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The Empire Defense Council (French: Conseil de défense de l'Empire) was a deliberative body established within Free France in 1940. It was subsequently replaced by the French National Committee.
Creation and legitimacy
On 26 June 1940, four days after the Pétain government requested the armistice, General de Gaulle submitted a memorandum to the British government notifying Churchill of his decision to set up a Council of Defense of the Empire[1] and formalizing the agreement reached with Churchill on 28 June, which allowed the Free French forces to be recognized as a fully-fledged French authority by the British government: in the eyes of the British government, General de Gaulle was then the "Head of the French who are continuing the war".[citation needed] This memorandum led to an agreement on 7 August, but provided for the creation of a French Committee or Council as of 26 June.[citation needed]
The agreement of 7 August between de Gaulle and the UK, known as the "Chequers agreement", gave General de Gaulle all the financial independence and resources of a government in exile.[2] The British government considered it to have taken effect 11 July 1940, the day Marshal Pétain took full powers and signed into law the end of the Third Republic. By this act, the British government wished to indicate that it recognized that Free France, still being formed at the time, was the legitimate successor to the Republic that had just died, and was an ally of the United Kingdom in the war. It[clarification needed] also undertook to reconstitute the entire French territory and "the greatness of France" after the war was over.
The formal recognition of the Empire Defense Council as a de facto government in exile by the United Kingdom took place on 6 January 1941; recognition by the Soviet Union was published in December 1941, by exchange of letters.[3]
Geographical base
In his view, General de Gaulle was ensuring the continuity of the rule of law and national defense against the Axis powers. This was made possible by the legitimacy he obtained from his appeal of 18 June, as well as by the rapid rallying of military units and French territories that wished to continue the fight (from 22 June, in the case of the Franco-British territory of New Hebrides).
De Gaulle's support grew out of a base in colonial Africa. In the fall of 1940, the colonial empire largely supported the Vichy regime. Félix Éboué, governor of Chad, switched his support to General de Gaulle in September. Encouraged, de Gaulle traveled to Brazzaville in October, where he announced the formation of the Empire Defense Council[4] in the Brazzaville Manifesto,[5] and invited all colonies still supporting Vichy to join him and the Free French forces in the fight against Germany, which most of them did by 1943.[4]
On 27 October 1940, General de Gaulle announced the creation of the Empire Defense Council as the decision-making body of Free France in the "Brazzaville Manifesto", from the capital of French Equatorial Africa.[5] This was part of his strategy to give the movement a political as well as a military character, both to attract supporters, and to provide support for his claim as a political as well as military leader of the French resistance.[8]
In the ordinances of 27 October 1940, De Gaulle defined the powers of the council, including: external and internal security, economic activity, negotiating with foreign powers (in article 2), as well as the "establishment of organs that would exercise the powers of jurisdiction normally devolved to the Council of State and the Court of Cassation" (article 4). However, the decision-making power rested with the head of the Free French (article 3), the Council exercising only an advisory role. Ministerial powers were exercised "by agency directors appointed by the Head of the Free French". This gave the Defense Council the nature of a consultative and representative body in the territories that joined with it. The Administrative Conference of the Free French (Conférence administrative de la France Libre), created by decree of 29 January 1941, served as the government, bringing together all the agency directors and the members of the Empire Defence Council.
Leadership
The members of the council were chosen by Charles de Gaulle[9] because they "already exercise authority on French lands or symbolize the highest intellectual and moral values of the nation."[citation needed] (Brazzaville Manifesto)[5]
Jennings, Eric T. (8 July 2015). Free French Africa in World War II: The African Resistance. Cambridge University Press. p. 46. ISBN978-1-316-44519-8. Retrieved 2 June 2020. In the fall of 1940, Gaullist legitimacy rested squarely and almost entirely on Free French Africa, a freshly invented designator that linked Cameroon to FEA more than ever. In the wake of his two telegrams on October 27, 1940, de Gaulle recycled his earlier formula, instituting the Empire Defense Council in Brazzaville 'on French land'.
Munholland, Kim (February 2007). "chap 1. The Free French and the Americans before Pearl Harbor - The Empire Defense Council and the Allies in the Tropics". Rock of Contention: Free French and Americans at War in New Caledonia, 1940-1945. New York: Berghahn Books. pp. 19–. ISBN978-1-84545-300-8. Retrieved 2 June 2020. While he was in Africa and on French colonial territory, de Gaulle decided to give his movement a more clearly distinct, political character when he created an Empire Defense Council on 27 October. This important initiative had far-reaching implications for his movement since it was the first step toward the formation of a provisional government and General de Gaulle's claim to legitimacy as the political as well as military leader of the French resistance.
Shillington, Kevin (4 July 2013). Encyclopedia of African History 3-Volume Set. Vol. 1 A–G. Routledge. ISBN978-1-135-45669-6. OCLC254075497. Retrieved 2 June 2020. There was much support for the Vichy regime among French colonial personnel, with the exception of Guianese-born governor of Chad, Félix Éboué, who in September 1940 announced his switch of allegiance from Vichy to the Gaullist Free French movement based in London. Encouraged by this support for his fledgling movement, Charles de Gaulle traveled to Brazzaville in October 1940 to announce the formation of an Empire Defense Council and to invite all French possessions loyal to Vichy to join it and continue the war against Germany; within two years, most did.
Wieviorka, Olivier (3 September 2019). The Resistance in Western Europe, 1940–1945. Translated by Todd, Jane Marie. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN978-0-231-54864-9. Retrieved 2 June 2020. At the same time, de Gaulle was only one man, and had no eminent political supporters. He therefore had to broaden his base. An order of October 27, 1940, created the Conseil de défense de l'Empire (Empire Defense Council), which included, in addition to de Gaulle, the governors of the territories who had rallied to the cause (Edgard de Larminat, Félix Éboué, Leclerc, Henri Sautot) military leaders (Georges Catroux and Émile Muselier), and three personalities from varied backgrounds: Father Georges Thierry Argenlieu, a friar and alumnus of the E'cole Navale; Rene' Cassin, a distinguished jurist and prominent representative of the veterans movement; and the military doctor Adolph Sice'.
Further reading
Epstein, Sam; Epstein, Beryl Williams (1973). Charles de Gaulle, Defender of France. Century book (Champaign, Ill.). Champaign, Ill.: Garrard. ISBN978-0-8116-4756-4. OCLC730526. ...set up an Empire Defense council. He appointed men to represent him in various world capitals. He also sent representatives secretly into France.
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