Charles de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) was the dominant military and political leader of France, 1940-1969. Fleeing the victorious German invaders in 1940, he set up his base in London, proclaimed himself the incarnation of France, created the Free French movement, rallied the oversees colonies (especially in Africa), organized the Resistance, and tried, but failed, to gain full recognition from the British and Americans. He retired from office in 1946, but returned in 1958 as France verged on civil war over the Algeria crisis.

Career

De Gaulle was born in Lille on November 22, 1890; his father was professor of philosophy in the Jesuit College of Paris, and a profound believer in the glory of traditional Catholic France. The son received a rigorous classical education and matriculated at the Saint Cyr military academy in 1908; in 1911 he was commissioned in the French army. During World War I de Gaulle exhibited leadership and courage under fire. He was wounded three times and was finally captured at Verdun in 1916 and spent two years in a German prison camp. In 1920-1921 as major, he served on the staff of General Maxime Weygand's military mission to Poland in the Polish-Soviet war. He taught military history at Saint Cyr, served as aide to Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain, and wrote several books on military strategy. His book The Army of the Future (1934), daringly proposed mechanization of the infantry, with stress on the wholesale use of tanks. Ironically the German panzer units, so effectively employed in the invasion of France in 1940, utilized de Gaulle's theories, while the French dispersed and wasted their armor. As the French armies collapsed de Gaulle was made general and then undersecretary of war in Paul Reynaud's cabinet. The elderly Marshal Pétain now came to power in a regime based in the resort town of Vichy. Pétain, venerated as the great hero of World War I, not only admitted defeat but accepted the idea of permanent subordination to Germany. Pétain wanted France to be welcomed by Berlin as the most useful and collaborationist of the nations of Europe, which he thought Germany would long control.

Resistance

De Gaulle refused to accept defeat and subservience to Germany. Resistance was possible because the air force and navy were intact, as was the entire overseas empire; Britain was an ally and increasingly so too was the United States. As Pétain's new Vichy government prepared to sign a humiliating armistice on 22 June 1940, de Gaulle flew to London and on 18 June. He issued his famous "Appel," proclaiming "France has lost a battle, but France has not lost the war!" and calling French patriots to resistance. De Gaulle's forces by November 1940, numbered 35,000 troops and twenty warships; several overseas colonies had rallied to his banner, although his forces were defeated in September in an attempt, with British aid, to seize Dakar, Senegal.

In London in Sept. 1941 de Gaulle formed the free French National Council, with himself as president. It was an all-encompassing coalition of resistance forces, ranging from conservative Catholics like himself to Communists. By early 1942, the "Fighting French" movement, as it was now called, gained rapidly in power and influence; it overcame Vichy in Syria and Lebanon, adding to its base. In November 1942 the Americans invaded French North Africa. They favored General Henri Giraud, the High Commissioner of North Africa. But de Gaulle seized power from Giraud, who resigned in late 1942. De Gaulle took supreme command of all French forces in April 1944. Meanwhile, all the French colonies except Japanese-occupied Indochina came under Gaullist control, as did Corsica. Although Churchill was vacillating, his top aide Anthony Eden was a strong supporter of de Gaulle.

He was exasperated at the Americans, who were more willing to work with Vichy or Giraud than with him:

The United States, delighting in her resources, feeling that she no longer had within herself sufficient scope for her energies, wishing to help those who were in misery or bondage the world over, yielded in her turn to that taste for intervention in which the instinct for domination cloaked itself.

It turn Franklin D. Roosevelt distrusted him. De Gaulle removed French forces from the planned invasion of Normandy in June 1944. He was not at D-Day and was excluded from all the top-level conferences. The Allies, however, finally gave his regime de jure recognition and allowed his armies to enter France and to be the first to enter Paris after the Germans fled in August 1944. French armies, 1.3 million strong, under de Gaulle as provisional president, thereupon fought alongside the Allies. As a result France was given an occupation zone in Germany, and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, with a veto.

Fourth Republic: 1945-1958

As the war ended the Resistance coalition fell apart. De Gaulle's advocacy of a strong executive power was rejected by the voters, who in late 1945 adopted a constitution for the Fourth Republic that resembled that of the discredited Third Republic. De Gaulle resigned the provisional presidency in January 1946, saying that he did not wish "to preside, powerless, over the powerlessness of the state." In 1947 he resigned all his offices, refusing to be a candidate in the presidential election. "How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?", he asked. In retirement at the village of Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, he created a new conservative party, RPF, Rassemblement du Peuple Français (Rally of the French People), which only lasted until 1953. He then focused on his great war memoirs, L'Appel (1954) (translated into English as "The Call to Honor," 1955); L'Unité, (1956) (translated as Unity, 1959); and Le Salut, (1959) (translated as "Salvation", 1960).

