because he believes it.
24:43He's doing it for tactical reasons.
24:44If it'll help Renault, I'm willing to do it.
24:46But even as de Gaulle assessed the Union proposal, the political situation confronting Renault had changed significantly.
24:55By now, a French government still fleeing the German advance had reached Bordeaux.
25:01Opponents of the embattled Prime Minister had become ever more strident in demanding an end to the war.
25:07And then an apparent compromise emerged, winning majority support in the French Council of Ministers.
25:14The government would not ask the Germans for an armistice to end the fighting.
25:18But through a third party, it would inquire what the terms of an armistice might be.
25:25Paul Renault believed this proposal amounted to asking the Germans for peace terms and seriously considered resigning.
25:32By this stage, Renault is completely played out.
25:35But he is emotionally exhausted. He has not been getting the support from his cabinet that he requires, nor necessarily
25:41that he deserves.
25:42But Renault felt honor-bound to tell the British that his cabinet had voted to approach the Germans.
25:48Given that only weeks earlier, France and Britain had pledged that neither would make a separate peace deal.
25:55And therefore, on the 15th of June, Renault formally requests the British government for permission to seek terms
26:04with the Germans.
26:06At 10.15am on Sunday, the 16th of June, the British War Cabinet convened to consider the French request.
26:14The British could have just said, no, no armistice.
26:17That would have been a perfectly logical British response.
26:19But in some ways, it's more useful for the British to actually try and leverage something out of the situation.
26:25And as they discussed how British interests might best be served, Churchill's ministers had a clear priority.
26:32They were desperate to ensure that the French fleet did not fall into the hands of the Nazis.
26:39And Churchill was prepared to go to any lengths to prevent that from happening.
26:42The French have the second largest fleet in Europe after the British.
26:46And if the British are going to survive the imminent threat of invasion,
26:51it is crucial that these ships do not fall into the hands of the Germans.
26:56When the June crisis was at its most intense, Churchill himself told the War Cabinet,
27:02the main point is to secure the French fleet.
27:06So when a telegram was sent from London on that Sunday morning, consenting to French talks with the Germans,
27:13the British government added a major condition.
27:16Our requirement is that the French fleet first be moved out of French waters into British waters
27:24so that it cannot fall into the hands of the Germans.
27:26When de Gaulle and Monet met Churchill for lunch in London's Pall Mall,
27:32the French fleet was soon under discussion.
27:35The two men told Churchill that to guarantee French warships would never fall under German control,
27:41France must keep fighting.
27:43And they convinced him that some incredibly dramatic gesture is needed if France is going to remain in the war.
27:50According to Churchill, de Gaulle then stated what that dramatic gesture should be.
27:56A proclamation of the indissoluble union of the French and British peoples.
28:02Churchill is highly sceptical of the idea of a Franco-British union,
28:06and yet he is persuaded of the psychological benefit of making it.
28:10The key thing about this, as Churchill says, is we need to do something dramatic flamboyant
28:15that will kind of revive Paul Reynaud's fighting spirit and revive his chances within his own government.
28:22Churchill was somebody who liked dramatic gestures, often not wanting to put too much detail on the bones,
28:29thinking that they would only need people to quibble and to put obstacles in the way.
28:34As the lunch in central London came to an end, the British government sent another telegram to Bordeaux.
28:42This withdrew the consent to French contact with the Germans, granted just hours earlier.
28:49And de Gaulle rang Reynaud and said something stupendous was about to happen.
28:56Reynaud explained he could delay a decisive cabinet meeting on the armistice issue until 5pm, but no later.
29:06When the British War Cabinet convened at 3 o'clock, Prime Minister Churchill set the tone for what was surely
29:12one of the most extraordinary meetings in British government history.
29:16We must not be accused, he tells his colleagues in the War Cabinet, of a lack of imagination in this
29:21supreme crisis of European civilisation.
29:25The declaration of indissoluble union between Britain and France, now presented to Churchill's War Cabinet,
29:32was the work of Monet, de Gaulle and civil servants from both countries.
29:37It set out a dramatic new future for the two nations.
29:41It's difficult to overstate the magnitude of the proposal.
29:44It would have involved complete mergers of Britain and France and their respective empires.
29:49It's a moment of mind-boggling radicalism.
29:52Ministers immediately expressed broad support for the principle of union and a desire to keep the declaration as simple as
29:59possible.
30:00However, as soon as you raise this issue, you start to think about the details.
