Joanna Warson. Historical Research. Volume 88, Issue 242, November 2015.
This article analyses Anglo‐French relations with regard to Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (U.D.I.). It highlights how long‐standing ideas about co‐operation and competition shaped British and French views of each other in the Rhodesian context, as well as French policies towards U.D.I. The article then moves beyond the dichotomy between alliance and acrimony, identifying other themes that informed Anglo‐French relations in this rebellious British colony. By exploring interaction between Britain, France and Rhodesia, it challenges the binaries that dominate the study of the end of European colonial rule in the twentieth century, offering instead a connected history of decolonization.
Historical accounts of the end of empire in sub‐Saharan Africa have frequently contrasted the British and the French experiences. For Britain, despite the relatively peaceful and prompt handover of power in the Gold Coast (Ghana) and Nigeria in 1957 and 1960 respectively, alongside a rousing rhetoric of rapid retreat from the African continent epitomized by Harold Macmillan’s ‘wind of change’ speech in 1960, the decolonization process in anglophone Africa was highly protracted. This can be seen especially in Southern Rhodesia, where a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (U.D.I.) by the colony’s white settler population on 11 November 1965 meant that independence was not granted to Zimbabwe until 18 April 1980. This delay inflicted considerable damage on Britain’s reputation in Africa and on the international stage. By contrast, France formally transferred power to the African majority in its sub‐Saharan dependencies swiftly and largely without bloodshed in 1960, its ‘Year of Africa’, successfully presenting itself henceforth as a ‘champion’ of African interests in a Cold War dominated world order. ‘Virtually overnight’, therefore, Britain was ‘overtaken’ by France south of the Sahara.
At the heart of the U.K.’s and France’s contrasting experiences of decolonization are fundamentally distinct Franco‐British approaches to the African continent. Long convinced that ‘the ultimate, if distant, aim of British colonial policy was evolution towards self‐government’, London favoured indirect rule in Africa and, as the momentum for colonial liberation grew in the post‐war period, advocated policies of self‐government within a loosely controlled Commonwealth. By contrast, Paris consistently maintained that France’s African empire would ultimately remain French and, as such, sought to ‘perpetuate, and not to dissolve, the politico‐economic, cultural and strategic bonds linking France to its empire’. This divergent attitude translated into alternating post‐independence approaches to Africa. While Britain attempted to avoid intervention in its former colonies, the cellule africaine at the French presidential palace, directed by Jacques Foccart, regularly participated directly in African affairs by way of a dense network, or réseaux, of informal relationships between state and non‐state actors across France and Africa. This permitted France to remain influential across francophone Africa long after formal independence in 1960.
Yet, while historians have compared the ends of the British and French empires, and the subsequent form of post‐independence relations, few have sought to explore the connections between these decolonization processes, as well as France’s efforts to carve out a role for itself beyond the traditional French pré carré. Through the lens of Anglo‐French diplomacy, this article will explore this under‐researched subject. Hitherto, much historical investigation into Franco‐British engagement in the African setting has concentrated on parts of the continent where Britain and France both had interests at stake, notably in West Africa. Although Thomas has examined Franco‐British interaction in North Africa during the period of French crisis across the region between 1945 and 1962, there has not yet been any equivalent analysis focusing on engagement between the U.K. and France in Britain’s sphere of influence in Southern Africa. This article will remedy this neglect by analysing Anglo‐French relations in the territory where the British retreat from Africa faced its greatest obstacle: Southern Rhodesia. The case study of Rhodesia has also been selected due to the known support given to the white regime by certain members of Foccart’s cellule africaine and the extended Franco‐African réseaux, in violation of the international embargo on diplomatic and economic relations with the country. In spite of the obvious implications of French interference in a crisis that had extremely damaging consequences for Britain’s international reputation, Anglo‐French relations in this setting have received only minimal scholarly attention.
Through analysis of a wide range of British, French and Rhodesian primary source material, including the papers of French presidents Charles De Gaulle and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing; the archives of the Secrétariat Général pour les Affaires Africaines et Malgaches at the Elysée and its principal representative for much of the period in question, Jacques Foccart; and the papers of the Rhodesian prime minister who declared U.D.I., Ian Smith; as well as an array of diplomatic correspondence emanating from the British and French foreign ministries, this article will fill this gap in the literature on Anglo‐French relations. It will begin by examining Anglo‐French co‐operation over the U.D.I. crisis. The article will then turn to the theme of competition, analysing the different ways in which long‐standing Anglo‐French rivalries and divergent approaches to African affairs operated in and impacted upon the decolonization of this rebellious British colony. Throughout these first two sections, concepts of competition and co‐operation will not only be viewed as interpretative lenses applied to the study of Anglo‐French relations by historians, but also as part of the ‘mindset’ that shaped British and French perceptions of each other in the Rhodesian setting, and French action towards the decolonization of Britain’s African empire.
In the final section, this article will move away from the dichotomy between alliance and enmity that has dominated scholarly analysis of Anglo‐French relations. By breaking free of these rigid categories, it will build upon scholarly work that has emphasized the ‘multifaceted diplomatic relationship’ between the U.K. and France, while also going beyond these studies, to seek new analytical frameworks that can be used to shed light on Franco‐British relations in Africa and elsewhere. In so doing, this article will reveal the complexity of the mental universe that shaped British and French understandings of each other in the nineteen‐sixties and nineteen‐seventies in Africa, as ideas other than polarized views about rivalry and friendship informed attitudes and actions on both sides of the Channel.
U.D.I. was a monumental blow to the U.K. government’s ‘liberal, democratising programme of decolonisation’, leaving Britain vulnerable to external criticism, most notably in the United Nations (U.N.), where it faced considerable animosity from the newly independent Afro‐Asian states. In an attempt to limit the damage inflicted on its international reputation and set Rhodesia back on the path towards majority rule, Britain turned to the United States and its partners in the Old Commonwealth for help in managing the crisis. Although often neglected in the existing literature, the U.K. government also looked beyond the ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ world, seeking French backing for its initiatives to find a solution to the Rhodesian problem.
One notable example of British efforts to secure French support can be found in November 1971 when, nervous about African opposition to an agreement between Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith and Alex Douglas‐Home, the U.K. foreign secretary, on a proposed Anglo‐Rhodesian settlement, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (F.C.O.) made several requests for the French authorities to use their influence over francophone African states to the advantage of Britain and its Rhodesian strategy. In particular, it was hoped that supportive French action would provide a model for the francophone African countries, whose backing was viewed by the British as ‘vital’ in securing international support for the proposed settlement. In late November, therefore, Martin Le Quesne, the deputy under‐secretary of state at the F.C.O., approached Geoffroy Chodron de Courcel, French ambassador to the U.K., calling for the French delegation to abstain on any vote opposing the proposed settlement tabled by the Africans in the U.N. Security Council (U.N.S.C.).
Representatives of the F.C.O. also made contact with the Elysée palace, in a sign of their awareness of the relatively minor role played in Franco‐African relations by the Quai d’Orsay, the French Foreign Ministry, in contrast to the dominance of African affairs by the French presidential palace. Christopher Soames, British ambassador to France, met with Michel Jobert, secretary general at the Elysée, and requested that the presidential palace use its influence over African leaders, such as the Ivory Coast’s Félix Houphouët‐Boigny and Senegal’s Léopold Senghor, to get them to give the Anglo‐Rhodesian settlement, and the arrangements for testing its acceptability, careful consideration before ‘jumping into ill‐considered attitudes’. The British also went to the very top of the Franco‐African pyramid, with Christopher Ewart‐Biggs personally asking Foccart to use his influence over French‐speaking African leaders ‘to get them to approach the question reasonably and to keep the temperature down’. These approaches reveal how the U.K. government viewed France as an important partner in its attempts fully to decolonize its African empire.
