Philippe Ptain

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Philippe Ptain

Chief of the French State

In office 11 July 1940 19 August 1944

Preceded by

Albert Lebrun (as President of the French Republic)

Succeeded by

Charles de Gaulle (as President of the Provisional Government)

119th Prime Minister of France

In office 16 June 1940 11 July 1940

Preceded by

Paul Reynaud

Pierre Laval Succeeded by

(as Vice-President of the Council) Ptain remained the nominal Head of Government until 18 April 1942

Minister of War of France

In office 9 February 1934 8 November 1934

Prime Minister Gaston Doumergue

Preceded by

Joseph Paul-Boncour

Succeeded by

Louis Maurin

Minister of State

In office 1 June 1935 7 June 1935

Prime Minister Fernand Bouisson

Personal details

Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Born Ptain 24 April 1856 Cauchy--la-Tour, Pas-de-Calais, France

Died

23 July 1951 (aged 95) le d'Yeu, Vende, France

Political party

None

Spouse(s)

Eugnie Hardon Ptain

Military service

Allegiance

France

Service/branch French Army Years of service 18761934

Rank

Gnral de division

Battles/wars

Battle of Verdun Rif Wars, Morocco

Marshal of France Awards Legion of Honor Spanish Medalla Militar

Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Ptain (24 April 1856 23 July 1951), generally known as Philippe Ptain (French: fi lip pe t ) or Marshal Ptain (Marchal Ptain), was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France (Chef de l'tat Franais), from 1940 to 1944. Ptain, who was 84 years old in 1940, ranks as France's oldest head of state. Because of his outstanding military leadership in World War I, particularly during the Battle of Verdun, he was viewed as a national hero in France. With the imminent fall of France in June 1940, Ptain was appointed Premier of France by President Lebrun at Bordeaux, and the Cabinet resolved to make peace with Germany. The entire government subsequently moved briefly to Clermont-Ferrand, then to the spa town of Vichy in central France. His government voted to transform the discredited French Third Republic into the French State, an authoritarian regime. As the war progressed, the government at Vichy collaborated with the Germans, who in 1942 finally occupied the whole of metropolitan France because of the threat from North Africa. Ptain's actions during World War II resulted in his conviction and death sentence for treason, which was commuted to life imprisonment by his former protg Charles de Gaulle. In modern France he is remembered as an ambiguous figure, while ptainisme is a derogatory term for certain reactionary policies.

Contents
[hide]

1 Early life 2 World War I

3 Between the wars 4 France and World War II 5 Postwar trial and legacy 6 Lists of the successive Ptain governments until 1942 o 6.1 Ptain's first government, 16 June 12 July 1940 o 6.2 Ptain's second government, 12 July 6 September 1940 o 6.3 Ptain's third government, 6 September 1940 25 February 1941 o 6.4 Ptain's fourth government, 25 February 12 August 1941 o 6.5 Ptain's fifth government, 12 August 1941 18 April 1942 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Early life

Ptain was born in Cauchy--la-Tour (in the Pas-de-Calais dpartement in Northern France) in 1856. His father, Omer-Venant, was a farmer. His great-uncle, who was a Catholic priest, Father Abbe Lefebvre, had served in Napoleon's Grande Arme and told the young Ptain tales of war and adventure of his campaigns from the peninsulas of Italy to the Alps in Switzerland. Highly impressed by the tales told by his uncle, his destiny was from then on determined. Ptain joined the French Army in 1876 and attended the St Cyr Military Academy in 1887 and the cole Suprieure de Guerre (army war college) in Paris. His career progressed very slowly, as he rejected the French Army philosophy of the furious infantry assault, arguing instead that "firepower kills." His views were later proved to be correct during the First World War. He was promoted to captain in 1890 and major (Chef de Bataillon) in 1900. Unlike many French officers, he served mainly in mainland France, never Indochina or any of the African colonies, although he participated in the Rif campaign in Morocco. As colonel, he commanded the 33rd Infantry Regiment at Arras from 1911; the young lieutenant Charles de Gaulle, who served under him, later wrote that his "first colonel, Ptain, taught (him) the Art of Command." In the spring of 1914 he was given command of a brigade (still with the rank of colonel), but having been told he would never become a general, had bought a house pending retirement he was already 58 years old.[1]

[edit] World War I

At the end of August 1914 he was quickly promoted to brigadier-general and given command of the 6th Division in time for the First Battle of the Marne; little over a month later, in October 1914, he was promoted again and became XXXIII Corps commander. After leading his corps in the spring 1915 Artois Offensive, in July 1915 he was given command of the Second Army, which he led in the Champagne Offensive that autumn. He acquired a reputation as one of the more successful commanders on the Western Front. Ptain commanded the Second Army at the start of the Battle of Verdun in February 1916. During the battle he was promoted to Commander of Army Group Centre, which contained a total of 52 divisions. Rather than holding down the same infantry divisions on the Verdun battlefield for months, akin to the German system, he rotated them out after only two weeks on the front lines. His decision to organize truck transport over the "Voie Sacre" to bring a continuous stream of artillery, ammunition and fresh

troops into besieged Verdun also played a key role in grinding down the German onslaught to a final halt in July 1916. In effect, he applied the basic principle that was a mainstay of his teachings at the cole de Guerre (War College) before World War I: "le feu tue!" or "firepower kills!"in this case meaning French field artillery, which fired over 15 million shells on the Germans during the first five months of the battle. Although Ptain did say "On les aura!" (an echoing of Joan of Arc, roughly: "We'll get them!"), the other famous quotation often attributed to him "Ils ne passeront pas!" ("They shall not pass"!) was actually uttered by Robert Nivelle who succeeded him in command of the Second Army at Verdun in May, 1916. At the very end of 1916, Nivelle was promoted over Ptain to replace Joseph Joffre as French Commander-in-Chief. Because of his high prestige as a soldier's soldier, Ptain served briefly as Army Chief of Staff (from the end of April 1917). He then became Commander-in-Chief of the French army, replacing General Nivelle, whose Chemin des Dames offensive failed in April 1917, thereby provoking widespread mutinies in the French Army. Ptain put an end to the mutinies by selective punishment of ringleaders, but also by improving the soldiers' conditions (e.g. better food and shelter, and more leaves to visit their families), and promising that men's lives would not be squandered in fruitless offensives. Ptain conducted some successful but limited offensives in the latter part of 1917, unlike the British who stalled in an unsuccessful offensive at Passchendaele that autumn. Ptain, instead, held off from major French offensives until the Americans arrived in force on the front lines, which did not happen until the early summer of 1918. He was also waiting for the new Renault FT-17 tanks to be introduced in large numbers, hence his statement at the time: "I am waiting for the tanks and the Americans." 1918 saw major German offensives on the Western Front. The first of these, Operation Michael in March 1918, threatened to split the British and French forces apart, and, after he had threatened to retreat on Paris, Ptain came to the aid of the British and secured the front with forty French divisions. Ptain proved a capable opponent of the Germans both in defence and through counter-attack. The crisis led to the appointment of Ferdinand Foch as Allied Generalissimo, initially with powers to co-ordinate and deploy Allied reserves where he saw fit. The third offensive, "Blcher", in May 1918, saw major German advances on the Aisne, as the French Army commander (Humbert) ignored Ptain's instructions to defend in depth and instead allowed his men to be hit by the initial massive German bombardment. By the time of the last German offensives, Gneisenau and the Second Battle of the Marne, Ptain was able to defend in depth and launch counter offensives, with the new French tanks and the assistance of the Americans. Later in the year, Ptain was stripped of his right of direct appeal to the French government and requested to report to Foch, who increasingly assumed the co-ordination and ultimately the command of the Allied offensives. Ptain was made Marshal of France in November 1918.

[edit] Between the wars

Ptain was a bachelor until his sixties, and famous for his womanising. Women were said to find his piercing blue eyes especially attractive. At the opening of the Battle of Verdun he is said to have been fetched during the night from a Paris hotel by a staff officer who knew which mistress he could be

found with.[citation needed] After the war Ptain married an old lover, "a particularly beautiful woman",[2] Mme. Eugnie Hardon (18771962), on 14 September 1920. Hardon had been divorced from Franois de Hrain in 1914; although the couple were too old to have children (she had a son, Pierre de Hrain, from her first marriage), they remained married until the end of Ptain's life.

Philippe Ptain received his marshal's baton from French President Raymond Poincar and Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, in Metz. Ptain ended the war regarded "without a doubt, the most accomplished defensive tactician of any army" and "one of France's greatest military heroes" and was made a Marshal of France at Metz by President Raymond Poincar on 8 December 1918.[3] He was subsequently summoned to be present at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919, and was afterwards appointed to France's "top military job as Vice-Chairman of the revived 'Conseil Suprieur de la Guerre'".[4] He was encouraged to go into politics although he protested that he had little interest in running for an elected position. He nevertheless tried and failed to get himself elected President following the November 1919 elections.[5] Ptain had placed before the government plans for a large tank and air force but "at the meeting of the 'Conseil Suprier de la Dfense Nationale' of 12 March 1920 the Finance Minister, Franois Marsal, announced that although Ptain's proposals were excellent they were unaffordable". In addition, Marsal announced reductions in the army from fifty-five divisions to thirty, in the air force, and did not mention tanks. It was left to the Marshals, Ptain, Joffre and Foch to pick up the pieces of their strategies. The General Staff, now under General Edmond Buat, now began to think seriously about a line of forts along the frontier with Germany, and their report was tabled on 22 May 1922. The three Marshals supported this. The cuts in military expenditure meant that taking the offensive was now impossible and a defensive strategy was all they could have.[6] Ptain was appointed Inspector-General of the Army in February 1922 and produced, in concert with the new Chief of the General Staff, General Marie-Eugne Debeney, the new army manual entitled Provisional Instruction on the Tactical Employment of Large Units, which soon became known as 'the Bible'.[7] On 3 September 1925 Ptain was appointed sole Commander-in-Chief of French Forces in Morocco[8] to launch a major campaign against the Rif tribes, in concert with the Spanish Army, which was successfully concluded by the end of October. He was subsequently decorated, at Toledo, by King Alfonso XIII with the Spanish Medalla Militar.[9] In 1924 the National Assembly was elected on a platform of reducing the length of national service to one year, to which Ptain was almost violently opposed. In January 1926 the Chief of Staff, General Debeney, proposed to the 'Conseil' a "totally new kind of army. Only 20 infantry divisions would be maintained on a standing basis". Reserves could be called up when needed. The 'Conseil' had no option in the straitened circumstances but to agree. Ptain, of course, disapproved of the whole thing, pointing out that North Africa still had to be defended and in itself required a substantial standing army. But he

recognised, after the new Army Organisation Law of 1927, that the tide was flowing against him. He would not forget that the Radical leader, douard Daladier, even voted against the whole package, on the grounds that the Army was still too large.[10] On 5 December 1925, after the Locarno Treaty, the 'Conseil' demanded immediate action on a line of fortifications along the eastern frontier to counter the already proposed decline in manpower. A new Commission for this purpose was established, under Joseph Joffre, and called for reports. In July 1927 Ptain himself went to reconnoitre the whole area. He returned with a revised plan and the Commission then proposed two fortified regions. The Maginot Line, as it came to be called, (named after Andr Maginot the former Minister of War) thereafter occupied a good deal of Ptain's attention during 1928, when he also travelled extensively, visiting military installations up and down the country.[11] Ptain had based his strong support for the Maginot Line on his own experience of the role played by the forts during the Battle of Verdun in 1916. Captain Charles de Gaulle continued to be a protg of Ptain throughout these years. He even named his eldest son after the Marshal before finally falling out over the authorship of a book he had said he had ghost-written for Ptain. Ptain finally retired as Inspector-General of the Army, aged 75, in 1931, the year he was elected a Fellow of the Acadmie franaise. In 1928 Ptain had supported the creation of an independent air force removed from the control of the army, and on 9 February 1931 he was appointed Inspector-General of Air Defence.[12] His first report on air defence, submitted in July that year, advocated increased expenditure.[13] By 1932 economic skies had darkened and douard Herriot's government had made "severe cuts in the defence budget.....orders for new weapons systems all but dried up". Summer manoeuvres in 1932 and 1933 were cancelled due to lack of funds, and recruitment to the armed forces fell off. In the latter year General Maxime Weygand claimed that "the French Army was no longer a serious fighting force". douard Daladier's new government retaliated to Weygand by reducing the number of officers and cutting military pensions and pay, arguing that such measures, apart from financial stringency, were in the spirit of the Geneva Disarmament Conference.[14] Political unease was sweeping the country, and on 6 February 1934 the Paris police fired on a group of rioters outside the Chamber of Deputies, killing 14 and wounding a further 236. President Lebrun invited 71-year-old Doumergue to come out of retirement and form a new "government of national unity". Marchal Ptain was invited, on 8 February, to join the new French cabinet as Minister of War, which he only reluctantly accepted after many representations. His important success that year was in getting Daladier's previous proposal to reduce the number of officers repealed. He improved the recruitment programme for specialists, and lengthened the training period by reducing leave entitlements. However Weygand reported to the Senate Army Commission that year that the French Army could still not resist a German attack. Generals Louis Franchet d'Esprey and Hubert Lyautey (the latter suddenly died in July) added their names to the report. After the Autumn manoeuvres, which Ptain had reinstated, a report was presented to Ptain that officers had been poorly instructed, had little basic knowledge, and no confidence. He was told, in addition, by Maurice Gamelin, that if the plebiscite in the Territory of the Saar Basin went for Germany it would be a serious military error for the French Army to intervene. Ptain responded by again petitioning the government for further funds for the army.[15] During this period, he repeatedly called for a lengthening of the term of compulsory military service for draftees entering the military service, from two to three years, to no avail. Ptain accompanied President Lebrun to Belgrade for the funeral of King Alexander, who had been assassinated on 6 October 1934 in Marseille by a Croatian nationalist. Here he met Hermann Gring

and the two men reminisced about their experiences in The Great War. "When Goering returned to Germany he spoke admiringly of Ptain, describing him as a 'man of honour'".[16] In November the Doumergue government fell. Ptain had previously expressed interest in being named Minister of Education (as well as of War), a role in which he hoped to combat what he saw as the decay in French moral values.[17] Now, however, he refused to continue in Flandin's (short-lived) government as Minister of War and stood down in spite of a direct appeal from Lebrun himself. Interestingly, at this moment an article appeared in Le Petit Journal, a popular newspaper, calling for Ptain as a candidate for a dictatorship. 200,000 readers responded to the paper's poll. Ptain came first, with 47,000, ahead of Pierre Laval's 31,000 votes. These two men travelled to Warsaw for the funeral of the Polish Marshal Pilsudski in May 1935 (and another cordial meeting with Goering).[18] He remained on the High Military Committee. Weygand had been at the British Army 1934 manoeuvres at Tidworth in June and was appalled by what he had seen. Addressing the Committee on the 23rd, Ptain claimed that it would be fruitless to look for assistance to Britain in the event of a German attack. On 1 March 1935 Ptain's famous article[19] appeared in the Revue des deux mondes where he reviewed the history of the army since 192728. He criticised the Militia (reservist) system in France, and her lack of adequate air power and armour. This article appeared just five days before Adolf Hitler's announcement of Germany's new air force and a week before the announcement that Germany was increasing its army to 36 divisions. On 26 April 1936 the General Election results showed 5.5 million votes for The Left against 4.5 million for The Right on an 84% turnout. On 3 May Ptain was interviewed in Le Journal where he launched into an attack on the Franco-Soviet Pact, on Communism in general (France had the largest Communist Party in Western Europe), and on those who allowed Communists intellectual responsibility. He said that France had lost faith in her destiny. Ptain was now in his 80th year. Some have argued, that Ptain, as France's most senior soldier after Foch's death, should bear some responsibility for the poor state of French weaponry preparation before World War II. But Ptain was only one of many military and other men on a very large committee responsible for national defence, and interwar governments frequently cut military budgets. In addition, with the restrictions imposed on Germany by the Versailles Treaty there seemed no urgency for vast expenditure until the advent of Hitler. It is argued that whilst Ptain supported the massive use of tanks he saw them mostly as infantry support, leading to the fragmentation of the French tank force into many types of unequal value spread out between mechanized cavalry (such as the SOMUA S-35) and infantry support (mostly the Renault R35 tanks and the Char B1 bis). Modern infantry rifles and machine guns were not manufactured, with the sole exception of a light machine-rifle, the Mle 1924. The French heavy machine gun was still the Hotchkiss M1914, a capable weapon but decidedly obsolete compared to the new automatic weapons of German infantry. A modern infantry rifle was adopted in 1936 but very few of these MAS-36 rifles had been issued to the troops by 1940. A well-tested French semiautomatic rifle, the MAS 193839, was ready for adoption but it never reached the production stage until after World War II as the MAS 49. As to French artillery it had, basically, not been modernized since 1918. The result of all these failings is that the French Army had to face the invading enemy in 1940, with the dated weaponry of 1918. Ptain had been made, briefly, Minister of War in 1934, thus ministerially responsible for French military, aviation and the Navy as well. Yet his short period of total responsibility could not reverse 15 years of inactivity and constant cutbacks. The War Ministry was hamstrung between the wars and proved unequal to the tasks before them. French aviation entered the War in 1939 without even the prototype of a bomber aeroplane capable of reaching Berlin and coming back. French industrial efforts in fighter aircraft were dispersed among several firms (Dewoitine, Morane-Saulnier and Marcel Bloch),

each with its own model. On the naval front, France had purposely overlooked building modern aircraft carriers and focused instead on four new conventional battleships, not unlike the German Navy.

[edit] France and World War II

The personal emblem of Philippe Ptain was a stylized francisca, which was featured on an order of merit and was used as Vichy France's informal emblem.[20]

Personal Standard of Philippe Ptain

Ptain meeting Hitler in October 1940.

Ptain on French stamps of 1944 On 24 May 1940, the invading Germans pushed back the French Army. General Maxime Weygand expressed his fury at British retreats and the unfulfilled promise of British fighter aircraft. He and Ptain regarded the military situation as hopeless. Paul Reynaud subsequently stated before a parliamentary commission of inquiry in December 1950 that he said, as Premier of France to Ptain on that day that they must seek an armistice. Weygand said that he was in favor of saving the French army and that he "wished to avoid internal troubles and above all anarchy". Churchill's man in Paris, Spears, kept up continual pressure on the French, and on 31 May he met with Ptain and threatened France with not only a blockade, but bombardment of the French ports if an armistice was agreed. Spears reported that Ptain did not respond immediately but stood there "perfectly erect, with no sign of panic or emotion. He did not disguise the fact that he considered the situation catastrophic. I could not detect any sign in him of broken morale, of that mental wringing of hands and incipient hysteria noticeable in others". Ptain later remarked to Reynaud about this threat, saying "your ally now threatens us". On 5 June, following the fall of Dunkirk, there was a Cabinet reshuffle, and Prime Minister Reynaud brought Ptain, Weygand, and the newly promoted Brigadier-General de Gaulle, whose 4th Armoured Division had launched one of the few French counterattacks the previous month, into his War Cabinet, hoping that the trio might instil a renewed spirit of resistance and patriotism in the French Army. On 8 June, Paul Baudouin dined with Chautemps, and both declared that the war must end. Paris was now threatened, and the government was preparing to depart, although Ptain was opposed to such a move. During a cabinet meeting that day, Reynaud argued for an armistice, as he was worried about England. Ptain replied that "the interests of France come before those of England. England got us into this position, let us now try to get out of it"[citation needed]. On 10 June, the government left Paris for Tours. Weygand, the Commander-in-Chief, now declared that "the fighting had become meaningless". He, Baudouin, and several members of the government were already set on an armistice. On 11 June, Churchill flew to the Chteau du Muguet, at Briar, near Orlans, where he put forward first his idea of a Breton redoubt, to which Weygand replied that it was just a "fantasy".[21] Churchill then said the French should consider "guerrilla warfare" until the Americans came into the war, to which several cabinet members asked "when might that be" and received no reply. Ptain then replied that it would mean the destruction of the country. Churchill then said the French should defend Paris and repeated Clemenceau's words "I will fight in front of Paris, in Paris, and behind Paris". To this, Churchill subsequently reported, Ptain replied quietly and with dignity that he had in those days a strategic reserve of sixty divisions; now, there was none. Making Paris into a ruin would not affect the final event. The following day, the cabinet met and Weygand again called for an armistice. He referred to the danger of military and civil disorder and the possibility of a Communist uprising in Paris. Ptain and Minister of Information Prouvost urged the Cabinet to hear Weygand out because "he was the only one really to know what was happening".

