Bulletin officiel des Forces françaises libres. n° 1
This single issue of August 1940 reproduces on its first page the poster “À tous les Français” and presents for the first time the full text of the “Appel du 18 juin,” together with the agreement of 7 August 1940 signed between General de Gaulle and the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, thereby giving legal foundations to the government of “Free France,” following London's recognition, on 28 June preceding, of General de Gaulle “as leader of the Free French.”
The first publication of the Appel du 18 juin.
“The agreement of 7 August,” General de Gaulle would later write in his Mémoires de guerre, “was of considerable importance to Free France, not only because it immediately relieved us materially, but also because the British authorities no longer hesitated to facilitate our dealings with them. Above all, the whole world learned that a beginning of Franco-British solidarity had, in spite of everything, been restored […]. Yet, even as I took my first steps in this unprecedented undertaking, it was my duty to make sure that no authority more qualified than mine would come forward to lead France and the Empire back into the fight. As long as the armistice was not yet in force, one could imagine — however unlikely — that the Bordeaux government might still choose war. Even the slimmest chance had to be preserved.”
An extremely rare document of the highest political importance, by which Free France made itself known to the world.