British efforts to secure French backing for their Rhodesian policy continued throughout the remainder of the crisis, intensifying and becoming increasingly directed towards the highest echelons of French government in line with rising prospects of the end of U.D.I. Following the commencement of talks between Ian Smith and the Zimbabwean nationalists at Lancaster House in autumn 1979, several high‐level Franco‐British exchanges on Rhodesia took place, including at a meeting between Britain and France’s respective foreign ministers, Lord Carrington and Jean François‐Poncet, as well as during talks between Prime Minister Thatcher and President Giscard d’Estaing. At the highest level of all, Queen Elizabeth II raised the issue of Rhodesia personally with the French president at a dinner in October 1979. This reveals, on the one hand, the importance that the U.K. government attached to the resolution of the U.D.I. crisis, and, on the other, how the co‐operation of France was perceived as vital to the success of this aim. With regard to this latter point, it is interesting to note how these British approaches were framed by a rhetoric of alliance and co‐operation. The F.C.O. repeatedly described French support over the final resolution of the Rhodesian problem as ‘indispensable’ and ‘essential’, and expressed their desire that France and Britain could ‘continue to see eye to eye on the problem of Southern Africa’. It is apparent, therefore, that the British viewed France as an important partner over the Rhodesian problem.
Across the Channel, the French government publicly responded in favourable terms to these British advances. When requests were made for French help in securing francophone African backing for the proposed Smith‐Home settlement of 1971, both Jobert and Foccart offered to ‘do what they could’, while representatives of the Quai assured the British embassy in Paris that they could ‘count on French support and assistance’. Similarly, F.C.O. attempts to obtain French backing for British‐led efforts to secure a final resolution to the Rhodesian problem in 1979 were met by a confirmation from an Elysée representative that President Giscard d’Estaing ‘would want to adopt a helpful attitude’. More generally, a briefing note prepared for Giscard d’Estaing ahead of his meeting with the queen in October 1979 described France as one of Britain’s ‘vrais amis’, who would be essential in garnering support for the Rhodesian settlement among African states as well as with certain Western governments, including Denmark and the Netherlands. This, in turn, demonstrates a French awareness of the importance that the British attributed to their co‐operation over the Rhodesian problem.
These affirmative French responses, alongside repeated British appeals for French backing, were part of longer‐term Anglo‐French attempts at co‐operation in the African setting. These joint initiatives stemmed from Britain’s and France’s mutual dilemma in the post‐war period about how to assert global influence despite the loss of Great Power status, alongside the fact that both countries were permanent members of the U.N.S.C. and on the Western side of the Cold War conflict. In the late colonial period, this contributed to regular sharing of information, collaboration on the ground in Africa, and the founding of the Commission de Coopération Technique en Afrique au Sud du Sahara (C.C.T.A.) in 1949, with the aim of preserving European colonial rule in Africa in the face of growing international interventionism, in particular pressure from the Americans. After 1960, regular Franco‐British consultations on Africa continued, both bilaterally and in the multilateral settings of the U.N. and the C.C.T.A., with both sides sharing information about African economic and political developments of mutual interest.
Although these joint initiatives centred primarily on West Africa, Rhodesia formed part of Anglo‐French co‐operation efforts from the immediate aftermath of the Second World War onwards, notably as the only non‐independent African member of the C.C.T.A. Information about Rhodesia was also shared at a bilateral level between the U.K. and French governments in line with the ‘désir commun des deux gouvernements d’harmoniser leur politique en Afrique’. Thus, the inclusion of Rhodesia on the agenda for Anglo‐French talks on Africa in the nineteen‐sixties and nineteen‐seventies, such as in Paris in May 1973 and June 1976, alongside F.C.O. attempts to secure French support for its Rhodesian policy and France’s favourable responses to these British advances discussed above, can be traced back to a longer‐term strategy of Franco‐British co‐operation across the African continent, both before and after the majority of African states gained independence from European colonial rule.
The rhetoric employed on both sides of the Channel to describe Anglo‐French relations over Rhodesia and African affairs in general underscores the importance of Franco‐British partnership in the minds of the French and the British engaged in Rhodesian business. French reports of the two separate meetings that took place between the British prime minister and the French president in January and June 1967, where Rhodesia and other African questions were discussed, record Harold Wilson emphasizing to De Gaulle Britain and France’s ‘intérêts communs’ on the African continent. In a similar vein, Le Quesne claimed, during Anglo‐French talks in May 1973, that ‘British and French interests in Africa were important and by and large the same’. Comparable discourse was voiced on the French side, particularly following De Gaulle’s departure from office in 1969 and Britain’s successful application to join the European Economic Community (E.E.C.) in 1973. In 1978, for example, British accounts of Anglo‐French talks on Africa record how a member of the Direction des Affaires Africaines et Malgaches at the Quai spoke of the French belief that close collaboration was needed for Britain and France fully to realize their ‘special role’ in Africa. Both London and Paris also referred to the wider Anglo‐French partnership that was the foundation for relations throughout the twentieth century. De Gaulle described the U.K. as an ‘allié constante et glorieusement éprouvé de la France depuis le début de ce siècle’ in a letter to Wilson sent in 1966, while a statement issued by the F.C.O. following Maurice Schumann’s visit to London in November 1971 described ‘the long and deep‐rooted friendship between the French and the British peoples’.
For reasons that will be discussed further below, and as was also the case with Anglo‐French co‐operation in West Africa both before and after 1960, any comprehensive Franco‐British joint approach to the Rhodesian crisis ultimately failed. It is tempting, therefore, to dismiss information sharing over Rhodesia, British requests for assistance and French acquiescence as merely a public image, an attempt at ‘advertising a common front’ in Africa so as to ensure the protection of mutual interests on the continent. In this vein, one could reduce the emphasis placed on partnership in the Anglo‐French discourse discussed above to an attempt by pragmatic politicians to secure a desired policy outcome. Yet, this would be to ignore the genuine F.C.O. desire ‘to secure active French support’ for U.K. government policy in Rhodesia. It would also overlook the importance that the Quai attributed to the success of Britain’s Rhodesian policy, not only as a means to the end of the crisis in the region, but also as a strategy of potential benefit to France and its African policy. For example, during his talks with Carrington in 1979, François‐Poncet noted that France’s problems in Africa ‘would be aggravated by a British failure in Rhodesia’. Thus, the French foreign minister pledged to back a British bid to the E.E.C. for financial help for Rhodesian refugees. However, in exchange, the British had to support French efforts to secure E.E.C. assistance in Chad. This instance reveals how in France, as in Britain, there was, in certain quarters, a strong desire to co‐operate over the Rhodesian crisis. This, in turn, formed part of a longer‐term Franco‐British strategy that stretched back to the immediate aftermath of the Second World War and that viewed the sharing of information and working together as a necessary response to mutual aims and experiences on the continent and on the international stage more widely. Co‐operation was not only a rhetorical tool. For many in French and British government, it was a reality that served wider national goals in the post‐war period.