Churchill returned to France on the 13th. Paul Baudouin met his plane and immediately spoke to him of the hopelessness of further French resistance. Reynard, then, put the cabinet's armistice proposals to Churchill, who replied that "whatever happened, we would level no reproaches against France". At that day's Cabinet meeting, Ptain read out a draft proposal to the Cabinet where he spoke of "the need to stay in France, to prepare a national revival, and to share the sufferings of our people. It is impossible for the Government to abandon French soil without emigrating, without deserting. The duty of the Government is, come what may, to remain in the country, or it could not longer be regarded as the government". Several ministers were still opposed to an armistice, and Weygand immediately lashed out at them for even leaving Paris. Like Ptain, he said he would never leave France. The government moved to Bordeaux, where French Governments had fled German invasions in 1870 and 1914, on 14 June. Parliament, both Senate and Chamber, were also there and immersed themselves in the armistice debate. Reynard's ambiguous position was becoming seriously compromised. Admiral Darlan was by now in the armistice camp also. Reynard proposed an alternative compromise: Complete surrender, and the army (after laying down its arms) to leave the country and continue the fight from abroad. Weygand exploded and he and Ptain both said that such a capitulation would be dishonourable. The Cabinet was now split almost evenly. Camille Chautemps said the only way to get agreement was to ask the Germans what their terms for an armistice would be and the cabinet voted 13 6 in agreement. The next day, Roosevelt's reply to President Lebrun's requests for assistance came with only vague promises and saying that it was impossible for the President to do anything without Congress. After lunch, President Albert Lebrun received two telegrams from the British saying they would only agree to an armistice if the French fleet was immediately sent to British ports. In addition, the British Government offered joint nationality for Frenchmen and Englishmen in a Franco-British Union. Reynaud and five ministers thought these proposals acceptable. The others did not, seeing the offer as insulting and a device to make France subservient to Great Britain, in a kind of extra Dominion. Reynaud gave up and asked President Lebrun to accept his resignation as Prime Minister and nominated Marchal Ptain in his place. A new Cabinet was formed in the normal way, and, at midnight on the 15th, Baudouin was asking the Spanish Ambassador to submit to Germany a request to cease hostilities at once and for Germany to make known its peace terms. At 12:30 am, Marchal Ptain made his first broadcast to the French people. "The enthusiasm of the country for the Marchal was tremendous. He was welcomed by people as diverse as Claudel, Gide, and Mauriac, and also by the vast mass of untutored Frenchmen who saw him as their saviour."[22] General de Gaulle, no longer in the Cabinet, had arrived in London on the 16th and made a call for resistance from there, on the 18th, with no legal authority whatsoever from his government, a call that was heeded by comparatively few. Cabinet and Parliament still argued between themselves on the question of whether or not to retreat to North Africa. On 18 June, douard Herriot (who would later be a discredited prosecution witness at Ptain's trial) and Jeanneney, the Presidents of the two Chambers of Parliament, as well as Lebrun said they wanted to go. Ptain said he was not departing. On the 20th, a delegation from the two chambers came to Ptain to protest at the proposed departure of President Lebrun. The next day, they went to Lebrun himself. In the event, only 26 deputies and 1 senator headed for Africa, amongst them Georges

Mandel, Pierre Mends France, and the former Popular Front Education Minister, Jean Zay, all of whom had Jewish backgrounds.[23] Ptain broadcast again to the French people on that day. On 22 June, France signed an armistice with Germany that gave Germany control over the north and west of the country, including Paris and all of the Atlantic coastline, but left the rest, around two-fifths of France's prewar territory, unoccupied. Paris remained the de jure capital. On 29 June, the French Government moved to Clermont-Ferrand where the first discussions of constitutional changes were mooted, with Pierre Laval having personal discussions with President Lebrun, who had, in the event, not departed France. On 1 July, the government, finding Clermont too cramped, moved to the spa town of Vichy, at Baudouin's suggestion, the empty hotels there being more suitable for the government ministries. The Chamber of Deputies and Senate, meeting together as a "Congrs", held an emergency meeting on 10 July to ratify the armistice. At the same time, the draft constitutional proposals were tabled. The Presidents of both Chambers spoke and declared that constitutional reform was necessary. The Congress voted 569-80 (with 18 abstentions) to grant the Cabinet the authority to draw up a new constitution, effectively "voting the Third Republic out of existence".[24] Nearly all French historians, as well as all postwar French governments, consider this vote to be illegal; not only were several deputies and senators not present, but the constitution explicitly stated that the republican form of government could not be changed. On the next day, Ptain formally assumed near-absolute powers as "Head of State", though he stated at the time "this is not ancient Rome and I have no wish to be Caesar". Ptain was reactionary by temperament and education, and quickly began blaming the Third Republic and its endemic corruption for the French defeat. His regime soon took on clear authoritarian -and in some cases, fascist- characteristics. The republican motto of "Libert, galit, fraternit" was replaced with "Travail, famille, patrie" ("Work, family, fatherland").[25] Fascistic and revolutionary conservative factions within the new government used the opportunity to launch an ambitious program known as the "National Revolution", which rejected much of the former Third Republic's secular and liberal traditions in favour of an authoritarian, paternalist, Catholic society. Ptain, amongst others, took exception to the use of the inflammatory term "revolution" to describe an essentially conservative movement, but otherwise participated in the transformation of French society from "Republic" to "State." He added that the new France would be "a social hierarchy...rejecting the false idea of the natural equality of men."[26] The new government immediately used its new powers to order harsh measures, including the dismissal of republican civil servants, the installation of exceptional jurisdictions, the proclamation of antisemitic laws, and the imprisonment of opponents and foreign refugees. Censorship was imposed, and freedom of expression and thought were effectively abolished with the reinstatement of the crime of "felony of opinion." The regime organised a "Lgion Franaise des Combattants," which included "Friends of the Legion" and "Cadets of the Legion", groups of those who had never fought but were politically attached to the new regime. Ptain championed a rural, Catholic France that spurned internationalism. As a retired military commander, he ran the country on military lines. He and his government collaborated with Germany and even produced a legion of volunteers to fight in Russia. Ptain's government was nevertheless internationally recognized, notably by the USA, at least until the German occupation of the rest of France.

Neither Ptain nor his successive deputies, Pierre Laval, Pierre-tienne Flandin or Admiral Franois Darlan, gave significant resistance to requests by the Germans to indirectly aid the Axis Powers. Yet, when Hitler met Ptain at Montoire in October 1940 to discuss the French government's role in the new European Order, the Marshal "listened to Hitler in silence. Not once did he offer a sympathetic word for Germany." Furthermore, France remained neutral as a state, albeit opposed to the Free French. After the British attack on 2 July 1940 Mers el Kbir and Dakar, the French government became increasingly Anglophobic and took the initiative to collaborate with the occupiers. Ptain accepted the government's creation of a collaborationist armed militia (the Milice) under the command of Joseph Darnand, who, along with German forces, led a campaign of repression against French resistance ("Maquis"), notably its Communist factions.

Ptain and his final meeting with the departing American ambassador William D. Leahy, 1942 The honours that Darnand acquired included SS-Major. Ptain admitted Darnand into his government as Secretary of the Maintenance of Public Order (Secrtaire d'tat au Maintien de l'Ordre). In August 1944, Ptain made an attempt to distance himself from the crimes of the militia by writing Darnand a letter of reprimand for the organisation's "excesses". The latter wrote a sarcastic reply, telling Ptain that he should have "thought of this before". Ptain's government acquiesced to the Axis forces demands for large supplies of manufactured goods and foodstuffs, and also ordered French troops in France's colonial empire (in Dakar, Syria, Madagascar, Oran and Morocco) to defend sovereign French territory against any aggressors, Allied or otherwise. Ptain's motives are a topic of wide conjecture. Winston Churchill had spoken to M. Reynaud during the impending fall of France, saying of Ptain, "...he had always been a defeatist, even in the last war [World War I]."[27] On 11 November 1942, German forces invaded the unoccupied zone of Southern France in response to the Allies' Operation Torch landings in North Africa and Admiral Franois Darlan's agreement to support the Allies. Although the French government nominally remained in existence, civilian administration of almost all France being under it, Ptain became nothing more than a figurehead, as the Germans had negated the pretence of an "independent" government at Vichy. Ptain however remained popular and engaged on a series of visits around France as late as 1944, when he arrived in

Paris on 28 April in what Nazi propaganda newsreels described as a "historic" moment for the city. Vast crowds cheered him in front of the Hotel de Ville and in the streets.[28] After the liberation of France, on 7 September 1944, Ptain and other members of the French cabinet at Vichy were relocated by the Germans to Sigmaringen in Germany, where they became a governmentin-exile until April 1945. Ptain, however, having been forced to leave France, refused to participate and the 'government commission' became headed by Fernand de Brinon.[29] In a note dated 29 October 1944, Ptain forbade de Brinon to use the Marshal's name in any connection with this new government, and, on 5 April 1945, Ptain wrote a note to Hitler expressing his wish to return to France. No reply ever came. However, on his birthday 19 days later, he was taken to the Swiss border. Two days later he crossed into the French frontier.[30]

[edit] Postwar trial and legacy

The Fort du Portalet in the Pyrenees De Gaulle later wrote that Ptain's decision to return to France to face his accusers in person was "certainly courageous".[31] The provisional government headed by de Gaulle placed Ptain on trial, which took place from 23 July to 15 August 1945, for treason. He remained silent through most of the proceedings after an initial statement that denied the right of the High Court, as currently constituted, to try him. De Gaulle himself was later to criticize the trial, stating, "Too often, the discussions took on the appearance of a partisan trial, sometimes even a settling of accounts, when the whole affair should have been treated only from the standpoint of national defense and independence."[32] At the end of Ptain's trial, although the three judges recommended acquittal on all charges, the jury convicted him and sentenced him to death by a one-vote majority. On account of Ptain's age, the Court asked that the sentence not be carried out. De Gaulle, who was President of the Provisional Government of the French Republic at the end of the war, commuted the sentence to life imprisonment due to Ptain's age and his military contributions in World War I. After conviction, the Court stripped Ptain of all military ranks and honors save for the one distinction of Marshal of France. Marchal is a title conferred by a special personal law passed by the French Parliament which, under the separation of powers principle, the French Court did not have the power to overturn. Fearing riots at the announcement of the sentence, de Gaulle ordered Ptain immediately transported on the former's private aircraft to Fort du Portalet in the Pyrenees,[33] where he remained from 15 August to 16 November 1945. The government later transferred its aged prisoner to the Fort de Pierre-Leve citadel on the le d'Yeu,[34] an island off the French Atlantic coast.

By then in his nineties, Ptain's physical and mental condition deteriorated to the point of requiring round-the-clock nursing care. He died on the le d'Yeu on July 23, 1951[34] at the age of 95, and is buried in a Marine cemetery (Cimetire communal de Port-Joinville) near the prison.[17] Calls are sometimes made to re-inter his remains in the grave prepared for him in Verdun.[35] In 1973, Ptain's coffin was stolen from the le d'Yeu cemetery by extremists who demanded that French President Georges Pompidou consent to his reburial in the Douaumont cemetery among the war dead. A week later, the coffin was found in a garage in Paris and those responsible for robbing the grave arrested. Ptain was ceremoniously reburied with a Presidential wreath on his coffin, but on the le d'Yeu as before. Mount Ptain, nearby Ptain Creek and Ptain Falls forming the Ptain Basin on the Continental Divide in the Canadian Rockies were named after him in 1919;[36] summits with the names of other French generals are nearby: Foch, Cordonnier, Mangin, Castelnau and Joffre.

[edit] Lists of the successive Ptain governments until 1942

[edit] Ptain's first government, 16 June 12 July 1940

Camille Chautemps Vice President of the Council Paul Baudouin Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Weygand Minister of National Defence Louis Colson Minister of War Charles Pomaret Minister of the Interior Yves Bouthillier Minister of Finance and Commerce Andr Fvrier Minister of Labour Charles Frmicourt Minister of Justice Franois Darlan Minister of Military and Merchant Navy Bertrand Pujo Minister of Air Albert Rivaud Minister of National Education Jean Ybarnegaray Minister of French Family and Veterans Albert Chichery Minister of Agriculture and Supply Albert Rivire Minister of Colonies Ludovic-Oscar Frossard Minister of Public Works and Transmissions

Changes

23 June Adrien Marquet and Pierre Laval enter the Cabinet as Ministers of State 27 June 1940 Adrien Marquet succeeds Pomaret as Minister of the Interior. Andr Fvrier succeeds Frossard as Minister of Transmissions. Frossard remains Minister of Public Works. Charles Pomaret succeeds Fvrier as Minister of Labour.

[edit] Ptain's second government, 12 July 6 September 1940

Philippe Ptain Head of State and President of the Council Pierre Laval Vice President of the Council Paul Baudouin Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Weygand Minister of National Defence

Louis Colson Minister of War Adrien Marquet Minister of the Interior Yves Bouthillier Minister of Finance Ren Belin Minister of Industrial Production and Labour Raphal Alibert Minister of Justice Franois Darlan Minister of the Navy Bertrand Pujo Minister of Aviation mile Miraud Minister of Public Instruction Pierre Caziot Minister of Agriculture and Supply Henry Lmery Minister of Colonies Jean Ybarnegaray Minister of Youth and Family Franois Pitri Minister of Communication

[edit] Ptain's third government, 6 September 1940 25 February 1941

Philippe Ptain Head of State and President of the Council Pierre Laval Vice President of the Council Paul Baudouin Minister of Foreign Affairs Charles Huntziger Minister of National Defence Marcel Peyrouton Minister of the Interior Yves Bouthillier Minister of Finance Ren Belin Minister of Industrial Production and Labour Raphal Alibert Minister of Justice Franois Darlan Minister of the Navy Jean Bergeret Minister of Aviation Georges Ripert Minister of Public Instruction and Youth Pierre Caziot Minister of Agriculture and Supply Charles Platon Minister of Colonies Jean Berthelot Minister of Communication

Changes

28 October 1940 Pierre Laval succeeds Baudouin as Minister of Foreign Affairs. 13 December 1940 Pierre Laval loses his positions. Pierre tienne Flandin succeeds Laval as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Jacques Chevalier succeeds Ripert as Minister of Public Instruction and Youth. Paul Baudouin becomes Minister of Information 2 January 1941 Paul Baudouin ceases to be Minister of Information, and the office is abolished. 27 January 1941 Joseph Barthlemy succeeds Alibert as Minister of Justice. 10 February 1941 Franois Darlan succeeds Flandin as Minister of Foreign Affairs

[edit] Ptain's fourth government, 25 February 12 August 1941

Philippe Ptain Head of State and President of the Council Franois Darlan Vice President of the Council, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of the Interior, and Minister of the Navy Charles Huntziger Minister of National Defence Yves Bouthillier Minister of Finance and National Economy

Pierre Pucheu Minister of Industrial Production Ren Belin Minister of Labour Joseph Barthlemy Minister of Justice Jean Bergeret Minister of Aviation Jrme Carcopino Minister of National Education and Youth Pierre Caziot Minister of Agriculture Jean-Louis Achard Minister of Supply Charles Platon Minister of Colonies Jacques Chevalier Minister of Family and Health Jean Berthelot Minister of Communication Henri Moysset Minister of Information

Changes

18 July 1941 Pierre Pucheu succeeds Darlan as Minister of the Interior. Darlan retains his other posts. Franois Lehideux succeeds Pucheu as Minister of Industrial Production.

[edit] Ptain's fifth government, 12 August 1941 18 April 1942

Philippe Ptain Head of State and President of the Council Franois Darlan Vice President of the Council, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of National Defence, and Minister of the Navy Pierre Pucheu Minister of the Interior Yves Bouthillier Minister of Finance and National Economy Franois Lehideux Minister of Industrial Production Ren Belin Minister of Labour Joseph Barthlemy Minister of Justice Jean Bergeret Minister of Aviation Jrme Carcopino Minister of National Education and Youth Pierre Caziot Minister of Agriculture Paul Charbin Minister of Supply Charles Platon Minister of Colonies Serge Huard Minister of Family and Health Jean Berthelot Minister of Communication Paul Marion Minister of Information and Propaganda Henri Moysset Minister of State Lucien Romier Minister of State

[edit] See also

French Army Mutinies (1917) Vichy France

[edit] References
Notes

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

35. 36.

^ Anne Cipriano Venzon, Paul L. Miles, "Ptain, Henri-Philippe", The United States in the First World War: an encyclopedia, http://books.google.com/books?id=YiZRC8bsOuoC&pg=PA461 ^ Williams, Charles, Ptain, London, 2005, p.206, ISBN 0-316-86127-9 ^ Williams, 2005, p.204 ^ Williams, 2005, p. 212 ^ Williams, 2005, p.217 ^ Williams, 2005, p.217-9 ^ Williams, 2005, p.219 ^ Williams, 2005. p.232 ^ Williams, 2005, pps:233-5 ^ Williams, 2005, p.244 ^ Williams, 2005, p.247 ^ Williams, 2005, p.250-2 ^ Williams, 2005, p.253-4 ^ Williams, 2005, p.257 ^ Williams, 2005, pps:260-1, 265 ^ Williams, 2005, p.266 ^ a b Paxton, Robert O. (1982). Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 19401944, pp. 3637. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-12469-4. ^ Williams, 2005, p.268-9 ^ Marchal Philippe Ptain, "La securit de la France aux cours des annes creuses", Revue des deux mondes, 26, 1935 ^ Cachet de la sous-prfecture de Dinan, 6 dcembre 1943, tat franais (Rgime de Vichy) , Acadmie de Rennes. ^ Griffiths, Richard, Marshal Ptain, Constable, London, 1970, p. 231, ISBN 0-09-455740-3 ^ Griffiths, 1970. ^ Webster, Paul, Ptain's Crime, Pan Macmillan, London, 1990, p.40, ISBN 0-333-57301-3 ^ Griffiths, 1970, p.248 ^ Shields, James (2007). The Extreme Right in France: From Ptain to Le Pen , pp. 1517. Routledge. ISBN 0415-09755-X. ^ Mark Mazower: Dark Continent (p. 73), Penguin books, ISBN 0-14-024159-0 ^ Churchill, Winston S. "The Second World War, Vol 2." p. 159 ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBO65aU3UMg ^ Ptain et la fin de la collaboration: Sigmaringen, 1944 1945, Henry Rousso, ditions Complexe, Paris, 1984 ^ Griffiths, 1970, p.333-4. ^ Williams, 2005,p.486 ^ Charles de Gaulle, Mmoires de guerre, vol.2, pp:24950 ^ Williams, 2005, p.512-3 ^ a b Association Pour Dfendre la Mmoire du Marchal Ptain (A.D.M.P.) (2009). "The World's Oldest Prisoner". Marechal-petain.com. http://www.marechal-petain.com/versionanglaise/prisonnier.htm. Retrieved 21 November 2011. ^ Dank, Milton. The French Against the French: Collaboration and Resistance . P.361 ^ "Ptain, Mount". BC Geographical Names. http://apps.gov.bc.ca/pub/bcgnws/names/7022.html.

Further reading Among a vast number of books and articles about Ptain, the most complete and documented biographies are:

Richard Griffiths, Ptain, Constable, London, 1970, ISBN 0-09-455740-3 Herbert R. Lottman,Philippe Ptain, 1984 Nicholas Atkin, Ptain, Longman, 1997 Charles Williams, Ptain, Little Brown (Time Warner Book Group UK), London, 2005, p. 206, ISBN 0-316-86127-9 Guy Pedroncini, Petain, Le Soldat et la Gloire, Perrin, 1989, ISBN 2-262-00628-8 (in French)

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Philippe Ptain

Article on Philippe Ptain by the Acadmie franaise

Charles de Gaulle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the French statesman. For other uses, see Charles de Gaulle (disambiguation).

