Saint Pierre and Miquelon (Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon), a French archipelago of two islands located in North America about twenty-five kilometers off the coast of Newfoundland, is the last remaining vestige of the former Viceroyalty of New France (which encompassed parts of what are now Canada and the United States, such as Quebec and Louisiana). Like other territories, it became a headache for the Allies when World War II broke out and the French mainland was occupied by the Germans, as the local administration remained loyal to the Vichy government. This is why De Gaulle ordered its conquest at the end of 1941.
The Portuguese navigator João Álvares Fagundes discovered the archipelago around 1520, naming it The Eleven Thousand Virgins, before, sixteen years later, the Frenchman Jacques Cartier renamed it Saint Pierre Island in honor of the patron saint of fishermen. Those waters proved to be extraordinarily rich and attracted numerous cod and whaling ships, especially Basque-French ones from Saint-Jean-de-Luz, who named the second island Miquelon (Mikeleune). There is a third island, Langlade, which has been known by various names throughout history and is now connected to the latter by a sand isthmus.
The wealth of these fishing grounds attracted the British, who expelled the French for half a century after the Treaty of Utrecht, until the Treaty of Paris restored the archipelago in exchange for the surrender of mainland New France. History repeated itself decades later during the American Revolution (which involved French collaboration), and the islands changed hands several times until they finally remained French during Napoleon’s era, as interest in the archipelago had waned due to the decline in fishing.

On June 22, 1940, the so-called Second Armistice of Compiègne was signed, whereby Nazi Germany and the French Third Republic ended hostilities, leaving France divided into two parts: one in the north and west (including the Atlantic coast), occupied and directly administered by the Germans, and another in the south governed by a new regime loyal to Hitler, centered in Vichy, which was granted control of non-European territories. Consequently, Saint Pierre and Miquelon were placed under the latter.
The local authority was represented by the current Administrateur, Gilbert de Bournat, appointed in 1936, supported by Admiral Georges Robert as High Commissioner and Commander-in-Chief of the Western Atlantic (which, besides the archipelago in question, included the Antilles and Guyana). It should be noted that some of these territories, such as Martinique and Guadeloupe, rejected the terms of the armistice on the grounds that it had been signed under duress, siding with the Allies.
However, the administrator kept Saint Pierre and Miquelon loyal to the regime led by Marshal Pétain since July 1940, which concerned both Canada and the United States because the islands housed a radio station and were connected to Europe via transatlantic cables, creating the possibility of providing German submarines with weather conditions, convoy movements, and warship activity, in addition to supplying fish to Germany through France.

For this reason, voices advocating invasion emerged. Some even did so before the armistice, such as the provincial government of Newfoundland and Labrador, which suggested it to the United Kingdom, which in turn recommended discussing it first with Canada. The Canadian War Cabinet dismissed the idea, aware that its U.S. counterpart disapproved, as it conflicted with the traditional Monroe Doctrine, despite also distrusting what Administrator De Bournat might do under Vichy orders.
To reassure the Americans, Admiral Georges Robert signed a personal agreement with Admiral John W. Greenslade on August 6, 1940, regulating U.S.-French West Indies relations based on maintaining the status quo in the region. Although it was an informal personal pact not officially signed, it sufficed for the Americans. In fact, on December 17, 1941, there was a confirmation negotiated by Robert with another admiral, Frederick J. Horne.
However, Saint Pierre and Miquelon were too close to the strategically significant mouth of the Saint Lawrence River for Canadians to accept such a vague arrangement. The U.S. could afford it because it remained neutral at the time, but Canada was belligerent, as it had the status of a free member of the British Commonwealth of Nations following the 1926 Balfour Declaration and the 1931 Statute of Westminster, and it declared war on Germany on September 10, 1939. Nonetheless, as previously mentioned, the Canadian government initially chose not to intervene in the French archipelago out of respect for its American neighbor.

