André Charles Corbin was a French diplomat who served as French ambassador to the United Kingdom before and during the early part of the Second World War from 1933 to 27 June 1940.
Occupation
diplomat
Position held
ambassador of France to Spain, Ambassador of France to the United Kingdom, ambassador of France to Belgium
André Charles Corbin (1881–1970) was a French diplomat who served as ambassador to Britain before and during the early part of the Second World War from 1933 to 27 June 1940.
Early life
He was born in Paris, the son of Paul Corbin, an industrialist. He studied at the Collège Stanislas de Paris, a private Catholic school in which the father of Charles de Gaulle taught. He continued his education at the Faculté des Lettres at the Sorbonne. After World War I, Corbin served in the press bureau of the French Foreign Ministry at the Quai d'Orsay, in Paris. He made many British friends; he spoke English fluently and had a profound sympathy for Britain and British ways. Corbin served as the French ambassador to Spain (1929–31) and to Belgium (1931-33) before being appointed French ambassador to the court of St. James.
Ambassador in London
Chasing the "continental commitment"
He was assigned to London as ambassador in 1933. Corbin was a protégé of Alexis St. Léger, the Secretary-General (the number one official) of the Quai d'Orsay from 1932 to 1940. Corbin was part of an elite group of diplomats whose careers were sponsored by St. Léger that also included René Massigli, Robert Coulondre, Émile Naggiar and François Charles-Roux. Corbin arrived in London on 13 March 1933 and presented his credentials as the ambassador of the republic to King George V at Buckingham Palace the same day. Corbin was a very close friend of St. Léger and shared his anti-appeasement views. Corbin's knowledge of economic affairs enabled him to arrange and preside skillfully over meetings of French and British civil servants between 1934 and 1939, while the two nations were preparing for war with Germany. The main purpose of Corbin's ambassadorship was to secure the "continental commitment", which was the phrase used to describe having a British commitment to defend France from Germany by sending another expeditionary force on the same scale as in the First World War. In turn, the French desire for the "continental commitment" was due to Germany's greater population, which led to the French to look towards the British empire as a way to even the odds. In the event of war, Germany could mobilise 17 million young men for war while the France could only mobilise 6 million young men. It was generally accepted by the French that France needed the "continental commitment" to have a chance of defeating the Reich.