Divergent Franco‐British approaches to African affairs in the nineteen‐sixties and nineteen‐seventies, however, created an obstacle to the complete alignment of the U.K.’s and France’s respective positions towards the crisis in Rhodesia. Put simply, in spite of some common interests, Britain and France did not view the African continent in the same way at this time. These divergent visions are evident in French impressions of Britain’s relationship with Rhodesia. Even before U.D.I. was declared, the French appeared not to comprehend the British predicament in this region of Central Southern Africa. Southern Rhodesia’s quasi‐independent status, the perceived root of Britain’s problems in the region, was attributed to ‘la souplesse de l’articulation administrative anglaise’, something that stood in contrast to the more rigid, refined approach adopted by the French, where either ‘un pays est totalement indépendant ou il ne l’est pas’. In the minds of the French, therefore, Britain’s problems in Rhodesia were unique to the British context and could not occur in the French empire. This conception is an interesting mirror image of the British belief that many elements of the Algerian conflict were ‘specifically French problems unlikely to occur in the British context’, in spite of the obvious similarities between the situation in Algeria and the difficulties that the British faced as a result of growing white settler influence over the colonial administrations in East and Southern Africa. This, in turn, underlines the persistent disconnection between British and French approaches to the African continent.
French interpretations of Britain’s decolonizing initiatives more generally in the first half of the nineteen‐sixties convey a similar degree of perplexity, as well as the implication that the French believed their approach to African affairs at this time was far superior to that employed by the British. A memo on Britain’s African policy produced by the Afrique‐Levant Department in 1960, for example, described the ‘trois politiques différentes’ pursued by the British in Africa: ‘accession rapide au Self Government puis à l’independence’ in West Africa, efforts at ‘l’instauration d’Etats multiraciaux’ in Kenya and Tanzania, and ‘la suprématie blanche’ in Central and Southern Africa. The report then went on to label these three different policies as incompatible with each other, particularly as ‘les états de l’Ouest constituent inévitablement un exemple pour les territoires de l’Est’. The contradictions of Britain’s African strategies were also noted in an assessment of ‘trois ans de décolonisation britannique’ written by the French embassy in London in 1963. According to this report, although ‘la plupart des problèmes [facing Britain in Africa] sont résolus’, ‘ceux qui ne le sont pas, comme le Rhodésie, ne peuvent pas l’être par simple application des principes du “wind of change”’. As such, ‘la politique du “wind of change” a perdu évidemment de son dynamisme et de son prestige auprès de l’opinion internationale comme de l’opinion britannique’. It is apparent, therefore, that certain French observers were unconvinced by the British approach to decolonization in Africa even before U.D.I. created turmoil in the U.K.’s retreat from the continent.
After U.D.I., pessimistic French assessments of Britain’s Rhodesian and African strategies persisted. One Quai report, for example, described Wilson’s Rhodesian policy as ‘un grave échec politique’ as it provided the Conservative party with an opportunity to attack the Labour government. More damning reports emanated from the Elysée palace, with the U.K.’s response to U.D.I. described as ‘incohérente’, the negative consequences of which would be added to ‘la déjà trop longue liste de ses échecs africains qu’il s’agisse de l’Afrique du Sud, de la Tanzanie, de la Rhodésie, du Nigeria et, enfin, du Ghana’. Standing in contrast to France’s own success in Africa, these French assessments underscore the alternating Anglo‐French approaches to Africa in the nineteen‐sixties and nineteen‐seventies, with France successfully handing over power to the African majority while simultaneously achieving its objective to maintain considerable sway across francophone Africa, in contrast to Britain’s failure fully to relinquish ties in its colonial sphere, in spite of efforts to the contrary.
This shifting balance of power did not go unnoticed in certain French quarters, with one Elysée‐authored document describing how
l’Angleterre d’aujourd’hui, qui manque d’imagination créatrice et a perdu l’initiative, cherche à tirer pour son bénéfice la leçon des succès française en provoquant une crise en Rhodésie, laquelle, croit‐elle, pourrait lui donner une chance d’exercer un nouveau leadership des décolonisés anglophones et des sous‐développé qui regardent de plus en plus vers Paris.
So convinced were certain French actors of the superiority of France’s approach to African decolonization, therefore, that they viewed British strategies in Rhodesia as an attempt to achieve success in Africa along French lines. This highlights a complete reversal of Anglo‐French positions towards each other’s African policies from the inter‐war years. As Véronique Dimier has shown, in this earlier period, British specialists emphasized the superiority of the U.K. government’s colonial policy, refusing to view French colonial policy as a potential model for the British, in contrast to the uncertainty about French methods and the desire to learn from the British experience in Africa which was present among French colonial administrators and commentators at this time. This change in perceptions, in turn, underscores the way in which the balance of power in Africa had shifted in France’s favour.
It was not merely the divergent objectives and outcomes of Britain’s and France’s respective African policies that made the two countries stand apart in Africa in the nineteen‐sixties and nineteen‐seventies. There was also the long history of rivalry between these two former Great Powers. Since the Fashoda incident of 1898, and in spite of the 1904 entente cordiale and various instances of Franco‐British co‐operation in Africa, the French were wary of perfidious Albion in Africa throughout the twentieth century. After 1945, the belief that France had been let down and humiliated by its Allied partners during the Second World War – demonstrated by the July 1940 British navy bombardment of the French fleet at Mers‐el‐Kébir and the growing British and American presence on the ground in francophone Africa – contributed to the heightening of France’s ‘Fashoda syndrome’ and its expansion to include not only Britain, but also the U.S.A. This is evidenced by the widespread French fears at this time about a British and American conspiracy against the French empire in Africa and the Middle East. Events at Suez in 1956 compounded the divide between France and ‘les Anglo‐Saxons’, with Britain prioritizing its relationship with the United States, while France, convinced that the U.K. and the U.S. were to blame for its humiliation at Suez and resentful of the Anglo‐American rapprochement, increasingly pursued a foreign policy independent of the ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ powers. In the African context, this approach informed French policy towards the former Belgian Congo in the nineteen‐sixties, the Nigerian civil war (1967–70), and the Rwandan genocide of 1994, where France stood on the opposing side to Britain and the U.S.A.
In spite of Rhodesia’s geographical position far removed from France’s traditional pré carré, concerns about anglophone activity in Africa manifested themselves among the French observing and operating in this traditionally British‐dominated territory. From the late nineteen‐forties onwards, certain French diplomats and bureaucrats identified opportunities in Rhodesia for France to combat British and American dominance and to act independently from its partners in the Western Alliance. Although it was obviously impossible to prevent anglophone infiltration of a British colony, in which the United States also occupied a privileged position due to its ‘special relationship’ with the territory’s colonial ruler, the French nevertheless sought to promote French commerce and culture in Rhodesia in an attempt to reduce the ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ stranglehold over the region. After 1956, the opportunities for France in Rhodesia expanded as ‘l’échec britannique dans l’affaire de Suez’ contributed to ‘une perte de confiance à l’égard de la métropole’ among Rhodesia’s white settler population, creating new openings for France to grow its economic and political involvement across the region. Thus, in anglophone Southern Africa, as was also the case in parts of the continent where France had a more established presence, Suez marked a turning point, fuelling resentment of the ‘Anglo‐Saxons’ and contributing to the subsequent French desire to pursue autonomous action on the international stage.
