At the end of 1941, the 1 st Free French Brigade, transported by a mix of French, British and American-made vehicles, undertook the hazardous but eagerly anticipated journey from its base in the Levant to Egypt, to begin its service under British Middle East Command. The Free French were, in fact, joining a multinational , multi-ethnic, British-led coalition composed of units from Britain, its colonies and self-governing dominions, and, since late 1940, from its European alliesthe governments-in-exile and national committees based in London and Cairo. Until now only a few of these small European exile units had actually been sent to the front, representing Britain's first, tentative steps towards interallied cooperation in the desert war. In 1942 the British would increase their use of Allied forces, a move which would be replete with benefits but also challenges. Thus, five months after the Free French joined this coalition, the Axis forces in Libya attacked the British Eighth Army's defensive positions known as the Gazala line. It was the French who held the southern anchor of this line at Bir Hakeim. Captain Edward Tomkins, a British liaison officer, was with them at this strategic position: 'This is where the important part of the French action in Libya took place because… they established, thanks to all the [British] liaison team, proper connections, proper relations with… the neighbouring [British] units, and they formed a properly integrated part of the defensive system'. 1 This was an unprecedented degree of Allied military cooperation, according to Tomkins, as previously foreign armies fighting in concert had 'tended to be much more autonomous'. Comparing Bir Hakeim to the Allied campaign in France in 1940, he pointed out that in 1940 'there was the French army and the British army and they had their own structures and their own lines of communication, [whereas] on this occasion it was an integrated force.' 2 Indeed, accounts from other liaison officers give the
