More than you wanted to know: Charles de Gaulle
Notes on a Frenchman
I recently finished the book “De Gaulle” by Julian Jackson. Clocking in at 777 pages, it is a tome. I was excited to read a book about Charles de Gaulle. I’ve read a lot about World War II, and know a lot about Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, but De Gaulle was a blank spot for me. Before reading the book, I knew he was the leader of the Free French during World War II, led France at least twice after the war, was involved in the Algerian War for independence, and disliked America. That’s it. Here are some notes and thoughts after reading a full biography:
De Gaulle was not part of a military family, but from a young age wanted to enlist. Despite not being a standout student, he worked hard and graduated near the top of his class from the Saint-Cyr military academy. His courage was evident immediately. He fought valiantly in World War I, was shot several times, and was eventually captured by the Germans. He spent most of the war as a POW but attempted to escape five times before being detained at high-security Ingolstadt Fortress.
During the interwar years, he stayed in the military and moved up the ranks. He wrote his first book which was about military strategy during World War I. He became an aid to Philippe Pétain, the French hero of WWI and commander of all French forces. During this time, de Gaulle argued that France’s tactics and strategy were woefully out of date and that tanks would be much more important during a future conflict.
When Germany invaded France in 1940, Charles de Gaulle was in charge of an entire division. He would quickly be promoted to Brigadier-General after leading one of the only successful defenses of the front during the Battle of France. As French troops were driven back, de Gaulle wanted as much of the military as possible to flee to North Africa and prepare to resist from abroad. The French government felt differently and sued for peace. Philippe Pétain, who was still viewed as the greatest living Frenchman and one of their greatest generals in history, shocked many by negotiating an armistice with the Nazis that made France a puppet state. The Germans occupied Northern France, and Pétain set up his Potemkin government in the town of Vichy.
De Gaulle would have none of this. He flew to the United Kingdom, and famously went on the BBC radio on June 18, exhorting his fellow countrymen to resist. Few heard the speech, but it became the first of hundreds of radio addresses he would give during the war. His legend grew. Over time, many would falsely state they heard his initial June 18 speech, although most probably heard later speeches.
This open act of defiance carried great risk. De Gaulle was tried in absentia in France by the Vichy regime and sentenced to death. From England, he began trying to drum up support. With few men and less money, he slowly built support. There were several other, more high-profile, Frenchmen in exile who jockeyed for power. Ultimately, de Gaulle’s experience as a military commander and his obstinacy carried the day. In time, de Gaulle would be recognized as the leader of a sort of pseudo-government-in-exile, especially as it became more clear that the Vichy government had surrendered sovereignty to the Germans and was not a free government in any sense. Although French troops did not participate in D-day, De Gaulle traveled to France shortly after the Normandy Landings and tried to elevate France to be an equal partner in the geopolitical struggle that would follow the war.
After the Nazis surrendered, de Gaulle became head of the provisional government in France, but resigned when the newly created government didn’t give enough power to the executive. He believed that France would not be able to rebuild without him. This proved to be initially incorrect, and after his resignation, he spent 12 years out of office, a period known as the wilderness years.
By 1958 France was in trouble. It appeared de Gaulle was right about having a weak chief executive. No party in the French parliament was powerful enough to address the problems facing France. Above all, Algeria began to loom large. Algeria, located in North Africa, was not a French colony. At least in theory, Algeria was just as much a part of France as Paris or Dijon. Its residents voted in French elections and carried French nationality. In reality, Algeria was run as an apartheid state. Those of French or other European ancestry, known as pieds-noirs, only made up 10 percent of the population but ruled over the Arabs who made up the other 90 percent. During the 1950s, the Arabs increasingly agitated for independence, while the pieds-noirs wanted to stay part of France. This eventually degraded into a brutal civil war, with mass atrocities committed by the French armed forces. At one point, it looked as if the civil war might extend to mainland France.
In a legally dubious move, de Gaulle was asked to step back in as Prime Minister. He did so, but only under the condition that a new constitution be written with a strong president. He became prime minister and after the constitution referendum that inaugurated the Fifth Republic passed, the first president of the Fifth Republic.
As president he surprised many by allowing Algeria to become an independent country. It was during this time that most of the French Empire also gained independence. As president from 1959 to 1969, he oversaw a booming French economy and a solidifying of the French Government.
In 1968, massive protests roiled the country. Originally started by students, trade unions and other workers soon joined in. At its peak, it looked as if the government might be overthrown. In an event that continues to be widely debated, de Gaulle fled Paris and secretly traveled to a French military base in Germany. There, he confirmed the support of the French army. The protests would later die down, and exactly what de Gaulle was planning is unknown. Perhaps he didn’t know.
In 1969 de Gaulle pitched yet another referendum that would reform the Senate, among other things. He also said he would resign if the referendum failed. For the first time in his career, things didn’t go the general’s way. Over 52 percent of voters said no, and he resigned from the Presidency the next day.
After resigning, he returned to his manor in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, the only house he and his wife had ever owned. He spent his time mostly out of the limelight, writing his memoirs. On the evening of November 9th, 1970 he suffered a sudden brain aneurysm and died within an hour. As Georges Pompidou, his successor as president of France said the next day, “France is a widow.”
