In the course of the twentieth century, the notion of an Anglo-French entente cordiale acquired a significance that exceeded that of the event itself. To some extent it has become something a politico-historical myth, one that has tended to obscure important aspects of an altogether more complex history of cross-Channel relations. Indeed, one might well wonder whether, in the interest of scholarly exactitude, this term, like that of “appeasement,” ought not to be taken out of circulation for a little while. Of course, as Antoine Capet argues in his perceptive and shrewd opening observations to this collection, there has always been “something ‘special’” about Anglo-French relations, whether at the political level or in the shape of the “English invasion” of the Dordogne in recent years or, more recently still, the influx of French professionals in the city of London.

It is the ambition of the essays assembled here to examine some of the elements that made transmanche relations special. Although this is not always explicitly stated, in so doing, they are in search of le non-dit, the “unspoken assumptions,” that guided policy makers in their decisions—and it is primarily the political level that is examined in the contributions to this volume. As so often in history, these unspoken elements are best examined through the prism of individuals. The contributions here on the “odd couples”—Lloyd George and Clemenceau and Churchill and de Gaulle—by Kenneth O. Morgan and David Reynolds, respectively, do this admirably. Morgan in his incisive observations on the brief, and often tempestuous, partnership between the two World War I “prima donnas,” offers an intriguing companion piece to his earlier Historical Journal article on Lloyd George and Germany. Both men were maverick politicians, natural outsiders, not least, perhaps, in the regard they had for each other's country, free from many of the traditional animosities that had characterized Anglo-French relations since the days of Louis XIV. No less tempestuous were the relations between Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle. Both, David Reynolds contends, had probably a greater significance for Anglo-French relations than any other pair of leaders in the twentieth century. Churchill's warm and abiding affection for France as a historical nation notwithstanding, his policy toward it was characterized by hard-nosed realpolitik. De Gaulle, by contrast, was an often deluded, always irritating, but nevertheless indispensable leader of the anti-Vichy “Free French” forces. The uneasy relationship between the two leaders extended also into the postwar period, as Reynolds shows in his instructive comparison between their respective memoirs and the original source material, often, in Churchill's case, replete with the choicest Anglo-Saxonisms. Peter Catterall's instructive examination of Anglo-French relations in the 1950s, primarily after the Suez debacle, offers an arresting insight, based largely on the diaries of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, into the somewhat paradoxical nature of the relations between two seemingly declining former great powers. On the surface, Britain's Conservative governments in this period were Francophile and even Francophone. In reality, relations between the two nations were fraught with difficulties. Macmillan's 1962 appeal for a Franco-British alliance, as Catterall demonstrates ably, was little more than a rhetorical flourish. Acute differences over the transatlantic alliance or the correct policy toward Germany—the silent third party in this ménage—meant that it was never practicable politics. Similarly, the attitudes of Britain's political leaders toward France in the 1970s and 1980s reflected larger questions, principally the nature of Britain's relations with the evolving European Community as a whole, as John Campbell argues in his chapter on Heath and Thatcher. Heath, an instinctive Europeanist, was, to some extent, an aberration from the Atlanticist orientation of Britain's postwar leaders. Yet, Heath's legacy continued—and continues—to bind his successors. Mrs. Thatcher, by instinct and upbringing profoundly unsympathetic to Europe, in reality pursued the steady deepening of Britain's involvement in Europe.

The two exceptions from the interstate focus of this collection are the contributions by John Ramsden and Andrew Thorpe. The latter's interesting piece on British communism in the period of the two wars shows how enthusiasm for a French entente was minimal, how, indeed, France as a nation and the French sister party were mistrusted and disliked. Here, as elsewhere, Moscow threw a long shadow. John Ramsden's thoughtful examination of Anglo-French cultural ties and Allied propaganda during the Great War, meanwhile, shows that although very effective in mobilizing popular sentiments in war time, the effects of this form of literary entente building were short lived. Admiration for all things French never went much beyond a small circle of interested literary types. After the war, it was business as usual in Anglo-French frictions. How much so, is demonstrated in Robert Boyce's look “behind the façade” of the entente cordiale in the decade after 1919. The future European security architecture, the place of Germany within it, commercial policy, war debts, and a whole host of other problems complicated relations between the two powers. Underlying Britain's refusal of a formal alliance with France, Boyce argues, were profound suspicions of, and other “irrational prejudices” against her erstwhile war-time ally. Andrew Webster's very instructive examination of the problems of disarmament in Anglo-French relations in this period offers a useful companion piece in that it highlights the very substantive differences of interest between Britain and France, not least in their preferred treatment of Germany. In this respect, little had changed in the later twentieth century, as James Ellison argues in his incisive analysis of Britain's NATO diplomacy in the late 1950s and 1960s and its second European Economic Community application in 1967. Klaus W. Larres rounds the volume off with a succinctly executed survey of Anglo-French relations in the post–cold war era, which, however, is often more about Germany and which also highlights some of the pitfalls of writing contemporary history.

The essays brought together here very effectively highlight the complexities and paradoxes that characterized transmanche relations in the twentieth century. They will, therefore, be of interest to scholars of this period. What they all highlight is the importance of other factors, mostly the United States, frequently Germany, and sometimes the Soviet Union, in shaping Anglo-French relations. For those accustomed to viewing Britain's relations with other powers in a longer-term perspective, this will not come as a surprise. And here, perhaps, the exclusive focus of this volume on the twentieth century is a little problematic. It helps to elevate the 1904 entente with France and accords it a significance beyond it merits. Certainly, some of the later twentieth-century essays can give the impression of too much introspection. Greater consideration of the French side of the story would, perhaps, also have been desirable. Rather irritating, in a book priced, like so many academic books, rather unreasonably high, is the poor quality of the index. It is not only selective; it also does not match the text. This, however, should not detract from the merits of this collection.