Charles de Gaulle

President of the French Republic Co-Prince of Andorra

In office 8 January 1959 28 April 1969 Michel Debr (19591961) Prime Minister Georges Pompidou (19621968) Maurice Couve de Murville (19681969)

Preceded by

Ren Coty

Succeeded by

Alain Poher (interim)

Georges Pompidou

Leader of the Free French Forces

In office 18 June 1940 3 July 1944

Preceded by

French Third Republic

Succeeded by

Provisional Government of the French Republic

President of the Provisional Government of the French Republic

In office 20 August 1944 20 January 1946

Philippe Ptain Preceded by

(as chief of state of Vichy France)

Pierre Laval (as chief of government)

Succeeded by

Flix Gouin

Prime Minister of France

In office 1 June 1958 8 January 1959

President

Ren Coty

Preceded by

Pierre Pflimlin

Succeeded by

Michel Debr

Minister of Defence

In office 1 June 1958 8 January 1959

President

Ren Coty

Prime Minister Charles de Gaulle

Preceded by

Pierre de Chevign

Succeeded by

Pierre Guillaumat

Personal details

Charles Andr Joseph Marie de Gaulle Born 22 November 1890 Lille, France

Died

9 November 1970 (aged 79) Colombey-les-Deux-glises, France Rally of the French People (19471955)

Political party

Union for the New Republic (19581968) Union of Democrats for the Republic (19681970)

Spouse(s)

Yvonne de Gaulle

Philippe Children lisabeth Anne

Occupation

Military

Religion

Roman Catholicism

Signature

Military service

Allegiance

French Armed Forces, Free French Forces

Service/branch French Army

Years of service

1912-1944

Rank

Brigadier general

Unit

Infantry

Commands

Leader of the Free French

World War I Battle of Verdun Battle of the Somme Battles/wars World War II Battle of France Battle of Dakar French Resistance

Charles Andr Joseph Marie de Gaulle (/trlz/ or /rl dl/; French: al d ol ( listen); 22 November 1890 9 November 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969.[1] A veteran of World War I, in the 1920s and 1930s, de Gaulle came to the fore as a proponent of mobile armoured divisions, which he considered would become central in modern warfare. During World War II, he earned the rank of brigadier general (retained throughout his life),[2] leading one of the few successful armoured counter-attacks during the 1940 Battle of France in May in Montcornet, and then briefly served in the French government as France was falling. De Gaulle

was the most senior French military officer to reject the June 1940 armistice to Nazi Germany right from the outset.[3] He escaped to Britain and gave a famous radio address, broadcast by the BBC on 18 June 1940, exhorting the French people to resist Nazi Germany[4] and organised the Free French Forces with exiled French officers in Britain.[5] As the war progressed, de Gaulle gradually gained control of all French colonies except Indochina. By the time of the Allied invasion of France in 1944 he was heading what amounted to a French government in exile. From the very beginning, de Gaulle insisted that France be treated as a great power by the other Allies, despite her initial defeat. De Gaulle became prime minister in the French Provisional Government, resigning in 1946 because of political conflicts.[6] After the war ended he founded his own political party, the Rally of the French People (RPF) on 14 April 1947. Although he retired from politics in the early 1950s after the RPF's failure to win power, and was banned from the government-controlled TV and radio, he was voted back to power as President of the Council of Ministers by the French Assembly during the May 1958 crisis. De Gaulle led the writing of a new constitution founding the Fifth Republic,[7] and was elected President of France. As President, Charles de Gaulle was able to end the political chaos that preceded his return to power. A new French currency was issued in January 1960 to control inflation and industrial growth was promoted. Although he initially supported French rule over Algeria, he controversially decided to grant independence to that country, ending an expensive and unpopular war but leaving France divided and having to face down opposition from the European settlers and French military who had originally supported his return to power. Immensely patriotic, de Gaulle and his supporters held the view, known as Gaullism, that France should continue to see itself as a major power and should not rely on other countries, such as the United States, for its national security and prosperity. Often criticized for his Politics of Grandeur, de Gaulle oversaw the development of French atomic weapons and promoted a foreign policy independent of American and British influences. He withdrew France from NATO military command although remaining a member of the western allianceand twice vetoed Britain's entry into the European Community. He travelled widely in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world and recognised Communist China. On a visit to Canada in 1967, he gave encouragement to Qubcois separatism with his historical "Vive le Qubec Libre" speech. During his term, de Gaulle also faced controversy and political opposition from Communists and Socialists, as well as from the far right. Despite having been re-elected as President, this time by direct popular ballot, in 1965, in May 1968 he appeared likely to lose power amidst widespread protests by students and workers, but survived the crisis with an increased majority in the Assembly. However, de Gaulle resigned in 1969 after losing a referendum in which he proposed more decentralization. He is considered by many to be the most influential leader in modern French history.

Contents
[hide]

1 Early life 2 Officer cadet

3 First World War 4 Between the wars 5 Second World War o 5.1 The Battle of France o 5.2 Leader of the Free French o 5.3 Preparations for D-Day o 5.4 Return to France 6 Prime Minister of France 19441946 o 6.1 Curbing the Communist Resistance o 6.2 The provisional government of the French republic o 6.3 Tour of major cities o 6.4 The legal purges (puration lgale) o 6.5 Winter of 1944 o 6.6 Visit to USSR o 6.7 Strasbourg o 6.8 The Yalta Conference o 6.9 President Truman o 6.10 Victory in Europe o 6.11 Confrontation in the Levant o 6.12 The Potsdam Conference 7 New elections and resignation 8 194658: Out of power 9 1958: Collapse of the Fourth Republic 10 195862: Founding of the Fifth Republic o 10.1 Algeria o 10.2 Direct presidential elections 11 196268: Politics of grandeur o 11.1 "Thirty glorious years" o 11.2 Fourth nuclear power o 11.3 NATO o 11.4 EEC o 11.5 Recognition of the People's Republic of China o 11.6 Visit to Latin America 12 Second term o 12.1 Empty Chair Crisis o 12.2 Six-Day War o 12.3 Nigerian Civil War o 12.4 Vive le Qubec libre! 13 May 1968 14 Retirement 15 Private life 16 Death 17 Legacy 18 1st Government: 10 September 1944 onwards 19 2nd Government: 21 December1945 26 January 1946 20 3rd Government, 9 June 1958 8 January 1959 21 In popular culture 22 Honours and awards

22.1 French 22.2 Foreign 23 Memorials 24 Works o 24.1 French editions o 24.2 English translations 25 See also 26 Notes 27 References 28 External links

o o

[edit] Early life

De Gaulle's birth house in Lille, now a national museum. De Gaulle was born in the industrial region of Lille in French Flanders, the third of five children[8] of Henri de Gaulle, a professor of history and literature at a Jesuit college, who eventually founded his own school.[9] He was raised in a family of devout Roman Catholics who were patriotic and traditionalist, but also quite progressive.[10] His father came from a long line of parliamentary gentry from Normandy and Burgundy, while his mother, Jeanne Maillot, descended from a family of wealthy entrepreneurs from Lille. His mother's family was of part Irish (MacCartan),[11] Scottish (Fleming) and German (Kolb) ancestry.[12][13] According to Henri, the paternal family's true origin was never determined, but could have been Celtic. He thought that the name could be derived from the word gaulea long pole which was used in the Middle Ages to beat fruits from the trees.[14][15] Another source has the name deriving from Galle, meaning "oak" in the Gaulish language, and the sacred tree of the druids.[16] The oldest recorded ancestor of de Gaulle could well be that of a Richard de Gaulle, squire of King Philippe Auguste, who endowed the de Gaulle with a fiefdom in Elbeuf-en-Bray in Normandy in 1210.[17] De Gaulle's father, Henri, encouraged historical and philosophical debate between his children at mealtimes, and through his encouragement, Charles grew familiar with French history from an early age Struck by his mothers tale of how she cried as a child when she heard of the French capitulation to the Germans at Sedan in 1870, he developed a keen interest in military strategy and endlessly questioned his father about the other failures of the brief war at Vionville and Mars-la-Tour, and

though a naturally shy person his entire life, often organised other children to re-enact ancient French battles. The wider de Gaulle family were also very literary and academic, and he was raised on tales of the flight of the Scottish Stuarts into France, to whom he was related on his mother's side. He was also impressed by his uncle, also called Charles de Gaulle, who was a historian and passionate Celticist who wrote books and pamphlets advocating the union of the Welsh, Scots, Irish and Bretons into one people. His grandfather Julien-Philippe was also a historian and his grandmother Josephine-Marie wrote poems which impassioned his Christian faith.[18] When he was eight years old, the young Charles suffered what he regarded as the most traumatic event of his childhood; the French humiliation at being forced to withdraw its expeditionary force from the upper Nile region to prevent the Fashoda Incident developing into outright war with Britain. This marked the beginning of his lifelong mistrust of Great Britain.[19] Always a voracious reader, he particularly loved to read his fathers books by such writers as Henri Bergson, Charles Pguy, and Maurice Barrs. In addition to the German philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche, Immanuel Kant and Johann Goethe, the works of the ancient Greeks (especially Plato) and the prose of the romanticist poet Franois-Ren de Chateaubriand. By the time he was ten, he was reading medieval history, such as the Froissarts Chronicles of the Hundred Years War. He began his own writing in his early teens, and later his family paid for one composition, a one-act play in verse about a traveller, to be privately published. When he was 11, the family moved to Paris, where he loved to climb the tower at Notre Dame de Paris to look out over the city, and also visit the Catholic Church of Saint-Sulpice[18] with his parents to listen to the world famous organ music. De Gaulle was educated in Paris at the College Stanislas and also briefly in Belgium where he continued to display his interest in reading and studying history,[9] and shared the great pride many of his countrymen felt in their nations achievements France made a significant contribution to European culture with its Impressionist painters, the sculpture of Rodin, writers such as mile Zola and Marcel Proust and the music of Claude Debussy, and helped lead the way with technological advances such as with the construction of the Suez Canal and the Eiffel Tower and in recent developments in aviation, the cinema and the motor car. As he grew older, he also developed a profound belief in his destiny to achieve great things, and, eager to avenge the French defeat of 1870, decided upon a military career as being the best way to make a name for himself.[19]

[edit] Officer cadet

Before he could become an officer cadet, regulations which had recently been introduced dictated that he had to spend a year as an ordinary soldier. As an individualist, de Gaulle was an average soldier. He was promoted to corporal after six months, then to sergeant. He disliked barrack life and what he saw as pointless regulations, not because he objected to military discipline, but because he considered the procedures to be time wasting and out of date to the point of possibly damaging the military potential of the best new recruits.[18]

Afterwards, de Gaulle spent four years studying and training at the elite military academy, Saint-Cyr. While there, and because of his height, high forehead, and nose, he acquired the nicknames of "the great asparagus"[20][21] and "Cyrano".[22] He did well at the academy and received praise for his conduct, manners, intelligence, character, military spirit and resistance to fatigue. However, he often quarrelled with his company commander and other officers that there was a lack of preparation for war with Germany, and that the French training and equipment were inadequate to deal with a numerically superior adversary.[18] Graduating in 1912 in 13th place out of 210 cadets, his passing out report noted that he was a highly gifted cadet who should go on to make an excellent officer. Preferring to serve in France rather than far away in North Africa or Indochina, he joined the 33rd infantry regiment of the French Army, based at Arras and commanded by Colonel (and future Marshal) Philippe Ptain. De Gaulle's career would follow Ptain's for the next 20 years.[23]

[edit] First World War

While at Arras in the build up to World War I, de Gaulle developed a good rapport with his commanding officer, Ptain, with whom he shared a number of ideas on French military affairs, and was often seen on exercise and in officers quarters with his superior debating great battles and the likely outcome of any coming war.[18] Both men agreed that the invention of the machine gun and rapid-firing artillery rendered cavalry virtually obsolete and would require a shift to semi-static positions from which attacks would be made under the protection of a heavy barrage at the enemy. When war finally broke out in late July 1914, the 33rd Regiment, considered one of the best fighting units in France was immediately thrown into checking the German advance at Dinant. However, the traditionally minded French Fifth Army commander, General Charles Lanrezac threw his units into pointless bayonet charges with bugles and full colours flying against the German artillery, incurring heavy losses.[18] Promoted to platoon commander, de Gaulle was involved in fierce fighting from the outset but was among the first to be wounded. In hospital, he grew bitter at the tactics used, and spoke with other injured officers against the outdated methods of the French army. Yet, with General Joseph Joffre's decision to stop the retreat and counter-attack, favoured by the arrival of British units and by changes in the command structure, the rapid German advance was eventually stalled by mid September at the First Battle of the Marne. Returning to find many of his former comrades dead, he was put in charge of a company. De Gaulle's unit gained recognition for repeatedly crawling out into no-mans-land to listen to the conversations of the enemy in their trenches, and the information he brought back was so valuable that in January 1915 he received a citation for his bravery. After a more serious wound which incapacitated him for four months, he was promoted to capitaine (captain) in September 1915. Taking charge of his company, he narrowly escaped death shortly afterwards when he was blown up by a mine, leaving him with a wound in his left hand which obliged him later to wear his wedding ring on his right hand. At the Battle of Verdun in March 1916, while leading a charge to try to break out of a position which had become surrounded by the enemy, he received a bayonet wound to the leg after being stunned by a shell and, passing out from the effects of poison gas, was captured at Douaumont, one of the few survivors of his battalion.[9] Initially giving him up for dead, Ptain, who was later to achieve great

acclaim for his role in the battle, wrote in the regimental journal that de Gaulle had been "an outstanding officer in all respects".[19] In captivity de Gaulle acquired yet another nickname, Le Conntable ("The Constable"). This came about because of his reading German newspapers (he had learned German at school and spent a vacation in the Black Forest region) and giving talks on his view of the progress of the conflict to fellow prisoners. These were delivered with such patriotic ardour and confidence in victory that they called him by the title which had been given to the commander-in-chief of the French army during the monarchy.[24] While being held as a prisoner of war, de Gaulle wrote his first book, co-written by Matthieu Butler, L'Ennemi et le vrai ennemi ("The Enemy and the True Enemy"), analysing the issues and divisions within the German Empire and its forces; the book was published in 1924. In all, he made five unsuccessful escape attempts,[23] being moved to higher security accommodation and punished on his return with long periods of solitary confinement and with the withdrawal of privileges such as newspapers and tobacco. In his letters to his parents he constantly spoke of his frustration that the war was continuing without him, calling the situation "a shameful misfortune" and compared it to being cuckolded. As the war neared its end, he grew depressed that he was playing no part in the victory, but despite his efforts, he remained in captivity until the German surrender. On 1 December 1918, three weeks after the armistice, he returned to his father's house in the Dordogne to be reunited with his three brothers, who had all served in the army yet somehow survived the war.

[edit] Between the wars

After the armistice, de Gaulle continued to serve in the army, and was with the staff of the French military mission to Poland as an instructor of Polish Infantry during its war with Communist Russia (19191921).[9] He distinguished himself in operations near the River Zbrucz and won the highest Polish military decoration, the Virtuti Militari[25] - although the award was granted in five classes at the time, with class I and class II reserved largely for royalty and field marshals, and de Gaulle received the class V award sans cross.[26] He was promoted to commandant in the Polish Army and offered a further career in Poland, but chose instead to return to France, where he taught at the cole Militaire. Although he was a protg of his old commander, Marshal Philippe Ptain,[9] de Gaulle believed in the use of tanks and rapid manoeuvres rather than trench warfare. De Gaulle served with the Army of Occupation in the Rhineland in the mid 1920s. As a commandant ("major") by the late 1920s, he briefly commanded a light infantry battalion at Treves (Trier) and then served a tour of duty in Syria, then a French protectorate under a mandate from the League of Nations. During the 1930s, now a lieutenant-colonel, he served as a staff officer in France. In 1934 he wrote Vers lArme de Mtier ("Toward a Professional Army"), which advocated a professional army based on mobile armoured divisions. Such an army would both compensate for the poor French demography, and be an efficient tool to enforce international law, particularly the Treaty of Versailles which forbade Germany from rearming. The book sold only 700 copies in France, where Ptain advocated an infantrybased, defensive army, but 7,000 copies in Germany, where it was read aloud to Adolf Hitler.[23]

[edit] Second World War

[edit] The Battle of France

Main article: Free French Forces

The plaque commemorating the headquarters of General de Gaulle at 4 Carlton Gardens in London during World War II. At the outbreak of World War II, de Gaulle was still a colonel, having antagonised the leaders of the military through the 1920s and 1930s with his bold views. Initially commanding a tank regiment in the French Fifth Army, de Gaulle implemented many of his theories and tactics for armoured warfare against an enemy whose strategies resembled his own.[23] After the German breakthrough at Sedan on 15 May 1940 he was given command of the improvised 4e Division cuirasse.[27] On 17 May, de Gaulle attacked German tank forces at Montcornet with 200 tanks but no air support. Although de Gaulle's tanks forced the German infantry to retreat to Caumont the action brought only temporary relief and did little to slow the spearhead of the German advance. Nevertheless, it was one of the few successes the French enjoyed while suffering defeats elsewhere across the country. In recognition for his efforts, de Gaulle was promoted to acting brigadier general on 24 May, a rank he would hold for the rest of his life.[2] On 28, he took part in an attempt to rescue the Allied force trapped at Dunkirk by cutting an escape route through German forces at Abbeville. On 5 June, Prime Minister Paul Reynaud appointed him Under Secretary of State for National Defence and War and put him in charge of coordination with the United Kingdom.[28] As a junior member of the French government, he unsuccessfully opposed surrender, advocating instead that the government remove itself to North Africa and carry on the war as best it could from France's African colonies. While serving as a liaison with the British government, de Gaulle telephoned Reynaud from London on 16 June informing him of the offer by Britain of a Declaration of Union.[29] The declaration, inspired by Jean Monnet,[30] would have merged France and the United Kingdom into one country, with a single government and army. The offer was a desperate, last-minute effort to strengthen the resolve of Reynaud's government; his cabinet's hostile reaction to the offer contributed to Reynaud's resignation.[31] In rejecting the proposal, Marshal Philippe Ptain, believing that Germany would soon defeat Britain as well and who later went on to lead the collaborationist Vichy regime, told British Prime Minister Winston Churchill that "in three weeks, England will have its neck wrung like a chicken" and that such a plan would be like "fusion with a corpse".[32]

General de Gaulle speaking on BBC Radio during the war. Returning the same day to Bordeaux, the temporary wartime capital, de Gaulle learned that Marshal Ptain had become prime minister and was planning to seek an armistice with Nazi Germany. De Gaulle and other allied officers rebelled against the new French government; on the morning of 17 June, de Gaulle and a few senior French officers flew to Britain with 100,000 gold francs in secret funds provided to him by the ex-prime minister Paul Reynaud. Narrowly escaping the Luftwaffe, he landed safely in London that afternoon.

[edit] Leader of the Free French

"To all Frenchmen" : De Gaulle exhorting the French to resist to the German occupation De Gaulle strongly denounced the French government's decision to seek armistice with the Nazis and set about building the Free French Forces from the soldiers and officers deployed outside France or who had fled France with him. On 18 June, de Gaulle delivered a famous radio address via the BBC Radio service. Although the British cabinet initially attempted to block the speech, they were overruled by Churchill.[27] De Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June exhorted the French people not to be demoralised and to continue to resist the occupation of France and work against the collaborationist Vichy regime, which had signed an armistice with Nazi Germany. Although the original broadcast could only be heard in a few parts of occupied France, de Gaulle's subsequent speeches reached many parts of the territories under the Vichy

regime, helping to rally the French resistance movement and earning him much popularity amongst the French people and soldiers. On 4 July 1940, a court-martial in Toulouse sentenced de Gaulle in absentia to four years in prison. At a second court-martial on 2 August 1940 de Gaulle was condemned to death for treason against the Vichy regime.[27] With British support, the de Gaulle family made their exile home in England. For the first four months they rented a home in Petts Wood near Bromley, London, then moved further inland to Shropshire, where they rented Gadlas Hall, Dudleston Heath, near Ellesmere.[33] They later lived at Rodinghead[33] near Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire (36 miles northwest of London) from October 1941 to September 1942.[34] He organised the Free French forces and gradually the Allies gave increasing support and recognition to de Gaulle's efforts. In dealings with his British allies and the United States, de Gaulle insisted at all times on retaining full freedom of action on behalf of France and he was constantly on the verge of being cut off by the Allies. Many denials of the deep and mutual antipathy between de Gaulle and political leaders of Anglo-American allies of the French are on historical record.[35][36] He harboured a suspicion of the British in particular, believing that they were surreptitiously seeking to steal France's colonial possessions in the Levant. A self-confessed francophile, Winston Churchill was often frustrated at de Gaulle's patriotic egocentricity, but also wrote of his "immense admiration" for him during the early days of his British exile. Though their relationship later became strained, Churchill tried to explain the reasons for de Gaulle's behaviour in the second volume of his history of World War II; "He felt it was essential to his position before the French people that he should maintain a proud and haughty demeanour towards "perfidious Albion", although in exile, dependent upon our protection and dwelling in our midst. He had to be rude to the British to prove to French eyes that he was not a British puppet. He certainly carried out this policy with perseverance". Clementine Churchill, who admired de Gaulle, once cautioned him, "General, you must not hate your friends more than you hate your enemies." De Gaulle himself stated famously, "France has no friends, only interests."[37] The situation was nonetheless complex, and de Gaulle's mistrust of both British and U.S. intentions with regards to France was mirrored by a mistrust of the Free French among the U.S. political leadership, who for a long time refused to recognise de Gaulle as the representative of France, preferring to deal with representatives of the Vichy government. Roosevelt in particular hoped that it would be possible to wean Ptain away from Germany.[4] Working with the French resistance and other supporters in France's colonial African possessions after the Anglo-U.S. invasion of North Africa in November 1942, de Gaulle moved his headquarters to Algiers in May 1943. He became first joint head (with the less resolutely independent General Henri Giraud, the candidate preferred by the U.S. who wrongly suspected de Gaulle of being a British puppet) and then after squeezing out Giraud by force of personality sole chairman of the French Committee of National Liberation.[27]

