synarchy movement of empire book ii - Pierre Beaudry's Galactic ...

instead of calling de Gaulle to order, Churchill saw an opportunity to give
vent to his eloquence by supporting de Gaulle, in a speech given in Ottawa,
when after a diatribe against Vichy, he said: "Some Frenchmen there were,
who would not bow their knees and who, under de Gaulle, have continued to
fight at the side of the Allies. They have been condemned to death by the
men of Vichy, but their names will be held, and are being held, in increasing
respect by nine Frenchmen out of every ten throughout the once happy,
smiling land of France." No one could understand why Churchill was giving
such an endorsement to de Gaulle.
Meanwhile, out of Vichy, Admiral Leahy sent the message that
"Darlan referred to the St. Pierre and Miquelon incident and said that
Germany had already used the seizure of those islands by De Gaulle as an
argument for the entry of Axis troops into Africa, in order that it may be
protected against similar invasion." (Langer, Op. Cit., 218) Since they did
not know what to think of it, the Germans had to invent some unlikely but
credible response. However, this striking action at St. Pierre and Miquelon
had the net effect of accelerating the entry of de Gaulle into a position of
command on the North African front.
As for the U.S. side, Secretary Hull was, as expected, against de
Gaulle's move and complained to the President, and ultimately proposed a
compromise whereby the tiny islands would end up in a sort of joint
American-Canadian-British trusteeship and would be considered neutral and
demilitarized. But de Gaulle refused. And besides, Roosevelt was against
intervening into French internal affairs, including in the French colonies. I
recall here an important statement of {diplomatic resistance} that Roosevelt
had just made earlier in December 1942 to that effect:
"Now that the United States is in the war, it should be perfectly clear
to the French Government, and the French people, that if Germany or Italy
attacked unoccupied France, or any of the French colonies, in any way, the
President could not regard acquiescence to such an attack as anything else
than playing the German game.
"On the other hand, resistance by the French against German or Italian
attack either in France itself or in any part of the Colonial Empire would be
regarded by the President as a normal and natural reaction. Such resistance
would have not only the moral support of the United States, but it would also
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