During a speech delivered on 4 September 1938 at the unveiling of a commemorative plaque at Pointe de Grave honoring La Fayette's's departure to America in 1777 and the arrival of the American Expeditionary Force in 1917, Bonnet stated in obliquely that France would go to war if Germany attacked Czechoslovakia and expressed the hope that the US would fight on France's side. During the same ceremony, Ambassador Bullitt stated that "France and the United States were united in war and peace", leading to a storm of criticism by American isolationists and a statement from President Franklin D. Roosevelt that it was "100 per cent wrong" the U.S. would join a "stop-Hitler bloc".