Although the French presence in Rhodesia expanded considerably in the two decades following the end of the Second World War, France was unable, not surprisingly, completely to eliminate ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ influence from the country, and the U.K. and the U.S.A. remained the pre‐eminent Western powers in the region. This situation was exacerbated in the aftermath of U.D.I., when Rhodesia’s illegal status forced France dramatically to reduce its diplomatic presence in the area, most notably with the complete closure of the French consulate in Salisbury, the Rhodesian capital, in 1970. Henceforth, the absence of ‘men‐on‐the‐spot’ made it increasingly difficult for France to obtain information about events taking place on the ground in Rhodesia, in contrast to the continued ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ control over intelligence gathering in the region.
This French disadvantage vis‐à‐vis Britain and the U.S. was acutely felt over the question of sanctions busting in Rhodesia. Economic sanctions against Salisbury were central to British efforts to reverse the Rhodesian rebellion. From May 1968 onwards, this British policy was reinforced by the imposition of U.N. mandatory sanctions, meaning that any country whose nationals breached the international trade embargo was subject to scrutiny in the U.N. Security Council Sanctions Committee (U.N.S.C.S.C.). France’s relatively minimal presence in Rhodesia, however, left it vulnerable to surprise criticism in this context, including frequent U.K. and U.S. accusations about sanctions busting by French companies. France was put at a further disadvantage as a result of the dominance of the U.N.S.C.S.C. by anglophone countries. The French resented this state of affairs especially because, although British and American companies were believed to be committing the same type of infractions, ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ dominance over Rhodesian intelligence and the U.N.S.C.S.C. permitted the U.K. and the U.S. successfully to evade criticism in this multilateral arena. This was evident in the case of petrol sales to Rhodesia, where French companies were frequently publicly denounced for continuing to supply oil to refineries in Mozambique that re‐exported to Rhodesia, despite the belief held by the Quai that Anglo‐American companies – including Mobil, Caltex and Shell – accounted for 80 per cent of petrol supplies arriving in Rhodesia from the Portuguese colony.
In certain French quarters, it was not just Anglo‐American control over anti‐sanctions busting initiatives in Rhodesia that was resented. For some, notably those linked to the Elysée, Britain and America’s Rhodesian policies constituted part of a wider ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ conspiracy against France in Africa. In 1965, for example, a memo housed in Jacques Foccart’s private archive raised concerns about the introduction of sanctions against Rhodesia providing ‘le prétexte d’une intrusion massive des Etats‐Unis dans cette région’. These fears were founded upon American and Canadian military aviation control over the air transportation of oil between Léopoldville and Lusaka, a measure that was intended to limit the impact of economic sanctions against Rhodesia in its landlocked neighbour, Zambia. According to this report, it was possible that ‘cette affaire de pont aérien serve à installer des moyens permettant par la suite une opération militaire américaine ou onusienne contre Salisbury’. Such an outcome was likely to have been the cause of particular French concern in light of recent events in the former Belgian Congo, notably Washington’s role in the rise of Mobutu Sese Seko, perceived as a victory for the U.S. over France in Africa as it facilitated ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ penetration of the largest francophone country on the continent.
Fears of an ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ conspiracy also shaped Elysée opposition in March 1966 to British aircraft being sent to Majunga (Mahajanga) in the Malagasy Republic to assist with the Beira patrol, ‘a maritime‐intercept operation’ whereby the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy monitored shipping in the Mozambique Channel in an attempt to prevent oil reaching Rhodesia from the port of Beira in Mozambique. An anonymous report, also kept with Foccart’s private archive, disregarded the dispatching of British planes to Majunga as a method for securing the success of the Beira patrol, emphasizing instead Britain’s ulterior political motivations for this venture. In particular, the author of the report argued that Wilson had identified Majunga as an important strategic base for deploying troops to Rhodesia without detection, in the event that military action was taken against the rebellious regime in Salisbury. Such an overt attempt to establish a British military base in a former French colony was not viewed favourably. Rather this operation was seen as an attempt ‘à irriter gratuitement Paris’ and ‘compromettre les francophones’. It was suspected, therefore, that this British initiative was not simply an attempt to resolve the Rhodesian crisis. It was also part of a wider strategy by Britain and its ‘Global‐masters américains’ to infiltrate francophone Africa and, as Africa was viewed as central to France’s middle power status, to undermine France’s standing on the world stage.
French responses to British and American policies towards Rhodesia after U.D.I. demonstrate, therefore, the resilience of a particular mindset that was strongly committed to protecting France’s interests in Africa and acting independently from the ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ powers. Hitherto, scholars have only explored the existence of these French sentiments in respect of countries traditionally dominated by the French and neighbouring territories. Yet, as the above discussion has revealed, these French concerns about British and American activity were also present with regards to regions that were neither former French colonies nor situated in close geographical proximity to the French chasse gardée. Thus, by exploring the connections between anglophone and francophone decolonization through the lens of French policy and Anglo‐French diplomacy in the British colony of Rhodesia, we obtain new perspective on French African policy in the post‐war period. In particular, this case study reveals how French ideas about the strategic importance of Africa and concerns about the spread of British and American influence on the continent transcended the artificial divide between anglophone and francophone Africa. This shows how, in contrast to the existing literature that has emphasized the exceptionality of French approaches to francophone Africa, France had a much wider vision of the African continent, which encompassed regions beyond its traditional sphere of influence.
What, then, was the effect of this broader French understanding of Africa, particularly the manifestation in the anglophone African setting of entrenched French stereotypes about the strategic importance of Africa and the need to protect France’s African interests from the ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ powers, on French action towards Rhodesia? For the Quai d’Orsay, the impact was relatively minor, as official alliance with the British and strict diplomatic parameters resulting from Rhodesia’s illegal status limited the extent to which the French Foreign Ministry could actively advance French interests or combat ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ hegemony in this rebellious region of anglophone Africa. Yet, for others, notably those who controlled France’s African policy through quasi‐official mechanisms linked to the Elysée, who, as we have seen above, tended to hold the most negative interpretations of British and American policy towards Rhodesia, there is evidence of a willingness to act upon these hostilities towards ‘les Anglo‐Saxons’.
The most obvious manifestation of this in the Rhodesian context is the existence of direct ties between certain actors and groups linked to the French presidential palace and Smith’s illegal regime in Salisbury. These Rhodesian representatives included P. K. van der Byl, a close associate of Prime Minister Ian Smith, who worked in the highest echelons of the Rhodesian Ministry of Information and later the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; H. R. T. (Harry) Oxley, an assistant secretary at the Ministry of External Affairs; W. C. Hawes, a trade commissioner at the Rhodesian High Commission in London; and Geoffry Follows, a loyal and long‐standing member of the Rhodesian intelligence community.
Of particular note on the French side of the Franco‐Rhodesian connection was Jean Mauricheau‐Beaupré, Jacques Foccart’s principal deputy in Brazzaville, who first became embroiled in Rhodesian affairs in the early nineteen‐sixties. After U.D.I., Mauricheau‐Beaupré remained in touch with his Rhodesian associates, personally meeting with van der Byl in Paris on at least two occasions that we know of, in 1969 and 1971. It is possible that direct contacts also took place between Mauricheau‐Beaupré and Ian Smith, evidenced by a handwritten comment on the top of a letter from Smith to Georges Pompidou, president of France (1969–74), housed in Foccart’s private archives, that records a verbal reply to the message from Mauricheau‐Beaupré, implying that the Frenchman corresponded personally with the Rhodesian Front leader.
