Greetings Paulo Roberto Almeida, Table of ContentsH-Diplo: New posted contentH-Diplo: New posted contentH-Diplo Roundtable XXVI-33 on Chin, _War of Words_H-Diplo Roundtable XXVI-33 Rachel Chin. War of Words: Britain, France and Discourses of Empire during the Second World War. Cambridge University Press, 2022. ISBN: 9781009181013. 14 April 2025 | PDF: https://hdiplo.org/to/RT26-33 | X: @HDiplo | BlueSky: @h-diplo.bsky.social Editor: Diane Labrosse
Contents Introduction by Rachel Utley, University of Leeds. 2 Review by Laurent Cesari, University of Artois. 6 Review by Berny Sèbe, University of Birmingham... 9 Review by Mélanie Torrent, Université de Picardie Jules Verne.. 12 Response by Rachel Chin, University of Glasgow... 20
Introduction by Rachel Utley, University of LeedsThe 120th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale, in April 2024, was widely celebrated at the highest levels in France and the UK. As the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs noted, notwithstanding its original focus on resolution of colonial tensions, the agreement served as “the foundation for fruitful cooperation between our countries and for unwavering solidarity in the face of the hardships of the 20th century, particularly during the two world wars. In the darkest times, we remained side by side defending our values and promoting peace in Europe and the world.”[1] In a joint article in The Telegraph, which was republished on the UK government’s website in April 2024, the UK Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, Lord Cameron, alongside his French counterpart Stéphane Séjourné, wrote in similar terms of unity and close friendship, forged and revivified in the “darkest of days,” pointing out that “the 120th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale coincide[d] with the 80th anniversary of the D-Day and Provence landings, and the subsequent liberation of France.”[2] And in a highly symbolic gesture, French and British troops exchanged places in Changing of the Guard ceremonies, fulfilling roles outside the palaces of each other’s Head of State, in commemoration of 120 years of the Entente Cordiale, which was “not a formal alliance between the two countries, but a basis for a stronger Anglo-French relationship,” the Royal Family’s website observed.[3] As these examples indicate, both the past and present of Franco-British relations remain of central importance to the two states. As they also show, the representation of this past and present is a matter of carefully calculated and calibrated expression, in which that which is not said is at least as important as that which is. Moreover, relations between France and Britain across the twentieth century, especially in the context of the Second World War, remain a crucial historical and rhetorical reference point in the trajectory of UK-French relations, more than three quarters of a century after the end of that conflict. These examples underline the importance and salience of Rachel Chin’s book, War of Words: Britain, France and Discourses of Empire during the Second World War, which is under review in this H-Diplo Roundtable. Chin’s focus is on the “evolution of the Franco-British relationship between 1940 and 1945… [and] examining the rhetoric that British, Vichy and Free French actors deployed to legitimise their roles inside or outside of the conflict” and where “the French colonial empire played a decisive role in these debates and in the wider Franco-British relationship” (2). Her argument, put most simply but most potently, is that words matter. Understanding rhetoric as both “official public speech” encompassing statements, press releases and other public pronouncements, as well as a “social phenomenon” (7), she posits that “rhetoric matters[; and] rhetoric is an essential part of the policy-making process” (260). To develop her argument, Chin uses a case study approach centered on imperial “crisis points” (5). She uses this framework and approach to embed a persuasive, indeed engrossing, analysis of a combination of relations between Britain, Vichy France, and Free France during the Second World War. Not only were these relationships complex and multifaceted, but they also unfolded against a backdrop of the shifting international context whereby power and influence were in flux on diverse fronts, the growing weight of the United States of America being one example, and the growing force of nationalisms in the French (and British) empires being another. As the reviewers note, Chin’s work has many strengths. As Laurent Césari underscores, it is a strong work in the field of diplomatic history. It is based on extensive multi-archival work and it draws compellingly on these sources, as Mélanie Torrent highlights, to offer fascinating insights into processes of decisionmaking and policymaking. Chin uses the archival materials with great care, tracing the book’s themes and analysis across time and space, using the case studies to illustrate, in convincing ways, the nuances of this crucial set of relationships. As the reviewers also note, Chin’s book is important not only in itself, but also in the ways it opens additional lines of investigation. The central contention of her book is that rhetoric, defined as above, constitutes a distinctive field of study essential to a fuller understanding of the means and ends of decisionmaking and policymaking in cases of crisis. As Césari underscores, Chin’s methodology and her specific consideration of the significance of rhetoric, as distinct from the wider concept of propaganda, is particularly thought-provoking. As Berny Sèbe’s observations suggest, the foregrounding of imperial contexts in Franco-British relations during the Second World War, and its scope for further expansion, offers a path other scholars may be increasingly likely to follow. And for Torrent, equally, Chin’s work could also contribute to temporal reconsideration of the parameters of conflict, of the engagement of diverse new actors in political discourse, and of the wider audiences and receivers of France and Britain’s “war of words.” While the reviewers naturally also offer constructive insights based on the book, collectively their responses also demonstrate the qualities and value of the work. This introduction will end as it began, with a reflection on the recent commemoration of the Entente Cordiale. In noting the extracts selected, observing their emphases, and alluding to their blind spots, it brings to mind how extensively many of us use such material as diplomatic historians, and how we attach meanings and significance through our own analyses and interpretations. Rachel Chin’s work is not only thought-provoking, but also compelling in many of its key arguments. The deeper and more robust appreciation of the processes and implications behind such rhetoric, illuminated at the pivotal time of the Second World War, as offered by this book, can only be of value to the field.
Contributors: Rachel Chin, PhD, is a Lecturer in History at the University of Glasgow. Her research has focused on twentieth-century Franco-British relations, in particular through the lenses of conflict and empire. Her book, War of Words: Britain, France and Discourses of Empire during the Second World War (Cambridge University Press, 2022), explores the role of rhetoric as a strategic policy tool in the context of clashes over French imperial territory during the Second World War. Her research on historic and contemporary Franco-British relations has appeared in The Conversation, Britain and the World, The European Review of History and the Journal of Contemporary History. Rachel is currently embarking on new research examining understandings of citizenship and belonging in the context of Chinese migration to the Caribbean. She is the co-editor of the forthcoming volume Reimagining Citizenship in Postwar Europe(Cornell University Press, 2024/25). Rachel Utley is Associate Professor of International History in the School of History at the University of Leeds. She specialises in the study of French defence and security policies across the Fifth Republic, and in the study of UK foreign and defence policies, from the later Cold War to the present. She is the author of numerous publications particularly on French defence and security policies, and is the author of UK-French Relations under Margaret Thatcher, 1979–83: An Entente in Good Heart (Routledge: forthcoming). Rachel Utley was a Co-Investigator in the recently concluded AHRC project, The Weight of the Past in Franco-British Relations. She is a Fellow of Advance HE (the UK Higher Education Academy). Laurent Cesari is Professor of Contemporary History at the Université d’Artois (Arras, Fance), specializing in the diplomatic history of the Cold War. His latest publications are (as editor), “Politique extérieure et répartition des pouvoirs intérieurs,” special issues of Relations Internationales, issues 192 (2023/1) and 193 (2023/2) ; “Business as (Almost) Usual : The french Consulate General in Saigon during the Break of Diplomatic Relations between France and the Republic of Vietnam, 1965–1973,” in Sue Onslow, Lori Maguire, eds., Consuls in the Cold War, (Brill, 2023): 135-150; “La France et la première extension de l’OTAN vers l’Est, 1989–1999,” Revue d’histoire diplomatique, issue 2023/4 (2023). Berny Sèbe is an Associate Professor in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies at the University of Birmingham (UK). His research explores the cultural history of British and French imperialism since the nineteenth century, and he has a long-standing interest in Franco-British imperial dynamics of competition, cooperation and emulation. He is the author of Heroic Imperialists in Africa: The Making of British and French Colonial Heroes, 1870–1939 (Manchester University Press, 2013 & 2015), and has co-edited Echoes of Empire: Identity, Memory and Colonial Legacies (IB Tauris, 2015); Decolonising Imperial Heroes: Cultural Legacies of the British and French Empires (Routledge, 2016) and Decolonising Europe? Popular Responses to the End of Empire (Routledge, 2020). He has just co-guest-edited a special issue of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History entitled “Unmasking Empire” (November 2023), and is currently putting the finishing touches to a book entitled Empire of Emptiness: Fortresses of the Colonial Conquest in the Sahara. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Royal Geographical Society, and the Higher Education Academy of the UK. Mélanie Torrent is Professor of British and Commonwealth history at the Université de Picardie Jules Verne in Amiens, France, and a senior research fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in London. She works on the connected histories of the ends of the British and French empires, with a particular interest in the impact of decolonization processes on the culture and politics of the (ex-)metropoles, and on foreign policy and diplomacy. Her current project on British society and the war of Algerian independence was started under the auspices of the Institut universitaire de France.
