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Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918
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Historical SummaryOn June 16, 1940, with the Germans in occupation of about one-fourth of France and with more and more of Premier Paul Reynaud’s colleagues in favor of quitting the war, the British, through Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill, offered to establish a constitutional union with France. It was hoped that this gesture might strengthen Reynaud’s hand in a fateful meeting of the French Cabinet held at 5:00 P.M. on that date. Instead, the offer evoked surprise and mistrust among those who already had made up their minds that Great Britain soon would follow France in defeat before the Nazi onslaught. Hence nothing came of the proposal and Rey-naud resigned, to be succeeded by the eighty-four-year-old Henri Philippe Pétain who promptly asked Spain to act as intermediary in requesting an armistice of the Germans.
World History 260.
The British Offer of Union With France, June 16, 194010
DECLARATION OF UNION
At this most fateful moment in the history of the modern world, the Governments of the United Kingdom and the French Republic make this declaration of indissoluble union and unyielding resolution in their common defence of justice and freedom against subjection to a system which reduces mankind to a life of robots and slaves.
The two Governments declare that France and Great Britain shall no longer be two nations, but one Franco-British Union.
The constitution of the Union will provide for joint organs of defence, foreign, financial, and economic policies.
Every citizen of France will enjoy immediately citizenship of Great Britain; every British subject will become a citizen of France.
Both countries will share responsibility for the repair of the devastation of war, wherever it occurs in their territories, and the resources of both shall be equally, and as one, applied to that purpose.
During the war there shall be a single War Cabinet, and all the forces of Britain and France, whether on land, sea, or in the air, will be placed under its direction. It will govern from wherever it best can. The two Parliaments will be formally associated. The Nations of the British Empire are already forming new armies. France will keep her available forces in the field, on the sea, and in the air. The Union appeals to the United States to fortify the economic resources of the Allies, and to bring her powerful material aid to the common cause.
The Union will concentrate its whole energy against the power of the enemy, no matter where the battle may be.
And thus we shall conquer.
10 Churchill, W. S. The Second World War, Boston 1948—, vol. II (Their Finest Hour), pp. 208–209. By permission of the Houghton Mifflin Company, publishers.
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Chicago: W. S., ed., "The British Offer of Union With France, June 16, 1940," Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918 in Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918, ed. Walter Consuelo Langsam and James Michael Egan (Chicage: Lippincott, 1951), 875–876. Original Sources, accessed November 21, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=LILJFWG8QYL34E1.
MLA: . "The British Offer of Union With France, June 16, 1940." Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918, edited by W. S., Vol. II, in Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918, edited by Walter Consuelo Langsam and James Michael Egan, Chicage, Lippincott, 1951, pp. 875–876. Original Sources. 21 Nov. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=LILJFWG8QYL34E1.
Harvard: (ed.), 'The British Offer of Union With France, June 16, 1940' in Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918. cited in 1951, Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918, ed. , Lippincott, Chicage, pp.875–876. Original Sources, retrieved 21 November 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=LILJFWG8QYL34E1.
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