As the war escalated, geopolitical boundaries and relationships in West Africa were shifting and uncertain. France surrendered to Germany, signing the Armistice of 22 June 1940, whereas Winston Churchill and Jean Monnet had contemplated the creation of a single Franco-British citizenship, uniting the two nations. Combat missions in Africa fired up, with Britain and its African colonies providing support to Charles de Gaulle's Free France movement in the form of finances, communications, supplies, aircraft, and other resources, with the immediate goal of protecting Nigerian borders. Although the pro-Nazi, Vichy-controlled territory of French West Africa was threatening Nigeria's northern border, de Gaulle gained control of Chad and the port of Libreville, Gabon by August and Cameroon by September. Oke underscored Britain's support for de Gaulle and the value of Bathurst (The Gambia) to Free France when he hosted a delegation of Free French Officers who were waylaid there in early August. Clyde, a Short Empire S.30 series flying boat on which the officers were travelling, had been damaged on take-off from Lisbon, Portugal and was undergoing repairs in Bathurst. The delegation went on to Leopoldville, Congo and negotiated with French officers from Brazzaville in an effort to convince them to join Free France. Regional morale was further stressed in September 1940 by de Gaulle's failure to secure a French West African strategic port during the Battle of Dakar, but rallied by October when he declared Brazzaville, Congo, as the capital of Free France. Allied aircraft could then use an east-west flight corridor across Chad, connecting Nigeria to Egypt. The British colonies, and Nigeria in particular, were well-positioned to gain economically from new trade with French Equatorial Africa, which had cut-off commerce with the Vichy-controlled West African territories.