The Call of June 18

The morning of June 18, 1940, found Charles de Gaulle in a modest room at the Rubens Hotel in London, polishing the text of what would become the most important speech of his life. Outside, London carried on with wartime routine, unaware that a virtually unknown French general was about to launch a revolution with words alone.

De Gaulle had spent the previous day in frantic negotiation with British officials. Churchill, preoccupied with Britain's own survival, had given grudging permission for the broadcast. The Foreign Office worried about alienating Pétain's government. The BBC French service was skeptical about giving airtime to an unknown general. But de Gaulle's certainty—that absolute conviction that would serve him throughout the war—eventually prevailed.

At 6 PM, de Gaulle arrived at Broadcasting House. The BBC's director of European broadcasts, Jacques Duchesne, would later recall the general's demeanor: "He was very pale, very tense, but absolutely determined. He read his text once through for timing, made a few minor adjustments, then said simply, 'I am ready.'"

The Speech That Changed Everything

"Les chefs qui, depuis de nombreuses années, sont à la tête des armées françaises, ont formé un gouvernement. Ce gouvernement, alléguant la défaite de nos armées, s'est mis en rapport avec l'ennemi pour cesser le combat."

The opening was deliberately provocative. De Gaulle did not name Pétain, but everyone would understand. The hero of Verdun had become the architect of surrender. With surgical precision, de Gaulle demolished the case for armistice: France had lost a battle, not the war. France was not alone—she had a vast empire and powerful allies. The same forces that had overwhelmed France—mechanized armies and air power—could be matched and exceeded by the combined resources of the British Empire and, eventually, America.

But it was the conclusion that electrified: "Moi, Général de Gaulle, actuellement à Londres, j'invite les officiers et les soldats français qui se trouvent en territoire britannique ou qui viendraient à s'y trouver, avec leurs armes ou sans leurs armes, j'invite les ingénieurs et les ouvriers spécialistes des industries d'armement qui se trouvent en territoire britannique ou qui viendraient à s'y trouver, à se mettre en rapport avec moi. Quoi qu'il arrive, la flamme de la résistance française ne doit pas s'éteindre et ne s'éteindra pas."

The audacity was breathtaking. Who was this brigadier general to invite—virtually summon—French forces to join him? By what authority did he speak for France? The answer was simple and revolutionary: by the authority of his own conviction that France transcended its government, that legitimacy came not from legal forms but from the willingness to continue the fight.

The Immediate Aftermath

Few heard the original broadcast. Radio ownership in France was limited, the BBC's French service had a small audience, and most French people were consumed with the immediate catastrophe of defeat and occupation. The French government, now relocating to Vichy, initially ignored this presumptuous general. But de Gaulle understood that he had crossed his Rubicon. There was no going back.

The next day, with no significant response to his appeal, de Gaulle prepared to broadcast again. This time, the British government, under pressure from officials still hoping to negotiate with Pétain, refused permission. De Gaulle threatened to take his cause to the United States. Faced with losing their only French ally, the British relented.

His second speech, on June 19, was even more forceful: "Is it possible that France, who for nearly half a century was at the head of human progress, who, for a century, to guarantee her own independence, shed the blood of her children over all the battlefields of Europe, who played a vital role in the last war, and to whom the victory of 1918 was due just as much as to any other nation—is it possible that this France should suddenly, tragically, collapse and disappear? No! I refuse to believe it."

Building From Nothing

The early days of Free France were almost comically humble. De Gaulle's "headquarters" consisted of a small office at St. Stephen's House on the Thames Embankment, provided reluctantly by the British. His entire staff comprised three officers who had followed him from France and a handful of volunteers. His military forces consisted of whoever showed up at his door.

But slowly, painfully, people began to come. Not the flood de Gaulle had hoped for, but a trickle that would become a stream. Some were soldiers evacuated from Dunkirk who refused repatriation. Others were French citizens caught in Britain by the armistice. A few were sailors from French ships in British ports, though most chose to return to France when given the option.

Each recruitment was a small victory. Captain André Dewavrin, who would become de Gaulle's intelligence chief under the nom de guerre "Colonel Passy," arrived in late June. René Cassin, a distinguished jurist, provided crucial legal expertise. These early adherents were not joining a government or even a proper military force—they were joining an idea, sustained only by de Gaulle's unshakeable conviction.

The financial situation was desperate. De Gaulle had arrived with 100,000 francs in secret funds—barely enough to operate for a week. Churchill, convinced more by de Gaulle's determination than his prospects, authorized a modest subsidy. But every franc, every pound had to be accounted for. Yvonne de Gaulle, who had escaped France with their children in late June, found herself running a household on a budget that would have embarrassed a junior clerk.

The Dakar Disaster

By September 1940, de Gaulle felt ready for his first major operation. French West Africa, he believed, could be rallied to Free France, providing a territorial base and significant resources. The plan, code-named Operation Menace, involved a joint Anglo-Free French expedition to Dakar, where de Gaulle would land and persuade the garrison to join him.

The operation was a fiasco. Security was compromised, Vichy reinforcements reached Dakar first, and when de Gaulle's appeals through loudspeakers were met with shellfire, the British naval commander called off the operation. For de Gaulle, it was a humiliating setback. The British blamed him for faulty intelligence. His own officers questioned his judgment. Vichy propaganda mocked the "pathetic pretender" rejected by his own people.

But from this failure, de Gaulle learned crucial lessons. He could not simply assume French forces would rally to his call. He needed to build political support, not just military force. Most importantly, he needed to demonstrate that Free France was not simply a British puppet but an authentic French movement.