Review by Laurent Cesari, University of ArtoisRachel Chin’s War of Words is a study of the military confrontations, which took place in the French overseas empire, between the United Kingdom, the Free French of General Charles de Gaulle, and Vichy France during the Second World War. It deals with the bombing of the French fleet by the Royal Navy at Mers-el-Kébir (3 July 1940), the failed invasion of Dakar by the British fleet and the Free French (23-25 September 1940), the invasion of Syria and Lebanon by the British and the Free French (8 June to 14 July 1941), the internment of the Lebanese president and prime minister and their release at British urging (11-21 November 1943), and the shelling of Damascus by the Free French, which the British forces in Syria interrupted (29-31 May 1945). The author delves into the political motives for these military actions in colonial possessions and their public justifications in official statements, a sub-genre of war propaganda which she calls “rhetoric of imperial clashes” (3). The official justification of empires has developed into a significant subject of study in and of itself. Martin Thomas and Richard Toye have argued that “the reputation of empires was rhetorically constructed.”[4] The book systematically juxtaposes the arguments made in secret by politicians during the decisionmaking process and those used for public consumption. Chin argues that the choice made to issue a public justification at a certain moment may have constrained the range of options that were available at a later time, for a brazen contradiction might have entailed political trouble. Thus, political leaders tried to shape public opinion, which during World War Two meant above all to influence the press. And since policy reversals might cause protests in the press, the author aims to show that, on several occasions, policy was deliberately designed to avoid such protests. The book shows that policy decisions and public justifications depended heavily on power relations. The case of Vichy France is the most straightforward: after signing its armistices with Germany and Italy, the Vichy regime claimed to be both sovereign and neutral. Therefore, its official statements argued that the secular hostility of Britain against France was the cause of the British operations against French interests. It also tried to cast the Free French as a mere puppet of Britain.[5] For instance, Vichy communiqués did not even mention the participation of Free French forces in the bombing of Dakar. But the growing collaboration between Vichy and Germany discredited such statements: only Bulgaria, Romania and Spain accepted this explanation of the bombing at Mers el-Kébir. In 1941, the cause of the invasion of the Levant was the proposition made to German president and chancellor Adolf Hitler by admiral François Darlan, the Vichy minister of foreign affairs, to allow Germany to use French bases in Syria to assist the rebellion of Iraq against Britain. Nevertheless, British leaders took pains to disprove Vichy statements in advance of the invasion of North Africa in 1942, officially presented the landing as a purely American initiative, so as not to stir up Anglophobia among the local authorities and population. For the duration of the war, the Free French depended heavily on British material and political support. They simply could not allow themselves to openly oppose British policy. It is true that by offering support for the Free French, British officials could argue, against Vichy statements, that Britain was not waging war against France as such, but against the collaborationist regime. Nevertheless, this interdependence was asymmetric since the Free French forces were obviously the weak element of the pair. This entailed two consequences. First, the Free French, as much as the British, had to persuade the population of metropolitan and overseas France that their adversary was the Vichy regime and not the population as such so as to increase the number of resisters to both the Vichy regime and to Germany. That is why de Gaulle made a point of limiting the loss of life during operations against Vichy. For instance, during the preparations for the landing at Dakar, he refused a fratricidal “fight amongst Frenchmen” (page 115), and this was the argument used by Free France to justify the retreat of the expeditionary force. But on the other hand, this same weakness could incite the Free French to take great risks to avoid political marginalization. During the planning of the landing at Dakar, de Gaulle insisted—in vain—that if the operation was not successful, another landing should be attempted at Pointe Noire, in the French Congo, so as to be able to claim a “victory” (109). Such methods were most conspicuous in the Levant. There, based on the model of the Anglo-Iraqi treaties of 1922 and 1930 and the Anglo-Egyptian treaties of 1922 and 1936, the Free French made full independence conditional on the prior settlement of bilateral treaties that would guarantee preferential economic, cultural, and military rights for France, even if they had only few troops on the ground. And since the Lebanese and Syrian governments were dead set against such treaties, de Gaulle resorted to military force to obtain them, a gamble that was blocked by Britain.[6] This reviewer believes that de Gaulle remained convinced of the efficiency of such gambles up to the very end of his presidency. The main part of the book is focused on British policies. Britain too had to operate under material constraints. British dependence on the US Lend-Lease program made any public opposition to American policy simply unthinkable. Jewish unrest in Palestine, and the obvious sympathy of many Arabs for the Axis powers, especially Germany, forbade recourse to force in the Middle East and meant that French methods would be restrained there.[7] But conversely, Britain could not afford a major crisis with the Free French, who were the main instrument of its policy towards occupied France. It was also essential not to antagonize Vichy needlessly. British policymakers tried to evade such contradictions by keeping silent as long as they could. The bombing of the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir was secretly decided and publicly justified by the impossibility of believing in German promises not to take possession of the French fleet, and not by any ill feelings towards France. For the same reason, British leaders took precautions not to strike the ports of Algiers and Oran. Again, so as not to provoke military resistance among pro-Vichy Frenchmen, the British publicly presented the bombing of Dakar as a Free French initiative, and the landing in North Africa as a strictly American operation. In the Levant, Britain tried to strike a pose of benevolent neutrality between the local governments and the Free French. It quietly pressured the latter to release the Lebanese politicians whom they had imprisoned, and privately asked the Levantine nationalists to moderate their public grievances against France. It took the bombardment of Damascus by the Free French to induce Britain to publicly act in favor of the Arabs. Even then, British policymakers refrained from publicly blaming the French, from fear that British newspapers, including the liberal Guardian, which were extremely hostile to this show of force against a state which was due for full independence, might inflame feelings and worsen the diplomatic crisis. This hostility towards French heavy-handedness in Syria shows that the British media approved the public presentation of the war as a “noble cause” (52, 265), exposed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill even before the Atlantic Charter. All in all, this is a very good diplomatic history, inspired by the realist school of International Relations. Its methodology, which is based on the comparison of power relations, is in fact classical. The book’s discussion of the public justifications of policy decisions, especially in wartime, is probably less original than the author claims, for the importance of propaganda in war is well known.[8] The unflagging use of the term “rhetoric” throughout the book may be unnecessary, but this insistence most likely reflects the fact that this book is part of a research project called “Rhetorics of Empire.”
