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- 27 September 2006
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The elegant NATO headquarters building in Paris and its more austere military counterpart at Fontainebleau, SHAPE underscore the closeness of France's founding relationship with the United States. "You have been with us since the beginning" President Biden reminded President Macron this weekend.
At the Leclerc barracks in Strasbourg the US 7th Army in France carries on its duties with renewed vigour. The two Presidents' clear warning to Russia is widely seen as preventing an invasion of Ukraine last year.
General De Gaulle always remembered the kindness he was shown in Washington from 1941 after his "futile years" in London listening to Churchill's plans to expand Britain's Empire after the war.
It was Eisenhower who recognised De Gsulle's importance to France and Europe. The two men worked closely together, overcoming the difficulties of mounting an invasion from France. The increasingly ill and erratic Churchill was humoured and Eden his talented fluent French speaking Foreign Secretary became the key British partner.
Postwar France led from 1951 by De Gaulle formed another close bond with Adenauer's West Germany. France had sent a brigade to fight in Korea while two US supplied carriers contributed from Inchon onward.
Britain meanwhile had elected a Labour government in 1945. Eden and the Tories were seen as patrician throwbacks to the pre war years of depression.
The Labour government focussed on putting right the legacy of those years. It moved rapidly to shed the burden of Empire. With India independent in 1949 expensive garrisons on Cyprus, the Suez Canal and Malaya were withdrawn soon after. Only a Gurkha battalion fought in Korea alongside the Australians and South Africans.
While Britain devoted considerable energy to peaceful nuclear research the Attlee government quickly gave up plans for a British atomic bomb. The armed forces were shrunk considerably and resources freed up were put into the National Health Service and education.
The French and German governments agreed a Western Euopean Union in 1949 to counter Soviet expansion. British Foreign Secretary Aneurin Bevsn (his namesake Ernest Bevin founded the NHS) refused to commit Britain and continued the final withdrawal of British forces from Germany including West Berlin.
France, with considerable US assistance, exploded her first Atom Bomb in 1956. US supplied B29 Lafayette bombers were already in service with the Armee de!'air. But it was US supplied B47 Stratojets which carried the first weapons in service.
The wars in Indo China and then in Algeria had persuaded Truman and then Eisenhower that France was on the frontline against the Communist tide. A nuclear strike relieved French forces at Dien Bien Phu. In contrast to the British attempts to convene peace talks with the Soviet Union in Geneva, France's growing military prowess was openly admired in Washington.
At the Leclerc barracks in Strasbourg the US 7th Army in France carries on its duties with renewed vigour. The two Presidents' clear warning to Russia is widely seen as preventing an invasion of Ukraine last year.
General De Gaulle always remembered the kindness he was shown in Washington from 1941 after his "futile years" in London listening to Churchill's plans to expand Britain's Empire after the war.
It was Eisenhower who recognised De Gsulle's importance to France and Europe. The two men worked closely together, overcoming the difficulties of mounting an invasion from France. The increasingly ill and erratic Churchill was humoured and Eden his talented fluent French speaking Foreign Secretary became the key British partner.
Postwar France led from 1951 by De Gaulle formed another close bond with Adenauer's West Germany. France had sent a brigade to fight in Korea while two US supplied carriers contributed from Inchon onward.
Britain meanwhile had elected a Labour government in 1945. Eden and the Tories were seen as patrician throwbacks to the pre war years of depression.
The Labour government focussed on putting right the legacy of those years. It moved rapidly to shed the burden of Empire. With India independent in 1949 expensive garrisons on Cyprus, the Suez Canal and Malaya were withdrawn soon after. Only a Gurkha battalion fought in Korea alongside the Australians and South Africans.
While Britain devoted considerable energy to peaceful nuclear research the Attlee government quickly gave up plans for a British atomic bomb. The armed forces were shrunk considerably and resources freed up were put into the National Health Service and education.
The French and German governments agreed a Western Euopean Union in 1949 to counter Soviet expansion. British Foreign Secretary Aneurin Bevsn (his namesake Ernest Bevin founded the NHS) refused to commit Britain and continued the final withdrawal of British forces from Germany including West Berlin.
France, with considerable US assistance, exploded her first Atom Bomb in 1956. US supplied B29 Lafayette bombers were already in service with the Armee de!'air. But it was US supplied B47 Stratojets which carried the first weapons in service.
The wars in Indo China and then in Algeria had persuaded Truman and then Eisenhower that France was on the frontline against the Communist tide. A nuclear strike relieved French forces at Dien Bien Phu. In contrast to the British attempts to convene peace talks with the Soviet Union in Geneva, France's growing military prowess was openly admired in Washington.