Fifth Republic: 1958-1969

1958 crisis

For four years France had fought a civil war in Algeria against the FLN, which demanded independence. The Frenchmen who lived in Algeria, their allies among the Arabs, and powerful elements of the military inside France, rejected the FLN and demanded that Algeria remain integrated into France. They insisted so vehemently they were prepared to overthrow the government in Paris if it wavered.

In May, 1958, Frenchmen in Algeria revolted, throwing France into turmoil that verged on civil war. Rebels comprised young nationalists, supported by the large planters, army officers, and other proponents of integration of the Muslim population with France, feared a new government in Paris would make concessions to the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN). The rebels proclaimed a committee of public safety; the revolt spread to Corsica. In Paris the National Assembly voted emergency powers to newly elected Premier Pierre Pflimlin. However only de Gaulle could solve the crisis, for he had the support of the navy, the police, and such prominent politicians as Socialist Guy Mollet and Moderate Republican chief Georges Bidault. Pflimlin resigned and President René Coty summoned de Gaulle. The National Assembly, under threat that parachutists would seize Paris if it refused, voted 329-224 to invest de Gaulle with extraordinary powers for six months beginning June 1, 1958; the National Assembly then went home and de Gaulle took charge.

Interpretations

These uprisings provided the long-awaited chance to supporters of General de Gaulle, who sought a new regime in which the executive power would be strengthened. Underlying the views of Gaullists such as Jacques Soustelle, Michel Debré, and Jacques Chaban-Delmas was a faith in French grandeur, a new nationalism which transformed itself into a desire for order and maintenance of the French Empire. These interests momentarily coincided with those of the Algerian rebels who feared Anglo-American mediation of the Algerian rebellion.

Gaullists have seen this critical episode as the result of the preplanned statesmanship of de Gaulle. Their "grand design" thesis includes three key arguments. First is the claim that de Gaulle decided to give up Algeria because he concluded that keeping in the face of a widespread popular anti-French revolt was too costly economically and against France's ideal policy of a focus on Europe. Second, Gaullists argue his general objective ending the Algerian burden was planned well before his return to power in 1958. Third they claim that what seemed an erratic, slow, and indecisive progress toward Algerian independence was in reality de Gaulle's well-orchestrated, consistent, and deceptive policy calculated to overcome the sentiments of the French people toward Algeria.

Other historians argue that de Gaulle had no long-term plan, and probably did not want independence for Algeria. Thus French scholars Raoul Girardet and Jacques Julliard argue de Gaulle's Algerian policy was a set of unanticipated concessions imposed by events. They have an alternative "juggler" thesis that does not attribute harmony or continuity to de Gaulle's policy, nor does it try to explain the lack of discernible consistency in the policy by attributing cunning Machiavelism to de Gaulle. Instead it considers the policy as the result of an erratic improvisation. Merom says Algeria was not doomed by the economic realities because the cost was tolerable--between 50% to 60% of the defense budget, or 10% to 15% percent of the total budget in Paris. White the French indeed hads a severe budget crisis verging on bankruptcy, Algeria was only a small part of it. More important was spending on infrastructure renovation, industrial and agricultural modernization, nuclear energy, and expansion of education, and welfare entitlements. On the other hand military spending was helping the economy. Two years into de Gaulle's new regime, the financial crisis was over and the economy was in fine shape, notes Merom.

Merom says the second argument, that de Gaulle's policy was slow, gradual, and deceptive because he had to overcome a strong public sentiment in favor of keeping Algeria, is likewise invalid according to public opinion polls. They show opinion was evenly split; indeed, over 40% of the French people were alienated from core ideas of the old policy of no-recognition, no-negotiations, and no-compromise with the Arab rebels of the FLN. De Gaulle's policy of negotiation had a firm grounding in public opinion, though not a clear majority.

Merom agrees that de Gaulle's domineering manner and decisive style, the constitutional power he skillfully amassed as President of the Fifth Republic, his reputation as France's wartime savior, and the confidence vested in him by the people and the military, were indispensable qualities for a leader who wished to lead France out of Algeria. Merom concludes that his basic objective in Algeria was moderately conservative. He disliked the harsh military tactics in use and wanted more collaborative relations between France and the Arabs, but he did not want Algeria to become independent. Only when he realized his goals were impossible, Merom argues, did he start to compromise. Even then he tried to preserve as many French interests in Algeria as possible. Finally he realized the only recourse was a genuine Algerian independence, and he granted it.