Review by Berny Sèbe, University of Birmingham“The Second World War was a war of words, as much as one of guns and steel” (18). By concluding her introductory chapter with this sentence, Rachel Chin offers a powerful summary of the fundamental assumption around which this book is articulated. Chin argues that rhetoric played a major role in the conflict, and especially the concept of a “Franco-British alliance,” which reached a short-lived climax through the idea of a complete union between the two nations against the backdrop of the unprecedented military and human disaster that unfolded in the summer of 1940. The idea was revived fleetingly, and under much less strained circumstances, in 1956 by President of the Council of Ministers of France Guy Mollet when he envisaged that France could join the Commonwealth. War of Wordsexamines the role of rhetoric in relation to a major element of British and French power and identity: their imperial possessions, and their strategic and symbolic place in the conflict. By doing so, it interweaves heuristically several historiographical silos that have not always entered in dialogue in the past. Very clearly, it engages with the history of Franco-British relations, which has developed into a rich and diverse field over the years, and especially since the centenary of the Entente cordiale.[9] It also contributes to the ever-growing literature on the press (notably in colonial contexts[10]) and its role as part of war-time propaganda.[11]Last but not least, it makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the complex relationship between the Second World War and imperial matters, which has been studied from a variety of perspectives over the years, but very seldom from the specific angle of Franco-British relations, in spite of their relevance when it comes to understanding modern colonial dynamics.[12] Chin’s analytical framework posits that, after the Fall of France in the summer of 1940, what had been a cornerstone of the European security system of the interwar years, namely military, diplomatic and political cooperation between Paris and London, became de facto a ménage à trois, with the French voice now divided between the collaborationist Vichy government, and the London-based Free French who were struggling to assert their authority as the rightful representatives of Gallic interests. The position of the latter was undermined by the fact that the group relied primarily upon British logistical support for its military operations, which rendered rhetorical contortions even more inevitable if Free French leader Charles de Gaulle was to portray himself as a genuine representative of France, as opposed to a simple puppet of the British. With a diminished Vichy government that was clinging to the illusion of national sovereignty mostly through recourse to a fleet that was still intact, and control over France’s colonial possessions, on the one hand, and de Gaulle’s movement, which first took root in French Equatorial Africa, on the other, the central place of overseas possessions, as loci of what was left of real or perceived national sovereignty, clearly became evident to all parties involved. It was not a coincidence if the German FührerAdolf Hitler himself sought to preserve an illusion of Gallic sovereignty over the French empire in the early stages of collaboration, as he turned down Spanish dictator Francisco Franco’s alliance offer (which included, in the Generalísimo’s expectations, a Spanish takeover of some of Paris’s possessions). In this context, and as the imperative to pretend that the Franco-British alliance was more important than ever in the eyes of both London and de Gaulle, the place of the empire was bound to be central. War of Words unpacks the complex rhetorical strategies that had to be implemented in order to soften the blow that had been inflicted upon the image of Franco-British wartime solidarity by a series of events that took place in the French colonial empire. These included key turning points, each of which is highly instructive. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the attack of the French Fleet by the Royal Navy at Mers-el-Kébir on 3 July 1940, examining British fears about the significant asset that la Royale could represent if it fell in German hands, and the rhetorical battle between London and Vichy that erupted in the wake of the sinking of the French Fleet, which involved significant episodes of drafting and redrafting of press releases and official statements. Chapter 4 engages with the failed Gaullist attempt to obtain the ralliement of French West Africa to its cause through an attempted landing in Dakar between 23 and 25 September 1940. The complete fiasco that followed led to differing accounts in the British and French press, which illustrate vividly the rhetorical processes at play. Chapter 6 moves on consider Operation Torch in French North Africa which, Chin demonstrates, was primarily packaged as an American endeavor in order to limit the risk of it being presented as a British take-over of French North Africa. Chapters 5, 7, and 8 examine a series of operations that cover a longer-term process relating to Franco-British commotions in the Levant, where the gradual waning of Vichy French influence led to one of the most acute crises in Anglo-Gaullist relations, giving rise to a series of rhetorical maneuvers on both sides, with the French resenting the British attempt to take up the role, as Chin puts it, of “arbiter extraordinaire” (138). Colonial interest in the Levant had long been a thorn in the side of Franco-British relations, as rivalry between Paris and London had been simmering for a long time, and the three chapters demonstrate well how the bilateral relationship, marked by rivalry and bitterness rather than cooperation and trust, was put to the test again by events unfolding in Lebanon and Syria. The analysis is based upon a very robust combination of sources, primarily in Britain, where Chin consulted a substantial number of official archives, personal papers, memoirs and newspapers, but also, to a lesser extent, in France, mostly official papers from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Archives, and the Defense Ministry. Together, they offer a comprehensive overview of the various actors involved in shaping the “rhetoric” of the Franco-British alliance as it was going through the motions of an extremely divisive conflict that exposed its weaknesses, especially in areas where old rivalries could re-surface promptly, such as the Navy or imperial matters (the two of which were often closely linked). Because of the complex dynamics of this relationship that included cooperation, competition, and animosity in almost equal measure, it would have been useful if the Francophone side of the archives, and of the historiography, had been explored more thoroughly. For instance, one would have expected to see titles such as Jacques Cantier and Eric Jennings’ L’Empire colonial sous Vichy, Alya Aglan’s excellent reflection on “L’Empire de Vichy,” and references to contextualizing works by Jean-Pierre Azéma and Olivier Wieviorka on the Second World War, or to those of Jacques Frémeaux and Henri Laurens on the so-called “Oriental question,” which had such a significant bearing upon Franco-British dynamics in the Levant.[13] Similarly, the personal papers of some key actors on the French side could have been consulted, to illuminate more evenly the processes through which the rhetoric of the alliance took shape. The archival fonds held at the French Overseas National Archives (ANOM) could also have been put to good use (they are not discussed in the book). It is also surprising to see that, among the archives of French Heads of State, the author consulted the 3AG series relating to Charles de Gaulle before 1959, but not the 2AG series relating to Vichy France. Conversely, the attempt to include the French-Algerian daily L’Écho d’Alger in the corpus of press material is laudable, but more could have been done to explore the imperial dimension of the Franco-British alliance: for instance, how was it perceived and discussed in the Caribbean, or in British India? In that regard, this foray into the colonial press could have been usefully complemented by a reference to a newspaper under the Raj. In spite of the linguistically lopsided engagement with primary and secondary sources, War of Words remains a solid and stimulating piece of research which offers innovative forays into the ways in which Britain, Vichy France, and the Free French developed rhetorical strategies to cope with the challenges of, and seize the opportunities offered by, the conflict that radically redistributed both power and alliances. The Fall of France in the summer of 1940, and the subsequent breakdown of the Franco-British alliance that had dominated European geopolitics since the Entente cordiale and the Great War, meant that, in the eyes of Vichy, old allies had become enemies almost overnight. As the colossal task of propping up an alternative French movement under General de Gaulle fell on Britain, Gaullist and Whitehall interests often struggling severely to align, leading in some cases to clear clashes. From Mers-el-Kébir to Beirut, the case-studies linked to the French empire that are analyzed in this book, demonstrate vividly the ways in which rhetorical strategies were used, with varying success, to support the war effort among various constituencies on the global stage. In revealing, principally from a British perspective, how this worked in practice, Rachel Chin’s War of Words has lifted the veil on a hitherto neglected aspect of wartime propaganda.
