Britain and Free France in Africa, 1940–1943

Jennings, Eric T.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-97964-9_12

Britain and Free France in Africa, 1940–1943

Eric T. Jennings⁴

Chapter
First Online: 03 August 2019

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Part of the book series: Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies ((CIPCSS))

Abstract

In 1940, as Vichy France sought to assert control over its overseas possessions, a schism tore across the French colonial empire. The few colonies to opt for General Charles de Gaulle’s Free French forces did so thanks to considerable British support. The economies of these territories switched orbits, exiting now-Axis French networks and entering allied British ones. Britain not only bankrolled the early Free French movement in Africa but also bought up vast amounts of its rubber, wood, and metals. This chapter on a long-neglected subject sheds light on the complexities of a relationship tested by colonial rivalry and global war. It probes the consequences of these realignments on Africans and explores some of the decision-making and mechanics of the Franco-British imperial relationship during the Second World War.

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Notes

1.
Deborah Neill, Networks in Tropical Medicine (Stanford: 2012); Joël Bonnemaison, Les fondements d’une identitié: Territoire, histoire et societé dans l’archipel de Vanuatu, (Bondy: ORSTOM, 1986); Hélène Blais, “Un territoire, deux souverainetés, quel partage colonial? Le condominium franco-britannique des Nouvelles-Hébrides,” FCHS meeting Siem Reap Cambodia, June 2014, and her chapter elsewhere in this volume.
2.
Eric Jennings, Free French Africa in World War II: The African Resistance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 32.
3.
Martin Thomas and Richard Toye, Arguing about Empire: Imperial Rhetoric in Britain and France 1882–1956, (Oxford, 2017), 161.
4.
ANOM Cab 49, 288.
5.
Jennings, Free French Africa, 23.
6.
Brian Weinstein, Eboué (Oxford: Oxford University Press: 1972), 237.
7.
AML Leclerc 6A, correspondence 1940.
8.
NAUK FO 859/1.
9.
UK War Cabinet 260 [40], September 27, 1940, p. 120.
10.
ANOM Cab 55, file on Chad.
11.
ANOM Fonds Galassus, box 1, Tchad, telegram 321.
12.
AMC Boislambert B Afrique 1940.
13.
RH Africa S 424 folio 245.
14.
RH Africa S 424 folios 252–254.
15.
RH Africa S 1814 38/192.
16.
ANOM 1Affpol 2557.
17.
ANOM GGAEF 5D 290.
18.
André Laguerre, L’Afrique française libre (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1942), 36.
19.
Jennings, Free French Africa, 177.
20.
NAUK FO 859/3.
21.
NAUK 859/6.
22.
ANOM GGAEF 5D 289.
23.
Annuaire statistique de l’Afrique équatoriale française, 1936–1950, p. 268.
24.
ANC GGAEF 553.
25.
MF Krull’s Brazzaville manuscript, p. 125.
26.
NAUK 859/6.
27.
ANF 3AG1167.
28.
ANCAM 2 AC 21.
29.
NAUK FO 859, file 6, and Jennings, Free French Africa, 190.
30.
Vichy secret report # 20 on Le réseau ferré et routier du bloc AEF, Cameroun, Congo Belge, ANOM SOM B 13827, p. 15.
31.
Olivier Lapie, Le Tchad Fait la Guerre, (Alger: Office français d’édition, 1943), 16–17.
32.
ANC GGAEF 82, Telegram dated July 17, 1942.
33.
ANOM GGAEF 4(1) D50.
34.
ANF 3AG 1167; G. S. Brunskill manuscript titled “A soldier’s yesterdays” held at the Imperial War Museum, with a synopsis available at nationalarchives.gov.uk
35.
ANOM GGAEF 3B 1104.
36.
ANOM GGAEF, 4 (4) D53, 1943 Borkou Tibesti report, p. 1.
37.
ANOM GGAEF, 4 (4) D51, 1941 Salamat report, p. 14.
38.
Jennings, Free French Africa, 231–234; for the longue durée on flight as a resistance strategy, see Alexander Keese, “Hunting ‘Wrongdoers’ and ‘Vagrants’: The Long-Term Perspective of Flight, Evasion and Persecution in Colonial and Postcolonial Congo-Brazzaville, 1920–1980,” African Economic History, 44 (2016): 152–180.
39.
Eric Jennings, Curing the Colonizers, (Raleigh: Duke University Press, 2006); on other accredited colonial “rest centres” see ANOM AGEFOM 627.
40.
“Les congés en Afrique du Sud” Courrier d’Afrique, February 3, 1941.
41.
ANOM GGAEF 2Y 14.
42.
ANC GGAEF 82.
43.
ANOM 2Y 14.
44.
ANC GGAEF 128.
45.
Jennings, Free French Africa, 132; Saul Kelly, “Ce fruit savoureux du désert: Britain, France and the Fezzan, 1941–1956,” Maghreb Review 26 1 (2001): 3–4.
46.
ANOM GGAEF 3B 2383.
47.
ANOM 1Affpol 2006.
48.
On “thinking like an empire,” see Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).
49.
Jennings, Free French Africa, 21.

Archival Acronyms

AC Archives du Mémorial de Caen
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AML Archives du Mémorial du Maréchal Leclerc, Paris
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ANC Archives nationales de la République du Congo, Brazzaville
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ANCAM Archives nationales du Cameroun, Yaoundé
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ANF Archives nationales de France, Pierrefitte
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ANOM Archives nationales d’outre-mer, Aix-en-Provence
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MF Museum Folkwang archives, Essen
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NAUK National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew
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RH Rhodes House Library (Bodleian), Oxford
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Selective Bibliography (Primary Sources)

Annuaire statistique de l’Afrique équatoriale française, 1936–1950. 1952. Brazzaville: Haut-Commissariat de l’Afrique équatoriale francṃaise.
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Laguerre, André. 1942. L’Afrique française libre. London: Oxford University Press.
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Lapie, Olivier. 1943. Le Tchad Fait la Guerre. Algiers: Office français d’édition.
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Selective Bibliography (Secondary Sources)

Cooper, Frederick. 2005. Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Book Google Scholar
Jennings, Eric. 2006. Curing the Colonizers. Raleigh: Duke University Press.
Book Google Scholar
———. 2015. Free French Africa in World War II: The African Resistance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Book Google Scholar
Keese, Alexander. 2016. Hunting “Wrongdoers” and “Vagrants”: The Long-Term Perspective of Flight, Evasion and Persecution in Colonial and Postcolonial Congo-Brazzaville, 1920–1980. African Economic History 44: 152–180.
Article Google Scholar
Kelly, Saul. 2001. Ce fruit savoureux du désert: Britain, France and the Fezzan, 1941–1956. The Maghreb Review 26 (1): 2–21.
Google Scholar
Neill, Deborah. 2012. Networks in Tropical Medicine. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Book Google Scholar
Thomas, Martin, and Richard Toye. 2017. Arguing About Empire: Imperial Rhetoric in Britain and France 1882–1956. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Book Google Scholar

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Authors and Affiliations

University of Toronto, Victoria College, Toronto, ON, Canada
Eric T. Jennings

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European Studies, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong
James R. Fichter

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Jennings, E.T. (2019). Britain and Free France in Africa, 1940–1943. In: Fichter, J.R. (eds) British and French Colonialism in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97964-9_12

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97964-9_12
Published: 03 August 2019
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-97963-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-97964-9
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

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