I.

Introduction

Charles de Gaulle (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 André Joseph Marie 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.

V.

A Triumphant Return

Days after the landing of Allied forces in Normandy in June 1944, de Gaulle himself arrived at Courseulles-sur-Mer. The welcome he received confirmed his legitimacy to the Americans, who renounced their plans for France to be governed by an Allied administration until the entire country had been liberated. On August 26, 1944, de Gaulle processed down the Champs-Élysées in Paris accompanied by the leaders of the French Resistance, and acclaimed by a million Parisians. Three priorities presented themselves to the leader of liberated France: to complete the liberation of French territory; to ensure the presence of French representatives in peace negotiations with Germany; and the restoration of French national unity.

On September 3, 1944, de Gaulle became head of a provisional government that included six communists, as well as members of the Mouvement Republicain Populaire (MRP; Popular Republican Movement)—which was aligned to de Gaulle—and Socialists. The government lasted until 1947. Fearing the return of the discredited institutions of the Third Republic, which had failed to provide decisive leadership in the years before the German occupation, de Gaulle proposed the creation of a new constitution to strengthen the power of the executive. However, the plan alarmed those who saw it as an expression of de Gaulle’s “presidential” ambitions, and de Gaulle suddenly resigned from the government on January 20, 1946.

Six months after his retirement from political life, de Gaulle made clear his opinions on the constitution in a speech delivered at Bayeux in June 1946. He spoke out against a “regime of parties”, which he saw as a potential danger in the planned constitution for a Fourth Republic, eventually adopted by a referendum in October 1946. In April 1947 de Gaulle founded a new political party, the Rassemblement du Peuple Francais (RPF; Rally of the French People). In an atmosphere of anxiety about the outbreak of a renewed global conflict (during these years the Cold War was intensifying) and social disharmony in France (there was a wave of strikes in France in 1947-1948), de Gaulle aimed to turn the RPF into an anti-Communist mass movement—in 1948 membership reached one million. However, support for the RPF soon declined. In the 1951 legislative elections only 50 RPF deputies were elected. By 1953 the RPF had ceased to be a dynamic force in French politics.

VI.

Return to Power

Between 1953 and 1957 de Gaulle underwent what his ally Andre Malraux referred to as his “journey through the desert”. He retired to his family home in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises in Champagne and devoted himself to writing his memoirs. He also travelled, particularly in Africa.

From 1957 the Algerian question threatened to cause a political crisis in France, and many people anticipated that this would be the occasion for de Gaulle to make his return to political life (see Algerian War of Independence). In May 1958 a military coup in Algiers brought General Salan to power in Algeria, and France seemed to be threatened by civil war. For many de Gaulle was the one figure who could restore national unity, able to attract the support both of the French colonists in Algeria and of those who favoured decolonization. On May 15 de Gaulle proclaimed himself “ready to assume the powers of the Republic”, while also seeking to reassure those who were anxious about the extent of his ambitions. On May 29, President Coty asked de Gaulle to form a government. Attracting support from across the political spectrum, the National Assembly gave de Gaulle the power to revise the constitution.

A.

Architect of the Fifth Republic

De Gaulle formed a government that included both loyal Gaullists, such as Michel Debré (later appointed as prime minister) and supporters of the Fourth Republic, establishing a sense of continuity that he believed was important for his legitimacy. During the summer of 1958 he put together a new constitution, which was approved by 80 per cent of the French people in a referendum held that September. In January 1959 de Gaulle was elected (by an electoral college) as the first president of the Fifth Republic. Under the new constitution supreme power was in the hands of the president, whose legitimacy would be reinforced by frequent referendums. De Gaulle’s supporters saw this as an expression of popular sovereignty, while the opponents of the constitution (including Pierre Mendès-France and François Mitterrand) criticized the predominance of the executive over parliament.

