A French-language poster that names France Forever in its footer prints "La France a perdu une bataille! Mais la France n'a pas perdu la guerre!" over a facsimile signature of C. de Gaulle, with a winged sword-bearing figure on a blue-white-red field and a France Libre badge. The archive dates it 1940 (44-PF-790).
The sheet
A winged figure with a raised sword flies across a field of blue, white and red. The archive compares it to the sculpture on the Arc de Triomphe. Beside it is a badge with the Cross of Lorraine and the words "France Libre." The text is French throughout.
La France a perdu une bataille!
Mais la France n'a pas perdu la guerre!
[signature:] C. de Gaulle
Aux armes, Citoyens!
Formez vos bataillons...!
FRANCE LIBRE
POUR TOUS RENSEIGNEMENTS S'ADRESSER A FRANCE FOREVER
The archive's English rendering: "France has lost a battle! But France has not lost the war! To arms, citizens! Form your battalions...! Free France. For all information apply to France Forever." The record notes that the transcription was read from the image and not independently checked.
Who is speaking
The only issuer on the sheet is the footer: for information, apply to France Forever. The catalog lists the issuer type as a movement, the audience as a diaspora or minority, and the purpose as recruiting. The rights line adds that the issuer and the year of publication are not stated on the item itself. The 1940 date is the catalog's.
The archive files the sheet under transfer. Three borrowed symbols carry it: the tricolour, the words of the Marseillaise, and the Arc de Triomphe figure, all lent to the Free French cause. The facsimile signature adds a named leader's authority.
A foreign cause on American soil
The striking thing is the setting. A movement catalogued under the United States addresses French speakers in their own language, names itself, and asks them to rally to Free France. It does not hide who is behind it. That is open advocacy, the kind a free country tolerates even when the cause is a foreign one, and the sheet is openly sourced in the archive's terms.
Similar sheets for other countries are in the same National Archives file: the Chinese-language America's Resources Are China's Resources and the Russian War Relief reprint What Is an "Aryan"?. A commercial example is the Harper flyer for Britain at War.
Sources
- FRAME object record, La France a perdu une bataille! Mais la France n'a pas perdu la guerre! Aux Armes Citoyens! Formez vos Bataillons... (France Forever), 1940. France Forever (named in the footer); text over the facsimile signature of C. de Gaulle. Rights as recorded: held by NARA, unrestricted; hosted by owner decision (issuer and publication year not stated on the item).
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Foreign Posters, 44-PF-790, catalog record, retrieved by the archive 3 October 2026.