Foreign policy

Restoring French greatness was his highest priority. That required a strong army, rockets and a space program, and especially nuclear weapons, explaining, "No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent."

De Gaulle forced a serious clash with Britain regarding the NATO alliance. By opposing British attempts to incorporate Europe in a broader transatlantic economic, political, and military alliance, de Gaulle hoped to create a chance for France to become what she ceased to be since Waterloo; the first in the world through driving a wedge between Europe, on one hand, and Britain and the United States on the other. Initially successful in isolating Britain, particularly through France's veto power over the European Economic Community (EEC), de Gaulle sought to further his country's status through a critique of, and withdrawal from, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The move backfired, however, allowing British foreign policy to isolate France and de Gaulle, hold NATO together, and eventually led to British inclusion in the EEC by other European members to counter France's disruptive behavior. In 1967, as in 1961-63, the French were determined to preserve their position of leadership within the EEC, and this was the reason for de Gaulle's second veto of Britain's application for membership. French diplomacy was based on the need to preserve the Community of Six while barring Britain. Although France succeeded in excluding Britain in the short term, in the longer term the French had to adjust their stance on enlargement in order to retain influence. Leadership within the community was the foundation of France's international status.

Bibliography

Biographies

• Lacouture, Jean. De Gaulle: The Rebel 1890-1944 (1984; English ed. 1991), 640pp; excerpt and text search; vol 2. De Gaulle: The Ruler 1945-1970 (1993)
• Shennan, Andrew. De Gaulle (1993) 200pp
• Williams, Charles. The Last Great Frenchman: A Life of General De Gaulle (1997) excerpt and text search

Politics

• Berstein, Serge, and Peter Morris. The Republic of de Gaulle 1958-1969 (The Cambridge History of Modern France) (2006) excerpt and text search
• Hauss, Charles. Politics in Gaullist France: Coping with Chaos (1991) online edition
• Hoffmann, Stanley. Decline or Renewal? France since the 1930s (1974) online edition
• Merom, Gil. "A 'Grand Design'? Charles de Gaulle and the End of the Algerian War," Armed Forces & Society(1999), Vol. 25, Issue 2; in EBSCO
• Northcutt, Wayne. Historical Dictionary of the French Fourth and Fifth Republics, 1946-1991 (1992)
• Rioux, Jean-Pierre, and Godfrey Rogers. The Fourth Republic, 1944-1958 (The Cambridge History of Modern France) (1989)
• Shepard, Todd. The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France. (2006). 288 pp.
• Williams, Philip M. and Martin Harrison. De Gaulle's Republic (1965) online edition

Foreign policy

• Bozo, Frédéric. Two Strategies for Europe: De Gaulle, the United States and the Atlantic Alliance (2000)
• Gordon, Philip H. A Certain Idea of France: French Security Policy and the Gaullist Legacy (1993) online edition
• Kolodziej, Edward A. French International Policy under de Gaulle and Pompidou: The Politics of Grandeur (1974) online edition
• Mahan, E. Kennedy, De Gaulle and Western Europe. (2002). 229 pp.
• Mangold, Peter. The Almost Impossible Ally: Harold Macmillan and Charles de Gaulle. (2006). 275 pp.
• Vaïsse, Maurice. La Grandeur: Politique Etrangère du Général de Gaulle, 1958-1969 (1997)
• Varat, Benjamin E. "A Clash of Kings: De Gaulle, Kennedy, and the Battle for Western Europe, 1958-1963." PhD dissertation Boston U. 2006. 356 pp. DAI 2006 67(1): 295-A. DA3202578 Fulltext: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

World War II

• Berthon, Simon. Allies at War: The Bitter Rivalry among Churchill, Roosevelt, and de Gaulle. (2001). 356 pp.
• Funk, Arthur Layton. Charles de Gaulle: The Crucial Years, 1943-1944 (1959) online edition
• Kersaudy, Francois. Churchill and De Gaulle (2nd ed 1990 482pp
• Weinberg, Gerhard L. Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders. (2005). 292 pp. chapter on de Gaulle

Primary sources

• de Gaulle, Charles. The Complete War Memoirs of Charles De Gaulle (1998) 1048pp; excerpt and text search
• de Gaulle, Charles. Memoirs of Hope: Renewal and Endeavor (1971)