Revealed: Churchill’s unsent letter that could have changed the course of history

Churchill and De Gaulle. In the letter, Churchill states that De Gaulle is ‘the sole obstacle between the great democracies of the west and the people of France’. Photograph: Hulton Getty

It is a letter that might have changed the course of European history – had it been sent.

In early June 1944, a vast armada was gathering on the south coast of England with the task of liberating France and, despite concerns about leaks from the French camp, the British prime minister, Winston Churchill, had invited Gen Charles de Gaulle to fly to London on his personal plane from Algiers.