If Charles de Gaulle had not been a great leader, he would have deserved a place in history as an epic boor. The roll call of victims of his insults was headed by Winston Churchill, who observed of the lofty general in 1942 that, “instead of waging war with Germany, he had waged it with England”. Britain’s prime minister strove to rescue France, which he loved, from abasement and American contempt. But he waited in vain for any smidgen of gratitude from its foremost exile.
De Gaulle treated French politicians with almost uniform contempt, and his decade-long presidency that began in 1959 is best remembered for its rows. He rejected Britain’s application to join the Common Market and withdrew his country from the military organisations of Nato. Visiting Canada, he recklessly incited French-Canadian separatism by proclaiming: “Vive le Québec libre!” He hated Americans, excepting possibly Jackie Kennedy.
Where Churchill was a magnificent human being independent of his statesmanship, de Gaulle defined himself exclusively through the role of standard-bearer of his country’s greatness. “When de Gaulle the man looks at de Gaulle the historic figure,” he said, “he understands that the historic de Gaulle has to act as is expected of him.” He was contemptuous about his own security even when the OAS, French terrorist foes of Algerian independence, made repeated assassination attempts: “I have a providential mission to fulfil. I think nothing will happen to me. If it does, I will have been mistaken.” In his fifties he abandoned a lifetime of chain-smoking to preserve his health for France.
He was born in 1890, third of five children of a clever academic family with minor aristocratic roots and right-wing royalist and Catholic convictions. His army career was interrupted by capture at Verdun in 1916, but between the wars he became celebrated as an intellectual soldier, author of significant works on future conflict. He briefly commanded an armoured division during the May 1940 blitzkrieg, and was then translated to become a junior defence minister. It was in this role that he met Churchill, who was delighted by de Gaulle’s fierce commitment to the struggle.
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He chose exile rather than accept German occupation. A London hostess inquired how long his mission would last. “Madame,” he declared regally, “I am not here on a mission. I am here to save the honour of France!” He was mortified by the small number of Frenchmen who rallied to his standard — most poilus evacuated from Dunkirk insisted on repatriation. Even those who stayed in Britain were not spared; he devoted an acidulous page of his memoirs to listing prominent personalities who rejected his authority. He inspired such dislike that even some would-be French resisters preferred to serve with the British SOE rather than the Gaullists.
But in his isolation he achieved greatness. A superb radio performer, by 1944 he had won a vast popular following in France with his broadcasts. His unbending refusal to become Churchill’s puppet, even when he was a supplicant for every mouthful he ate, inspired the prime minister’s frequent rage but grudging respect. He fought his hosts as if he commanded armies and fleets, and responded to their perceived insults with
icy disdain.
Jonathan Fenby’s biography offers Anglo-Saxon readers a most readable narrative and sensible judgments, but makes no claim to originality. He says little, for instance, about one of the war’s last significant mysteries: the possible role of de Gaulle in the assassination of Vichy deputy leader Admiral Darlan in Algiers in December 1942. He glosses lightly over the alleged torture of political opponents at Free French headquarters in Carlton Gardens.
In August 1944, amid American chagrin, de Gaulle — in truth a mere colonel whose promotion to general was never confirmed — returned to Paris to be greeted as his nation’s saviour. He formed a government that sought to impose iron discipline on his country’s warring factions. He hated the communists perhaps more than he did
the Nazis.
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The ruthlessness with which he reasserted control of France’s colonial empire cost tens of thousands of lives in Syria, Indochina and Algeria. But he held France together until, in January 1946, his patience expired. He wanted absolute powers to govern, and the elected representatives of the people declined to grant them. He retired into self-imposed exile at Colombey. For more than 10 years, in circumstances of morbid austerity, he awaited a summons from his people to save them again. “You see, Madame,” he told one visitor, “this is not a gay place. One does not come here
to laugh.”
A 1954 opinion poll showed that only 1% of French people believed the general would ever regain power. But in May 1958, amid the Algerian war that precipitated the collapse of political authority and threatened a military coup, he issued a characteristic public statement: “I am ready to assume the powers of the Republic.” A fortnight later he was invited to form a government, and ruled by decree for six months until he produced a new constitution for the Fifth Republic, and himself became president.
He held France together until, in 1946, his patience expired. He wanted absolute powers to govern, and the people declined to grant them
His most notable achievement was to overcome a military revolt and withdraw France from Algeria in 1962, after more bloody strife and long negotiations with the nationalists at Evian. His stature alone averted anarchy. He restored the French economy by tough measures that included an enormous devaluation, launched a rapprochement with Germany and promoted strategic policies designed to deliver his country from American hegemony and make it a nuclear power. If Gaullist nationalism was often absurd, he made France again a
serious country.
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By 1968, however, his people and almost the entire political class were weary of autocracy. Les événements, the student riots and workers’ strikes that shook the country, highlighted de Gaulle’s loss of authority and incomprehension of the new world. In the following year he lost a constitutional referendum.
He resigned, to be succeeded by Georges Pompidou, and died at Colombey in 1970.
He was a man to respect, not to love, though his devoted adherents did both. He did not save France from the Nazis, but made possible its resurrection. He created a legend that went far to heal the terrible wounds that defeat and collaboration had inflicted on French society. He brought nobility to an otherwise pretty squalid story.
Others share the credit for France’s post-war restoration to its old status as a European power, a scientific, artistic and industrial leader. But he alone averted national breakdown between 1958 and 1962. Many of his grandiose hopes for his country were disappointed, as were those of Churchill for post-war Britain. But, as Fenby observes, the general’s experience confounds those who dispute the power of great men to change history.