Rival French leaders Henri Giraud (left) and Charles de Gaulle sit down after shaking hands in presence of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill (Casablanca Conference, 14 January 1943) a public display of unity, but the handshake was only for show.[38] De Gaulle was held in high regard by Allied commander General Dwight Eisenhower.[39] In Algiers in 1943, Eisenhower gave de Gaulle the assurance in person that a French force would liberate Paris and arranged that the army division of French General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque would be transferred from North Africa to England to carry out that liberation.[39] Eisenhower was impressed by the combativeness of units of the Free French Forces and "grateful for the part they had played in mopping up the remnants of German resistance"; he also detected how strongly devoted many were to de Gaulle and how ready they were to accept him as the national leader.[39]

[edit] Preparations for D-Day

As preparations for the liberation of Europe gathered pace, the Americans in particular found de Gaulle's tendency to view everything from the French perspective to be extremely tiring. Roosevelt, who refused to recognise any provisional authority in France until elections had been held, considered de Gaulle to be a potential dictator, a view backed by a number of leading Frenchmen in Washington, including Jean Monnet, who later became an instrumental figure in the setting up of the European Coal and Steel Community that led to the modern European Union. He also refused to allow Churchill to provide de Gaulle with strategic details of the imminent invasion because he did not trust him to keep the information to himself. French codes were known to be weak, but because the Free French refused to use British or American codes, this posed a major security risk.[40] Nevertheless, a few days before D-Day Churchill, whose relationship with the General had deteriorated since the days he first came to Britain, decided he needed to keep him more or less informed of developments, and on 2 June he sent two passenger aircraft and his representative, Duff Cooper to Algiers to bring de Gaulle back to Britain. De Gaulle refused because of Roosevelt's intention to install a provisional Allied military government in the former occupied territories pending elections, but he eventually relented and flew to Britain the next day. Upon his arrival at RAF Northolt on 4 June 1944 he received an official welcome, and a letter reading "My dear general! Welcome to these shores, very great military events are about to take place!"[41] Later, on his personal train, Churchill informed him that he wanted him to make a radio address, but when informed that the Americans continued to refuse to recognise his legitimate right to power in France, and after Churchill suggested he request a meeting with Roosevelt to improve his relationship with the president, de Gaulle became angry, demanding to know why he should "lodge my candidacy for power in France with Roosevelt; the French government exists".[19]

Winston Churchill and General de Gaulle at Marrakesh, January 1944 De Gaulle was concerned at a general break down of civil order and of a potential communist takeover in the vacuum which might follow a German withdrawal of France.[42] During the general conversation which followed with those present, de Gaulle was involved in an angry exchange with the Labour minister, Ernest Bevin, and, raising his concerns about the validity of the new currency to be circulated by the Allies after the liberation, de Gaulle commented scornfully, "go and wage war with your false money". De Gaulle was much concerned that an American takeover of the French administration would just provoke a communist uprising. Churchill then also lost his temper, saying that Britain could not act separately from America, and that under the circumstances, if they had to choose between France and the US, Britain would always choose the latter. De Gaulle replied that he realised that this would always be the case. The next day, de Gaulle refused to address the French nation because the script again made no mention of his being the legitimate interim ruler of France. It instructed the French people to obey Allied military authorities until elections could be held, and so the row continued, with de Gaulle calling Churchill a "gangster". Churchill in turn accused the general of treason in the height of battle, and demanded he be flown back to Algiers "in chains if necessary".[42] In the years to come, the hostile dependent wartime relationship of de Gaulle and his future political peers re-enacted the historical national and colonial rivalry and lasting enmity between the French and English,[43] and foreshadowed the deep distrust of France for post-war Anglo-American partnerships.

[edit] Return to France

Perhaps inevitably, de Gaulle ignored les Anglo-Saxons, and proclaimed the authority of the Free French Forces in France the next day. Under the leadership of General de Lattre de Tassigny, France fielded an entire army a joint force of Free French together with French colonial troops from North Africa on the western front. Initially landing as part of Operation Dragoon, in the south of France, the French First Army helped to liberate almost one third of the country and actively rejoined the Allies in the struggle against Germany. As the invasion slowly progressed and the Germans were pushed back, de Gaulle made preparations to return to France. On 14 June 1944 he left Britain for France for what was supposed to be a one day trip. Despite an agreement that he would take only two staff, he was accompanied by a large entourage with extensive

luggage, and although many rural Normans remained mistrustful of him, he was warmly greeted by the inhabitants of the towns he visited, such as the badly damaged Isigny. Finally he arrived at the city of Bayeux, which he now proclaimed as the capital of Free France. Appointing his Aide-de-Camp Francois Coulet as head of the civil administration, de Gaulle returned to England that same night on a French destroyer, and although the official position of the supreme military command remained unchanged, local Allied officers found it more practical to deal with the fledgling administration in Bayeux in everyday matters.[42]

Governor-General Flix bou welcomes de Gaulle to Chad. De Gaulle flew to Algiers on 16 June and then went on to Rome to meet the Pope and the new Italian Government. At the beginning of July he at last visited Roosevelt in Washington, where he received the 17 gun salute of a senior military leader rather than the 21 guns of a visiting head of state. The visit was devoid of trust on both sides according to the French representative,[19] however Roosevelt did make some concessions towards recognising the legitimacy of the Bayeux administration. Meanwhile, with the Germans retreating in the face of the Allied onslaught, harried all the way by the resistance, there were widespread instances of revenge attacks on those accused of collaboration. A number of prominent officials and members of the feared Milice were murdered, often by exceptionally brutal means, provoking the Germans into appalling reprisals, such as in the destruction of the village of Oradour-sur-Glane and the killing of its 642 inhabitants.[44] Of little strategic value, Paris was initially not high on the list of Allied objectives, but both de Gaulle and the commander of the 2nd Armoured Division, General Philippe Leclerc were concerned that a possible communist attempt to take over the capital would plunge France into civil war. De Gaulle successfully lobbied for Paris to be made a priority for liberation on humanitarian grounds and obtained from Allied Supreme Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower an agreement that French troops would be allowed to enter the capital first. A few days later, General Leclerc's French Armoured Division entered the outskirts of the city, and after six days of fighting in which the resistance played a major part, the German garrison of 5000 men surrendered on 25 August, although some sporadic outbreaks of fighting continued for several days. In surrendering, the German commander General Dietrich von Choltitz ignored Hitler's orders to raze the city to the ground. It was fortunate for de Gaulle that the Germans had forcibly removed members of the Vichy government and taken them to Germany a few days earlier on 20 August; it allowed him to enter Paris as a liberator in the midst of the general euphoria,[45] but there were serious concerns that communist elements of the resistance, which had done so much to clear the way for the military would try to seize

the opportunity to proclaim their own 'Peoples' Government' in the capital. De Gaulle made contact with Leclerc and demanded the presence of the 2nd Armoured Division to accompany him on a massed parade down the Champs Elysees, "as much for prestige as for security".[45] This was in spite of the fact that Leclerc's unit was fighting as part of the American 1st Army and were under strict orders to continue their next objective without obeying orders from anyone else. In the event, the American General Omar Bradley decided that Leclerc's division would be indispensable for the maintenance of order and the liquidation of the last pockets of resistance in the French capital. Earlier, on 21 August, de Gaulle had appointed his military advisor General Marie Koenig as Governor of Paris.

General de Gaulle delivering a speech in liberated Cherbourg from the Htel de ville (town hall). As his procession came along the Place de la Concorde on Saturday 26 August, it came under machine gun fire by Vichy militia and fifth columnists who were unable to give themselves up. Later, on entering the cathedral at Notre Dame to be received as head of the provisional government by the Committee of Liberation, loud shots broke out again, and Leclerc and Koenig tried to hustle him through the door, but de Gaulle shook off their hands and never faltered. While the battle began outside, he walked slowly down the aisle. Before he had gone far a machine pistol fired down from above, at least two more joined in, and from below the F.F.I, and police fired back. A BBC correspondent who was present reported; "the General is being presented to the people He is being receivedthey have opened fire! firing started all over the place that was one of the most dramatic scenes I have ever seen.... General de Gaulle walked straight ahead into what appeared to me to be a hail of fire... but he went straight ahead without hesitation, his shoulders flung back, and walked right down the centre aisle, even while the bullets were pouring about him. It was the most extraordinary example of courage I have ever seen.. . there were bangs, flashes all about him, yet he seemed to have an absolutely charmed life."[46] Later, in the great hall of the Hotel de Ville, de Gaulle was greeted by a jubilant crowd and, proclaiming the continuity of the Third Republic, delivered a characteristically Franco-centric proclamation; "Paris outraged, Paris broken, Paris martyred, but Paris liberated! By herself, liberated by her people, with the help of the whole of France! We will not rest until we march, as we must, into enemy territory as conquerors. France has a right to be in the first line among the great nations who are going to organize the peace and the life of the world. She has a right to be heard in all

four corners of the world. France is a great world power. She knows it and will act so that others may know it." That night the Germans launched a massive artillery and air bombardment on Paris by way of revenge, killing over a thousand people and wounding several thousand others.[45] The situation in Paris remained tense, and a few days later de Gaulle, still unsure of the trend of events asked General Eisenhower to send some American troops into Paris as a show of strength. This he did 'not without some satisfaction',[45] and so on 29 August, the US 28th Infantry Division was rerouted from its journey to the front line and paraded down the Champs Elysees.[47] Speech by Charles de Gaulle.

Menu 0:00 Speech by Charles de Gaulle after the liberation of Paris, August 1944.
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The same day, Washington and London bowed to the inevitable and finally came to an agreement to accept the position of the Free French. The following day General Eisenhower gave his de facto blessing with a visit to the General in Paris.

[edit] Prime Minister of France 19441946

With the pre-war parties and many of their leaders discredited, there was little opposition to de Gaulle and his associates forming an interim administration. In order not to be seen as presuming on his position in such austere times, de Gaulle did not use one of the grand official residences such as Hotel de Matignon or the Presidential palace on the Elysee, but resided briefly in his old office at the War Ministry. When he was joined by his wife and daughters a short while later, they moved into a small state owned villa on edge of Bois de Boulogne which had once been set aside for Hermann Gring.[48] Living conditions immediately after the liberation were even worse than under Nazi rule. A quarter of housing had been damaged or destroyed, basic public services were at a standstill, petrol and electricity was extremely scarce and, apart from the wealthy who could afford high prices, the population had to get by on very little food. Large scale public demonstrations erupted all over France protesting at the apparent lack of action at improving the supply of food, while in Normandy, bakeries were pillaged. The problem was that although wheat production was around 80% of pre war levels, transport was paralysed over virtually the whole of France. Large areas of track had been destroyed by bombing, most modern equipment, rolling stock, lorries and farm animals had been taken to Germany and all the bridges over the Seine, the Loire and the Rhone between Paris and the sea had been destroyed. The

black market pushed real prices to four times the level of 1939, causing the government to print money to try to improve the money supply, which only added to inflation.[48]

[edit] Curbing the Communist Resistance

After the celebrations had died down, de Gaulle began conferring with leading Resistance figures who, with the Germans gone, intended to continue as a political and military force, and asked to be given a government building to serve as their headquarters. The Resistance, in which the Communists were competing with other trends for leadership, had developed its own manifesto for social and political change known as the National Council of the Resistance (CNR) Charter, and wanted special status to enter the army under their own flags, ranks and honours. Despite their decisive support in backing him against Giraud, de Gaulle disappointed some of the resistance leaders by telling them that although their efforts and sacrifices had been recognised, they had no further role to play and that unless they joined the regular army they should lay down their arms and return to civilian life.[48] Believing them to be a dangerous revolutionary force, de Gaulle moved to break up the liberation committees and other militias. The political outlook of the Communists represented the complete opposite of his own views, and he was concerned at the amount of support they were receiving from the public. The potential power of the Communists also troubled the American government. As early as May 1943, the US Secretary of State Cordell Hull had written to Roosevelt urging him of need to take action to attempt to curb the rise of Communism in France.[18]

[edit] The provisional government of the French republic

On 10 September 1944, the Provisional Government of the French Republic, or Government of National Unanimity was formed It included many of de Gaulles Free French associates such as Gaston Palewski, Claude Guy, Claude Mauriac and Jacques Soustelle, together with members of the main parties, which included the Socialists and a new Christian Democratic Party, the MRP under the leadership of Georges Bidault, who served as Foreign Minister. The President of the prewar Senate Jules Jeanneney was brought back as second ranking member, but because of their links with Russia, de Gaulle allowed the Communists only two minor positions in his government. Although they were now a major political force with over a million members, of the full cabinet of 22 men, only Augustin Laurent and Charles Tillon - who as head of Francs-Tireurs-Partisans had been one of the most active members of the resistance were given ministries. However, de Gaulle did pardon the Communists' leader Maurice Thorez, who had been sentenced to death in absentia by the French government for desertion. On his return home from Russia, Thorez delivered a speech supporting de Gaulle in which he said that for the present, the war against Germany was the only task that mattered. There were also a number of new faces in the government, including a literary academic, Georges Pompidou, who had written to one of de Gaulles recruiting agents offering his services, and Jean Monnet, who in spite of his past opposition to the General now recognised the need for unity and served as Commissoner for Economic Planning. Of equal rank to Ministers and answerable only to the Prime Minister, a number of Commissioners of the Republic (Commissaires de la Rpublique) were appointed to re-establish the democratic institutions of France and to extend the legitimacy of the provisional government. A number of former Free French associates served as Commissioners, including Henri Frville, Raymond Aubrac and Michel Debr, who was charged with reforming the Civil Service. Controversially, de Gaulle also appointed Maurice Papon as Commissioner for Aquitaine in spite of his involvement in the deportation of Jews while serving as a senior police official in the

Vichy regime during the occupation. Over the years, Papon remained in high official positions but would continue to be implicated in controversial events such as the Paris Massacre of 1961,[49] eventually being convicted of crimes against humanity in 1998.

[edit] Tour of major cities

De Gaulles policy was to postpone elections as long as 2 6 million French were in Germany as prisoners of war and forced labourers. In mid-September he embarked upon a tour of major provincial cities to increase his public profile and to help cement his position. Although he received a largely positive reception from the crowds who came out to see him, he reflected that only a few months previously the very same people had come out to cheer Marshal Ptain when he was serving the Vichy regime. Raymond Aubrac said that the General showed himself to be ill at ease at social functions; in Marseilles and Lyon he displayed great irritation when he was forced to sit next to local Resistance leaders at the post-rally banquet and was particularly scathing at what he regarded as the vulgar displays of exuberance among young men and women during the Masquisards parades which preceded his speech.[48] When he reached Toulouse, de Gaulle also had to confront the leaders of a group which had proclaimed themselves to be the provincial government of the city.[19] During the tour, de Gaulle showed his customary lack of concern for his own safety by mixing with the crowds and thus making himself an easy target for an assassin. Although he was naturally shy, the good use of amplification and patriotic music enabled him to deliver his message that though all of France was fragmented and suffering together they would rise again. During every speech he would stop halfway through to invite the crowd to join him in singing La Marseillaise, before continuing and finishing by raising his hands in the air and crying Vive la France![48]

[edit] The legal purges (puration lgale)

As the war entered its final stages, the nation was forced to confront the reality of how many of its people had behaved under German rule. In France, collaborators were more severely punished than in most other occupied countries.[50] Immediately after the liberation, countless women accused of fraternising with the enemy were publicly shaved in the steets or daubed with feathers, although a significant number were less fortunate, being viciously killed. With so many of their former members having been hunted down and killed by the Nazis and paramilitary Milice, the Partisans had already summarily executed an estimated 4500 people,[50] and the Communists in particular continued to press for severe action against collaborators. In Paris alone, over 150,000 people were at some time detained on suspicion of collaboration, although most were later released. Famous figures accused included the industrialist Louis Renault, the actress Arletty, who had lived openly with a German officer in the Ritz, the opera star Tino Rossi, the stage actor Sacha Guitry and Coco Chanel, who was briefly detained but fled to Switzerland.[19] Keenly aware of the need to seize the initiative and to get the process under firm judicial control, de Gaulle appointed Justice Minister Franois de Menthon to lead the Legal Purge (puration Lgale) to punish traitors and to clear away the traces of the Vichy regime. Knowing that he would need to reprieve many of the economic collaborators such as police and civil servants who held minor roles under Vichy in order to keep the country running as normally as possible he assumed, as head of state, the right to commute death sentences.[19] In all, of the near 2000 people who received the death sentence from the courts, less than 800 were actually executed. De Gaulle commuted 998 of the 1554 capital sentences submitted before him, including all those involving women. Many others were given

jail terms or sentenced to national humiliation (loss of civil rights). It is generally agreed that the purge was not well conducted, with often absurdly severe or overly lenient punishments being handed down.[48] It was also notable that the less well-off people who were unable to pay for lawyers were more harshly treated. As time went by and feelings grew less intense, a number of people who had held fairly senior positions under the Vichy government such as Maurice Papon and Ren Bousquet escaped justice by claiming to have worked secretly for the resistance or to have played a double game, working for the good of France by serving the established order.[48] Later, there was the question of what to do with the former Vichy leaders when they were finally returned to France. Marshal Ptain and Maxime Weygand were war heroes from World War I and were now extremely old; convicted of treason, Ptain received a death sentence which his old protg de Gaulle commuted to life imprisonment, while Weygand was eventually acquitted. In all, three Vichy leaders were executed; Joseph Darnand, who became an SS officer and led the Milice paramilitaries who hunted down members of the Resistance, was executed in October 1945, while Fernand de Brinon, the third ranking Vichy official was found guilty of war crimes and executed in April 1947. The two trials of the most infamous collaborator of all, Pierre Laval, who was heavily implicated in the murder of Jews were widely criticised as being unfair for depriving him of the opportunity to properly defend himself, although Laval antagonised the court throughout with his bizarre behaviour. He was found guilty of treason in May 1945 and de Gaulle was adamant that there would be no commuting the death sentence, saying that Lavals execution was "an indispenable symbolic gesture required for reasons of state". There was a widespread belief, particularly in the years that followed, that de Gaulle was trying to appease both the Third Republic politicians and the former Vichy leaders who had made Laval their scapegoat.[48]

[edit] Winter of 1944

The winter of 1944-45 was a miserable time. Inflation showed no sign of slowing down and the lives of ordinary people were still blighted by severe shortages. The Prime Minister and the other Gaullists were forced to try to balance the desires of ordinary people and public servants for a return to normal life with pressure from Bidaults MRP and the Communists for the large scale nationalisation programme and other social changes that formed the main tenets of the CNR Charter. At end of 1944 the coal industry and other energy companies were nationalised, followed shortly afterwards by major banks and finance houses, the merchant navy, the main aircraft manufacturers, airlines and a number of major private enterprises such as the Renault car company at Boulogne-Billancourt, whose owner had been implicated as a collaborator and accused of having made huge profits working for the Nazis.[19] In some cases unions, feeling that things were not progressing quickly enough took matters into their own hands, occupying premises and setting up workers committees to run the companies.[48] Women were also allowed the vote for the first time, a new social security system was introduced to cover most medical costs, unions were expanded and price controls introduced to try to curb inflation. At de Gaulles request, the newspaper Le Monde was founded in December 1944 to provide France with a quality daily journal similar to those in other countries. Le Monde took over the premises and facilities of the older Le Temps, whose independence and reputation had been badly compromised during the Vichy years.[19] During this period there were a number of minor disagreements between the French and the other Allies. The British Ambassador to France Duff Cooper said that during this time de Gaulle seemed to seek out real or imagined insults to take offence at wherever possible.[19] De Gaulle believed that Britain and America were intending to keep their armies in France after the war and were secretly

working to take over her overseas possessions and to prevent her from regaining her political and economic strength. In late October he complained that the Allies were failing to adequately arm and equip the new French army and instructed Bidault to use the French veto at the European Council.[19] On Armistice Day in 1944, Winston Churchill made his first visit to France since the liberation and received a good reception in Paris where he laid a wreath to Clemenceau. The occasion also marked the first official appearance of de Gaulles wife Yvonne, but the visit was less friendly than it appeared De Gaulle had given strict instructions that there should be no excessive displays of public affection towards Churchill and no official awards without his prior agreement. When crowds cheered Churchill during a parade down the Elysee, de Gaulle was heard to remark, "Fools and cretins! Look at the rabble cheering the old bandit".[48]

[edit] Visit to USSR

With the Russian forces making more rapid advances into German held territory than the Allies, there was a sudden public realisation that the Soviet Union was about to dominate large parts of Eastern Europe. In fact, at the Cairo and Tehran Conferences in 1943 Britain and America had already agreed to allow Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to fall under the Russian sphere of influence after the war, with shared influence in Yugoslavia.[51] Britain was to retain hegemony over Greece, although there had been no agreement over Poland, whose eastern territories were already in Russian hands under the Brest-Litovsk agreement with Germany, and which retained a government in exile in London.[51] De Gaulle had not been invited to any of the Big Three Conferences, although the decisions made by Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt in dividing up Europe were of huge importance to France. By now it was clear that although for the time being they remained allies, in the coming years the western capitalist democracies would increasingly clash with the Communist ideology. De Gaulle and his Foreign Minister Bidault stated that they were not in favour of a Western Bloc that would be separate from the rest of Europe, and hoped that a resurgent France might be able to act as a third force in Europe to temper the ambitions of the two emerging superpowers, America and Russia [18] He began seeking an audience with Stalin to press his facing both ways policy, and finally received an invitation in late 1944. In his Memoirs, de Gaulle devoted 24 pages to his visit to Russia, but a number of writers make the point that his version of events differs significantly from that of the Russians, of foreign news correspondents, and with their own eye witness accounts.[18][48] De Gaulle wanted access to German coal in the Ruhr, the left bank of the Rhine to be incorporated into French territory, and for the Oder-Neisse line in Poland to become Germany's official Eastern border. De Gaulle began by requesting that France enter into a treaty with the Soviet Union on this basis, but Stalin, who remained in contact with Churchill throughout the visit, said that it would be impossible to make such an agreement without the consent of Britain and America. But he suggested that it might possible to add Frances name to the existing Anglo-Soviet Agreement if they agreed to recognise the Soviet-backed provisional Polish government known as the Lublin Committee as rightful rulers of Poland De Gaulle responded that this would be un-French, as it would mean her being a junior partner in an alliance.[18] During the visit, de Gaulle accompanied the deputy Russian leader Vyacheslav Molotov on a visit to the Stalingrad battleground where he was deeply moved by the scene of carnage he witnessed and surprised Molotov by referring to "our joint sacrifice".[18]

The treaty which was eventually signed by Bidault and Molotov was of little relevance to Stalin because of Frances lack of political and military power, and it did not affect the outcome of the post war settlement, but it carried a symbolic importance in that it enabled de Gaulle to demonstrate that he was representing France as official head of state and that Frances voice was being heard However, Stalin later commented that he found Gaulle awkward and stubborn, that he lacked realism by claiming the same rights as the great powers and believed that he was not a complicated person[18] He also did not object to Roosevelt's refusal to allow de Gaulle to attend the Big Three conferences that were to come at Yalta and Potsdam.