30:06If the two countries are going to be merged, well, who is going to be the head of state?
30:11France was a republic, while Britain had a king sitting in Buckingham Palace.
30:16You only have to say the word, subject of the British crown, citizen of the French Republic.
30:21And you think, what the hell's going on here?
30:24Churchill's War Cabinet sidestepped such tricky constitutional issues.
30:29No effort was made that afternoon to tell the British monarch about the dramatic plans for his empire.
30:35What exactly the status of King George VI would have been was somewhat uncertain, let us say.
30:42And no attempt was made to communicate with members of Britain's parliament.
30:46Lots of people who reasonably might have been consulted were not consulted, but there simply wasn't time.
30:54And Churchill's ministers only shared their dramatic plan with the empire's self-governing dominions after they'd finalized the text.
31:03The response of Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies was a measure of the gravity of the crisis.
31:09Prime Minister Menzies replied with his entire approval.
31:12He understood the magnitude of what this meant.
31:14He understood that it meant the end of separate British and French nationhood.
31:18But nonetheless, he understood the military imperative.
31:21Churchill's War Cabinet made changes to the first draft of the Declaration.
31:26The idea of a common currency for Britain and France was dropped.
31:31While a pledge to raise a new army of several million men was made rather more vague.
31:38But Churchill's ministers quickly concluded that overall the amended document did not present any insuperable difficulties.
31:46And within minutes, the War Cabinet find themselves agreeing to the most profound change in British constitutional history.
31:53The final draft of the Declaration of Union stated it was addressing this most fateful moment in the history of
32:00the modern world.
32:02It continued,
32:03France and Great Britain shall no longer be two nations, but one Franco-British Union.
32:10Every citizen of France will enjoy immediately citizenship of Great Britain.
32:15Every British subject will become a citizen of France.
32:20The Constitution of the Union will provide for joint organs of defence, foreign, financial and economic policies.
32:29The Union will concentrate its whole energy against the power of the enemy, no matter where the battle may be.
32:36And thus, we shall conquer.
32:39Churchill was clutching at straws.
32:41He was prepared to do and say almost anything to keep the French in the war.
32:47This is a desperate act by a desperate ally.
32:51But at the end of a meeting which aimed to change history, the Prime Minister's mood was buoyant.
32:57Churchill burst out of the Cabinet Room into the anteroom where de Gaulle was waiting and said,
33:04nous sommes d'accord, rather than saying in English, we are in agreement.
33:09And then when there was some discussion about whether de Gaulle would become commander-in-chief,
33:14presumably of both countries' forces, Churchill muttered, je l'arrangerai.
33:19I will fix it up in his usual mangled French.
33:23In Bordeaux, France's Prime Minister Paul Reynaud had been told to expect something stupendous.
33:31But would the prospective union with Britain see off Reynaud's opponents within his own government
33:37and keep France in the fight against the Nazis?
33:42When the British War Cabinet agreed the text of the Declaration of Union on that summer Sunday afternoon,
33:48the details were immediately shared with the French Premier.
33:53De Gaulle got on the telephone to Reynaud and dictated the agreement to him.
34:00Paul Reynaud was extremely surprised and very, very enthusiastic.
34:04For him, this was the solution that would allow his government to stay in the war.
34:09But he actually just can't believe it.
34:10Reynaud sort of says, you know, is this real? Does Churchill know about this?
34:15And so the phone is snatched out of de Gaulle's hands and then Churchill says, yeah, yeah,
34:19this is what the British government have formally agreed.
34:22So it's an extraordinary moment.
34:24The two leaders confirmed they would meet the next day off the coast of northwest France
34:29near the town of Concarno.
34:31But even while Paul Reynaud was on the line to London from Bordeaux,
34:35the union plan was being undermined by someone very close to him.
34:39Reynaud was taking down notes feverishly with a little pencil.
34:44And every time he finished a page, he sent it off to be typed up.
34:49But Madame de Porte, his mistress, was reading over the typist's shoulders.
34:56And she didn't like this at all.
34:58She wanted an armistice with the Germans.
35:02And secondly, she was very, very anti-British.
35:04Madame de Porte shared the news from London with Marshal Pétain,
35:09while General Weygand, another supporter of an armistice, had tapped Reynaud's phone.
35:15The opponents of the Franco-British Union plan
35:18were therefore able to mobilize against it.
35:22Reynaud expected to surprise and delight his council of ministers
35:26when he presented the British offer at 5pm that Sunday afternoon.