The Rhodesians were also in contact with Philippe Lettéron, a long‐standing member of the cellule africaine sent to the Ivory Coast by Foccart in 1968 to act as personal adviser to President Félix Houphouët‐Boigny. On 14 April 1966, Lettéron met with van der Byl, Oxley and Hawes in Paris. In his account of this meeting, van der Byl described how Lettéron ‘placed himself at my disposal and was able unofficially to find the answers to queries that we had and also unofficially act as a channel for advice to come to us from the authorities’. Lettéron was also designated Geoffry Follows’s principal link at the Elysée, underlining the extent of the former’s involvement with Rhodesia’s white settlers. Moreover, Lettéron was alongside Mauricheau‐Beaupré at his later meeting with van der Byl in Paris in 1971. The willingness of these strategically important individuals to engage with white Rhodesians after U.D.I. can, in turn, be interpreted as a manifestation of a particular French mindset that viewed ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ activity in Africa as a threat to French interests on the continent as a whole and, as such, actively opposed British policy in the region by pursuing relations with the illegal regime in Salisbury.
French interests in Rhodesia, therefore, operated on two different levels. First, French engagement with the Rhodesian Front reveals the resilience of French suspicions of ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ activity in Africa and the application of these sentiments to territories far removed from the francophone fold. Second, contacts with Smith’s regime created the possibility to further France’s position outside its traditional pré carré. These two objectives were not mutually exclusive, but rather overlapped and operated in tandem, as furthering French interests in Rhodesia had the effect of countering the ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ presence in the region, and vice versa. This is especially apparent in the commercial sphere, where the personal contacts between key players in the Elysée’s cellule africaine and the Rhodesian government permitted illegal Franco‐Rhodesian economic relations to continue in spite of the international trade embargo against Salisbury, to the benefit of certain French individuals and groups, but to the detriment of British efforts to quell the Rhodesian rebellion.
One example of this is the way in which members of Foccart’s Africa cell facilitated the sale of Rhodesian tobacco overseas after 1965. Reports by van der Byl record how, in the immediate aftermath of U.D.I., the French presidential palace gave the Compagnie Française de Transactions Internationales (Transco) permission to import Rhodesian tobacco into France, as long as these transactions were conducted via South Africa or Portuguese‐ruled Mozambique. Rhodesia’s friends at the Elysée also played an instrumental role in the establishment and maintenance of a Rhodesian Information Office in Paris between 1968 and 1977, providing access to markets for the export of Rhodesian tobacco. This is something that is evidenced by Rhodesian accounts of receiving official authorization for their activities in Paris via Létteron, as well as a report by the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre‐Espionnage (S.D.E.C.E.), the French external intelligence agency, which confirmed that the Rhodesians were given permission to open an office in Paris with the aim of promoting Franco‐Rhodesian trade.
Alongside this quasi‐official facilitation of Rhodesian tobacco sales, certain private actors in the Franco‐African réseaux were also involved in illegal Rhodesian commerce. For example, throughout the U.D.I. period the French company Sucres et Denrées (Sucden), purchased Rhodesian sugar and helped to find destinations for raw Rhodesian sugar exported via Lourenço Marqûes in Mozambique. The head of Sucden, Maurice Varsano, as well as his son, Serge, were important players in the réseaux franco‐africains. Another French company with ties to the French presidential palace active in Rhodesia after 1965 was the airline Union des Transports Aériens (U.T.A.). U.T.A. maintained offices in Salisbury and Bulawayo throughout the U.D.I. period, remaining in personal contact with high‐ranking white Rhodesians, including van der Byl, and leading various initiatives to promote Rhodesian trade and tourism overseas. In addition to Sucden and U.T.A., Rhodesia’s French friends played an instrumental role in the establishment of highly profitable commercial relations between Rhodesia and certain francophone African states, notably Gabon and the Ivory Coast, while former agents of the Service d’Action Civique oversaw the recruitment of approximately 100 young Frenchmen to fight with the Rhodesian Light Infantry. There are, therefore, numerous instances of actors linked to the Elysée helping Rhodesia to breach international sanctions and fight to maintain white rule. This, in turn, is consistent with wider patterns of French engagement with Africa after 1960, where private actors frequently operated on behalf of parallel official mechanisms tied to the Elysée, making the lines between state and non‐state action increasingly blurred. Studying the connections between the decolonization processes in British and French Africa, therefore, brings to light the wider application of French models of African engagement often presented as uniquely francophone phenomena.
To return to the question of Franco‐British interaction in the anglophone African setting, these illegal French trading relations with the white regime in Salisbury, pursued by members of Foccart’s cellule africaine, as well as by private individuals and groups acting as part of the extended Franco‐African réseaux, underscore key aspects of the divergence between British and French approaches to African affairs in the post‐independence period. They also highlight the willingness of certain French state and non‐state actors to pursue French interests in Rhodesia regardless of the territory’s illegal status and in direct contravention of British and international sanctions. Persistent French commercial activity contributed to the maintenance of the affluent ‘Rhodesian way of life’ and fuelled settler confidence in their ability to survive without the U.K., as it fostered the widespread belief, among the Rhodesian public and politicians alike, that an independent, white‐ruled Rhodesia had French backing. These material and psychological consequences of French involvement with Rhodesia, in turn, had a negative effect on Britain’s efforts to end U.D.I. and subsequently damaged Britain’s international reputation. Thus, although the British and the French experiences in Africa were contrasting, they remained closely intertwined, with certain French actors crossing colonial boundaries to influence the course of decolonization in anglophone Africa.
France stood to gain from Britain’s weakened position in Rhodesia, both in terms of commercial profit secured from the Franco‐Rhodesian economic relations discussed above and as a result of the new opportunities created for France to foster ties in countries across Southern Africa traditionally dominated by the British. This was especially true in Zambia, where declining confidence led the Zambian president, Kenneth Kaunda, to approach De Gaulle for diplomatic, military and financial assistance in 1967. This, in turn, led to an expansion of Franco‐Zambian contacts from the late nineteen‐sixties onwards, seen for example in reports of French purchases of Zambian copper, as well as French participation in the construction of a new dam on the Kafue River and the establishment of an air link between Libreville, Lusaka and Johannesburg. Somewhat paradoxically, Britain’s ‘multiples erreurs’ in Rhodesia also permitted France to replace ‘progressivement l’Angleterre en Afrique du Sud’. The fact that these opportunities were not only identified, but also acted upon, reveals the continued importance of Anglo‐French competition in the minds of certain state and non‐state actors in the Franco‐African réseaux and its impact in regions traditionally dominated by the British. This, in turn, underscores the connections between anglophone and francophone African decolonization, while simultaneously showing how French African policy extended beyond France’s traditional sphere of influence on the continent.
Suspicions were not solely confined to Paris. The hesitancy that characterized F.C.O. responses to illegal French activity in Rhodesia demonstrates that uncertainty and distrust were also present in the minds of those working for the U.K. foreign and diplomatic services. The question of whether or not French companies should be named by the British in the U.N.S.C.S.C., for example, prompted much discussion in Whitehall and among British diplomats stationed overseas. Concerns were raised about the potential fall‐out of making accusations against France in this context, with the British embassy in Paris asserting that the Quai would ‘react badly’ if French companies were named publicly prior to bilateral discussions. Similarly, Reginald Hibbert, the assistant under‐secretary of state for the F.C.O., claimed that there was ‘no point in annoying the French on this issue’. Moreover, it was not merely a case of worrying about upsetting a key ally in British efforts to resolve the Rhodesian problem. There also existed fears about what France might do if provoked in the U.N.S.C.S.C. and the potential damage that might be inflicted on the U.K. government’s policy in Rhodesia. These sentiments were openly expressed in a handwritten comment on the edge of the aforementioned document advising against ‘annoying the French’ by naming them in notes to the U.N.S.C.S.C., which stated: ‘The trouble about not annoying the French is that it does not prevent them from annoying us – indeed, I sometimes think it may encourage them to ignore our interests’.