Review by Mélanie Torrent, Université de Picardie Jules VerneRhetoric, Rachel Chin argues convincingly in War of Words, was “a fundamental tool of foreign policy” (252) and a full part of the military arsenal of the states and governments that vied for victory during the Second World War. Tracing how decisionmakers and policymakers gathered information about public opinion at home and abroad, assessed it, and debated what influence it should or could have on military strategy, Chin concludes that “military manoeuvres had not only strategic but also symbolic value” (260). For the historian, rhetoric becomes an illuminating tool to unpack the complex Franco-British relations of the period and to scrutinize competing narratives and memories of Frenchness and Britishness, including the place accorded to the colonial empire and the colonized people, and the growing influence of the United States and the Soviet Union. Chin’s meticulous demonstration is based on five sets of case studies, which were chosen because they were all “high-profile colonial clashes” (15) that illustrated or redefined Franco-British relations, and therefore serve to capture various nuances between outright rivalry and close cooperation. Chin focuses first on the evacuation at Dunkirk (27 May–4 June 1940) following the German offensive, and on the armistice signed with the Third Reich by the government of Marshal Philippe Pétain in June 1940. She then turns to operations in the French empire, which had then acquired greater military significance and drew public attention: the British bombardment of the French fleet at Mers el-Kébir on 4 July 1940, which left 1,300 French sailors dead after the refusal of Admiral Marcel-Bruno Gensoul to move the vessels into British waters; the failure of Britain and the Free French to take Dakar from Vichy in September 1940; the landing of Anglo-American troops in French North Africa in Operation Torch in preparation for ultimate victory in Europe in November 1942; and three pivotal events in the Levant: Operation Exporter (8 June-14 July 1941), which ended Vichyite resistance in the region, the Lebanese parliamentary crisis of November 1943, when the Free French arrested the Lebanese president, belying the independence granted to Syria and Lebanon after Exporter, and, finally, the French bombardment of Damascus on 29-31 May 1945, resulting in the death of 800 Syrians. Throughout, Chin’s interest lies in how competing claims for French sovereignty and legitimacy influenced how the war was fought in the empire, and conversely, how the empire, as one of the key theatres of the Second World War, had a direct impact on rhetorical and military strategies, and, ultimately, on the cooperation between a victorious Britain and a victorious Free France in the post-war world. Chin is therefore very mindful, after historians like Eric Jennings, of the significance for Britain’s war aims and strategy of the existence of, at the very least, “two imperial Frances,”[14] with Vichy and the Free French themselves subject to competing spheres of influence, as shown by the rivalry in Africa between generals Charles de Gaulle and Henri Giraud. War of Words is about moral and ethical values, state and individual legitimacy, and national and international leadership. But it more specifically addresses how and why values and legitimacy were used to justifypolicy, particularly when violence was used against French troops, as at Mers el-Kébir or Dakar, or when British policy went against the preferences of the Free French forces or de Gaulle’s leadership, as with Operation Torch or in the Levant. Chin’s book is a major contribution to the study of rhetoric as “a social phenomenon” where, in the words of Martin Thomas and Richard Toye, “linguistic resources available to any given actor are heavily (although not absolutely) determined by his or her place in relation to the prevailing social, political and economic order.”[15] It does not explore discourse per se, but rather analyzes the ways in which words are chosen, sentences put together, passages deleted or reworked, and how this in itself sheds light on Franco-British relations during, and as a consequence of the war. In the empire itself, as Véronique Dimier has shown in relation to Africa, several French and British colonial administrators perfected their own policy and practice through a comparative analysis of each other. Beyond the ultimately dominant discourse of difference and distinction, between a French system which favored assimilation and a British system that was based on indirect rule, there were many similarities in their conceptions and management of empire, as shown by the writings of Henri Labouret or Robert Delavignette. [16] Deciphering the diplomatic and social implications of the “war of words” leads Chin, like Dimier, to track distortions, deliberate or unconscious, and “the unspoken assumptions”[17] of the men whose policies influenced Franco-British relations at the nexus of European, imperial and international settings. Particularly fascinating in War of Words are the sections devoted to the drafting and redrafting of letters, press and radio releases and other public statements, in order to keep apace of the unfolding military events. To support their key aim of distinguishing between the Vichy government and the French nation, British statements toned down the violence of the bombardment at Mers el-Kébir, acknowledging “that hostilities broke out between British and action had to be taken” (85, strikethroughs in the original). Or as First Lord of the Admiralty Alexander eventually broadcast to his overseas audience, after further deletions, the British had no choice: “we are thankful to have been able to (had to) taken under our control” (86). Much Foreign Office work also went into the revision of early US statements on the North Africa landings, which virtually ignored British troops (182). Equally important were alternative scenarios, readily available for release when the situation on the ground became known, in case, for instance, Gensoul had moved his fleet into British waters and bombing had been averted. The writing process was informed by multiple sources and by the intended audiences. In London, information came to the Ministry of Information from Britain’s network of embassies, consulates, and offices, notably in France, the Middle East and the United States, and from close allies, including US Vice Consuls in North Africa. The key role of embassies has, admittedly, been demonstrated elsewhere. Rogelia Pastor-Castro, for instance, shows the transformation of the British Embassy in France into a “crisis centre,” [18] as it moved from Paris to Tours, and then on to Bordeaux in the spring of 1940. It had to act, more than before, as an “instrument of political persuasion” with Ambassador Sir Ronald Campbell reporting on “great Anglo-phobia amongst Ministers and Parliamentarians. Result of clever and successful Fifth Column work.”[19] But opinions and recommendations varied, unsurprisingly, and Chin’s study shows that choices had to be made by those who held the pen in London and delivered the addresses. On Operation Torch, in keeping with Roosevelt’s wishes, Churchill decided not to inform de Gaulle of the landings, even when the Joint Planning Staff had warned him of the dangers of “damag[ing] his [de Gaulle’s] prestige” in no uncertain terms (178). British discourses on the war (in the press, at the Royal Empire Society, in the Commons) were equally analyzed by French diplomats in London, and evidence of the “war of words” sent to Paris, particularly on the Levant. Even before the US entered the war, and even before Operation Torch, American opinion was constantly monitored, in the British War Cabinet as much as in the office of Pétain, who complained to Roosevelt of the British act of “aggression” and “injustice” (91) at Mers el-Kébir. Central to British rhetoric and information management was the conviction, partly drawn from Mass Observation surveys but also from the monitoring of the press, that the British people wanted news, good or bad, and that “violence was viewed as a necessary precursor to victory” (117). This meant, for instance, that if Churchill was “vaulted to historic greatness” over Mers el-Kébir (94), withdrawing from Dakar was viewed as “cowardly” (106), and that during Operation Exporter, people did not see Allied progress, in the words of Home Intelligence in June 1941, as “overwhelming and rapid, in the grand German manner” (155). One way of securing public support and ensuring morale was, as Chin argues, to play on the balance of forces among the Allies. At Dakar, British officials shared de Gaulle’s wish to emphasize Frenchleadership of an operation that relied heavily on British power, in the hope that it would “minimise resistance from Vichy forces and avoid accusations of imperial encroachment” (263). It was also the desire to minimize military resistance from Vichy forces that led Roosevelt to insist that statements should make no mention of the sizeable British component of the operation, something which also enabled the American president to present Operation Torch as a second front in support of the Soviet Union. Reduced British influence (as shown, for instance, in Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden’s virulent but ultimately unsuccessful opposition to the appointment of Admiral François Darlan as the head of the civil government in North Africa) materialized in London’s diminishing ability to choose the rhetoric of its own statements to various audiences, which, in turn, further limited its influence. Additionally, the government’s rhetoric was not always successful. The British press saw the Dakar operation primarily as a British venture, with government and parliament taken to task over the loss of men. Importantly, all of this occurred with a media man at the head of the British government, as historian Richard Toye has shown. Churchill was fully informed of what was being published given that he also read information coming in from the British United Press news agency and paid close attention to what photographs were released of himself and other war leaders. Criticism of the Dakar operations in the Sunday Pictorial “drove Churchill over the edge,” and what should and should not be published exercised the Cabinet.[20] But the government was sometimes also a little too keen to control the news. Ahead of Operation Torch, Chief Censor Admiral G.P. Thomson had to be convinced by a retired Major-General writing for the Sunday Pictorial that if the paper suddenly stopped all mention of a possible North Africa landing, the Germans would be on high alert.