35:30He was rapidly disappointed.
35:33One of those present at the meeting says,
35:36well, it would be better to be a Nazi province
35:39because at least we know what we were getting.
35:41Well, that was obviously a sort of catastrophic error.
35:46Others saw it as a bid by the British to get their hands on the French Empire.
35:51While some ministers dismiss the Union proposal as pointless,
35:55believing the German military would follow victory in France by crushing Britain.
36:01Pétain described the offer of Franco-British Union as marriage to a corpse
36:06because for him there was no doubt that Britain was going to collapse very, very soon.
36:11Faced with these unexpected negative reactions,
36:15Reynaud faltered in making the case for the Union plan.
36:18It would have taken a prime minister of considerable determination and energy
36:24to force through this proposal for a Franco-British Union
36:28and Reynaud simply did not have that sort of gumption left in him.
36:31He doesn't even call for a vote on this proposal.
36:34He simply allows it to die a natural death.
36:37The fate of the plan to unite Britain and France
36:40remains a great what-if of 20th century history
36:44because within Reynaud's cabinet there was certainly significant support for continuing the war.
36:50Paul Reynaud did not put the proposal to a vote
36:53and historians suspect that had he actually asked his ministers for their opinion
37:00and counted hands, he would have had a majority.
37:04He doesn't call a vote and then the cabinet meeting is over.
37:09And he doesn't even tell them as he's leaving the room
37:11that he's going to see the president of the Republic to tender his resignation.
37:16When Reynaud resigned that Sunday evening,
37:19Marshal Pétain promptly took office at the head of a new government.
37:23And shortly after, in the very early morning hours of the 17th,
37:27he seeks armistice terms with Germany.
37:31Churchill's ambitious offer of union had backfired.
37:35And by resigning, Reynaud had opened the door to a regime
37:40which would make peace with Germany and collaborate with Hitler.
37:45I don't think a day passed when Reynaud didn't go over and over in his head
37:49what he'd done on that day.
37:51The consequences of that decision basically lived with him till the day he died.
37:56But in London, on the evening of Sunday the 16th of June,
38:01the British government was unaware of the drama in Bordeaux.
38:06At the head of a party of political and military leaders,
38:09Winston Churchill was en route to the meeting with Paul Reynaud,
38:13scheduled for noon the following day.
38:15And so he is sitting at Waterloo Station in his special train
38:20when he receives news that Reynaud has resigned.
38:23A telegram had arrived from Sir Ronald Campbell, Britain's ambassador in Bordeaux.
38:28Campbell wrote,
38:30Ministerial crisis has opened.
38:32Meeting arranged for tomorrow, impossible.
38:35Staggered by this news,
38:37Churchill refused to leave the train for 30 minutes
38:40before reluctantly returning to Downing Street.
38:44And he writes in his war memoirs that there has rarely been a more generous offer
38:49that had been so rudely and coldly rebuffed.
38:52The dramatic attempt to unite Britain and France had lived and died in little more than 48 hours.
38:59But the French decision to spurn the British offer in favour of German peace terms
39:04had enduring consequences.
39:06The fall of France would reverberate around the globe for decades.
39:11So this is not just the defeat of a French army.
39:14It is undoubtedly a world historical event.
39:17And one major outcome of the failure to keep France in the war against Germany
39:21would play out within days of the armistice being signed on the 22nd of June.
39:26The British are still worried about the French fleet.
39:29They become really increasingly worried about the French fleet.
39:31Peace deals with Nazi Germany and its ally fascist Italy
39:35left the Pétain regime controlling much of southern France,
39:39plus large overseas territories.
39:43It also retained the French navy,
39:45which the new French government assured the British
39:48would never be put at the service of the Germans.
39:52And the British are faced with a great dilemma.
39:54Do they trust the French? Maybe, maybe not.
39:58Do they trust the French sufficiently to prevent the Germans
40:01from simply seizing it? Probably not.
40:04Conflict between the two former allies came to a head in early July
40:08over ships of the French Atlantic Fleet,
40:11stationed in the Algerian harbour of Mez el-Kibir.
40:15There's an attempt to negotiate, and negotiation fails,
40:18and the British opened fire and therefore kill over a thousand French sailors.
40:27Mission accomplished.
40:29The Royal Navy had reluctantly crippled the French fleet.
40:33It's a dramatic moment.
40:34Britain has fired on a country with which they're not at war,
40:38and which was their ally until very recently.