These fears about a French reaction having a negative effect on Britain’s attempts to end U.D.I. were especially directed towards the problem of French arms re‐exported to Rhodesia from South Africa. After U.D.I., and most notably following the outbreak in 1972 of a seven‐year guerrilla war between the Rhodesian Front and the Zimbabwean nationalists, French military equipment was crucial to the physical defence of white rule on the African continent. French‐manufactured Alouettes were the favoured helicopter used by the Rhodesian military, with French sources estimating that between twenty‐three and fifty‐five of these light aircraft were in the service of the Rhodesian Air Force (Rh.A.F.) in the period between 1965 and 1980. In addition to these helicopters, the nineteen‐seventies saw the expansion of the use of other French‐manufactured military equipment by the Rh.A.F., including Cessna aircraft, Mirage FI planes and Matra rocket launchers. As a result, a report in the Zambian press from 1977 claimed that 22 per cent of all military material used by the Rh.A.F. was ‘de type français’.
The central administration of the Quai and French representatives posted overseas maintained throughout that Paris was not to blame for the continued presence of French arms in Rhodesia after U.D.I. Instead, Rhodesian access to French‐manufactured arms and aircraft was attributed to South African willingness to supply Rhodesia with military material sold to them by the French. Yet, in the minds of certain British officials, these denials were of little substance. The Rhodesia Department at the F.C.O., for one, was far from convinced of French state innocence, arguing in 1976 that ‘it is simply not true that the French have a good record on sanctions. They are… substantial suppliers of arms to Rhodesia, and in this role are acting consciously and not as the innocent victims of South African re‐exports’. This perception, alongside the belief that preventing French arms reaching Rhodesia was more important than stopping illegal commerce involving French companies, was used as a justification for not criticizing French sanctions busters in the U.N.S.C.S.C. British diplomats in Paris, for example, suggested that ‘hitting them [the French] hard on commercial imports from Rhodesia … would not be an effective way of getting them to reappraise their policy on the supply of arms’ to Rhodesia via South Africa.
This instance underscores the existence of British distrust about French activity in Rhodesia and in Africa more widely. Those in the Rhodesia Department at the F.C.O. were especially suspicious of French action in the region, attributing France’s ‘comparatively good record on ordinary commercial imports from Rhodesia’ to the fact that the French ‘are simply better at covering their tracks than, say, the Germans or the Swiss’. The Rhodesia Department was also sceptical about Quai promises to take concrete action against French companies active in Rhodesia, claiming that there was ‘no evidence’ of Paris having taken ‘any effective action as a result of our bilateral approaches’ and accusing the French of having been ‘singularly unhelpful to us vis‐à‐vis the third world’, particularly when it came to African affairs. As such, the report concluded, Britain had ‘no good reason to be particularly helpful to them [the French]’. Such statements reveal the extent of hostility towards the French in certain British quarters and also underline the fact that the U.K. and France followed fundamentally different courses in Africa. This distrust and divergence, in turn, acted as an impediment to Anglo‐French co‐operation over U.D.I. Incongruity over Southern African affairs may also have driven a wedge into Franco‐British relations more widely, especially in the nineteen‐seventies when, despite De Gaulle’s departure from the French presidency, Britain’s membership of the E.E.C. and officially friendly Franco‐British relations, Rhodesia remained a point of conflict. Tensions over Rhodesia, therefore, brought to the fore the long‐standing Anglo‐French rivalry in Africa, an intense competition that had its roots at Fashoda and persisted throughout the twentieth century. French involvement in Rhodesia compounded these existing tensions, making a complete entente cordiale impossible.
So far, this article has explored two central themes that existed both in theory and in practice in Anglo‐French interaction over the question of the Rhodesian U.D.I. On the one hand, there was the idea of alliance, which led the British to seek French support for their Rhodesian policy, and the French to respond to these requests in favourable terms. These attempts to work together to resolve the Rhodesian problem, moreover, were situated in terms of a mutually beneficial Franco‐British partnership in Africa and beyond. On the other hand, incongruous approaches to the African continent, alongside misunderstanding and mistrust, acted as an impediment to a complete alignment of Anglo‐French responses to the Rhodesian problem and created deeper divides in relations between the U.K. and France. This discord was exacerbated by the willingness of certain strategically placed French individuals to act upon long‐standing hostilities towards Britain in the Rhodesian context to the detriment of U.K. interests in Rhodesia, Africa and on the international stage at large, fuelling further suspicion and resentment.
Yet, it was not a simple binary between co‐operation and competition that informed Anglo‐French relations in the Rhodesian setting. As has been discussed above, French hostilities and suspicions of the British existed even among those publicly supportive of the U.K. government’s Rhodesian policy, as can be seen in the concerns raised about anglophone dominance among members of the French foreign and diplomatic services, who simultaneously declared their opposition to U.D.I. and their backing of British efforts to resolve the crisis in the region. Conversely, co‐operative positions were set forth by certain French actors who explicitly voiced their distrust of ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ activity in Africa, evidenced by the offers of support for Britain’s Rhodesian policy by Jacques Foccart and other Elysée representatives, who can also be linked to some of the more damning assessments of Britain’s response to the U.D.I. crisis as well as to illegal French engagement with Rhodesia after 1965. Co‐operation and competition were equally overlapping in the minds of the British, as is apparent in the constant tension between the conception of France as an ally and fears about French action in Rhodesia damaging U.K. interests both regionally and internationally.
It is also important to address the varying strengths of these two opposing sentiments among different actors, in different contexts. With regard to the British, the strongest criticism of French illegal involvement in Rhodesia came from the Rhodesia Department of the F.C.O., suggesting that this group at Whitehall were the most hostile towards the French at this time. Yet, the strength of this sentiment can be attributed to the department’s close involvement with the Rhodesian problem. This meant that its members would not only have had greater access to information about the situation in the region, but would also have had more invested in the successful resolution of the crisis and, as such, would have been more likely to employ forceful rhetoric when it came to any external intervention that might jeopardize this objective. Conversely, the British embassy in Paris tended to be more tentative about taking direct action against the French, preferring low‐level bilateral discussions to making accusations on the international stage. This does not, however, necessarily indicate that suspicions of the French were lower among those stationed in Paris. Rather, the preference for more informal approaches can be explained by the regular personal contact between British officials at the embassy and their counterparts at the Quai, as well as the first‐hand experience of the workings of the French foreign and diplomatic services.
To turn now to the French engaged in Rhodesian affairs, the most striking instance of the way in which the diverse contexts and experiences of numerous different actors shaped ideas about Anglo‐French partnership and rivalry, and its subsequent impact on French policy towards U.D.I., is the case of French involvement in Rhodesian sanctions busting via Libreville, the capital of the former French colony of Gabon. The Quai d’Orsay denied any involvement in this illegal trading complex, asserting that such activities ‘en territoire gabonaise échapperaient au contrôle des autorités françaises’. In light of France’s known influence in Gabon after independence, this statement could be interpreted as intransigence, a product of deeply rooted hostilities towards the British. More likely, however, is that the French Foreign Ministry, excluded from African affairs by the Elysée palace, could do nothing to prevent the involvement of French state actors in the trading connection. By contrast, the French who did have influence in Gabon – namely those associated with Foccart’s cellule africaine – chose not to use their sway in their former colony for the benefit of the British and, in certain cases, actively contravened U.K. interests by encouraging the development of economic relations between Salisbury and Libreville. Thus, this instance, alongside the stronger anti‐British rhetoric emanating from those linked to the Elysée noted above, demonstrates the varying potency of ideas about competition and co‐operation in the minds of the French engaged in Rhodesian affairs.
