- Rock of Contention: Free French and Americans at War in New Caledonia, 1940-1945
The fall of France in 1940 and the establishment of the Free-French movement precipitated an uneasy period in France-US relations such that the two have been characterized as "'hostile allies'." Looking for the "beautiful friendship" promised in the ending to Casablanca, Munholland shifts analysis of the Franco-American mésentente away from F.D. Roosevelt and De Gaulle to focus on relations between the Free French and the US forces in New Caledonia—le caillou (the rock), as the mineral-rich French and Melanesian country is known to New Caledonians—a French colony since 1853 and, with the advent of the Pacific war, a vital staging post in the Allied campaign against Japan. The friendship he finds is less than harmonious.
By the time US forces disembarked in New Caledonia in March 1942, the seeds of mutual suspicion and distrust had been sown. Developments in France [End Page 991] and Africa in 1940-42 and US reluctance to acknowledge the government-in-exile (for fear of pushing the Vichy government closer to Germany) had raised Free French fears concerning the commitment of the US and Britain to the full postwar restoration of France and its empire. De Gaulle had determined to be constantly vigilant in his dealings with the Allies and called upon his officials to comport themselves in the same way. Subsequent developments in New Caledonia suggest that fighting Japan was not the foremost consideration for Free French authorities determined to defend France's grandeur and postwar interests in even its most distant colonial possessions. While the war raged in the Coral Sea and later on Guadalcanal, riots, obstructionism and petty disputes embroiled a succession of French administrators and US commanders.
Two main forces were at play. While the Allied war effort called for effective relations and the making of decisions by those on the ground, Gaullist officials were preoccupied with political issues and bound to a strategy which dictated deference to the central authority in London. With some success, Gaullist officials promoted anti-Americanism to overcome local political divisions. As Munholland shows time-and-again, being too cooperative with US authorities could be a fatal career move for French officials. De Gaulle's recall of the first Free French governor, the popular Henri Sautot, deemed too pliant to US officials, resulted in rioting in April-May 1942 and threatened to destabilize the local war effort. Everyday problems associated with managing the large military presence and maintaining good relations with the local populace assumed the proportions of battles. Cultural differences and decision-making styles also played a part; French formality and wounded pride, not to mention unhealthy measures of metropolitan disdain for colonial officials, clashed with American pragmatism, casual informality and immediate wartime objectives.
Further complicating the mix were the interests and actions of local settlers— autonomists, Gaullists and communists. From the perspective of New Caledonian history they are the least well-served by this study. Occupying centre-stage, "The Rooster and the Eagle" crowd out the Cagou (a flightless bird and unofficial emblem of the country). The constant thorn in the side of US and Free French officials, an "ambitious lawyer" named Michel Vergès, is only thinly fleshed out. In small and insular societies the importance of personalities cannot be overstated. As Munholland does show, though, even minor disputes and rumors could be amplified considerably and have international ramifications.
The level of French development on the le caillou also played a part. US authorities were genuinely appalled by conditions in what was a stagnant French colonial backwater and New Caledonia's potential mineral wealth only added weight to suggestions, received favorably by FDR, that France should be deprived of its Pacific territory after the war. Not until the war in Europe ended, and anti-communist preoccupations took hold, was the possibility of a US challenge to French Empire finally...