The new government faced three priorities: the restoration of the French state; the restoration of the currency (a new franc was launched); and the resolution of the colonial question, particularly with regard to Algeria. After expressing his support for the French Algerians (telling them “I have understood you” when he visited Algeria in June 1958) de Gaulle came to believe that self-determination for the people of Algeria was the only way of resolving the crisis. Supporters of a French Algeria felt betrayed by de Gaulle, whose return to power they had approved. In April 1961, after an attempted coup in Algiers, de Gaulle assumed the emergency powers afforded him by the constitution. On March 22, 1962, the Evian Accords were signed, recognizing the independence of Algeria. A terrorist organization, the Organisation de l’Armée Secrète (OAS; Secret Army Organization) was formed to sabotage the peace settlement. On August 22 the OAS attempted to assassinate de Gaulle by ambushing the presidential car at Petit-Clamart.

B.

An Independent France

De Gaulle’s handling of the Algerian crisis and the question of European integration caused divisions among the Gaullists in parliament. The divisions were accentuated after the decision was taken by de Gaulle to change the system for the election of a president to a direct vote. De Gaulle’s proposal, which was seen by his opponents as an accentuation of the monarchical character of the regime, polarized politics, and once again de Gaulle found himself at the head of a party political movement. Aided by a stable majority in the National Assembly, de Gaulle devoted himself to a policy of national independence, particularly in relation to the United States. The prime minister Georges Pompidou was left in charge of domestic affairs while de Gaulle set foreign and defence policy.

De Gaulle’s approach to international relations was shaped less by ideology than by a concern to maintain France’s status among the world’s great powers. To this end he followed an autonomous foreign policy, independent of the United States and the Soviet Union, and encouraged the development of a nuclear arsenal (see Nuclear Weapons). His loyalty to the Atlantic alliance lay behind his support for the United States during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, while his desire for an independent French foreign policy explains his recognition of the People’s Republic of China in 1964, and France’s exit from the integrated military command of Nato in 1966. De Gaulle regarded the Soviet Union not as an ideological rival but rather as an expression of an “eternal Russia”, and he pursued a policy of openness with the Eastern Bloc (see Warsaw Pact). He was in favour of stronger European institutions (see European Union), and built a personal relationship with the German chancellor Konrad Adenauer that helped to restore trust between France and Germany—in 1963 a treaty of Franco-German cooperation was signed. However, he vetoed Britain’s application to join the Common Market on the grounds that it would admit American influence into Europe. De Gaulle was determined to prevent American hegemony in the recently independent countries of Africa and Asia, and he was critical of American intervention in Vietnam (see Vietnam War). On a visit to Canada in 1967 he gave his support to the Québecois independence movement.

VII.

A Difficult Second Term

De Gaulle’s ideas on domestic policy, based on the cooperation of capital and labour, were less clearly articulated. At the first direct presidential election in the Fifth Republic, in 1965, de Gaulle failed to win an absolute majority in the first round against the Socialist candidate François Mitterrand. He eventually won re-election in the second round with 55 per cent of the vote. At the legislative elections in 1967, however, the Gaullists lost a number of seats to the left. France’s economic malaise and a sense of cultural stagnation lay behind the Paris Students’ Revolt of May 1968. Over the space of a month de Gaulle, usually eminently self-assured, gave the impression that the situation was beyond his control, and he was unable to get a grip on the crisis until June, when elections to the National Assembly returned an increased Gaullist majority. In spite of this success the government seemed shaken, and the Gaullists began to divide against each other. De Gaulle replaced Pompidou as prime minister with Maurice Couve de Murville, and set out an extensive programme of reform. He called a referendum on reforms to the senate, the upper chamber of the French legislature, and to regional government, hoping to consolidate support for his presidency. However, the rejection of the reforms in the referendum caused de Gaulle’s resignation from office. He returned to Colombey and wrote his Memoires d’espoir (Memories of Hope), which remained unfinished at his death on November 9, 1970.

VIII.

De Gaulle in History

De Gaulle believed himself to have been invested with an exceptional mission (“it was left for me to take France upon myself,” he wrote in his memoirs), and he dominated French politics for 30 years. Swathed in the prestige that his stand during World War II conferred on him, de Gaulle identified himself with the “eternal France”, and claimed a historical legitimacy in pursuing his aims—the guarantee of French grandeur and the power of the nation. In some respects he had inherited the legacy of Bonapartism, for example in his use of referendums that seemed to raise the president above political parties. In turn, De Gaulle left as his legacy the constitution of the Fifth Republic, according to which France is still governed, and the Gaullist political movement, to which Jacques Chirac was the heir.