In addition to the overlap and oscillation between acrimony and alliance, it is important to acknowledge other characteristics of the mental universe that underpinned British and French responses to U.D.I., as well as to each other’s respective Rhodesian policies. For the French, in particular, there were various legal and constitutional factors that informed their stance towards the settler rebellion against Britain and acted as an obstacle to the complete convergence of Franco‐British positions over the crisis. This is especially evident in the U.N. where, in spite of the importance the British accorded to French support in this context, the French frequently refused to participate in debates on Rhodesian affairs. The day after U.D.I., as a result of Third World pressure, the U.N.S.C. passed resolution 216 which condemned the Rhodesian action. All member states voted in favour of this resolution, with the exception of France, which abstained. France also abstained in votes for the adoption of resolutions 217 (1965), 221 (1966) and 232 (1966). It was, therefore, the sole country not to oppose U.D.I. in the U.N.S.C. in the immediate aftermath of Smith’s declaration, as well as the only power not to vote in favour of a resolution declaring the situation in Rhodesia a threat to international peace and calling upon states to break economic relations with that country.
Although these abstentions could be interpreted as evidence of the triumph of anti‐British sentiments over the desire to co‐operate with the U.K. government, the justifications provided by the French delegation for their ‘attitude indépendante’ in this multilateral context suggest an alternative explanation. According to the Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, France could not participate in debates on Rhodesia on the grounds that ‘le conflit entre le Royaume Uni et la Rhodésie du Sud n’est donc pas de nature internationale’. This attitude was reiterated just a few days later in a dispatch from Paris to New York that described ‘l’affaire rhodésienne’ as ‘un problème intérieur britannique’ and, as such, ‘le Conseil de Sécurité n’a pas à statuer à son sujet’. This position was grounded in deeply rooted legal traditions, particularly commitment to the principal of ‘non‐interference’, from which it followed that the U.N. had no jurisdiction in the internal affairs of a state. This judicial approach had previously led the French delegation at the U.N. to maintain throughout the Algerian War of National Liberation (1954–62) that, in spite of the increasingly internationalist activities of the Algerian nationalist movement, Algeria was an internal French concern and, thus, one in which the U.N. had no right to intervene. This opposition to U.N. involvement in internal affairs was also employed with regard to independent territories, seen, for example, in April 1960 when the French delegation vetoed resolution 134 that called upon South Africa to abandon its policies of apartheid.
Many of the policy‐makers, bureaucrats and diplomats who formulated French policy towards Rhodesia in the U.N. had received legal training prior to their postings in the central administration or overseas. Roger Seydoux, for example, who was responsible for many of the French interventions on Rhodesia in the U.N., studied law and political economy at the University of Paris. More generally, Keiger has emphasized how graduates of Sciences‐Po and the Ecole Nationale d’Administration dominated the Ministère des Affaires Etrangères. This professional training and experience, in turn, is likely to have informed the position set forth by the French delegation at the U.N. that the constitutional links between Great Britain and Rhodesia created an obstacle to any external intervention in the crisis, including that directed by the U.N. As such, it is important not to overlook the socialization of French diplomats and bureaucrats in a particular, legalistic mindset as an important explanation for France’s refusal to participate in U.N. debates on Rhodesia.
Legal traditions also informed the French position towards the reversal of the trade embargo against Rhodesia. This issue was first raised following the Smith‐Home agreement of November 1971, with the F.C.O. expressing their desire to end sanctions against Rhodesia as soon as the proposed settlement came into effect. The French, however, were unable to follow this British position as a result of a provision in the Fifth Republic’s constitution concerning the direct application of international obligations, which meant that sanctions were not imposed by a law passed in parliament, but rather by a presidential decree based directly and exclusively on U.N. resolution 253, which mandated the international trade embargo against Rhodesia. As a result, the Quai insisted that the U.N. must revoke sanctions before the French could lift the embargo. The French remained committed to this position throughout the nineteen‐seventies. Even after a ceasefire was agreed at Lancaster House in December 1979 and a draft decree annulling French sanctions legislation prepared, the Quai were unable formally to lift sanctions until after the British had sent a letter to the U.N.S.C. president and sufficient time had passed to ensure that there were no negative responses to this letter from other member states. This further demonstrates the extent and importance of French legal traditions, embedded in the minds of diplomats and bureaucrats as a result of their professional training and experience, in shaping certain French policy‐making towards Rhodesia.
The impact of this legal mindset on French responses to Rhodesia in the U.N. occasionally contributed to tensions between London and Paris. In 1973, for example, the U.K. vetoed a resolution tabled in the U.N.S.C.S.C. calling for the extension of the Beira patrol to Lourenço Marquês and requested that Paris follow this line. As has been noted above, the Elysée had previously opposed the expansion of Royal Navy activities into Majunga as part of this maritime intercept operation, as a result of fears about the spread of ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ influence in a former French colony. It might be hypothesized, therefore, that France would also want to oppose this resolution, albeit not necessarily for the same reasons as the British. Yet, France’s legal traditions prevented the adoption of a more pro‐active stance at this juncture, with the French delegation abstaining on the grounds that Rhodesia was beyond the competency of the U.N.
Although, in this instance, London expressed frustration with the French commitment to the principal of ‘non‐interference’, this position did not generate too much hostility in British foreign and diplomatic circles as France’s attitude towards Rhodesia in the U.N. often facilitated the U.K. government’s Rhodesian policy. In 1966, for example, the Foreign Office characterized the French position that the Rhodesian problem was ‘exclusively a United Kingdom’ responsibility as a ‘very correct attitude’, a response that was most likely informed by the fact that limiting discussion about U.D.I. in the U.N. was in Britain’s interests at this time. This, in turn, points to the fact that Anglo‐French interaction in the Rhodesian setting was not merely informed by the polarized opposition between rivalry and alliance. Concern for national interests also played an important part in informing Anglo‐French relations in the Rhodesian context.
Pragmatic political considerations also influenced French action in Rhodesia, as well as their reaction to British policy in the region. For France, Africa was the ‘guarantor of France’s standing in the world’. As such, it prioritized its relations with its francophone African allies, a concern that is clearly evident in French responses to U.D.I. In particular, France’s desire to maintain its position of dominance in francophone Africa limited the extent of its support for Britain’s Rhodesian policy. This can be seen in 1962, when British requests for French backing over Rhodesia in the U.N. General Assembly’s Fourth Committee (the Special Political and Decolonization Committee) were denied as a result of French fears about the reaction from their ‘amis africains’. These French concerns persisted after 1965 and throughout the U.D.I crisis. During the course of the Lancaster House talks in December 1979, for example, the director of African affairs at the Quai admitted that future French support for Britain’s Rhodesian policy would be contingent upon securing a favourable opinion from France’s African allies. The F.C.O. also acknowledged the limitations to French backing over the Rhodesian question and, in particular, the French desire to avoid jeopardizing ‘their position in Africa by giving the UK strong support should a confrontation with the OAU [Organisation of African Unity] develop’. In a similar vein, the British embassy in Paris noted how ‘they obviously have their eye very much on their own African clients’.