[21] A key aim of British rhetoric was to support long-term Franco-British cooperation by presenting the Vichy authorities and the French people as two very distinct entities to Britons, something which on the whole seemed to bear fruit. But Franco-British cooperation was complicated by conflicting interests with the Free French in North Africa and the Levant, giving new strength to the narrative of “historic animosity” (100) that was put forth by the Pétain government after Mers el-Kébir. With de Gaulle and the Free French intent on retaining power in Syria and Lebanon, even after the independence proclamations of 27 September and 26 November 1941, Britain’s paramount goals of preserving both an influential position in the Middle East after the war and Anglo-Gaullist cooperation became clearly incompatible. This led the Foreign Office in London, the British Embassy in Egypt, and the Middle East Command to intervene directly in statements produced by Gaullist General Georges Catroux, as he became French Delegate and Plenipotentiary in Syria and Lebanon after the success of Exporter. Particularly infuriating for de Gaulle and the Free French Information Service was the fact that the British “excised sentences that alluded to an inherent bond between the Levant and France” (152). By the time of the Lebanese parliamentary crisis, Britain’s balancing act had become an even less realistic proposition. In 1945, Britishofficials were secretly advising local leaders in Syria on how to mobilize international opinion “by avoiding inflammatory actions and statements” (247), and worked hard to remain silent or use neutral language in public. But after the French bombardment of Damascus, neutrality was interpreted as anything but, by the nationalists and the French authorities alike. De Gaulle’s rhetoric of cultural affinities between France and the Levant had failed, and censorship of French justifications for the bombardments further aggravated tensions; Britain’s silence as a rhetorical strategy (228) was equally unsuccessful. Ultimately, British officials opted for the role of “proxy protector” (235) of the nationalist forces, “peacekeeper and, increasingly, peace-enforcer” (234) because of their regional priorities and the ability of Syrian leaders to use British interests to their advantage. This was also the result of a second factor, which is aptly discussed by Chin: the involvement of the United States in placing Darlan in a key position in North Africa. At home, British officials were taken to task by the press over the “Darlan deal,” which was seen as the betrayal of a moral war. Abroad, Roosevelt’s decision to talk up a special Franco-American partnership that did not include Britain made it particularly hard to overturn the role of “aggressor” that had been taken on at Mers el-Kébir. Leaflets dropped in North Africa in 1942 did not, contrary to Churchill’s wishes, mention British forces and their role in combatting the Axis (185). Throughout the book, Chin carefully charts the distinctions between “Franco-British” and “Anglo-Gaullist” relations, which should not to be confused even though they were constantly shifting. Most importantly, she shows that, partly in reaction against US-led decisions and particularly after the “Darlan deal,” there was growing support for de Gaulle among the British people, something of which Churchill was fully aware, precisely at the moment when high-level relations were becoming increasingly fraught. Simultaneously, Chin stresses that there was not just one “public” but “many more fragmented ‘publics’ with a range of opinions” (11). Some of these publics hardly feature, notably the local populations in the French empire. Except in the Levant, and except on rare occasion when the French “Europeans” in Algeria were mentioned, this resulted from the fact that policymakers thought that “local voices mattered very little” unless there was “an immediate threat of coherent nationalist action” (181). What interests Chin, admittedly, is “what policy-makers believed public opinion was, and how they thought it would impact the success of their policies” (11). The very many repressed voices are therefore extremely revealing about the imperial and colonial mindsets of the men who crafted the rhetoric that they were convinced could “shape public sentiment locally and globally” (23). It is also in this area that Chin’s book raises a number of very important questions and offers insightful perspectives for further, connected research. First, the book is largely centered on the Mediterranean, and there is a strong case for this. The Mediterranean was “very much a ‘British’ theatre” from the time of the French Armistice, before being “a space for ‘Allied’ operations” after November 1942.[22] Algeria was a vital space in the construction of the post-war metropolitan and European policies of the French Committee of National Liberation, and a key site therefore for the redefinition of legitimacy in discourse and action.[23] One key question that arises is how exceptional or specific was the rhetoric deployed by British officials to the region and to the idiosyncrasies of the Franco-British and Anglo-Gaullist relationship there. Chin shows that rhetoric was adapted to localities and shifted over time, but it would be fascinating to situate these initiatives more fully in the broader context of an increasingly challenged British empire and of the input of Commonwealth partners—an assessment of the BBC’s impact on morale elsewhere in North Africa, for instance, shows that it came from a wide variety of places, including Cape Town and Canberra.[24] As Frederick Cooper and Jane Burbank have argued, the “existential crisis of empire” came largely in South-East and South Asia, leading both French and British administrators to reconsider their policies in Africa and to plan for development (one that would benefit the metropole and the requirements of reconstruction, while prolonging European sovereignty). One wonders what connections, however disrupted by the war they may have been, there were across the empire between those advising on the language to be used to hold a group together, to secure cooperation, or to curry favors from people in a variety of power relations. Chin uncovers some fascinating threads: on the role of the Middle East Command and the Foreign Office presenting Operation Exporter in Egypt, Palestine, India and Turkey (163); or on divisions over policy after the bombardment of Damascus, with one official noting that any direct condemnation of France would risk raising “British hypocrisy in posing as the champion of oppressed native populations in view of India, Palestine, etc” (225). While this is not Chin’s aim, studying how information on Franco-British and Anglo-Gaullist cooperation was handled in the British territories, including in the language(s) and the media used, would shed further light on the construction of and challenges to state legitimacy, and imperial and national identities, in colonial spaces. Chin’s War of Words also raises three further important lines of inquiry. One relates to the framing of the Second World War. In a recent article, Andrew Buchanan writes of “a protracted process of conflict whose central paroxysm (December 1941–September 1945) emerged from and unwound back into an extended series of regional wars (1931–1953) […] highlight[ing] its true globality.”[25] Chin’s convincing findings for 1939/40–1945 point to the need to investigate connections with earlier conflicts, such as the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, where British-based anticolonial groups mobilized in words and action, and later end-of-empire conflicts, notably in Palestine or Malaya, in which winning “hearts and minds” occupied policymakers and various media outlets at home and on the ground.[26] As Erik Linstrum has recently noted, the idea that “colonial violence is usually thought to have left few traces in the language of British politics” needs reconsidering, even while “emergency” was “a spatial concept” that helped to circumscribe, as much as possible, violence away from the metropole.[27] Tracing connections with Chin’s study of British rhetoric might also help determine to what extent the slow development of the language of rights (the right to self-determination and human rights alike)[28]may have been influenced, directly or indirectly, negatively or positively, by the initiatives of the Second World War and their assessments. Careful to steer away from “conclusions based upon the understanding that Allied victory was forthcoming” (52), the book can also be taken as an invitation to re-read how the multilateral organizations which survived the war took stock of the Franco-British “war of words” and how ideas and practices of “co-imperialism”[29] shifted. Second, British decisionmakers and policymakers may have been more aware of—but not necessarily more sympathetic to—the growing strength of anticolonial opinions across the empires during the Second World War. A telling case is the reception in Britain of U Saw of Burma in 1941, and, in 1943, of Nnamdi Azikiwe, the editor of the Nigerian West African Pilot, alongside eight of his West African counterparts. As Mark Reeves shows, U Saw and Azikiwe used the “ambiguous universality” of the language of the Atlantic Charter to pursue their own ends, for themselves and their territory, as a “rhetorical tool.”[30] Azikiwe, like his colleague I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson in Sierra Leone, produced “bold disruptions of British imperial ideology” even while “their personal agency was situated within, inextricable from, and articulated through the framework of colonial jurisprudence,” with African newspapers using both the power to name, and the power of anonymity, to secure a space in the political and community discourse.[31] That the press was, in the words of Chin, both “a platform” for official rhetoric but also “a barometer for public opinion” (10), played out in a multiplicity of locations, with varying effects. The Colonial Office and the British Council, whose expansion to foster peaceful relations in the post-war world was not seen to be incompatible with empire and which also responded to perceived cultural competition from European neighbors,[32] co-hosted the West African editors in London. Third, as Chin again notes, the war of words had its “unintended” audience or readers, particularly as British decisionmakers used a variety of channels. In May 1941, for instance, Eden spoke in the Commons to warn that the threat of a German invasion of the Levant could be militarily opposed; he gave a statement on Syria that was broadcast to the French on the BBC; and he spoke at Mansion House in support of Arab unity and of the Arab Union project. Since the BBC Empire Service was largely designed for the white, English-speaking communities of the Commonwealth and empire, colonial governments were concerned that in the colonies, foreign radio programs would present “distorted or exaggerated versions” of “untoward events” in Britain’s empire, even when people had limited access to transmitters.[33] The crises analyzed by Chin were of particular concern for the BBC, particularly its Arabic Service, which was launched in 1938, and the Overseas Service that was broadcast to the Middle East. This was meant to address the competition from Germany and Turkey on the airwaves[34] and was grounded in Britain’s own policies in the region, in Iraq, Egypt and Palestine, which reverberated beyond the British empire – solidarity with Palestine was, as Arthur Asseraf notes for Algeria, part of what “helped actors to define the categories in which they operated and to forge later political programmes.”[35] The first Arabic Service’s broadcast, which gave news of the execution of an Arab man after the riots in Palestine, got off to a controversial start, even though it was followed by a rather “bland characterisation of the Palestinian context.”[36] Most interestingly, the BBC paid close attention to people who “hear of our news even if they themselves do not listen.”[37]This highlights the importance of rumors and story-telling, and more generally of the conditions of the production and reception (including collective reception, via a shared newspaper or single radio transmitter) of news.[38] As Nevill Barbour, then Assistant Head of the BBC’s Eastern Services, stated after the war, Eden’s support for Arab union in May 1941 had a tangible impact on how listeners of the Arabic Service perceived Britain[39]—and may in turn have stimulated the rhetoric used in the later stages of the war when driving a wedge in the Franco-British partnership in the Levant. “The Anglo-French relationship,” Richard Davis argues, “has […] served both as a lens through which they have looked at each other and as a mirror in which they have seen themselves.” War of Words proves admirably that such a “lens” is also a valuable prism to scrutinize the ways in which imperial mindsets shifted under the strain of the Second World War, and the multiplicity of even collective war memories and identities, beyond the dominant national narratives. To some extent, the war of words also gave anticolonial movements some rhetorical ammunition and leverage to change the course of events. But faced with the “guns and steel” (18) of the colonial powers during the Second World War and much after, liberation would also have to come from a complete disruption, redefinition, and abolition of the imperial norms in which the rhetoric of the war of words was so clearly rooted.
