In 1941, the European war became a world war. This was already the case in part, due to the continuation of the Sino-Japanese war, and to the involvement of the British, French, Belgian and Dutch empires in the conflict. Formally, the Nazis had left Vichy in control of French overseas territories, but some of them joined Free France, then struggling for political recognition and a place in the anti-Hitler alliance. This was no metaphor, since in June 1941 Free France was seated formally as a delegation attending the first St James’s Conference. There Churchill asked the members of the alliance to reconstruct a ‘new Europe’ radically different from that the Nazis had in mind. At this first meeting, Cassin represented de Gaulle and Free France.

He represented them again at the second St James’s Conference on 24 September 1941. On 22 June, Germany had invaded the Soviet Union, and thereafter its army had occupied a large part of European Russia. Furthermore, there had been a major change in US foreign policy: on 14 August, Churchill and Roosevelt had signed the Atlantic Charter, which stated that a new world order had to emerge after the Nazis’ defeat. In effect, though not formally, the Americans had entered the European war. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, on 7 December, finally sealed a political turn which had already taken place. The war was now indeed global, and spectacularly so.