[edit] Strasbourg
At the end of 1944 French forces continued to advance as part of the American armies, but during the Ardennes Offensive there was a dispute over Eisenhowers order to French troops to evacuate Strasbourg, which had just been liberated so as to straighten the defensive line against the German counterattack.[18] Strasbourg was an important political and psychological symbol of French sovereignty in Alsace and Lorraine, and de Gaulle, saying that its loss would bring down the government, refused to allow a retreat, predicting that "Strasbourg will be our Stalingrad".[19] At a cabinet meeting he said that the French should be willing to die there alone if the US pulled out its own troops. Churchill backed the French, and Eisenhower was so impressed with the French resolve that he eventually left his own troops in the city even at the risk of being cut off, for which de Gaulle expressed his extreme gratitude. By early 1945 it was clear that the price controls which had been introduced to control inflation had only served to boost the black market and prices continued to move ever upwards. By this time the army had swelled to over 1.2 million men and almost half of state expenditure was going to military spending.[48] De Gaulle was faced with his first major ministerial dispute when the very able but tough minded economics minister Pierre Mendes-France demanded a programme of severe monetary reform which was opposed by the Finance Ministry headed by Aime Lepercq, who favoured a programme of heavy borrowing to stimulate the economy.[48] When de Gaulle, knowing there would be little appetite for further austerity measures sided with Lepercq, Mendes-France tendered his resignation, which was rejected because de Gaule knew he needed him. Lepercq was killed in a road accident a short time afterwards and was succeeded by Pleven, but when in March, Mendes-France asked unsuccessfully for taxes on capital earnings and for the blocking of certain bank accounts, he again offered his resignation and it was accepted.[48]

[edit] The Yalta Conference

After the Rhine crossings, the French First Army captured a large section of territory in southern Germany, but although this later allowed France to play a part in the signing of the German surrender, Roosevelt in particular refused to allow any discussion about de Gaulle participating in the Big Three conferences that would shape Europe in the post war world.[51] Because the Americans were planning to bring their troops home from Europe soon after the war was over, Churchill, who shared many of de Gaulles concerns over the inexperience of Russia and America in world affairs, realised the need for French troops to help administer Germany and pressed very hard for France to be included at the interallied table, but on 6 December 1944 the American president wired both Stalin and Churchill to say that de Gaulles presence would "merely introduce a complicating and undesirable factor" [48]

At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, Churchill and Roosevelt agreed that Poland should be ruled by the Lublin Committee and that she should give Russia her eastern lands in return for German territory. It was also agreed that Germany should be disarmed and occupied after the war, that war criminals would be brought to justice and that Russia would enter the war against Japan, from whom she would detach certain disputed territories.[51] Despite Stalins opposition though, Churchill and Roosevelt insisted that France be allowed a post-war occupation zone in Germany, and also made sure that she was included among the five nations that invited others to the conference to establish the United Nations.[51] This was important because it guaranteed France a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, a prestigious position that despite pressure from emerging nations she still holds today. Although Churchill had tried to have him involved and went to great lengths to fight for French interests during Yalta, assistance he never acknowledged, de Gaulle never forgave the Big Three leaders for not inviting him to the summit and continued to rage against it as having been a negative factor in European politics for the rest of his life.[18]

[edit] President Truman

On his way back from Yalta, Roosevelt asked de Gaulle to meet him in Algiers for talks. The General refused, believing that there was nothing more to be said, and for this he received a rebuke from Georges Bidault and from the French press, and a severely angered Roosevelt criticised de Gaulle in the United States Congress. Soon after, on 12 April 1945, Roosevelt died, and despite their uneasy relationship de Gaulle declared a week of mourning in France and forwarded an emotional and conciliatory letter to the new American President Harry S. Truman, in which he said of Roosevelt, "all of France loved him".[19] Unfortunately, de Gaulles relationship with Truman was to prove just as difficult as it had been with Roosevelt. With Allied forces advancing deep into Germany, another serious situation developed between American and French forces in Stuttgart and Karlsruhe, when French soldiers were ordered to transfer the occupation zones to US troops. Wishing to retain as much German territory in French hands as possible, de Gaulle ordered his troops, who were using American weapons and ammunition, to resist, and an armed confrontation seemed imminent.[48] Truman threatened to cut off supplies to the French Army and to take the zones by force, leaving de Gaulle with little choice but to back down. De Gaulle never forgave the new President, while Truman told his staff simply, "I dont like the son o f a bitch."[19] The first visit by de Gaulle to Truman in America was not a success. Truman told his visitor that it was time that the French got rid of the Communist influence from her government, to which de Gaulle replied that this was Frances own business [18] But Truman, who admitted that his feelings towards the French were becoming less and less friendly, went on to say that under the circumstances, the French could not expect much economic aid and refused to accept de Gaulles request for control of the West bank of the Rhine. During the argument which followed, de Gaulle reminded Truman that the US was using the French island of Noumea in New Caledonia as a base against the Japanese.[18]

[edit] Victory in Europe

When, in May 1945 the German armies surrendered to the Americans and British at Rheims, a separate armistice was signed with France in Berlin.[50] De Gaulle refused to allow any British participation in

the victory parade in Paris. However, among the vehicles that took part was an ambulance from the Hadfield-Spears Ambulance Unit, staffed by French Doctors and British nurses. One of the nurses was Mary Spears, who had set up the unit and had worked almost continuously since the Battle of France with Free French forces in the Middle East, North Africa and Italy Marys husband was General Edward Spears, the British liaison to the Free French who had personally spirited de Gaulle to safety in Britain in 1940. When de Gaulle saw the Union flags and Tricolours side by side on the ambulance, and heard French soldiers cheering, "Voil Spears! Vive Spears!" he ordered that the unit be closed down immediately and its British staff sent home. A number of French troops returned their medals in protest and Mary wrote, "it is a pitiful business when a great man suddenly becomes small."[52] Another confrontation with the Americans broke out soon after the armistice when the French sent troops to occupy the French-speaking Italian border region of Val d'Aoste. The French commander threatened to open fire on American troops if they tried to stop them, and an irate Truman ordered the immediate end to all arms shipments to France, and sent de Gaulle an angry letter saying that he found it unbelievable that the French could threaten to attack American troops after they had done so much to liberate France.[18]

[edit] Confrontation in the Levant

On VE Day, there were also serious riots in French Tunisia, while soon after there came a dispute with Britain over Syria and Lebanon which quickly developed into a major diplomatic incident. The two Arabian countries, occupying a region known as the Levant, had been ruled under a French mandate given by the League of Nations at the end of World War I, but for several months both countries had seen demonstrations against the French.[53] Bidault told reporters that France intended to defend her economic and cultural rights in Syria and Lebanon, and that there would be "no problem, as long as the British do not interfere"[54] In May, de Gaulle sent General Beynet to establish an air base in Syria and a naval base in the Lebanon, provoking an outbreak of nationalism in which some French nationals were attacked and killed.[53] On 20 May, French troops opened fire on demonstrators in Damascus with artillery and mortars while aircraft dropped bombs. Later, colonial Senegalese troops were sent in with machine guns and after several days hundreds of Syrians lay dead in the bazaars and narrow streets of the capital, with reports of looting by the attacking forces.[55] The British, who had substantial forces in the region, said that they would be forced to intervene if the violence did not stop. They were backed by President Truman, who declared "those French ought to be taken out and castrated".[19] Following the visit to Paris the previous year, and in spite of his efforts to preserve French interests at Yalta, Churchills relationship with de Gaulle was now at rock bottom. In January he told a colleague that he believed that de Gaulle was "a great danger to peace and for Great Britain. After five years of experience, I am convinced that he is the worst enemy of France in her troubles he is one of the greatest dangers to European peace I am sure that in the long run no understanding will be reached with General de Gaulle".[19] Finally, on 31 May, with the death toll exceeding a thousand Syrians,[19] Churchill sent de Gaulle a message saying; "In order to avoid a collision between British and French forces, we request you immediately to order French troops to cease fire and withdraw to their barracks". Meanwhile the British, under General Bernard Paget moved in with troops and tanks and cut French General Oliva Roget's telephone line with his base at Beirut. Paget ordered Roget to tell his men to cease fire, but the

Frenchman said that he would not take orders from the British.[55] Eventually, heavily outnumbered, Roget ordered his men back to their base near the coast, angry that the British had arrived only after he had "restored order". He told a Syrian journalist: "You are replacing the easygoing French with the brutal British". But that night, with the Syrians killing any French or Senegalese troops they could find, the French were forced to accept the British escort back to the safety of their barracks. Later, Roget was sacked, but a furious row broke out between Britain and France.[55] In France, there were accusations that Britain had armed the demonstrators.[53] De Gaulle raged against Churchills ultimatum, saying that "the whole thing stank of oil" [48] He summoned Duff Cooper and told him; "I recognise that we are not in a position to wage war against you, but you have betrayed France and betrayed the West. That cannot be forgotten".[19] France was isolated and suffering a diplomatic crisis. The secretary of the Arab League Edward Atiyah said; "France put all her cards and two rusty pistols on the table". In turn, the French press attacked Britain as an enemy of France and accused the U.S. of helping Italy and Germany more than it helped France. It also criticised the Russians when they made it clear that they believed that France was in the wrong.[55]

[edit] The Potsdam Conference

During the Potsdam Conference in July, to which de Gaulle was again not invited, Churchill was defeated at the British general election and replaced by the Labour leader Clement Attlee. The Potsdam Conference brought a decision to divide Vietnam, which had been a French colony for over a hundred years, into British and Chinese spheres of influence.[51] Soon after the surrender of Japan in August 1945, de Gaulle sent the French Far East Expeditionary Corps to re-establish French sovereignty in French Indochina, making Admiral d'Argenlieu High Commissioner and General Leclerc commanderin-chief and commander of the expeditionary corps.[56] However, the resistance leaders in Indo-China proclaimed the freedom and independence of Vietnam.[53]

[edit] New elections and resignation

Since the liberation, the only parliament in France had been an enlarged version of the Algiers Consultative Assembly, and at last, in October 1945, elections were held for a new Constituent Assembly whose main task was to provide a new constitution for the Fourth Republic. De Gaulle favoured a strong executive for the nation,[23] but all three of the main parties wished to severely restrict the powers of the President. The Communists wanted an assembly with full constitutional powers and no time limit, whereas de Gaulle, the Socialists and the Popular Republican Movement (MRP) advocated one with a term limited to only seven months, after which the draft constitution would be submitted for another referendum. In the election, which was run on the basis of proportional representation, the second option was approved by 13 million of the 21 million voters. The big three parties won 75% of the vote, with the Communists winning 158 seats, the MRP 152 seats, the Socialists 142 seats and the remaining seats going to the various far right parties. On 13 November 1945, the new assembly unanimously elected Charles de Gaulle head of the government, but problems immediately arose when it came to selecting the cabinet, due to his unwillingness once more to allow the Communists any important ministries. The Communists, now the

largest party and with their charismatic leader Maurice Thorez back at the helm, were not prepared to accept this for a second time, and a furious row ensued, during which de Gaulle sent a letter of resignation to the speaker of the Assembly and declared that he was unwilling to trust a party that he considered to be an agent of a foreign power (Russia) with authority over the police and armed forces of France.[18] Eventually, the new cabinet was finalised on 21 November, with the Communists receiving five out of the twenty two ministries, and although they still did not get any of the key portfolios, Thorez did manage to obtain one of the four prestigious Ministry of State posts. De Gaulle found working under the new Constituent Assembly very different to the old Provisional Government, which ruled by decree. He found dealing with the "regime of parties" frustrating and believed that the draft constitution placed too much power in the hands of parliament with its shifting party alliances. One of his ministers described him as "a man equally incapable of monopolizing power as of sharing it". De Gaulle outlined a programme of further nationalisations and a new economic plan which were passed, but a further row came when the Communists demanded a 20% reduction in the military budget Refusing to rule by compromise', de Gaulle once more threatened to resign. There was a general feeling that he was trying to blackmail the assembly into complete subservience by threatening to withdraw his personal prestige which he insisted was what alone kept the ruling coalition together.[48] Although the MRP managed to broker a compromise which saw the budget approved with amendments, it was little more than a stop-gap measure.[18] Barely two months after forming the new government, de Gaulle abruptly resigned on 20 January 1946. The move was called "a bold and ultimately foolish political ploy", with de Gaulle hoping that as a war hero, he would be soon brought back as a more powerful executive by the French people.[57] However, that did not turn out to be the case. With the war finally over, the initial period of crisis had passed. Although there were still shortages, particularly of bread, France was now on the road to recovery, and de Gaulle suddenly did not seem so indispensable. The Communist publication Combat wrote; "There was no cataclym, and the empty plate didnt crack" [48] He was succeeded by Flix Gouin (French Section of the Workers' International, SFIO), then Georges Bidault (MRP) and finally Lon Blum (SFIO).[58]

[edit] 194658: Out of power

The statement of Charles de Gaulle in reference to World War II After monopolizing French politics for six years, Charles de Gaulle suddenly dropped out of sight, and returned to his home at Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises to write his war memoirs.[9]

The famous opening paragraph of Mmoires de guerre begins by declaring, "All my life, I have had a certain idea of France (une certaine ide de la France)", comparing his country to an old painting of a Madonna, and ends by declaring that, given the divisive nature of French politics, France cannot truly live up to this ideal without a policy of "grandeur" (roughly "greatness"). During this period of formal retirement, however, de Gaulle maintained regular contact with past political lieutenants from wartime and RPF days, including sympathizers involved in political developments in French Algeria, becoming "perhaps the best-informed man in France".[23] In April 1947 de Gaulle made a renewed attempt to transform the political scene by creating a Rassemblement du Peuple Franais (Rally of the French People, or RPF), which he hoped would be able to move above the familiar party squabbles of the parliamentary system. Despite the new party's taking 40% of vote in local elections and 121 seats in 1951, lacking its own press and access to television, its support ebbed away. In May 1953, he withdrew again from active politics,[23] though the RPF lingered until September 1955.[9] As with a number of other European countries during this period, France began to suffer the loss of its overseas possessions amid the surge of nationalism which came in the aftermath of WW2. Indochina (now Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia), colonised by France during the mid nineteenth century, had been lost to the Japanese after the defeat of 1940. Although de Gaulle had moved quickly to reclaim the territory during his brief tenure as president, the communist Vietminh under Ho Chi Minh began a determined campaign for independence from 1946 onwards. The French fought a bitter 7 year war (the First Indochina War) to hold onto Indochina until their decisive defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954 With more than 70,000 French soldiers killed during the conflict, Pierre Mendes-France was made Prime Minister with the main objective of ending the war, and by July 1954 a ceasefire had been arranged, following which French Forces left and the country was partitioned into North Vietnam and South Vietnam. This was only a short interlude before the even more savage Second Indochina War, more widely known in the west as the Vietnam War, in which America, not France, was the main antagonist.[59] The defeat in Indochina had a profound influence on Frances North African empire and severely stretched the credibility of the Fourth Republic. By 1956, Morocco and Tunisia had all but won their independence, while in Algeria, some 350,000 French troops were fighting 150,000 members of the Algerian Liberation Movement (FLN), a conflict which was to become increasingly savage and bloody over the next few years, and threaten mainland France itself. Between 1946 and 1958 there were no less than 24 separate ministries. The president retained relatively little real executive power, and manuvrings among various radical and socialist groups in the Assembly led to the government being repeatedly overthrown. Governments were so short lived that they achieved little, and the politics of the 4th Republic began to show the same characteristics as the 3rd Republic. Endlessly frustrated by the divisiveness of the Fourth Republic, de Gaulle famously asked; how can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?[60] The public showed their frustration with a marked shift of support towards the extreme right, particularly the Poujadists, a far right party who championed the cause of shopkeepers, farmers and other small businesses who were concerned at increased taxes and price controls brought in to try to curb inflation. Led by Pierre Poujade, the party were anti-Semitic, anti-American and imperialist,[50] but won 2.6 million votes in 1956, giving them 52 seats.

[edit] 1958: Collapse of the Fourth Republic

Further information: May 1958 crisis The Fourth Republic was tainted by political instability, failures in Indochina and inability to resolve the Algerian question. It did, however, pass the 1956 loi-cadre Deferre which granted independence to Tunisia and Morocco, while the Premier Pierre Mends-France put an end to the Indochina War through the Geneva Conference of 1954.[61] Under Guy Mollet, while he survived the 1956 Suez Crisis, French prestige suffered a humiliating defeat with the forced withdrawal from Egypt under international pressure. On 13 May 1958, settlers seized the government buildings in Algiers, attacking what they saw as French government weakness in the face of demands among the Arab majority for Algerian independence. A "Committee of Civil and Army Public Security" was created under the presidency of General Jacques Massu, a Gaullist sympathiser. General Raoul Salan, Commander-in-Chief in Algeria, announced on radio that he was assuming provisional power, and appealed for "confidence in the Army and its leaders".[62] Under the pressure of Massu, Salan declared Vive de Gaulle! from the balcony of the Algiers Government-General building on 15 May.[63] De Gaulle answered two days later that he was ready to "assume the powers of the Republic".[64] Many worried as they saw this answer as support for the army. At a 19 May press conference, de Gaulle asserted again that he was at the disposal of the country. As a journalist expressed the concerns of some who feared that he would violate civil liberties, de Gaulle retorted vehemently: Have I ever done that? On the contrary, I have re-established them when they had disappeared. Who honestly believes that, at age 67, I would start a career as a dictator?[65] A constitutionalist by conviction, he maintained throughout the crisis that he would accept power only from the lawfully constituted authorities. De Gaulle did not wish to repeat the difficulty the Free French movement experienced in establishing legitimacy as the rightful government. He told an aide that the rebel generals "will not find De Gaulle in their baggage".[23] The crisis deepened as French paratroops from Algeria seized Corsica and a landing near Paris was discussed (Operation Resurrection).[66] Political leaders on many sides agreed to support the General's return to power, except Franois Mitterrand, Pierre Mends-France, Alain Savary, the Communist Party, and certain other leftists. On 29 May the French President, Ren Coty, appealed to the "most illustrious of Frenchmen" to confer with him and to examine what was immediately necessary for the creation of a government of national safety, and what could be done to bring about a profound reform of the country's institutions.[67] De Gaulle remained intent on replacing the constitution of the Fourth Republic, which he blamed for France's political weakness. He set as conditions for his return that he be given wide emergency powers for six months and that a new constitution be proposed to the French people.[68] On 1 June 1958, de Gaulle became Premier and was given emergency powers for six months by the National Assembly,[69] fulfilling his desire for parliamentary legitimacy.[23]

On 28 September 1958, a referendum took place and 79.2 percent of those who voted supported the new constitution and the creation of the Fifth Republic. The colonies (Algeria was officially a part of France, not a colony) were given the choice between immediate independence and the new constitution. All African colonies voted for the new constitution and the replacement of the French Union by the French Community, except Guinea, which thus became the first French African colony to gain independence, at the cost of the immediate ending of all French assistance.[70] According to de Gaulle, the head of state should represent "the spirit of the nation" to the nation itself and to the world: "une certaine ide de la France" (a certain idea of France).[71]

[edit] 195862: Founding of the Fifth Republic

De Gaulle in 1961 at the Kln/Bonn airport. In the November 1958 elections, de Gaulle and his supporters (initially organised in the Union pour la Nouvelle Rpublique-Union Dmocratique du Travail, then the Union des Dmocrates pour la Vme Rpublique, and later still the Union des Dmocrates pour la Rpublique, UDR) won a comfortable majority. In December, de Gaulle was elected President by the electoral college with 78% of the vote, and inaugurated in January 1959.[72] He oversaw tough economic measures to revitalise the country, including the issuing of a new franc (worth 100 old francs).[73] Internationally, he rebuffed both the United States and the Soviet Union, pushing for an independent France with its own nuclear weapons, and strongly encouraged a "Free Europe", believing that a confederation of all European nations would restore the past glories of the great European empires.[74] He set about building Franco-German cooperation as the cornerstone of the European Economic Community (EEC), paying the first state visit to Germany by a French head of state since Napoleon.[75] In January 1963, Germany and France signed a treaty of friendship, the lyse Treaty.[76] France also reduced its dollar reserves, trading them for gold from the U.S. government, thereby reducing the US' economic influence abroad.[77] On 23 November 1959, in a speech in Strasbourg, de Gaulle announced his vision for Europe: Oui, cest lEurope, depuis lAtlantique jusqu lOural, cest toute lEurope, qui dcidera du destin du monde. ("Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the destiny of the world.") His expression, "Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals", has often been cited throughout the history of European integration. It became, for the next ten years, a favourite political rallying cry of de Gaulle's. His vision stood in contrast to the Atlanticism of the United States and Britain, preferring instead a Europe that would act as a third pole between the United States and the Soviet Union. By including in his ideal of Europe all the territory up to the Urals, de Gaulle was implicitly offering dtente to the Soviets.