Response by Rachel Chin, University of GlasgowI must begin by thanking Laurent Cesari, Berny Sèbe, and Mélanie Torrent for the time that each of them has devoted to reading and reviewing my book. More than this, I must thank them for the constructive and thoughtful feedback that they provide. This is my first book, and I have found the prospect of reading, or even being aware of the existence of, reviews frankly petrifying. The supportive and constructive tone of all three reviews is reassuring and generous while also offering much food for thought concerning this and future projects. I would also like to thank Rachel Utley for writing the introduction to this roundtable. I have had the pleasure of working with Rachel for the past six years and I value her thoughts immensely. Since War of Words was published in 2022, I have spent a lot of time thinking about what I might have done differently. I could have conducted even more archival research. Maybe I should have included a full chapter on the British invasion and occupation of Madagascar in 1942. I have also wondered how I will view the book over the course of my career. Will my commitment to its arguments strengthen, wane, or become more nuanced? I wonder if this kind of questioning is a useful exercise or simply my inner critic taking the opportunity for an amble. Quite possibly the answer is a bit of both. Taking part in this roundtable has been an invaluable opportunity to re-reflect on my book project. It has reaffirmed to me the importance of thinking critically about my work, not in order to compile a list of regrets over what could have been, but as part of the development of my research as a historian. This roundtable also highlights the positive power of constructive peer review, no matter how intimidating the process might seem. I was pleased that all three reviewers engage positively with the central methodological approach of my book. At its core, this book argues that the words that policy makers use to speak about the actions that they are taking matter. More specifically, it suggests that this kind of strategic policy discourse, or rhetoric, is a vital part of the decisionmaking process itself, not just an afterthought. The book uses this approach to critically assess Franco-British relations through the dual lenses of war and empire between 1940 and 1945. When I began this project in 2013, I was aware that rhetorical approaches to historical research were not without their critics. Part of the reason for this skepticism was that definitionally, rhetoric is not always easy to pin down. Instinctively, one might be sure that policymaking discourse matters, but measuring its value is less easy to do then, for instance, counting numbers of troops and tanks on a battlefield. As Martin Thomas and Richard Toye have pointed out, the concept of rhetoric has often been fuzzy or conceived of so broadly that it loses all meaning.[40] Rhetoric has also frequently been equated with propaganda. Cesari describes rhetoric, as studied in War of Words, as “a sub-genre of war propaganda.” He also suggests that the book’s approach is not as novel as it purports because “the importance of propaganda in war is well known.” I would push back on the temptation to characterize all rhetoric as propaganda. The Oxford English Dictionary defines propaganda as “the systematic dissemination of information, especially in a biased or misleading way, in order to promote a particular cause or point of view, often a political agenda.”[41] A core assumption about propaganda is that it is untrue or biased in some way that compromises its reliability. Defining all wartime rhetoric as propaganda places the focus on this untruth and bias. It obscures the more complex and nuanced nature of persuasive policy language (or any kind of language for that matter). This is not to say that the policy rhetoric analyzed in my book is not without bias, or that some of it could not be classified as propaganda. Rather, the argument I want to make is that the rhetoric deployed in defense or condemnation of strategic policy decisions was not just words. These arguments were a powerful part of the process of making and responding to policy and thereby of shaping understandings of the war, empire and Franco-British relations in this context. My book defines rhetoric as the strategic language of policy making. It argues that French (Vichy and Free French) and British decision makers used rhetoric in multiple and complex ways as a strategic and powerful policy tool. Sèbe writes that this approach “interweaves heuristically several historiographical silos that have not always entered into dialogue in the past.” A key benefit of this approach is therefore that it does not tell us just one thing. Rather, it tells us lots of things. I will unpack this assertation through two points. First, key to this book is the idea that it is not just important to understand what policy makers were saying. It is equally as important to understand how that rhetoric was being crafted, who it was for, and how it was disseminated, received, debated, and evaluated. Doing this situates rhetoric in the wider social environment in which it ultimately exists. It highlights the intersection between high level policy making, mass media, and public opinion(s). It also insists upon understanding rhetoric as a social phenomenon, as Torrent notes. Franco-British rhetorical wrangling over empire reached intended and unintended audiences in this wider social milieu. Its ideas were taken up, ignored, or challenged as part of wider debates over how the war should be fought and the place of empire in and after the war. Second, understanding how rhetoric was crafted, including what made it into and what was left out of official narratives, provides insights into the complex nature of Franco-British relations during the war. But it also demonstrates how concepts like morality, history, and identity were deployed over and over again to legitimize or challenge a policy, and in doing so, to construct a particular idea of France and Britain and their roles in the wider world. Empire was the landscape over which these rhetorical battles were being fought. I remain powerfully convinced of the value of rhetorical approaches as a tool of historical analysis. Rhetorical methods are not just applicable to the context of the Second World War. Indeed, further research as part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council project “The Weight of the Past in Franco-British Relations” has encouraged me to revisit my thinking around the way in which conceptions of the past (and particularly of imperial rivalry) have featured in wider British and French policy rhetoric. Here, I have begun to engage with the work of Paul Ricoeur and Reinhart Koselleck, which argues that the way in which the past is represented by policy makers in the present drives powerful expectations for hopes and anxieties about the future.[42] This is research that I am excited to continue developing both in and beyond the framework of the Second World War. All three reviews also give me a great deal to think about regarding this book and possible future avenues of research. I thank Sèbe for his notes regarding the use of Francophone archives and historiography. I absolutely agree. Although I am confident, and as Sèbe also notes, that the book draws from a robust and varied combination of sources, engaging with even more Francophone sources is something that I will do in future. As a doctoral student, I learned French for this project, and my relative newness to these source bases sometimes shows in research. Torrent raises several areas of possible further research. These suggestions are intriguing and exciting. Although War of Words focused on a particular collection of imperial ‘crisis points’ in the Franco-British relationship, it drew from these clashes a number of common themes. These include the strategic and symbolic importance of empire to French and British policy makers as a guarantor of national power and prestige during and after the war.[43] At the same time, the book highlights some of the increasingly visible tensions in empire, which were made evident in anti-imperial nationalist demands in the French Levant and in French and British attempts to revise how empire and imperial relationships looked at the end of the war. Torrent suggests further exploring how these themes might be mapped more broadly, in both time and space. I warmly welcome these suggestions, which collectively speak to wider shifts in how scholars have approached the Second World War.[44] I am interested in expanding the geographical boundaries of my research, to better understand how different audiences in both empires perceived and responded to Franco-British relations and Franco-British imperial conflict during the war. I thank Sèbe for his suggestion to consider how the Franco-British alliance was perceived in the Caribbean and British India. Considering this question from a range of viewpoints, from colonial, metropolitan and commonwealth policy makers; anti-imperial nationalist leaders; and local “public” audiences, could shed light on imperial and anti-imperial interconnections and the flow of ideas and policy learnings.[45] Torrent has also made the case for extending the temporal scope of aspects of this research, by considering how the language around colonial violence and anti-imperial rights preceded and followed the period from 1939 to 1945. This point links to important work on genealogies of war, empire and anti-imperial nationalism that are situated beyond the scope of the Second World War.[46] Reflecting on Andrew Buchanan’s 2023 article, approaches that complicate our understanding of the Second World War’s temporal and geographical boundaries as well as its actors brings much-needed nuance to our understanding of this conflict as a lived experience that was part of a much wider context.[47] Thinking beyond the most frequently cited voices and experiences of the Second World War is something that I have been doing through my newest research. I am in the midst of exploring how Chinese and Chinese-descended communities in the colonial British and French Caribbean conceptualized and experienced the Second World War. My approach here continues to focus on the language that individuals and groups used to describe the war and their place within it. Researching and writing War of Words has been instrumental in shaping and refining my approach to historical research. It has thrown up new questions and suggested further avenues for exploration. The act of sharing this research with others, whether reviewers or colleagues, has been equally impactful in encouraging me to refine, nuance, and clarify what the project is doing. I will therefore close with a final thanks to Cesari, Sèbe, and Torrent for their input and thoughts. Their perspectives will further enrich my work and thinking now and in the future.