He began to reconsider the issue when, throughout 1941, the actions of the Kriegsmarine reached its waters. At that time, the Permanent Joint Board on Defense Canada-United States, a binational board created on August 17, 1940, under the Ogdensburg Agreement (signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King for mutual defense), defined the position of Saint Pierre and Miquelon as a potential danger.
Despite this, Roosevelt continued to oppose intervention, as he mistrusted the annexationist ambitions that Canada had always expressed regarding Saint Pierre and Miquelon—an argument also used by Vichy. And so things remained, in a tense state of uncertainty, until Admiral Émile Muselier, appointed by De Gaulle as head of the FNFL (Forces Navales Françaises Libres) and provisional commander of the air force, sentenced to death in absentia by the Vichy regime, asserted that the archipelago’s radio station was collaborating with German U-boats.
This made it necessary to take action in some form. On November 3, 1941, Canadian Secretary of State Norman Robertson informed U.S. Ambassador Moffat that infiltrated agents on the archipelago would need to monitor all messages sent and received to stay prepared. However, the United States remained opposed to interventionism and expressed disapproval of a plan to occupy the islands by parachute; Mackenzie King had to order its cancellation. Nonetheless, Admiral Muselier persisted and proposed a landing.

The proposal was raised on December 12 during a meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with representatives of the Canadian and U.S. governments. The latter insisted on rejecting any such proposal, but Muselier had orders from De Gaulle to proceed with the invasion, which is why the admiral had traveled in command of a small fleet comprising the submarine Surcouf and the corvettes Mimosa, Aconit, and Alysse. Although Muselier preferred to act with consensus and try to convince the Americans, he had to obey. The French, however, had an ace up their sleeve: Winston Churchill’s unofficial consent.
On December 23, the French flotilla departed from the port of Halifax on what was announced as a mere training mission. In reality, it set course for the archipelago, defying the instructions of Leonard W. Murray, Rear Admiral of the Royal Canadian Navy and its theoretical superior. It arrived at Saint Pierre at three in the morning on the 24th, landing its 230 armed sailors; in twenty minutes, they took control of the island without firing a single shot, as the only resistance they faced was a handful of gendarmes.
Georges de Bournat was deposed and arrested; Admiral Robert was not, as he had long since aligned with Free France (in 1947, the Supreme Court of Justice, after an initial ten-year prison sentence, partially exonerated him of the charge of collaborationism, arguing that his loyalty to Vichy had been merely formal, with favorable testimony from the Americans). The following day, a referendum was organized among the island’s population, in which an overwhelming majority (over 98%) voted to join Free France as well.

Ensign Alain Savary, who would later become a socialist and anti-colonialist politician and serve as Minister of National Education in 1981, was placed in charge of the local government. Captain Roger Birot, a hero of Dunkirk and commander of the First Corvette Division, was left in provisional command of the archipelago’s navy, one of the first overseas French territories to join Free France against Vichy and the Nazi regime. Everything had ended happily for the Allies, although the United States did not hide its displeasure over an operation carried out without its permission.
Worse yet, Secretary of State Cordell Hull made a public statement on December 25 that was clearly critical: The action undertaken by three so-called Free French ships at Saint Pierre and Miquelon was an arbitrary act, contrary to the agreement of all interested parties. In general, the violation of the Monroe Doctrine was once again invoked, and the invasion was even compared to the aggressions carried out by the Germans and Japanese—something that surprised Churchill, for instance, who considered it disproportionate to the modest scale of the episode.
There was even talk of a possible intervention by the Marines, which ultimately did not take place because Admiral Muselier held firm and replied that the overwhelming majority of the island’s French public opinion had expressed its support. The diplomatic crisis, however, was short-lived—not only because all the Allies supported the French, but also because the United States was already one of them: its situation had changed as it was now fully engaged in the conflict following the attack on Pearl Harbor, having declared war on Japan on December 8 and on Germany on December 11. However, Roosevelt could never entirely dispel his mistrust of De Gaulle in the years to come.
This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on December 20, 2024: La invasión de San Pedro y Miquelón en 1941, el único territorio leal a la Alemania nazi en Norteamérica, duró 20 minutos
SOURCES
Martin F. Auger, ‘A Tempest in a Teapot’ : Canadian Military Planning and the St. Pierre and Miquelon Affair, 1940-1942
Michael S. Neiberg, When France Fell. The Vichy Crisis and the Fate of the Anglo-American Alliance
Oliver Courteaux, Canada Between Vichy and Free France, 1940-1945/24 décembre 1941 – l’amiral Muselier a rallié la population de Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon à la France Libre et à la cause alliée
Wikipedia, Capture of Saint Pierre and Miquelon
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