[edit] Algeria

Upon becoming president, de Gaulle was faced with the urgent task of finding a way to bring to an end the bloody and divisive war in Algeria. His intentions were obscure. He had immediately visited Algeria and declared, Je vous ai compris - 'I have understood you', and each competing interest had wished to believe it was them that he had understood. Whatever his intentions, "he soon came to realize that Algerian independence was inevitable."[78] French left-wingers were in favour of granting independence to Algeria and urged him to seek a way to achieve peace while, at the same time, avoiding a French loss of face.[79] Although the military's near-coup had contributed to his return to power, de Gaulle soon ordered all officers to quit the rebellious Committees of Public Safety. Such actions greatly angered the French settlers and their military supporters.[23] He was forced to suppress two uprisings in Algeria by French settlers and troops, in the second of which (the Generals' Putsch in April 1961) France herself was again threatened with invasion by rebel paratroops.[80] De Gaulle's government also covered up the Paris massacre of 1961, issued under the orders of the police prefect Maurice Papon, who had begun his career as a Vichy functionary deporting Jews from south-west France.[81] He was also targeted by the settlers' resistance group Organisation de l'arme secrte (OAS) and several assassination attempts were made on him; the most famous is that of 22 August 1962, when he and his wife narrowly escaped an assassination attempt when their Citron DS was targeted by machine gun fire arranged by Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry at PetitClamart.[82] Visitors to the French capital around this time heard, "the eerie sounds of car horns, beating out the five count of Al-g-rie-Fran-aise".[83] After a referendum on Algerian self-determination carried out in 1961, de Gaulle arranged a cease-fire in Algeria with the March 1962 Evian Accords, legitimated by another referendum a month later.[84] Although the Algerian issue was settled, Prime Minister Michel Debr resigned over the final settlement and was replaced with Georges Pompidou on 14 April 1962.[85] France recognised Algerian independence on 3 July 1962, while an amnesty was belatedly issued covering all crimes committed during the war, including the genocide against the Harkis. In just a few months in 1962, 900,000 French settlers left the country. After 5 July, the exodus accelerated in the wake of the French deaths during the Oran massacre of 1962. Historian Julian Jackson : "The Pieds-Noirs peddled a fantasy of a harmonious country of Muslims and Europeans, but the history of the French in Algeria had always been one of violence, expropriation and exploitation. After the terrorist organisation OAS adopted a kind of scorched earth policy toward the end, it was made certain the Pieds-Noirs could not stay on in Algeria - [there followed] an influx of a million embittered and dispossessed refugees into France where they now formed a reservoir of passionate, right-wing, anti-Gaullism."[86]

[edit] Direct presidential elections

In September 1962, de Gaulle sought a constitutional amendment to allow the president to be directly elected by the people and issued another referendum to this end. After a motion of censure voted by the Parliament on 4 October 1962, de Gaulle dissolved the National Assembly and held new elections. Although the left progressed, the Gaullists won an increased majoritythis despite opposition from the Christian democratic Popular Republican Movement (MRP) and the National Centre of Independents and Peasants (CNIP) who criticised de Gaulle's euroscepticism and presidentialism.[87][88] De Gaulle's proposal to change the election procedure for the French presidency was approved at the referendum on 28 October 1962 by more than three-fifths of voters despite a broad "coalition of no" formed by most of the parties, opposed to a presidential regime. Thereafter the President was to be elected by direct universal suffrage for the first time since Louis Napoleon in 1848.[89]

[edit] 196268: Politics of grandeur

With the Algerian conflict behind him, de Gaulle was able to achieve his two main objectives: to reform and develop the French economy, and to promote an independent foreign policy and a strong stance on the international stage. This was named by foreign observers the "politics of grandeur" (politique de grandeur).[90] See Gaullism.

[edit] "Thirty glorious years"

In the immediate post war years France was in a bad way;[91] wages remained at around half prewar levels, the winter of 1946-1947 did extensive damage to crops - leading to a reduction in the bread ration, hunger and disease remained rife and the black market continued to flourish. Germany was in an even worse position but after 1948 things began to improve dramatically with the introduction of Marshall Aid - large scale American financial assistance given to help rebuild European economies and infrastructure. This laid the foundations of a meticulously planned programme of investment in energy, transport and heavy industry, overseen by the government of prime minister Georges Pompidou. In the context of a population boom unseen in France since the 18th century, the government intervened heavily in the economy, using dirigisme a unique combination of capitalism and statedirected economy with indicative five-year plans as its main tool. This brought about a rapid transformation and expansion of the French economy.

Iranian Empress Farah Pahlavi meeting with Charles de Gaulle in France, 1961 High-profile projects, mostly but not always financially successful, were launched: the extension of Marseilles harbour (soon ranking third in Europe and first in the Mediterranean); the promotion of the Caravelle passenger jetliner (a predecessor of Airbus); the decision to start building the supersonic Franco-British Concorde airliner in Toulouse; the expansion of the French auto industry with stateowned Renault at its centre; and the building of the first motorways between Paris and the provinces. With these projects, the French economy recorded growth rates unrivalled since the 19th century. In 1964, for the first time in nearly 100 years[92] France's GDP overtook that of the United Kingdom, a position it held until the 1990s. This period is still remembered in France with some nostalgia as the

peak of the Trente Glorieuses ("Thirty Glorious Years" of economic growth between 1945 and 1974).[93]

[edit] Fourth nuclear power

During his first tenure as President, de Gaulle became enthusiastic about the possibilities of nuclear power. France had carried out important work in the early development of atomic energy and in October 1945 he established the French Atomic Energy Commission Commissariat l'nergie atomique, (CEA) responsible for all scientific, commercial, and military uses of nuclear energy. However, partly due to communist influences in government who opposed proliferation, research stalled, and France was excluded from American, British, and Canadian nuclear efforts. By October 1952 Britain became the third country - after America and the Soviet Union - to independently test and develop nuclear weapons. This gave Britain the capability to launch a nuclear strike via its Vulcan bomber force and it began developing its own ballistic missile programme known as Blue Streak. As early as April 1954 while out of power, de Gaulle had proposed that France should also have its own nuclear weapons; at the time nuclear weapons were seen as a national status symbol and a way of maintaining international prestige with a place at the top table of the United Nations. Full-scale research began again in late 1954 when Prime Minister Pierre Mendes-France authorized a plan to develop the atomic bomb; large deposits of uranium had been discovered near Limoges in central France, providing the researchers with an unrestricted supply of nuclear fuel. France's independent Force de Frappe (strike force) came into being soon after de Gaulles election with his authorisation for the first nuclear test. With the cancellation of Blue Streak, the US agreed to supply Britain with its Skybolt and later Polaris weapons systems, and in 1958 the two nations signed the Mutual Defence Agreement forging close links which have seen the US and UK cooperate on nuclear security matters ever since. Although at the time it was still a full member of NATO, France proceeded to develop its own independent nuclear technologies - this would enable it to become a partner in any reprisals and would give it a voice in matters of atomic control.[94] After six years of development, on 13 February 1960 France became the world's fourth nuclear power when an extremely high powered nuclear device was exploded in the Sahara some 700 miles southsouth-west of Algiers.[95] In August 1963 France decided against signing the Partial Test Ban Treaty designed to slow the arms race because it would have prohibited her from testing nuclear weapons above ground. France continued to carry out tests at the Algerian site until 1966, under an agreement with the newly independent Algeria. France's testing program then moved to the Mururoa and Fangataufa Atolls in the South Pacific. In November 1967, an article by the French Chief of the General Staff (but inspired by de Gaulle) in the Revue de la Dfense Nationale caused international consternation. It was stated that French nuclear force should be capable of firing "in all directions" thus including even America as a target. This surprising statement was intended as a declaration of French national independence, and was in retaliation to a warning issued long ago by Dean Rusk that US missiles would be aimed at France if it attempted to employ atomic weapons outside an agreed plan. However, criticism of de Gaulle was growing over his tendency to act alone with little regard for the views of others.[96] In August, concern

over de Gaulle's policies had been voiced by Valry Giscard dEstaing when he queried the solitary exercise of power [97]

[edit] NATO
With the onset of the Cold War and the perceived threat of invasion from the Soviet Union and the countries of the eastern bloc, America, Canada and the other western European countries set up the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to co-ordinate a military response to any possible attack. France played a key role during the early days of the organisation, providing a large military contingent and agreeing - after much soul-searching - to the participation of West German forces. But after his election in 1958 Charles de Gaulle took the view that the organisation was too dominated by the US and UK, and that with its problems in Vietnam, America would not fulfil its promise to defend Europe in the event of a Russian invasion. De Gaulle demanded political parity with Britain and America in NATO, and for its geographic coverage to be extended to include French territories abroad, including Algeria, then experiencing civil war. This was not forthcoming, and so in March 1959 France, citing the need for it to maintain its own independent military strategy, withdrew its Mediterranean fleet from NATO, and a few months later de Gaulle demanded the removal of all US nuclear weapons from French territory. In 1964 de Gaulle visited Russia, where he hoped to establish France as an alternative influence in the Cold War. Later, he proclaimed a new alliance between the nations, but although the Soviet statesman Alexei Kosygin made a return visit to France, the Russians did not accept France as a super power, knowing that in any future conflict they would have to rely on the overall protection of the Western Alliance. In 1965, de Gaulle pulled France out of SEATO, the Southeast Asian equivalent of NATO and refused to participate in any future NATO manoeuvres. In February 1966, France withdrew from NATO military command, but remained within the organisation. However, secret protocols were agreed whereby French forces could quickly be reintegrated into NATO command, demonstrating that the move was little more that a symbolic show of defiance to America and Britain.[citation needed] De Gaulle, haunted by the memories of 1940, wanted France to remain the master of the decisions affecting it, unlike in the 1930s, when it had to follow in step with its British ally. He also declared that all foreign military personnel had to leave French territory and gave them one year to redeploy.[98] This latter action was particularly badly received in the US, prompting Dean Rusk, the US Secretary of State, to ask de Gaulle whether the removal of American military personnel was to include exhumation the 50,000 American war dead buried in French cemeteries.[99]

[edit] EEC
Despite its success in the war, Britain experienced a difficult time in the post war world. While France and other European countries were enjoying booming economies, Britain experienced high inflation, stagnant growth and poor labour relations. A number of her important colonial possessions - not least India - quickly gained independence, and following the Suez Crisis, where Britain and France unsuccessfully sought to prevent the Egyptians from nationalising the Suez Canal, Britain struggled to adjust to its reduced world position. The U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson commented that Britain had "lost an empire and had not yet found a role".[100]

De Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer in 1961 France meanwhile, experiencing the disintegration of her own empire and severe problems in Algeria, turned towards Europe after Suez, and to Germany in particular.[99] In the years after, the economies of both nations came together and they became leading partners in the drive towards European unity. One of the conditions of Marshall Aid was that the nations leaders must get together to co-ordinate economic efforts and to pool the supply of raw materials. By far the most critical commodities in driving growth were coal and steel. France assumed it would receive large amounts of high quality German coal from the Ruhr as reparations for the war, but America refused to allow this, fearing it could lead to a repeat of the renewed bitterness after the Treaty of Versailles which partly caused World War II.[101] Under the inspiration of the French statesmen Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman, together with the German leader Konrad Adenauer, the rift between the two nations had begun to heal and along with Italy and the Benelux countries, they formed the European Coal and Steel Community, which following the Treaty of Rome of 1957 became the European Economic Community, also known as the Common Market, beginning around the same time as de Gaulle's presidency. Though he had not been instrumental in setting up the new organisation, de Gaulle spoke enthusiastically of his vision of "an imposing confederation" of European states and of formulating a common European foreign policy.[102] De Gaulle, who in spite of recent history admired Germany and spoke excellent German in contrast to his poor, mumbling English,[103][page needed] established a good relationship with the ageing West Germany Chancellor Konrad Adenauer - culminating in the Elysee Treaty in 1963 - and in the first few years of the Common Market, France's industrial exports to the other five members tripled and its farm export almost quadrupled. The franc became a solid, stable currency for the first time in half a century, and the economy mostly boomed. Adenauer however, all too aware of the importance of American support in Europe, gently distanced himself from the generals more extreme ideas, wanting no suggestion that any new European community would in any sense challenge or set itself at odds with the U.S. In Adenauer's eyes, the support of the U.S. was more important than any question of European prestige.[102] Adenauer was also anxious to reassure Britain that nothing was being done behind her back and was quick to inform British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan of any new developments. Great Britain initially declined to join the Common Market, preferring to remain with another organisation known as the European Free Trade Area, mostly consisting of the northern European countries and Portugal. By the late nineteen fifties German and French living standards began to exceed those in Britain, and the government of Harold Macmillan, realising that the EEC was a stronger trading bloc than EFTA, began negotiations to join. De Gaulle vetoed the British application to join the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1963, famously uttering the single word 'non' into the television cameras at the critical moment, a statement used to sum up French opposition and belligerence towards Britain for many years afterwards.[104] Macmillan said afterwards that he always believed that de Gaulle would prevent Britain joining, but thought he would do it quietly, behind the scenes. He later complained privately that "all our plans are in tatters".[99] One reason given for de Gaulle's refusal was the recent American agreement to supply Britain with the Skybolt nuclear missile. He did it, he said, because he thought the United Kingdom lacked the

necessary political will to be part of a strong Europe.[105] He further saw Britain as a "Trojan Horse" for the USA.[106] He maintained there were incompatibilities between continental European and British economic interests. In addition, he demanded that the United Kingdom accept all the conditions laid down by the six existing members of the EEC (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands) and revoke its commitments to countries within its own free trade area (which France had not done with its own). He supported a deepening and an acceleration of common market integration rather than an expansion.[107] However, in this latter respect, a detailed study of the formative years of the EEC argues that the defence of French economic interests, especially in agriculture, in fact played a more dominant role in determining de Gaulle's stance towards British entry than the various political and foreign policy considerations that have often been cited.[108] The General's attitude was also influenced by resentments which had come about during his exile in Britain during the Second World War.[citation needed] Dean Acheson believed that Britain made a grave error in not signing up to the European idea right from the start, and that they continued to suffer the political consequences for at least two decades afterwards. However he also stated his belief that de Gaulle used the 'Common Market' (as it was then termed) as an "exclusionary device to direct European trade towards the interest of France and against that of the United states, Britain and other countries."[100] Claiming continental European solidarity, de Gaulle again rejected British entry when they next applied to join the community in December 1967 under the Labour leadership of Harold Wilson. During negotiations, de Gaulle chided Britain for relying too much on the Americans, saying that sooner or later they would always do what was in their best interests. Wilson said he then gently raised the spectre of the threat of a newly powerful Germany as a result of the EEC, which de Gaulle agreed was a risk.[109] The veto on British entry made de Gaulle unpopular in Ireland since it was clear that for economic reasons Ireland would be excluded from the EEC as long as Britain remained outside. After de Gaulle left office the United Kingdom applied again and finally became a member of the EEC in January 1973.[110]

[edit] Recognition of the People's Republic of China

De Gaulle was convinced that a strong and independent France could act as a balancing force between the United States and the Soviet Union, a policy seen as little more than posturing and opportunism by his critics, particularly in Britain and the United States, to which France was formally allied. In January 1964, France established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC) the first step towards formal recognition. This was done without first severing links with the Republic of China (Taiwan), led by Chiang Kai-shek. Hitherto the PRC had insisted that all nations abide by a "one China" condition, and at first it was unclear how the matter would be settled.[111] However, the agreement to exchange ambassadors was subject to a delay of three months and in February, Chiang Kai-shek resolved the problem by cutting off diplomatic relations with France.[112] Eight years later U.S. President Richard Nixon visited the PRC and began normalising relations a policy which was confirmed in the Shanghai Communiqu of 28 February 1972.[113] As part of a European tour, Nixon visited France in 1969.[114] He and de Gaulle both shared the same non-Wilsonian approach to world affairs, believing in nations and their relative strengths, rather than in ideologies, international organisations, or multilateral agreements. De Gaulle is famously known for calling the UN the pejorative "le Machin"[115] ("the thingamajig").

[edit] Visit to Latin America

De Gaulle and Argentine president Arturo Illia in 1964 In September and October 1964, despite a recent operation for prostate cancer and fears for his security, he set out on a punishing 20,000-mile tour of Latin America. He had visited Mexico the previous year and spoke, in Spanish, to the Mexican people on the eve of their celebrations of their independence at the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City. During his new 26-day visit, he was again keen to gain both cultural and economic influence.[116] He spoke constantly of his resentment of US influence (hegemony) in Latin America "that some states should establish a power of political or economic direction outside their own borders". Yet France could provide no investment or aid to match that from Washington.[117]

[edit] Second term

In December 1965, de Gaulle returned as president for a second seven-year term, but this time he had to go through a second round of voting in which he defeated Franois Mitterrand, who did better than predicted, gaining 45% of the vote.[118] In September 1966, in a famous speech in Phnom Penh (Cambodia), he expressed France's disapproval of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, calling for a U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam as the only way to ensure peace.[119] As the Vietnam War had its roots in the previous Indochina War, in which the United States had provided France with aid, this speech did little to endear de Gaulle to the Americans[who?],[citation needed] even if their leaders later came to the same conclusion. He later visited Guadeloupe, in the aftermath of Hurricane Inez for 2 days, bringing aid which totalled billions of francs.

