- Anglo French Supreme War Council
The Anglo French Supreme War Council, sometimes known as the Supreme War Council (SWC), was established to oversee joint military strategy at the start of the
Second World War .Meetings
Its first meeting was at
Abbeville on 12 September 1940 cite book | title=The Oxford Companion to World War II |year=2001|publisher= Oxford University Press|location= Oxford ] with Britain represented by the Prime Minister,Neville Chamberlain , and LordChatfield , the French delegation being headed by their Prime Minister,Édouard Daladier , and GeneralMaurice Gamelin .cite book |last= Prazmowska |first= Anita J |title= Britain, Poland and the Eastern Front, 1939|year=2004|publisher= Cambridge University Press |location= Cambridge |isbn=0521529387, 9780521529389| pages =239, p.184 ] The next meeting took place atHove on 22 September 1940. At both, discussion centred on Italy and whether it would be possible to deploy military force atSalonika orIstanbul without provokingMussolini . The French were more bellicose whereas Britain shrank from such measures. Chamberlain stated that the Allies could not prevent a German intervention intoYugoslavia . Further meetings of the SWC took place in 1939 on 17 November and 19 December.cite book |last= Hehn |first= Paul N |title= A Low Dishonest Decade: The Great Powers, Eastern Europe, and the Economic Origins of World War II, 1930-1941
year=2002|publisher= Continuum International Publishing Group |location= New York |isbn=0826417612, 9780826417619| pages =516, p.251-352]Military participation
The Commander-in-Chief of the
British Expeditionary Force (BEF ),Lord Gort was not a member of the Council; yet his French counterpart, GeneralMaurice Gamelin was. In the view of General EdwardLouis Spears the failure to include the British C-in-C was a mistake: 'No government should ever lose effective touch with the commander of its army.' cite book |last= Spears |first= Sir Edward |title= Prelude to Dunkirk |year=1954|publisher= Heinemann |location= London| pages =332, p.34 ]References
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.