40:41Churchill called the decision to attack the French ships hateful,
40:45the most painful of his political career.
40:48But he was cheered loudly by members of Parliament,
40:51delighted by this decisive British action.
40:54And yet, of course, in France this is seen in a totally opposite way,
40:58that the perfidious British have turned upon them,
41:01and it can be taken as proof that the British could never be trusted all along.
41:06Barely two weeks before attacking the French navy,
41:09Churchill's government had hoped to combine British and French strength around the world.
41:15Now, both former allies were weaker,
41:18and this would change the course of the war across the globe.
41:22As Britain could no longer rely on the French fleet to defend the Mediterranean
41:26against Germany's Italian allies,
41:29The Royal Navy was forced to redeploy ships from Asian waters,
41:34a move which encouraged the ambitions of Imperial Japan.
41:38So, because of the failure of the Franco-British Union,
41:41Britain was less able to send parts of its navy to the Far East to deter Japan,
41:46and therefore protect Australia, New Zealand, and surrounding colonies.
41:49While following the armistice in Europe,
41:51the French government of Marshal Pétain
41:54lacked the will to defend its possessions in Southeast Asia,
41:58claiming it would be madness to resist the Japanese.
42:02Just three months after the failure of the Union proposal and the fall of France,
42:08Japan duly occupied French Indochina,
42:12beginning a drive south which would lead to war with the British Empire and the United States.
42:18So, we can draw a line between this story and the attack on Pearl Harbour.
42:21For Britain, the crisis of June 1940 prompted a major and lasting change in its international diplomacy.
42:31The most important thing, I think,
42:33is the creation of the special relationship between Britain and the United States.
42:37Until summer 1940, Britain saw France as its absolutely critical ally,
42:43as the dramatic offer of union clearly demonstrated.
42:46Once France is out of the war, Britain has no option.
42:49The United States is Britain's only chance of survival.
42:54This suddenly brings America into the forefront of British security,
42:58but there is no previous special relationship between these countries at all.
43:03In Europe, the spirit of the attempt to unite Britain and France would live on in the work of Jean
43:09Monnet.
43:10The French businessman and civil servant who, from this London office,
43:15had championed the Union proposal with its plan for common citizenship and shared government institutions.
43:22This was something which very much became part of his vision for Europe.
43:28Thanks to his work building economic and political integration in the post-war decades,
43:34Jean Monnet would become known as the father of Europe.
43:38As for Winston Churchill, on the 18th of June, two days after the Franco-British Union plan had failed,
43:46and with France poised to accept German peace terms,
43:50the British Prime Minister spoke to Parliament of the great challenge now ahead.
43:55A fight against the Nazis in which the survival not only of Britain,
44:00but of civilisation itself would be at stake.
44:03Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty.
44:07So bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years,
44:17men will still say, this was their finest hour.
44:23But just moments before his stirring conclusion,
44:26the Prime Minister acknowledged what he called the offer of common citizenship in this struggle,
44:32which Britain had made to France.
44:34So it's not something that was hidden, it was something that was very much public.
44:40Wartime events were moving at bewildering speed.
44:43But even before Churchill's speech in Parliament,
44:46the declaration of indissoluble union with France
44:49had been reported in newspapers across Britain and far beyond.
44:54And the offer was really celebrated in 1940.
44:58Though when Churchill came to write his best-selling history of the war,
45:02he stressed that he had not been the prime mover behind the scheme for Franco-British Union
45:07and that the text was not his work.
45:10He maybe felt slightly awkward about it
45:13because it would have been revolutionary in constitutional terms
45:18had it actually been put into effect.
45:20But there is surely something of Churchill's remarkable personality in this extraordinary document,
45:26not least his love of France.
45:28One of his war aims, even in the darkest hours of 1940,
45:34was to restore France to her greatness.
45:37Above all, the Union Plan embodied Churchill's defiance
45:41and his willingness to embrace radical, left-field ideas.
45:45The Franco-British Union proposal is quintessential Churchill
45:49in that it is bold, it is dramatic, it represents some of his key values,
45:54and it is not very well thought through.
45:57But the vain attempt to unite Britain and France as one nation
46:01demonstrated that in order to defy and defeat Hitler,
46:05Winston Churchill was prepared to take almost unimaginable steps,
46:09even to sacrifice the independence and identity of his country.
46:39over a couple of years of his country.
46:47So, this is the 68-hot
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