[edit] Empty Chair Crisis

De Gaulle and Lyndon B. Johnson meeting at Konrad Adenauer's funeral in 1967, with President of West Germany Heinrich Lbke (center). During the establishment of the European Community, de Gaulle helped precipitate one of the greatest crises in the history of the EC, the Empty Chair Crisis. It involved the financing of the Common Agricultural Policy, but almost more importantly the use of qualified majority voting in the EC (as opposed to unanimity). In June 1965, after France and the other five members could not agree, de Gaulle withdrew France's representatives from the EC. Their absence left the organisation essentially unable to run its affairs until the Luxembourg compromise was reached in January 1966.[120] De Gaulle succeeded in influencing the decision-making mechanism written into the Treaty of Rome by insisting on solidarity founded on mutual understanding.[121] He vetoed Britain's entry into the EEC a second time, in June 1967.[122]

[edit] Six-Day War

With tension rising in the Middle East in 1967, de Gaulle on 2 June declared an arms embargo against Israel, just three days before the outbreak of the Six-Day War. This, however, did not affect spare parts for the French military hardware with which the Israeli armed forces were equipped.[123] This was an abrupt change in policy. In 1956 France, Britain, and Israel had cooperated in an elaborate effort to retake the Suez Canal from Egypt. Israel's air force operated French Mirage and Mystre jets in the Six-Day War, and its navy was building its new missile boats in Cherbourg. Though paid for, their transfer to Israel was now blocked by de Gaulle's government. But they were smuggled out in an operation that drew further denunciations from the French government. The last boats took to the sea in December 1969, directly after a major deal between France and now-independent Algeria exchanging French armaments for Algerian oil.[124] Under de Gaulle, following the independence of Algeria, France embarked on foreign policy more favourable to the Arab side. General de Gaulle's position in 1967 at the time of the Six Day War played a part in France's newfound popularity in the Arab world.[125] Israel turned towards the United States for arms, and toward its own industry. In a televised news conference on 27 November 1967, de Gaulle described the Jewish people as "this elite people, sure of themselves and domineering".[126] In his letter to David Ben-Gurion dated 9 January 1968, he explained that he was convinced that Israel had ignored his warnings and overstepped the bounds of moderation by taking possession of Jerusalem, and so much Jordanian, Egyptian, and Syrian territory by force of arms. He felt Israel had exercised repression and expulsions during the occupation and that it amounted to annexation. He said that provided Israel withdrew her forces, it appeared that it might be possible to reach a solution through the UN framework which could include assurances of a dignified and fair future for refugees and minorities in the Middle East, recognition from Israel's neighbors, and freedom of navigation through the Gulf of Aqaba and the Suez Canal.[127]

[edit] Nigerian Civil War

The Eastern Region of Nigeria declared itself independent under the name of The Independent Republic of Biafra on 30 May 1967. On 6 July the first shots in the Nigerian civil war were fired, marking the start of a conflict would last until January 1970.[128] Britain provided military aid to the Federal Republic of Nigeria yet more was made available by the Soviet Union. Under de Gaulle's

leadership, France embarked on a period of interference outside the traditional French zone of influence. A policy geared toward the break-up of Nigeria put Britain and France into opposing camps. Relations between France and Nigeria had been under strain since the third French nuclear explosion in the Sahara in December 1960. From August 1968, when its embargo was lifted, France provided limited and covert support to the breakaway province. Although French arms helped to keep Biafra in action for the final 15 months of the civil war, its involvement was seen as insufficient and counterproductive. The Biafran Chief of Staff stated that the French "did more harm than good by raising false hopes and by providing the British with an excuse to reinforce Nigeria."[129]

[edit] Vive le Qubec libre!

Main article: Vive le Qubec libre In July 1967, de Gaulle visited Canada, which was celebrating its centennial with a world fair in Montreal, Expo 67. On 24 July, speaking to a large crowd from a balcony at Montreal's city hall, de Gaulle shouted "Vive le Qubec libre!" (Long live free Quebec!) then added, "Vive le Canada franais!" (Long live French Canada!), and finally, "Et vive la France." (And long live France!)[130] The Canadian media harshly criticized the statement, and the Prime Minister of Canada, Lester B. Pearson, stated that "Canadians do not need to be liberated."[131] De Gaulle left Canada abruptly two days later, without proceeding to Ottawa as scheduled. He never returned to Canada. The speech caused offense in most of English Canada and was heavily criticized in France as well,[132] and led to a significant diplomatic rift between the two countries.[133] However, the event was seen as a watershed moment by the Quebec sovereignty movement,[134] and is still a significant milestone of Quebec's history to the eyes of most French Canadians.[135] In the following year, de Gaulle visited Brittany, where he declaimed a poem written by his uncle (also called Charles de Gaulle) in the Breton language. The speech followed a series of crackdowns on Breton nationalism. De Gaulle was accused of hypocrisy, on the one hand supporting a "free" Quebec because of linguistic and ethnic differences from other Canadians, while on the other supposedly "oppressing" a regional and ethnic nationalist movement in Brittany.[136]

[edit] May 1968

Main article: May 1968 in France De Gaulle's government was criticised within France, particularly for its heavy-handed style. While the written press and elections were free, and private stations such as Europe 1 were able to broadcast in French from abroad, the state's ORTF had a monopoly on television and radio. This monopoly meant that the executive was in a position to bias the news. In many respects, Gaullist France was conservative, Catholic, and repressive, with women viewed as inferior.[137] Many factors contributed to a general weariness of sections of the public, particularly the student youth, which led to the events of May 1968. The huge demonstrations and strikes in France in May 1968 severely challenged de Gaulle's legitimacy. He and other government leaders feared that the country was on the brink of revolution or civil war. On 29 May de Gaulle disappeared without notifying Prime Minister Pompidou or anyone else in the government, stunning the country. He fled to Baden-Baden, Germany to meet with General

Massu, now head of the French military there, to discuss possible army intervention against the protesters. De Gaulle returned to France after being assured of the military's support.[138][139] In a private meeting discussing the students' and workers' demands for direct participation in business and government he coined the phrase "La rforme oui, la chienlit non", which can be politely translated as 'reform yes, masquerade/chaos no.' It was a vernacular scatological pun meaning 'chie-en-lit, no' (crap-in-bed, no). The term is now common parlance in French political commentary, used both critically and ironically referring back to de Gaulle.[140][141] But de Gaulle offered to accept some of the reforms the demonstrators sought. He again considered a referendum to support his moves, but on 30 May Pompidou persuaded him to dissolve parliament (in which the government had all but lost its majority in the March 1967 elections) and hold new elections instead. The June 1968 elections were a major success for the Gaullists and their allies; when shown the spectre of revolution or civil war, the majority of the country rallied to him. His party won 352 of 487 seats,[142] but de Gaulle remained personally unpopular; a survey conducted immediately after the crisis showed that a majority of the country saw him as too old, too self-centred, too authoritarian, too conservative, and too anti-American.[138] The general consensus was that de Gaulle was out of touch with the average Frenchman, preoccupying himself with military and foreign affairs while giving scant attention to domestic issues.

[edit] Retirement

U.S. president Richard Nixon visiting president Charles de Gaulle one month before de Gaulle's retirement. Charles de Gaulle resigned the presidency at noon, 28 April 1969,[143][144] following the rejection of his proposed reform of the Senate and local governments in a nationwide referendum. De Gaulle vowed that if the referendum failed, he would resign his office. Despite an eight-minute-long speech by de Gaulle, the referendum failed and he duly resigned. Two months later Georges Pompidou was elected as his successor.[145] De Gaulle retired once again to his beloved nine-acre country estate, La Boisserie (the woodland glade), in Colombey-les-Deux-glises, 120 miles southeast of Paris. There the General, who often described old age as a "shipwreck,"[146] continued his memoirs, dictated to his secretary from notes. To visitors, de Gaulle said, "I will finish three books, if God grants me life." The Renewal, the first of three planned volumes to be called Memoirs of Hope, was quickly finished and immediately became the fastest seller in French publishing history. During the day he also usually took two strolls, one alone and the other with his wife Yvonne around the village.

He did not accept the sizable pensions to which he was entitled as a retired president and as a retired general, but only a much smaller colonel's pension. He was punctilious with regard to money, taking care to separate his private expenses from those of his official function. He paid for his own haircuts and the stamps for personal correspondence, and had an electricity meter installed in the private accommodation at his official residence.[34]

[edit] Private life

Charles de Gaulle married Yvonne Vendroux on 7 April 1921. They had three children: Philippe (born 1921), lisabeth (1924), who married General Alain de Boissieu, and Anne (19281948). Anne had Down's syndrome and died of pneumonia at the age of 20. De Gaulle always had a particular love for his handicapped daughter; one Colombey resident recalled how he used to walk with her hand-in-hand around the property, caressing her and talking quietly about the things she understood.[146] Like her husband, Yvonne de Gaulle was a conservative Catholic, and campaigned against prostitution, to stop pornography from being sold in newsstands and sex and nudity from being shown on TV, for which she earned the nickname "Tante ("Auntie") Yvonne." Later she unsuccessfully tried to persuade de Gaulle to outlaw miniskirts in France. Charles de Gaulle had an older brother Xavier (1887-1955) and sister Marie-Agnes (1889-1983), and two younger brothers, Jaques (1893-1946) and Pierre (1897-1959). He was particularly close to the youngest, Pierre, who so resembled him that Presidential bodyguards often saluted him by mistake when he visited his famous brother or accommpanied him on official visits. One of Charles de Gaulle's grandsons, also named Charles de Gaulle, was a member of the European Parliament from 1994 to 2004, his last tenure being for the National Front.[147] Another grandson, Jean de Gaulle, was a member of the French Parliament until his retirement in 2007.[148]

[edit] Death
On 9 November 1970, two weeks short of what would have been his 80th birthday, Charles de Gaulle died suddenly, despite enjoying very robust health his entire life (except for a prostate operation a few years earlier). He had been watching the evening news on television and playing Solitaire around 7:40 PM when he suddenly pointed to his neck and said "I feel a pain right here" before collapsing. His wife called the doctor and the local priest, but by the time they arrived he had died from a ruptured blood vessel.[149] His wife asked that she be allowed to inform her family before the news was released. She was able to contact her daughter in Paris quickly, but their son, who was in the navy was difficult to track down and so the President, Georges Pompidou was not informed until 4:00 AM the next morning and went on television some 18 hours after the event to inform the nation of the general's death. He said simply: "General de Gaulle is dead. France is a widow." De Gaulle had made arrangements that insisted that his funeral would be held at Colombey, and that no presidents or ministers attend his funeral only his Compagnons de la Libration.[150] Despite his wishes, such were the number of foreign dignitaries who wanted to honour de Gaulle that Pompidou was forced to arrange a separate memorial service at the Notre-Dame Cathedral, to be held

at the same time as his actual funeral. Among those at the memorial service were 63 present or former heads of state, including US President Richard Nixon, Soviet President Nikolai Podgorny, British Prime Minister Edward Heath, the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the President of Italy, representatives of 17 of Frances former African colonies and the reigning monarchs of Ethiopia, Iran, The Netherlands, Belgium, Monaco and Luxembourg. Also in the congregation were David BenGurion, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, Harold Wilson, former West German Chancellors Ludwig Erhard and Kurt-Georg Kiesinger, Marlene Dietrich and US Senator Edward Kennedy, who remembered de Gaulle's immediate decision to attend the funeral of his brother John following his assassination in 1963. The Chinese leader Mao Zedong was unable to attend but sent a wreath. The only notable absentee was Canadian PM Pierre Trudeau, possibly because he was still angry over de Gaulle's cry of "Vive le Quebec libre" during his 1967 visit.[146] The funeral on 12 November 1970 was the biggest such event in French history, with hundreds of thousands of French people - many carrying blankets and picnic baskets - and thousands of cars parked in the roads and fields along the routes to the two venues. Special trains were laid on to bring extra mourners to the region and the crowd was packed so tightly that those who fainted had to be passed overhead toward first-aid stations at the rear.[146] The General was conveyed to the church on an armoured reconnaissance vehicle and carried to his grave, next to his daughter Anne, by eight young men of Colombey. As he was lowered into the ground, the bells of all the churches in France tolled, starting from Notre Dame and spreading out from there.[151] Madame de Gaulle asked the undertaker to provide the same type of simple oak casket that he used for everyone else, but because of the General's extreme height, the coffin cost $9 more than usual.[146] He specified that his tombstone bear the simple inscription of his name and his years of birth and death. Therefore, it simply says: "Charles de Gaulle, 18901970".[152]

Grave of Charles de Gaulle at Colombey-les-Deux-glises The French newspaper Le Monde referred to the days after his death as "a planetary mourning."[citation needed] At the service, President Pompidou said "de Gaulle gave France her governing institutions, her independence and her place in the world."[citation needed] Andr Malraux, the writer and intellectual who served as his Minister of Culture, called him "a man of the day before yesterday and the day after tomorrow."[citation needed]

His family has turned the La Boisserie residence into a foundation. It is currently the Charles de Gaulle Museum.[citation needed]

[edit] Legacy
According to a 2005 survey, carried out in the context of the tenth anniversary of the death of Socialist President Franois Mitterrand, 35% of respondents said Mitterrand was the best French President ever, followed by Charles de Gaulle (30%) and then Jacques Chirac (12%).[153] Another poll by BVA four years later, showed that 87% of French people regarded his presidency positively.[154] Statues have been erected in his honor in Warsaw, Moscow, and Quebec. The first Algerian president Ahmed Ben Bella, said of de Gaulle that before granting Algeria independence, that while he was the "military leader who brought us the hardest blows" he also "saw further" than other politicians, and that his "universal dimension that is too often lacking in current leaders."[155] Likewise, Lopold Sdar Senghor, the first President of Senegal, said that few Western leaders could boast of having risked their lives to grant a colony independence. In 1990, his old political enemy, the Socialist President Francois Mitterrand presided over the celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth. Mitterrand, having once written a vitriolic critique of him called the Permanent Coup dEtat, quoted a then recent opinion poll, saying; "As General de Gaulle, he has entered the pantheon of great national heroes, where he ranks ahead of Napoleon and behind only Charlemagne."[156] Although he initially enjoyed good relations with U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who admired his stance against the Soviet Union - particularly when the Berlin Wall was being built - and who called him "a great captain of the western world", their relationship later cooled.[19] De Gaulle was Kennedy's most loyal ally during the Cuban Missile Crisis and supported the right that the United States claimed to defend its interests in the Western Hemisphere, in contrast to then German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer who doubted Kennedy's commitment to Europe and thought the crisis could have been avoided.[157] Nevertheless, de Gaulle was a prominent figure at Kennedy's funeral.[158] De Gaulle was very much admired by the later President Nixon, however. After a meeting at the Palace of Versailles just before the general left office, Nixon declared that "He did not try to put on airs but an aura of majesty seemed to envelop him... his performance - and I do not use that word disparagingly - was breathtaking."[19] On arriving for his funeral several months later, Nixon said of him "greatness knows no national boundaries".[159] The French professor and academic Rgis Debray, who served as Foreign Affairs adviser to President Franois Mitterrand, in his book Charles de Gaulle: Futurist of the Nation (1994), wrote: "I cannot hope to get Charles of France intact across the Channel. The clich-covered gravestone is too heavy. And how does one preserve some freedom of thought between the pomposities of official courtesy on the one hand and, on the other, the unshakeable suspicion with which many of my British friends regard an archaic, ungrateful xenophobe, authoritarian and vaguely fascist ? Neither the worldwide dissemination of images and capital, nor the digging of the Channel Tunnel, alters the fact that caricatures travel better than portraits. After all, the bowlers, umbrellas and thin drizzle of the City do not travel either, any more than the morning sfumato in the hills of Siena or the bouquet of great Bordeaux. I am afraid that, like them, this victorious soldier, who disdained the military and placed the writer above the warrior, may have to be consumed in his country of origin".[160]

Debray called de Gaule "super-lucide" [160] and pointed out that virtually all of his predictions, such as the fall of communism, the reunification of Germany and the resurrection of old Russia had come true since his death. Debray compared him with Napoleon ('the great political myth of the nineteenth century'), calling de Gaulle his twentieth century equivalent, "The sublime, it seems, appears in France only once a century Napoleon left two generations dead on battlefield De Gaulle was more sparing with other people blood; even so, he left us, as it were, stranded, alive but dazed A delusion, perhaps, but one that turns the world upside down: causes events and movements; divides people into supporters and adversaries; leaves traces in the form of civil and penal codes and railways, factories and institutions (the Fifth Republic has already lasted three times as long as the Empire). A statesman who gets something going, who has followers, escapes the reality of the reports and statistics and become part of imagination. Napoleon and de Gaulle modified the state of things because they modified souls [160] However, Debray pointed out that there is a difference between Napoleon and de Gaulle : How can the exterminator be compared with the liberator ?... The former ran the whole enterprise into the ground, while the latter managed to save it. So that to measure the rebel against the despot, the challenger against the leader, is just glaringly idiotic. You simply do not put an adventurer who worked for himself or his family on the same level as a commander-in-chef serving his country Regrettably, Gaullism and Bonopartism have a number of features in common, but Napoleon and de Gaulle do not have the same moral value. ... the first wanted a Holy French Empire without the faith, a Europe under French occupation. The second wanted to rescue the nation from the emperors and establish a free France in a free Europe".[160] Debray continued that he could not say if the general ever loved Britain, but that ironically, as a result of reading his account of his time in exile in his autobiography, "Probably no Frenchman since Hastings has done more to create a familiar, attractive and romantic image of the hereditary enemy Britain in the minds of Frenchmen of a certain age than this champion of the French self-interest". On Algeria, the Australian historian Brian Crozier has written "that he was able to part with Algeria without civil war was a great though negative achievement which in all probability would have been beyond the capacity of any other leader France possessed."[161] In April 1961, when four rebel generals seized power in Algeria, he "did not flinch in the face of this daunting challenge", but appeared on television in his generals uniform to forbid Frenchmen to obey the rebels' orders in an "inflexible display of personal authority". The historian K. Perry, while referring to his handling of the Algerian settlement as "a masterly performance", went on to say that "his impatient shedding of the problem increased the price in human terms that had to be paid. He was so possessed by a burning ambition to restore French greatness and break American leadership in western international affairs that he wished for a speedy end to the Algerian problem, which had become a tiresome distraction for him".[50] A number of commentators have been critical of de Gaulle for his failure to prevent the massacres after Algerian independence[50] while others take the view that the struggle had been so long and savage that it was perhaps inevitable.[19] De Gaulle was an excellent manipulator of the media, as seen in his shrewd use of television to persuade around 80% of Metropolitan France to approve the new constitution for the Fifth Republic. In so doing, he refused to yield to the reasoning of his opponents who said that, if he succeeded in Algeria, he would no longer be necessary. He afterwards enjoyed massive approval ratings, and once said that "every Frenchman is, has been or will be Gaullist".[162] In its obituary,[146] TIME magazine said;

"He rescued his nation not once but twice, the first time from the shame of its capitulation to the Nazis in World War II, the second from its own quarrelling factions. With the Fifth Republic, he gave France its first strong governmental framework since the days of Louis Napoleon He was indeed l'homme du destin, (the man of destiny) as Winston Churchill once called him, and even his name, suggestive of both Charlemagne and ancient Gaul, was perfectly suited to the role he took upon himself. But the fact was that France offered de Gaulle too limited a scope and power base. Try as he might, he could not change the basic reality that France simply lacked the specific gravity to offset the force of a superpower. "Like most crusaders, de Gaulle was extraordinarily farsighted but sometimes, maddeningly, his imperious manner and fragile sensibilities infuriated his nation's closest allies. In a vain effort to force French leadership on Europe, he twice vetoed Britain's entry into the continent's first economic cooperative, the Common Market. At home, he stinted on public welfare in the form of new roads, telephones and a thousand other needed improvements, to pay for symbolically important but ultimately hollow shows of prestige, like the nuclear Force de Frappe" In Britain, his apparent betrayal at twice preventing the British attempt at joining the EEC was keenly felt for many years.[citation needed] That de Gaulle did not necessarily reflect mainstream French public opinion with his veto was suggested by the decisive majority of French people who voted in favour of British membership when the much more conciliatory Pompidou called a referendum on the matter in 1972. His early influence in setting the parameters of the EEC can still be seen today, most notably with the controversial Common Agricultural Policy. Some writers take the view that Pompidou was a more progressive and influential leader than de Gaulle because, though also a Gaullist, he was less autocratic and more interested in social reforms.[50][163] Although he followed the main tenets of de Gaulles foreign policy, he was keen to work towards warmer relations with the US. A banker by profession, Pompidou is also widely credited, as de Gaulle's Prime Minister from 19621968, with putting in place the reforms which provided the impetus for the economic growth which followed. In 1968, shortly before leaving office, de Gaulle refused to devalue the Franc on grounds of national prestige, but upon taking over Pompidou reversed the decision almost straight away. It was ironic, that during the financial crisis of 1968, France had to rely on American (and West German) financial aid to help shore up the economy.[50] Perry has written "The events of 1968 illustrated the brittleness of de Gaulles rule That he was taken by surprise is an indictment of his rule; he was too remote from real life and had no interest in the conditions under which ordinary French people lived. Problems like inadequate housing and social services had been ignored. The French greeted the news of his departure with some relief as the feeling had grown that he had outlived his usefulness. Perhaps he clung onto power too long, perhaps he should have retired in 1965 when he was still popular."[50] Brian Crozier has said "the fame of de Gaulle outstrips his achievements, he chose to make repeated gestures of petulance and defiance that weakened the west without compensating advantages to France"[161] However, Daniel Mahoney writes that "such is the level to which de Gaulle has now passed into mythology in France that he is now claimed by all the political parties, though some more than others. No account of de Gaulle that wishes to capture the man and his works can simply be a profile of his time in power, for Charles de Gaulle was undoubtably one of the great human beings of the twentieth century, a member of that distinguished elite who deserve the appellation statesman "[156]

