Friendly relations between Britain and France are, historically speaking, an innovation of the twentieth century. Even if we ignore the Hundred Years War and Joan of Arc, the modern history of Anglo-French relations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is of a struggle for power which culminated in the Napoleonic Wars, and a bitter colonial rivalry climaxed at Fashoda. The alliance of 1914 failed to reconcile deep diplomatie differences: the French felt the British betrayed them at Versailles and deeply resented Britain's negative attitude towards the French invasion of the Ruhr, and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935 which, they felt, facilitated Germany's remilitarization. Britain's appeasement policy at Munich was criticized by some Frenchmen while others blamed the British for forcing France into World War II. Thus it can be seen that Anglo-French friendship was a fragile thing indeed and ill-prepared to withstand the pressures of Arras, Dunkirk, Mers-el-Kebir and Montoire. [...]

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