June 23, 2015

Finest Hour 114, Spring 2002

Page 33

By Leon J. Waszak

Allies at War: The Bitter Rivalry among Churchill, Roosevelt, and de Gaulle, by Simon Berthon. New York: Carroll & Graf, 354 pages, illus., published at $26, member price $23.


I became acquainted with Simon Berthon’s book at the Chartwell Bookshop, while rolling through the English countryside last summer with a group of like-minded friends. The British edition, which first caught my attention, appeared to be a companion book to complement a BBC2 documentary series of the same name. The recently published American edition, by contrast, is currently being marketed as a stand-alone work. I am not fully aware of the book’s utility vis-a-vis the BBC program (to be seen in the U.S. on PBS), so this is an assessment of the book in its own right.

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Whatever medium proves to be more noteworthy in the long scheme of things, Mr. Berthon (who is also the producer of the BBC series) has found the stuff of great drama to mold in this Second World War setting, against the larger-than-life personalities of Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Charles de Gaulle. His study reveals not only their celebrated leadership abilities in waging a successful coalition war, but their clashing interests and egos, with a hint of pettiness and mutual distrust.

The title deliberately conjures up the duality of the principal actors, who are as much at war with one another as they are with the Axis. As far as I can tell, Berthon is the first to deal with this trilateral relationship. After much of the initial curiosity over the Churchill-Roosevelt relationship had been explored, followed in the early 1980s by Francois Kersaudy’s Churchill and de Gaulle and Raoul Anglion’s Roosevelt and de Gaulle, this new work should either make the cycle complete or give the proverbial dead horse a few more lashes.

The author’s claim, however sincere, that “never-before-seen” archival information is being utilized for the book, is hard to confirm, given the lack of footnotes. Berthon does, however, provide the reader a somewhat vague chapter-by-chapter summary of sources in back pages of his book.

I draw from his bibliography that he has consulted many of the standard works that are familiar to readers of this journal, who will note that Berthon visited most of the relevant archival repositories in the United States and Great Britain. He plumbed the Roosevelt Library, and collections relating to Churchill’s wartime government at the Public Record Office in London, and various other manuscript and diary collections. Only one French archival source is cited, the private diaries found in the Leon Jon Teyssot Estate in Paris.

Yet despite what seems to be a work based on primary documents, it strikes me as a rehash of previously raised points of discussion by Berthon’s predecessors in the field, together with a generous supply of personal swipes, or insults, as quoted in the book.

Churchill appears, as usual in this particular triangle, the man in the middle, torn between the increasingly exasperating de Gaulle, whom he supports with rhetoric, money and political capital as a symbol of French resistance, and President Roosevelt, whose nation’s might and manpower are needed to win the war. It might surprise some readers to see FDR’s image taking more of a beating than those of the others.

De Gaulle, for all his ravings against the treachery of the “AngloSaxons” and his acknowledged egoisms, appears the victim who justifiably feared a secret Anglo-American deal to drive him off center stage. The strange U.S. relationship with the collaborationist Vichy government (which the United States recognized officially as legitimate, while snubbing the Free French completely) was at the core of a long list of “betrayals” that hardened de Gaulle’s personal resentment. De Gaulle’s long memory of these, argues the author, would carry over into the postwar era. Churchill’s initial admiration for the French leader wore thin too, but rather than blame de Gaulle the Prime Minister’s Cressida-like maneuverings are seen as equally damaging to the relationship.

One of the interesting twists to the storyโ€”indeed an example of role reversal for Churchill and Roosevelt visa-vis de Gaulleโ€”was over how the Free French should be utilized in Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France. In this instance Roosevelt is portrayed as more supportive than Churchill in helping the Free French take an active role: Churchill protested that this would harm British strategy in Italy by creating an unnecessary distraction. According to Berthon, FDR’s support was critical in “restoring France as a military power, whereas, if Churchill had his way, this would, at the very least, have been delayed.”

It seems that after D-Day, Roosevelt’s sparring with de Gaulle ended, or at least was mitigated somewhat, by French leader’s de facto legitimacy amongst the French. Roosevelt, who once ridiculed and despised him, now had to recognize the French leader’s status. Churchill, by contrast, as the war in Europe was ending, referred to the once-admired de Gaulle as “one of the greatest dangers to European peace” in a letter to Roosevelt’s successor, Harry Trumanโ€”this after the French leader had to be forced out of a zone of occupation in northern Italy which he had refused to leave.

If Berthon’s book is not quite the in-depth study that we might expect, it remains thoroughly entertaining and a worthy introduction to the PBS documentary series. Certainly it is well written. Those unfamiliar with the subject might appreciate the easy-to-read prose as useful in negotiating the political complexities that these key wartime personalities embodied. If the television production is anything like the book, it should have a successful run.

Admirers of Churchill might not find Berthon’s analysis to their liking, but neither would partisans of FDR. De Gaulle comes off looking better only because his character flaws were part of an overall mystique; and there is not much more that the author could add to change drastically our perception of the French leader, one way or the other. The net effect is nil. It all comes at the expense of Churchill and Roosevelt.

To those to whom it matters, there are minor differences between the editions. The British edition has no index, the American edition does. The hardcover binding on the U.S. version is sewn with a cloth spine, the British edition (also a hardcover) is glued or pressed with cardboard covers and spine. Although the British edition appears heftier in appearance than its American counterpart, they are identical in size, page count, photos, and typeface. The paper shade in the U.S. edition is easier on the eyes and the dust cover is nicer. Readers of Finest Hour will therefore be pleased to know that the U.S. edition is the one being offered by the CC Book Club.


Dr. Waszak is Assistant Professor of History at Glendale College and the author of Agreement in Principle: The Wartime Partnership of General Wladyslaw Sikorski and Winston Churchill.

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