De Gaulle, Charles André Joseph Marie

I

Introduction

De Gaulle, Charles André Joseph Marie (1890-1970), French general and statesman, leader of Free France during World War II, architect of the Fifth Republic, and its first president (1959-1969).

II

A Military Career

Charles de Gaulle was born in Lille, into a traditionalist and conservative family. His father, a teacher of literature and philosophy, was devout and patriotic, though, unusually for someone of his background, he aligned himself with the supporters of Alfred Dreyfus during the Dreyfus Affair. He played an important role in the education of Charles (who was entrusted to the Jesuits) and set him reading Maurice Barrès, Charles Péguy, and Henri Bergson. De Gaulle showed an early interest in a military career and in 1908 was admitted to the Military Academy of Saint-Cyr. On graduating he joined an infantry regiment commanded by Colonel Philippe Pétain, and he had reached the rank of lieutenant by the time that World War I broke out. Wounded three times and promoted to the rank of captain, he distinguished himself at the Battle of Verdun but was taken prisoner at Douaumont on March 2, 1916 and interned at Ingolstadt in Germany after several attempts to escape. While in prison he began work on his book La Discorde Chez l’Ennemi (1924; Discord Among the Enemy). Impatient after a long period of inactivity, and anxious to return to active service after his release, he fought alongside the Poles during the Russo-Polish War in 1920. On his return to France de Gaulle went back to Saint-Cyr to teach military history. He was then admitted to the École Supérieur de Guerre to study strategy. However, he became dissatisfied with life there as his ideas were not well received by the conservative establishment. He was not among those chosen to stay on as instructors at the school, and had to content himself with a posting with the French army of occupation in the German Rhineland.

III

“Colonel Motor”

In 1925 his old commander Pétain appointed de Gaulle to his staff on the Supreme War Council. Between 1929 and 1931 he served in the Middle East, an experience that provided the background for his book Histoire des Troupes du Levant (1931; History of the Troops of the Levant). On his return to France he joined the secretariat for national defence in Paris, a post that allowed de Gaulle to participate in debates about defence policy over the course of nearly six years. During this period he published his unorthodox ideas about military strategy. In Vers l’Armee de Métier (1934; The Army of the Future) de Gaulle called for a radical change in strategic thinking and the creation of mechanized, mobile units capable of surprising the enemy rather than the static defensive forces exemplified by the Maginot Line. During the 1930s de Gaulle was associated with Catholic anti-fascist groups opposed to the Munich Pact. He constantly sought to persuade those in power of the importance of his insights. The campaign he conducted through the press and parliament in favour of armoured divisions in the French army (similar to the ideas of the German strategist Heinz Guderian, which helped to reshape the German army) led him into conflict with the principal commanders, Maxime Weygand, Maurice Gamelin, and, particularly, Philippe Pétain.

In 1937, de Gaulle was promoted to the rank of colonel and appointed to the command of a tank regiment in Metz. Popularly known as “colonel Motor” because of his proselytizing for armoured divisions, after the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 de Gaulle was appointed to the command of tank units. In January 1940 he prepared a memorandum, entitled L’Avènement de la Force Mecanique (The Advent of Mechanized Force), which he sent to Gamelin, Weygand, and the soon-to-be prime minister Paul Reynaud, arguing for a strategy based on the combination of air and tank power. He led successful counter-offensives against the German invaders in May 1940, effectively putting his theories into practice. In June he was invited by the Reynaud to become under-secretary-of-state for national defence and war, but served for less than two weeks before Reynaud resigned and the government fell. With those supporting an armistice, including Pétain, in the asccendacy, de Gaulle flew into exile in London.

IV

Leader of the Free French

On June 18, 1940, around 8 o’clock in the evening, de Gaulle issued his famous appeal calling for the continuation of the war against Germany on the side of Great Britain. While a collaborationist government established itself in Vichy (see Vichy Government), with Pétain at its head, de Gaulle became leader of the Committee of Free France. Although he initially had few followers, de Gaulle won the support of the British prime minister Winston Churchill, who recognized him (on August 7) as the leader of the Free French Forces, an independent national army. Days before, he had been condemned to death in his absence by the Vichy regime. Although he was not regarded with enthusiasm by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who saw him as an adventurer and preferred to establish relations with Vichy, de Gaulle set about rallying the possessions of the French Empire to his cause. Although he failed in his attempt to land at Dakar, in Senegal, at the end of September 1940, he succeeded in bringing Chad, French Equatorial Africa, and Madagascar over to his cause, and in October formed the Council for Defence of the Empire.

Alongside his international activities, de Gaulle maintained contacts with the French resistance, through his intermediary Jean Moulin (see European Resistance Movements of World War II). In 1943, Moulin helped to bring together Resistance movements in the Council of National Resistance (CNR), which acknowledged de Gaulle as French head of state. De Gaulle was nevertheless kept in the dark over the planning of Allied landings in North Africa in November 1942, during which British and American forces made contact with Admiral Darlan, a member of the Vichy government, and later with General Giraud, who also had links with Vichy. However, after the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, a meeting between de Gaulle and Giraud resulted in the creation of the French Committee for National Liberation, initially headed by both men, but later by de Gaulle alone. The Committee was recognized by the Allies as the sole representative of France. During this time, de Gaulle formulated his ideas about extending greater autonomy to the colonies, later articulated at the 1944 Brazzaville Conference.