Concern for its reputation in francophone Africa not only limited French support for Britain’s Rhodesian policy, it also led France to alter its stance towards certain Rhodesian questions. This can be seen in 1968, when African pressure following the Rhodesian Court of Appeal ruling that the Rhodesian Front was permitted to carry out executions against murderers convicted and sentenced prior to U.D.I. led France to participate for the first time in a U.N. vote on Rhodesia, supporting the extension of mandatory sanctions on all goods, including oil, under resolution 253. The French maintained, however, that this move ‘n’impliquait aucune modification de nos positions de principe … le règlement de cette affaire relève de la compétence interne de la Grande‐Brétagne’, revealing the resilience of French legal traditions in spite of a realpolitik that prioritized France’s relations with francophone Africa.
The picture that emerges of the mental universe that shaped Anglo‐French relations in the Rhodesian setting is, therefore, multi‐dimensional, with overlapping ideas about co‐operation and competition in Africa intersecting with divergent approaches to African affairs, legal traditions and pragmatic, geopolitical concerns. Thus, this case study not only sheds new light on ‘the complexities of a bilateral relationship between two declining powers’, it also highlights the need for historians to go beyond the binary opposition between alliance and acrimony. Instead, scholars must probe the ways in which the world‐view of policy‐makers and diplomats was shaped by legal and professional training, and how this, in turn, informed Anglo‐French relations. Furthermore, as this article has revealed, when seeking to analyse Franco‐British diplomacy and its consequences, it is insufficient to focus solely on how a particular mental universe, shaped by historical memories and practical experiences, informed action. It is also necessary to address the impact of national concerns on Franco‐British relations. Interests, however, should not be studied at the expense of ideas. Rather, these two themes must be analysed simultaneously, so as to unpick the complex and overlapping relationship between mindsets and realpolitik. This argument is underlined by the fact that, in the Rhodesian setting, for the British and the French alike, co‐operation and competition were, on the one hand, concepts ingrained in the collective mindset, which influenced rhetoric and action, and, on the other hand, realistic policies, which could be employed to further national interests. Thus, this article has demonstrated the need for Franco‐British interaction in Africa to be studied through analytical frameworks that go beyond co‐operation and competition, in order to acknowledge the complex interplay between ideas and interests. The adoption of these more expansive interpretative frameworks not only illuminates our understanding of Anglo‐French relations in Africa and beyond, it also has the potential to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of international relations in the past.
The study of Anglo‐French relations in Rhodesia in the nineteen‐sixties and nineteen‐seventies is a topic that has previously been neglected by scholars. Yet, as this article has revealed, unpicking the connections between anglophone and francophone decolonization illuminates our understanding of Franco‐British interaction on the African continent and more widely in the twentieth century. It reveals the importance of co‐operation and alliance as a frame of reference in the minds of French and British politicians, diplomats and bureaucrats, as well as those operating outside the confines of formal government. Analysis of British and French action with regard to one another in the Rhodesian setting also draws our attention to the persistent obstacles to Anglo‐French co‐operation in Africa, in particular different ambitions and approaches to the continent, as well as long‐standing suspicions and hostilities. Previously, the existence of these two opposing sentiments has only been explored in the context of regions of Africa where Britain and France had common or conflicting interests. Yet, this article has demonstrated the application of these ideas, by both the British and the French, to the African continent as a whole.
However, as this article has shown, in order to obtain a more complete understanding of the relationship between these two former Great Powers, it is necessary to break down the dichotomy between rivalry and partnership, and probe the overlapping, varying and frequently interchangeable nature of these two themes both in theory and practice. Furthermore, although sometimes overlooked by scholars, there were other factors aside from these two categories that influenced British and French responses to each other’s respective Rhodesian policies. Of particular note were deeply entrenched French legal traditions, which contributed to French policies that could be construed as anti‐British, but were, in fact, more likely informed by a rigid judicial framework, with which the diplomats and bureaucrats who shaped France’s Rhodesian policy were imbued as a result of their professional training. The prominence of national interests in the minds of the French and the British engaged in Rhodesian affairs also had considerable impact on the nature and shape of Franco‐British interaction in the anglophone African setting. As alliance and acrimony were not the sole features of the mindset informing Anglo‐French relations in Rhodesia at this time, historians must also go beyond these interpretive lenses, diversifying the analytical frameworks employed to understand the relationship between the U.K. and France. In particular, this article has underlined the importance of analysing the ways in which both ideas and interests shaped discourse and action, and how this, in turn, can help to explain the breadth and depth of Franco‐British interaction in the Rhodesian context. The application of this method to other empirical studies is needed in order to test the wider utility of such a model for historians of Anglo‐French relations, and diplomacy in general. This article, however, has demonstrated the potential of this approach.
This article has not only moved beyond the binaries that dominate the history of Anglo‐French relations, it also contributes to efforts to shake the study of empires ‘loose from the domination of categories and ideas’ that they produced. By teasing out the relationship between two (former) European colonial powers in the context of a decolonization process that was not concluded until two decades after the ‘Year of Africa’, this article transcends the artificial divide between the colonial and post‐colonial periods. Furthermore, analysis of the impact of France and Anglo‐French diplomacy on the decolonization of Rhodesia reveals the significance of escaping the rigid categories of colonizer and colonized, and crossing national boundaries, to explore what Thomas and Thompson have characterized as the ‘wider, globalising decolonisation’.
This study of relations between France, Britain and Rhodesia has brought to light previously neglected dimensions of Franco‐British diplomacy in the context of African decolonization, as well as largely unknown contacts between a rebellious white settler minority, seeking to prolong European rule on the African continent, and France, the self‐affirmed champion of majority rule. By analysing the multi‐directional, overlapping and sometimes unexpected connections between the U.K., France and Rhodesia, this article has not only underlined the contrasting British and French experiences in Africa, it has also highlighted connections between the end of empire in anglophone and francophone Africa. It has offered, for example, new understanding of the end of the British empire in Africa, by highlighting the role played by Britain’s partner across the Channel, in terms of contributing and responding to London’s strategy, as well as directly participating in the decolonization process on the ground in Rhodesia, intervention that was not always consistent with the stated aims of U.K. government policy.
Finally, investigating the three‐way connections between Britain, France and Rhodesia extends our understanding of French African policy during the long era of decolonization. It reveals how, in spite of France’s open commitment to the maintenance of its position in francophone Africa, certain French actors and groups sought to extend French influence across the African continent as a whole at this time. This interest in expanding the French African sphere, in turn, was informed by a mindset that prioritized Africa and viewed ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ activity with suspicion. Hitherto, these ideas have only been associated with France’s policy towards its colonies and their neighbours. Yet, this article has shown how these sentiments were evident in the minds of those participating in regions far removed from the French pré carré. Moreover, certain strategically placed individuals and groups were willing to act upon these entrenched beliefs in the context of British Africa. France’s African policy in the nineteen‐sixties and nineteen‐seventies, therefore, was not solely concentrated on francophone Africa. Rather, there existed a wider French vision of the African continent, with consequences for the decolonization of francophone and anglophone Africa alike. Historians, therefore, need to move beyond a comparative approach to analyse interaction between and among different colonial rulers, as well as with settlers and nationalists from all corners of the European colonial empires. Only by exploring the connections between the multiple, overlapping decolonization processes taking place in different empires, across time and space, can scholars hope to obtain a complete understanding of the end of European colonial rule in the twentieth century.