Charles de Gaulle, who lived in a time of colossal historic figures, was a tremendous force to be reckoned with. He was a man who took no prisoners and refused to ever back down. By sheer force of will he took a small group of Frenchmen in exile and turned them into the Free French. He served France and her people for decades as a military man, leader in exile, provisional chairman, prime minister, and first president of the Fifth Republic. He rarely compromised or admitted fault. Even when he was clearly in the wrong, apologizing seemed impossible. As the comedian George Carlin once said, “Former French President Charles de Gaulle rose from the dead today, just to show everyone he could really do it.”
He loved France. He viewed France as sacrosanct, an entity that must be protected at all costs. His famous distrust of the British and Americans stemmed from the belief that France should always be at the head of the table and that France was superior to all else. His love of France exceeded all else. At a time when most of his class was fiercely anti-Semitic, de Gaulle had no time for such bigotry. One respected intellectual who wanted to join the Free French informed de Gaulle that he was Jewish, de Gaulle simply said, “I know.” De Gaulle would later say, “I know only two kinds of Frenchmen: those who do their duty and those who do not.”
He had three great strengths as a politician. First was his embrace of the people. Despite several assassination attempts, he never hesitated to be with his citizens, and would often dive into crowds, shaking hands and being grabbed at by literally hundreds. At 6’5” he stood out in a crowd, and he used his size and charisma to convey a gravitas that is unparalleled for a democratically elected leader.
Second, he excelled at power games on the world stage. As the leader of the Free French, he would successfully play England and America off against each other. Whenever slighted, either for real or just in his head, he would threaten to resign. Despite both Churchill's and Roosevelt’s dislike of him, both recognized he was too important to abandon and be won over the his side. As president, he continued to fiendishly manipulate the great powers, recognizing that the allies needed him to stay on side and the Soviets liked him as a wedge. This drove leaders around the world to curse his name, yet not be able to abandon him.
Third, for a man famous for his speeches and demands, he knew when to shut up. Better than any other man who has tasted the forbidden fruit of power, he recognized that when he stepped out of the limelight his legend would only grow. His years in the wilderness proved to set the stage for his remarkable return to power. By living far from Paris in a small village with little to do, he was able to sit and watch his popularity grow. Few leaders of his caliber have ever realized that sometimes the best action is to do nothing. As de Gaulle told a politician, “The most common error of all statesmen is to believe firmly that there exists at any one moment a solution to every problem. There are in some periods problems to which no solution exists.”
De Gaulle’s place in French, and even world culture, is unique. Since his death, politicians from across the political spectrum have claimed the mantle of “Gaullism”. Because de Gaulle’s political philosophy was entirely his own, everyone from far-right traditionalists to socialists attempted to channel his legacy. One of his few equals in this way is Juan Perón of Argentina, where many politicians claim to be “Peronists” to this day.
In general, I find the number of larger-than-life figures in French history fascinating. One culture produced Charlemagne, Louis XIV, Napoleon, and de Gaulle, and all but the first were alive within 300 years. Every nation has its heroes, but one must tip the cap at the scale of the titans of France. It will be interesting to see how de Gaulle’s legacy ages compared to the other three. So far his shadow is smaller than that of Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, or Mao. There may be some recency bias here, but if the fifth republic lasts another century I’d say de Gaulle belongs in the pantheon of both great Frenchmen and WWII leaders.
One of the most interesting aspects of his life was his relationship with his daughter Anne. Born in 1928, Anne had what we today call Down’s Syndrome, and a severe case at that. Anne’s development was severely stunted. Her eyesight was poor but she refused to wear glasses. She never learned to speak more than a few words and was likely deaf. She didn’t learn to walk until age ten. This was a devastating blow to the family. Down’s Syndrome was not well understood at the time. Many thought it was the result of some fault of the family or moral deficiency of the mother. The prognosis was poor. At the time, most children with Down’s Syndrome didn’t survive to adulthood. Upper-class families in the de Gaulle’s place usually sent their disabled children to institutions where they spent their days removed from society. Rather than do this, the de Gaulles decided that Anne would live with them, and employed a full-time nurse to help with her care. The love of her parents never wavered. De Gaulle once told a chaplain, “Believe me, Anne is my joy and my strength. She is the grace of God in my life… she has kept me in the security of obedience to the sovereign will of God.”
Perhaps nothing surprises more than how Charles de Gaulle treated his daughter. The general was an aloof man who rarely showed affection to his family. His son said one of the only times he saw his parents embrace was after he and his mother successfully escaped France and reunited with Charles in England during World War II. Yet with Anne, Charles de Gaulle played the role of tender father. He would spend hours playing with her; singing songs, pantomiming stories, and making her clap and laugh. After she learned to walk, the director of the local botanical gardens would open the gates after closing time and allow the two to walk hand-in-hand away from the eyes of the public. Anytime de Gaulle returned from a trip away from his family his first act was to rush to Anne’s room.
We have no record of why de Gaulle behaved so differently with Anne or why he kept her with the family. As to the former, I think the biographer Jackson is correct when he says that Anne was “The one person perhaps who was not in awe of him”. As to the latter, Jackson surmises the de Gaulles kept Anne with the family because of their deep Catholic faith. That may have played a role, but I attribute it to de Gaulle’s deep sense of duty. In his mind, it was taken for granted that a soldier follows orders. It was taken for granted a Frenchman risks his life to defend his country. It was taken for granted that a father cares for his children. With Anne it meant watching over her and cherishing the limited time they had together. After Anne died in Charles’ arms at age 20 from bronchitis, he told his priest, “I am man annihilated.” Charles and his wife would be buried next to Anne decades later.