[1] Ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires Etrangères, “120th Anniversary of the Entente Cordiale (8 April 2024),” at https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/country-files/united-kingdom/news/article/120th-anniversary-of-the-entente-cordiale-08-04-24 [accessed 23 November 2024]. [2] David Cameron and Stéphane Séjourné, “The World Is Safer for a Renewed Entente,” GOV.UK, 8 April 2024 at https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-world-is-safer-for-a-renewed-entente-article-by-the-foreign-secretary-and-french-minister-for-europe-and-foreign-affairs[accessed 23 November 2024]. [3] The Royal Family, “120 years of the Entente Cordiale,” Royal.UK, https://www.royal.uk/news-and-activity/2024-04-08/120-years-of-the-entente-cordiale {accessed 23 November 2024]. [4] Martin Thomas and Richard Toye, eds., Rhetorics of Empire: Languages of Colonial Conflict after 1900 (Manchester University Press, 2017) 5. In their book, Arguing about Empire: Imperial Rhetoric in Britain and France, 1882–1956, (Oxford University Press, 2019), they develop the subject with reference to particular case studies of the British and French Empires. Other recent studies include: Pascal Blanchard, Sandrine Lemaire, Nicolas Bancel, Dominic Richard David Thomas, eds., Colonial Culture in France since the Revolution (Bloomington, Ind., Indiana University Press, 2014; Alceo Crivelli, La letteratura coloniale e postcoloniale in Italia [Colonial and Postcolonial Literature in Italy] (Melteni, 2022); Felicity Rash, Geraldine Theresa Horan, eds., The Discourse of British and German Colonialism: Convergence and Competition (Routledge, 2021). [5] There also existed, thus, a rhetorical battle between Vichy and the Free French, each claiming to be the true France, each having an imperial vision, and each trying to discredit the other. Rachel Chin has also published an article on this: “Who Speaks for France? Vichy, Free France and the Battle over French Legitimacy: 1940–1942,” British Journal for Military History, 6.3 (2020), 2-22 See also Eric Jennings, “Britain and Free France in Africa, 1940–1943,” in James R. Fichter, ed., British and French Colonialism in Africa, Asia and the Middle East: Connected Empires Across the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Centuries(Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). [6] For more on the situation in the Levant see Martin Thomas, The French Empire at War 1940–45 (Manchester University Press, 2017); Meir Zamir, “De Gaulle and the Question of Syria and Lebanon during the Second World War: Part I,” Middle Eastern Studies, 43:5 (2005): 675-708; G.E. Maguire, Anglo-American Policy towards the Free French (Palgrave, 1995); Antoine Hokayem, “La France et le Levant de 1940 à 1943 : l’indépendance du Liban et de la Syrie,” Cahiers de la Méditerranée 48:1 (1994): 83-118. [7] On relations between the Axis powers and Arabs during World War II, see, among others: Klaus Gensicke, The Mufti of Jerusalem and the Nazis: The Berlin Years (V. Mitchell, 2011); Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers, eds., Halbmond und Hakenkreuz: Das Dritte Reich, die Araben und Palästina(Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2006); Romain H. Rainero, La politica araba di Mussolini nella seconda Guerra mondiale (CEDAM, 2004). [8] Recent studies on war propaganda include, among others: Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac, “Information, propaganda et opinion publique durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale », Mélanges de l’Ecole Française de Rome, Italie et Méditerranées 108:2 (1996): 147-154; Simon Eliot and Marc Wiggam, eds., Allied Communication to the Public during the Second World War: National and Transnational Networks (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020); Aristotle A. Kallis, Nazi Propaganda and the Second World War(Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); Clayton D. Laurie, The Propaganda Warriors: America’s Crusade against Nazi Germany (University Press of Kansas, 1996); Aurélie Lureau, Radio Londres: Les voix de la liberté [Radio London: The Voices of Liberty (Perrin, 2010). [9] See for instance Robert Gibson, Best of Enemies: Anglo-French Relations since the Norman Conquest (Impress, 2004); Diana Cooper-Richet and Michel Rapoport, eds., L'Entente Cordiale. Cent ans de relations culturelles franco-britanniques 1904–2004 (Creaphis, 2006); Robert Tombs and Isabelle Tombs, That Sweet Enemy: The French and the British from the Sun King to the Present (Heinemann, 2006); Véronique Gazeau and Jean-Philippe Genet, La France et les îles Britanniques: Un couple impossible? (CNRS, 2007); Andrew Radford and Victoria Reid, eds. Franco-British Cultural Exchanges, 1880–1940: Channel Packets (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Martin Thomas and Richard Toye, Arguing about Empire: Imperial Rhetoric in Britain and France, 1882–1956 (Oxford University Press, 2017); Richard Davis, “Franco-British Relations and Rivalries: One-upmanship, Schadenfreude and the Weight of History,” Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique, XXVII-1 (2022); http://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/8659; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/rfcb.8659. [10] Arthur Asseraf. Electric News in Colonial Algeria (Oxford University Press, 2019). [11] Jo Fox and David Welch, eds. Justifying War: Propaganda, Politics and the Modern Age (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Tim Luckhurst, Reporting the Second World War: The Press and the People 1939–1945(Bloomsbury, 2023). [12] David Killingray and Richard Rathbone, eds. Africa and the Second World War (Palgrave Macmillan, 1986); Ashley Jackson, The British Empire and the Second World War (Continuum, 2006); Martin Thomas, The French Empire at War, 1940–1945 (Manchester University Press, 2007); Nicola Labanca, David Reynolds, and Olivier Wieviorka, eds. La Guerre du Désert, 1940–1943 (Perrin, 2019). [13] Jacques Cantier and Eric Jennings, eds. L’Empire colonial sous Vichy [The Colonial Empire under Vichy] (Odile Jacob, 2004); Alya Aglan, La France à l’envers [France Upside Down] (Gallimard/Folio Histoire, 2020), 90-140 (chapter 2: “L’Empire de Vichy”); Jacques Frémeaux, La Question d’Orient [The Orient Question] (Fayard, 2014); Henry Laurens, Français et arabes depuis deux siècles : la chose franco-arabe[French and Arabs over Two Centuries : The French-Arab Thing (Tallandier, 2012). [14] Eric Jennings, “Britain and Free France in Africa, 1940–1943,” in James R. Fichter, ed., British and French Colonialism in Africa, Asia and the Middle East: Connected Empires across the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Centuries (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019): 277-296. [15] Martin Thomas and Richard Toye, “Introduction,” in Martin Thomas and Richard Toye, eds., Rhetorics of Empire:Language and Colonial Conflict After 1900 (Manchester University Press, 2017): 1-21, here 16. [16] Véronique Dimier, Le gouvernement croisé des colonies. Regards croisés franco-britanniques (Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 2004). [17] Thomas and Toye, “Introduction,” inThomas and Richard Toye, Rhetorics of Empire, 16. [18] Rogelia Pastor-Castro, “The British Embassy in Paris and the Fall of France,” in Rogelia Pastor-Castro and Martin Thomas, eds., Embassies in Crisis: Studies of Diplomatic Missions in Testing Situations(Routledge, 2021): 18-36, here 32. [19] Pastor-Castro, “The British Embassy in Paris and the Fall of France,” 22, 28. [20] Richard Toye, Winston Churchill: A Life in the News (Oxford University Press, 2020): 185. [21] Toye, WinstonChurchill, 209. [22] Richard Hammond, Strangling the Axis. The Fight for Control of the Mediterranean During the Second World War (Cambridge University Press, 2020): xiii. [23] Luc-André Brunet, “The Role of Algeria in Debates over Post-War Europe within the French Resistance,” in Muriam Haleh Davis and Thomas Serres, eds., North Africa and the Making of Europe: Governance, Institutions and Culture (London: Bloomsbury, 2017): 23-42. [24] Jonathan Fennell, Combat and Morale in the North Africa Campaign: The Eighth Army and the Path to El Alamein(Cambridge University Press, 2011). [25] Andrew Buchanan, “Globalizing the Second World War,” Past and Present 258:1 (2023): 254, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtab042. Other historians have suggested a 1937–1947 timeframe: Alya Aglan and Robert Frank, eds., 1937–1947. La guerre-monde (Folio, 2015). [26] Susan L. Carruthers, Winning Hearts and Minds: British Governments, the Media and Colonial Counter-Insurgency 1944–1960 (Leicester University Press, 1995). [27] Erik Linstrum, Age of Emergency: Living with Violence at the End of the British Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023): 92, 20. [28] See for instance Brian Drohan, Brutality in an Age of Human Rights: Activism and Counterinsurgency at the End of the British Empire (Cornell University Press, 2018). [29] The Centre for Imperial and Global History defines the term as “the exercise of imperialism as a collaborative