^* By the end of August 1940, there were only about eleven thousand volunteers in de Gaulle’s Free French army, a figure that would grow but still remain quite low during the war. This may be one of the reasons that he insisted so adamantly that the French be given responsibilities equal to the other large Allied armies, a stance he maintained until the end of the conflict. These Free French volunteers were not only young Frenchmen but also young Spaniards, Belgians, Poles, and even Russians.