project between multiple imperial states; the movement of personnel and translation of expertise between imperial systems; and the geopolitical and environmental circumstances that have invited this phenomenon.” See Martin Thomas and Richard Toye, Arguing About Empire: Imperial Rhetoric in Britain and France, 1882–1956 (Oxford University Press, 2017): 10. [30] Mark Reeves, “‘Free and Equal Partners in Your Commonwealth’: The Atlantic Charter and Anticolonial Delegations to London, 1941–3,” Modern British History29:2 (2018): 282. [31] Stephanie Newell, The Power to Name: A History of Anonymity in Colonial West Africa (Ohio University Press, 2013): 110. [32] Alice Byrne, “The British Council and British Cultural Diplomacy 1934–1959: A New Form of Diplomacy?” Contemporary British History 37:4 (2023): 489-504. [33] Quoted in Caroline Ritter, Imperial Encore: The Cultural Project of the Late British Empire (University of California Press, 2021): 79. [34] Peter Partner, Arab Voices: The BBC Arabic Service, 1938–1988 (British Broadcasting Corporation, 1988): 40. [35] Arthur Asseraf, Electric News in Colonial Algeria (Oxford University Press, 2019):169. [36] Gordon Johnson and Emma Robertson, BBC World Service: Overseas Broadcasting, 1932–2018 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019): 86. [37] Johnson and Robertson, BBC World Service, 122. [38] This is also demonstrated extremely well in Asseraf, Electric News. [39] Nevill Barbour, “Broadcasting to the Arab World. Arabic Transmissions from the B.B.C. and other Non-Arab Stations,” Middle East Journal 5:1 (1951): 66. [40] Martin Thomas and Richard Toye, Arguing about Empire: Imperial Rhetoric in Britain and France, 1882–1956 (Oxford University Press, 2017), 7. [41] “Propaganda,” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, https://www.oed.com/dictionary/propaganda_n?tab=meaning_and_use#28217086. [42] Paul Ricoeur, La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli (Éditions du Seuil, 2003), 289-298. Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, trans. Keith Tribe (MIT Press, 1985), 276-277. See also: Jon Cowans, “Visions of the Postwar: The Politics of Memory and Expectation in 1940s France," History and Memory 10:2 (1998): 68-101. [43] The importance of empire as a marker of France’s global power and status during and after the Second World War is something that I explore in my chapter “Empire and Global France during the Second World War,” in The French Globalization Projects, ed. Matthias Middell (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2024): 427-446. [44] I am thinking in particular of work that deploys transnational and global perspectives to surface previously hidden experiences and move beyond strictly national approaches. See, for instance: Aviel Roshwald, Occupied: European & Asian Responses to Axis Conquest, 1937–1945 (Cambridge University Press, 2023). Kimberly Cheng, “Learning the Ropes of Life in Shanghai: Jewish Refugee Children in Second World War China,” Journal of Contemporary History 26 July 2024; https://doi.org/10.1177/00220094241263780. Margherita Zanasi, “Globalizing Hanjian: The Suzhou Trials and the Post-World War II Discourse on Collaboration,” The American Historical Review 113:3 (2008): 731-751. [45] There is already exciting and ambitious work thinking through the complex interconnections amongst and between global empires. See, for instance, Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference (Princeton University Press, 2010); Lisa Lowe, The Intimacies of Four Continents (Duke University Press, 2015). [46] See, for instance, Erez Manela and Heather Streets-Salter, eds., The Anticolonial Transnational: Imaginaries, Mobilities, and Networks in the Struggle Against Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2023); Martin Thomas and Richard Toye, eds., Rhetorics of Empire: Languages of Colonial Conflict after 1900 (Manchester University Press, 2017); Martin Thomas, Fight or Flight: Britain, France, and their Roads from Empire (Oxford University Press, 2014). Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism (Oxford University Press, 2007). [47] Andrew Buchanan, “Globalizing the Second World War,” Past & Present 258:1 (2023): 246-281. Message from a proud sponsor of H-Net:
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LONDON – Since the US presidential election last year, I have been commenting regularly on various aspects of Donald Trump’s agenda and what it might mean for America, financial markets, and the rest of the world. There has been no shortage of chaos, but that was largely expected, given the president’s ham-handed, erratic “method” of policymaking.
As I noted in February, and again in March, other economies may respond to Trump’s aggression by boosting their own domestic demand and reducing their dependency on US consumers and financial markets. If there is a positive spin to the current mess, it is that Europeans and the Chinese have already started to pursue such changes. Germany is loosening its “debt brake” and allowing for sorely needed investment, and China is said to be studying its options for stimulating domestic consumption.
For any country that depends on international trade and markets, it is abundantly obvious that, even if the United States can be persuaded to rein in its trade-war policies, new trading arrangements will be necessary. Many are already seeking ways to increase trade among themselves and to forge new agreements to lower non-tariff barriers in the rapidly growing services trade.
As a bloc, the rest of the G7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom) is nearly as large as the US. Add the other participants in UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s “coalition of the willing,” and America’s erstwhile allies could offset much of the damage that Trump has inflicted. By the same token, if China could refashion its Belt and Road Initiative in close coordination with India and other larger emerging economies, that might prove transformational.
Such moves would mitigate the effects of US tariff policies and threats. But they will not be easy to pull off; if they were, they already would have happened. Today’s trading and financial arrangements reflect a variety of political, cultural, and historical factors, and the Trump administration will try to derail any changes to the status quo that could benefit China.
What matters, then, is precisely how other large economies go about stimulating domestic demand, mobilizing investment, and forging new trade ties. At a recent conference on “globalization and geo-economic fragmentation,” hosted by the think tank Bruegel and the Dutch central bank, I was reminded just how skewed global GDP growth has been since the turn of the century. A simple analysis of annual nominal GDP figures from 2000 to 2024 shows that the US, China, the eurozone, and India collectively contributed nearly 70% of all growth, with the US and China accounting for almost 50% between them.
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This finding further underscores the fact that US tariff threats must be met with higher domestic demand elsewhere. But here is a reality check: The only other country that could singlehandedly boost its demand and imports by enough to compensate for America’s declining share of the global economy is China.
But what if China isn’t operating singlehandedly? As we have seen, Europeans are already taking steps to increase investment and defense spending in ways that will benefit both the EU economy and others, like the UK. And, of course, India’s economy has been growing faster than many others in recent years, suggesting that it could have some scope to pursue more domestic stimulus. What if all these other economies were coordinating their own policies?
Such coordination probably might not have the same global impact as the 2009 London G20 agreement, which introduced wide-ranging global reforms and new institutions to address the causes of the global financial crisis and its fallout. But if these countries signaled to the rest of the world that they were engaged in some kind of consultation to harmonize their economic policies and advance shared objectives, that could have quite a positive impact.
Finally, something else from the Bruegel conference has been nagging away at me. It was a chart (see below), presented by Bruegel Senior Fellow André Sapir, highlighting the similarities between Japan’s rise, when its GDP grew to around 70% that of the US in the 1990s, and China’s today. Then as now, the great fear in America was that it would be “surpassed.” But what does America really want? Does it want to be able to say that it is the largest economy in nominal terms, or does it want to provide wealth and prosperity for its citizens?
These are not necessarily the same thing. What the current US administration fails to understand is that other countries’ growth and development can make Americans themselves even wealthier. Perhaps, someday, Americans will elect leaders who can comprehend this basic economic insight. For now, though, they seem destined for many years of turmoil and persistent uncertainty.