Writing in 1995, another commentator, Pierre Manent attempted to explain why he remains so popular in France, yet not in the United States; "It is true that de Gaulle wanted France to take its destiny into its own hands and wished it would cease to depend on American protection. As such, this ambition was legitimate, even if one disagrees with the manner in which it was formulated and put into practice. As for the wartime difficulties with Roosevelt, the great American president was simply mistaken about de Gaulle, whom he took to be an aspiring despot, and this error of judgement was the principal cause of grave political differences that could have been avoided."[156] Despite spending virtually his entire political career at odds with de Gaulle and his policies, the eminent diplomat and economist Jean Monnet had no doubt about the positive role he played in leading the Free French during the first years of the war and immediately after the liberation. Speaking in 1965 he told a journalist; First things first, before a united Europe and an Atlantic partnership there had to be a united France, strong, mobilized and able to assume a leading role among the Western allies. Without de Gaulle or against de Gaulle, we could not have liberated or reconstructed France. There was no one but de Gaulle. Whatever his faults, he was a tower of strength and inspiration.[18]

[edit] 1st Government: 10 September 1944 onwards

Charles de Gaulle: Prime Minister Jules Jeaneney: Minister of State Pierre Mendes-France: Minister for National Economy Aime Lepercq: Minister of Finance Georges Bidault: Minister for Foreign Affairs Franois Billoux: Minister of Health Charles Tillon: Minister of Air Augustin Laurent: Minister of Posts and Telegraphs Adrien Tixier: Minister of the Interior Ren Plven: Minister of Overseas France Georges Catroux: Minister of North Africa Ren Capitant: Minister of Public Education Robert Lacoste: Minister of Industrial Production Franois Tanguy-Prigent: Minister of Agriculture Andre Diethelm: Minister of National Defence Franois de Menthon: Minister of Justice Ren Mayer: Minister of Transport Pierre-Henri Teitgen: Minister of Information Jacques Soustelle: Commissaire de la Rpublique for Bordeaux Henri Frville: Commissaire rgional de la Rpublique for Breton Maurice Papon: Commissaire de la Rpublique for Aquitaine Michel Debr: Commissaire de la Rpublique for Angers Raymond Aubrac: Commissaire de la Rpublique Marseilles Pierre Bertaux: Commissaire de la Rpublique Toulouse Jean Monnet: Commissioner for Economic Planning Rene Brouillet: Assistant Director of Cabinet Francois Coulet: Commissioner Delegate of Inter-Allied Affairs Gaston Palewski: Chief of staff

Claude Guy: Aide-de-camp Claude Mauriac: Private Secretary Georges Pompidou: Special Advisor to PM Office

[edit] 2nd Government: 21 December1945 26 January 1946

Charles de Gaulle: Chairman of the Provisional Government France Georges Bidault: Minister of Foreign Affairs Edmond Michelet: Armed Forces Minister Charles Tillon: Minister of Armaments Adrien Tixier: Minister of the Interior Ren Pleven: Minister of Finance Franois Billoux: Minister of National Economy Marcel Paul: Minister of Industrial Production Ambroise Croizat: Minister of Labour Pierre-Henri Teitgen: Minister of Justice Paul Giacobbi: Minister of National Education Laurent Casanova: Minister of Veterans and War Victims Franois Tanguy-Prigent: Minister of Agriculture and Supply Jacques Soustelle: Minister of Colonies Jules Moch: Minister of Public Works and Transport Robert Prigent: Minister of Population Raoul Dautry: Minister of Reconstruction and Town Planning Eugne Thomas: Minister of Posts Andr Malraux: Minister of Information Vincent Auriol: Minister of State Francisque Gay: Minister of State Louis Jacquinot: Minister of State Maurice Thorez: Minister of State

[edit] 3rd Government, 9 June 1958 8 January 1959

Charles de Gaulle: President of the Council and Minister of National Defence Maurice Couve de Murville: Minister of Foreign Affairs mile Pelletier: Minister of the Interior Antoine Pinay: Minister of Finance and interim Minister of Public Works, Transport, and Tourism douard Ramonet: Minister of Industry Paul Bacon: Minister of Labour Edmond Michelet: Minister of Veterans and War Victims Michel Debr: Minister of Justice Jean Berthoin: Minister of National Education Roger Houdet: Minister of Agriculture Bernard Cornut-Gentille: Minister of Overseas France Robert Buron: Minister of Public Works, Transport, and Tourism Eugne Thomas: Minister of Posts douard Ramonet: Minister of Commerce Pierre Sudreau: Minister of Construction

Max Lejeune: Minister of Sahara Guy Mollet: Minister of State Pierre Pflimlin: Minister of State Flix Houphout-Boigny: Minister of State Louis Jacquinot: Minister of State

Changes

12 June 1958: Andr Malraux enters the cabinet as Minister of Radio, Television, and Press. 14 June 1958: Guy Mollet becomes Minister of General Civil Servants Status. 7 July 1958: Bernard Chenot enters the cabinet as Minister of Public Health and Population. Jacques Soustelle succeeds Malraux as Minister of Information. 23 July 1958: Antoine Pinay becomes Minister of Economic Affairs, remaining also Minister of Finance.

[edit] In popular culture

St Mary's Church, Hampstead In France, he is commonly referred to as Gnral de Gaulle or simply Le Gnral. Free French sometimes called him "Le grand Charles". His detractors sometimes call him la Grande Zohra.[164] De Gaulle is the main character in the 2009 movie Adieu De Gaulle adieu. De Gaulle is a presence in the Frederick Forsyth novel The Day of the Jackal, in which the Organisation de l'arme secrte after the failure of the actual August 1962 Petit Clamart assassination attempt hire an English professional assassin to kill him on Liberation Day 1963. The novel was made into a film, starring Edward Fox and Michel Lonsdale, in 1973. The Flanders and Swann song "All Gall" contains highlights from de Gaulle's career set to the tune of This Old Man. Charles de Gaulle's head was in the Futurama movie Bender's Big Score as a reference to the Scott Walker song 30 Century Man also featured in the movie.

De Gaulle was seen in Ike: Countdown to D-Day played by actor George Shevtsov. In the film he opposes the plans to invade Normandy and Dwight D. Eisenhower's request that the French people accept Eisenhower as the united voice of the Allies. During his stay in London during World War II, he lived in Hampstead at 99 Frognal, now occupied by St Dorothy's Convent, and attended St Mary's Church, Hampstead.

[edit] Honours and awards

[edit] French

Grand Master of the Lgion d'honneur - 1959 (Officer - 1934; Knight - 1915) Grand Master of the Ordre de la Libration

Coat of arms as Knight of the Order of the Seraphim

Grand Master of the Ordre national du Mrite - 1963 Croix de guerre 1915 Croix de guerre (19391945)

[edit] Foreign

Knight Grand Cross decorated with Grand Cordon of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (16 June 1959) Knight of the Order of the Royal House of Chakri Knight of the Royal Order of the Seraphim (Sweden, 8 May 1963) [165] Knight of the Order of the Elephant (Denmark, 5 April 1965) [166] Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav Silver Cross of Virtuti Militari (1920)[167] Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the White Rose Grand Cordon of the Order of the Dragon of Annam Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Cambodia

[edit] Memorials
A number of monuments have been built to commemorate the life of Charles de Gaulle. Further information: Things named after Charles de Gaulle France's largest airport, located in Roissy, outside Paris, is named Charles de Gaulle Airport in his honour. France's nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is also named after him.

[edit] Works
[edit] French editions

La Discorde Chez lEnnemi (1924) Histoire des Troupes du Levant (1931) Written by Major de Gaulle and Major Yvon, with Staff Colonel de Mierry collaborating in the preparation of the final text. Le Fil de lpe (1932) Vers lArme de Mtier (1934) La France et son Arme (1938) Trois tudes (1945) (Rle Historique des Places Fortes; Mobilisation Economique ltranger; Comment Faire une Arme de Mtier) followed by the Memorandum of 26 January 1940. Mmoires de Guerre o Volume I LAppel 19401942 (1954) o Volume II LUnit, 19421944 (1956) o Volume III Le Salut, 19441946 (1959) Mmoires dEspoir o Volume I Le Renouveau 19581962 (1970) Discours et Messages o Volume I Pendant la Guerre 19401946 (1970) o Volume II Dans lattente 19461958 (1970) o Volume III Avec le Renouveau 19581962 (1970) o Volume IV Pour lEffort 19621965 (1970) o Volume V Vers le Terme 19661969

[edit] English translations

The Enemy's House Divided (La Discorde chez lennemi) Tr by Robert Eden University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2002. The Edge of the Sword (Le Fil de lpe) Tr by Gerard Hopkins Faber, London, 1960 Criterion Books, New York, 1960 The Army of the Future (Vers lArme de Mtier) Hutchinson, London-Melbourne, 1940. Lippincott, New York, 1940 France and Her Army (La France et son Arme). Tr. by F.L. Dash. Hutchinson London, 1945. Ryerson Press, Toronto, 1945 War Memoirs: Call to Honour, 19401942 (LAppel) Tr by Jonathan Griffin Collins, London, 1955 (2 volumes). Viking Press, New York, 1955.

War Memoirs: Unity, 19421944 (LUnit) Tr by Richard Howard (narrative) and Joyce Murchie and Hamish Erskine (documents). Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1959 (2 volumes). Simon and Schuster, New York, 1959 (2 volumes). War Memoirs: Salvation, 19441946' (Le Salut). Tr. by Richard Howard (narrative) and Joyce Murchie and Hamish Erskine (documents). Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1960 (2 volumes). Simon and Schuster, New York, 1960 (2 volumes). Memoirs of Hope: Renewal, 1958-1962. Endeavour, 1962- (Le Renouveau) (L'Effort). Tr. by Terence Kilmartin. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1971.

[edit] See also

Biography portal France portal Politics portal

Gaullism Gaullist Party List of names and terms of address used for Charles de Gaulle

[edit] Notes
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. ^ "Cinquime Rpublique". Assemble Nationale Franaise. 2008. http://www.assembleenationale.fr/histoire/legislatures.asp. Retrieved 2 November 2008. ^ a b Ledwidge p. 50-52 ^ Keegan, John. Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris. 1994, 1982. New York: Penguin Books. p 296 ^ a b Berthon, Simon (2001). Allies at War. London: Collins. p. 21. ISBN 0-00-711622-5. ^ "Fondation Charles de Gaulle". http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/pages/l-homme/accueil/biographie/1940-1944la-france-libre-et-la-france-combattante.php?searchresult=1&sstring=FFL. Retrieved 10 September 2009. ^ "Fondation Charles de Gaulle". http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/pages/l-homme/accueil/biographie/1940-1944la-france-libre-et-la-france-combattante.php. Retrieved 10 September 2009. ^ "Fondation Charles de Gaulle". http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/pages/l-homme/dossiers-thematiques/19581970-la-ve-republique/politique-et-institutions.php. Retrieved 10 September 2009.[dead link] ^ "Chronologie 18901913" (in French). La fondation Charles de Gaulle. http://www.charles-degaulle.org/pages/l-homme/dossiers-thematiques/1890-1940-la-genese/jeunesse-et-formation/reperes/chronologie1890-1913.php. Retrieved 8 November 2010. ^ a b c d e f g "Charles de Gaulle". Grolier Online. http://www.grolier.com/wwii/wwii_degaulle.html. Retrieved 27 December 2008.[dead link] ^ "Fondation Charles de Gaulle La Gense 18901940 : une famille du Nord". http://www.charles-degaulle.org/pages/l-homme/dossiers-thematiques/1890-1940-la-genese/jeunesse-et-formation/analyses/une-familledu-nord.php. Retrieved 10 September 2009. ^ Franois Flohic, Souvenirs dOutre -Gaulle, Paris, Plon, 1979, p. 208 (en citant Richard Hayes, Biographical Dictionary of Irishmen in France, Dublin, Gill, 1949, p. 163)One Anthony MacCartan, of Kinclary in County Down, after fighting for the Jacobite cause in Ireland, left to enlist in the Irish Brigade of the King of France, like many veterans of that war. By the end of the 18th century, the MacCartan family had taken root in the north of France. ^ Crawley, Aidan (1969). De Gaulle. London: The Literary Guild. pp. 1316. ASIN B000KXPUCK. ^ (Ledwidge, Bernard (1982), De Gaulle. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. p. 6. ISBN 0-297-77952-4) ^ Crawley p. 1314

9. 10.

11.

12. 13. 14.

15. ^ Crawley comments further: 'Henri's theory may have been known in scholastic circles, for in November 1940, a group of Paris students marched around the Arc de Triomphe each carrying two poles ('deux gaules') as a gesture of defiance to the uncomprehending Germans'. 16. ^ "Fondation Charles de Gaulle". http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/article.php3?id_article=1077. Retrieved 11 January 2009. 17. ^ Paul-Marie de La Gorce, De Gaulle entre deux mondes, Fayard, 1964, p. 14 18. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t The Three Lives of Charles de Gaulle: David Schoenbrun, 1966 19. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v The General Charles de Gaulle & The France He Saved: Jonathan Fenby 2010. 20. ^ Dallas, Gregor (2005). 1945: The War That Never Ended. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. p. 90. ISBN 0-300-10980-6. 21. ^ Gorman, Robert F. (ed.) (2008) "Charles de Gaulle" Great Lives from History: The 20th century Salem Press, Pasadena, Calif., ISBN 978-1-58765-345-2 22. ^ Debray, Rgis (1994) Charles de Gaulle: Futurist of the Nation translated by John Howe, Verso, New York, ISBN 0-86091-622-7; a translation of Debray, Rgis (1990) A demain de Gaulle Gallimard, Paris, ISBN 2-07072021-7 23. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Charles de Gaulle". Time. 5 January 1959. http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/personoftheyear/archive/stories/1958.html. Retrieved 9 October 2010. 24. ^ Ledwidge, Bernard (1982). De Gaulle. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. p. 24. ISBN 0-297-77952-4. 25. ^ "Index of Surnames: Polish Order of the Virtuti Militari Recipients (1792 1992)". Z Wesolowski and FEEFHS. 1997. http://feefhs.org/pl/vm/vm-d.html. Retrieved 28 December 2008. 26. ^ "Virtuti Militari de Gaullea", Rceczpospolita, Janusz R. Kowalczyk, 9 November 2008. Retrieved 8 October 2011. [1] 27. ^ a b c d Brad DeLong (29 May 2000). "Charles de Gaulle". University of California at Berkeley. http://econ161.berkeley.edu/TCEH/charlesdegaulle.html. Retrieved 11 February 2008. 28. ^ "Cabinet Paul Reynaud". Assemble Nationale Franaise. 2008. http://www.assembleenationale.fr/histoire/gvt3rep.asp#paulreynaud. Retrieved 2 November 2008. 29. ^ Roussel, Eric (2002). Charles de Gaulle. Paris: Editions Gallimard. p. 113. ISBN 2-07-075241-0. 30. ^ Monnet, Jean (1 January 1976). Memoires. Paris: Arthme Fayard. pp. 2021. ISBN 2-213-00402-1. 31. ^ Shlaim, Avi (July 1974). "Prelude to Downfall: The British Offer of Union to France, June 1940". Journal of Contemporary History. 3 9 (3): 2763. doi:10.1177/002200947400900302. JSTOR 260024. 32. ^ The Fall of France - Winston Churchill 1948 33. ^ a b "De Gaulle Dead (main story) The year of exile in Salop [ie Shropshire] (sub story)". Shropshire Star: p. 1. 10 November 1970. 34. ^ a b Mahrane, Said (June 2010). "de Gaulle 19581970". Le Point (Grand Angle) (8). 35. ^ http://www.cavortingwithstrangers.com/bookVIII-Gaulle.php 36. ^ Bremner, Charles (18 October 2003). "Did De Gaulle really hate the British Mais non". The Times (London). http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article995545.ece. 37. ^ Peter Yapp, ed. (April 1983). The Travellers' Dictionary of Quotation: Who Said What, About Where? . London: Routledge Kegan & Paul. p. 143. ISBN 0-7100-0992-5, 9780710009920. 38. ^ Allies at War, part 3, BBC TV 39. ^ a b c Keegan, John. Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris. 1994, 1982. New York: Penguin Books. p 298 40. ^ D. Day, The Battle for Normandy. Antony Beevor 2009 41. ^ D. Day: Battle for Normandy. Antony Beevor 2009 42. ^ a b c D. Day; Liberation of Normany. Antony Beevor 2009 43. ^ The European Institute 44. ^ Purnells History of the Second World War: No 123 1966 T he Liberation of Paris by Kenneth Macksey 45. ^ a b c d Purnells History of the Second World War: No. 72 1966. By Jacques Mondal 46. ^ TIME magazine, 4 September 1944 47. ^ "Speech made by General de Gaulle at the Hotel de Ville in Paris on August 25th 1944". Fondation Charles de Gaulle. 2008. http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/article.php3?id_article=514. Retrieved 2 November 2008. 48. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s De Gaulle. Alexander Werth (1965) 49. ^ Daily Mail 22 October 2011 50. ^ a b c d e f g h i Modern European History: K. Perry. WH Allen 1976 51. ^ a b c d e f Modern Russia. John Robottom (1972) 52. ^ The Day the War Ended. London. Martin Gilbert (1995) 53. ^ a b c d Purnells History of the Second World War: No 119 (1966) Frances Retreat from Empire by Philippe Masson 54. ^ TIME, 11 June 1945

55. ^ a b c d TIME magazine, 25 June 1945 56. ^ Anthony Clayton, Three Marshals of France. p. 124 57. ^ Hitchcock, William I. (2004). The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent 1945 to the Present. Random House. p. 112. ISBN 0-385-49799-7. http://books.google.com/?id=fFfhnC4mYccC&pg=PT112&lpg=PT112&dq=%22a+bold+and+ultimately+foolish+ political+ploy%22#v=onepage&q=%22a%20bold%20and%20ultimately%20foolish%20political%20ploy%22&f= false. 58. ^ "Gouvernement Provisoire de la Rpublique Franaise". Assemble Nationale Franaise. 2008. http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/histoire/legislatures-CFLN-Gouvernementprovisoire-et-constituantes.asp. Retrieved 2 November 2008. 59. ^ Purnells History of the Second World War no 119 1966 / 1974 60. ^ TIME Magazine- 16 March 1962 61. ^ "La France face la dcolonisation de 1945 1962". CPRD Champagne-Ardenne. 2008. http://www.crdpreims.fr/cinquieme/decolonisation.htm. Retrieved 2 November 2008. 62. ^ "Generals in Algiers revolt against Paris Demand for "Government of Public Safety"". The Times. 14 May 1958. 63. ^ "Vive De Gaulle General Salan's Public Utterance". The Times. 16 May 1958. 64. ^ "General de Gaulle's Bid for Authority Ready to Assume Powers of Rebublic". The Times. 16 May 1958. 65. ^ "Party System has Failed State and People General de Gaulle Explains his Views". The Times. 20 May 1958. 66. ^ "General Massu Obituary". The Times (London). 29 October 2002. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article818845.ece. Retrieved 28 April 2010. 67. ^ "President Coty speaks of Crumbling Republic". The Times. 30 May 1958. 68. ^ As he commissioned the new constitution and was responsible for its overall framework, de Gaulle is sometimes described as the author of the constitution. De Gaulle's political ideas were written into a constitution by Michel Debr who then guided the text through the enactment process. Thus while the constitution reflects de Gaulle's ideas, Michel Debr was the actual author of the text. 69. ^ "Gen de Gaulle given a majority of 105 Full powers demanded for six months". The Times. 2 June 1958. 70. ^ "Sweeping Vote for General de Gaulle 4:1 Majority says "Yes" to new Constitution". The Times. 29 September 1958. 71. ^ The citation in French is taken from Charles de Gaulle, Mmoires de guerre, tome 1, Plon, 1954 72. ^ "Landslide Vote Repeated for de Gaulle President of Fifth Republic Sweeping Powers". The Times. 22 December 1958. 73. ^ "New Year Brings in New Franc". The Times. 2 January 1960. 74. ^ Crawley p.411, p.428 75. ^ "Germans Give General de Gaulle a Hero's Welcome". The Times. 6 September 1962. 76. ^ Crawley p.422 77. ^ Crawley p.439 78. ^ The Other Empire, BBC Radio Three, episode 5/5, first broadcast 16 September 2011 79. ^ Gaulle, Charles de. (2009) In Encyclopdia Britannica. Retrieved 8 July 2009, from Encyclopdia Britannica Online Library Edition: 80. ^ "Rebels Plot to Seize Power in Paris Sirens to Warn Citizens of Algeria Parachutists General De Gaulle Assumes Dictatorial Powers". The Times. 24 April 1961. 81. ^ Julian T. Jackson, The Other Empire BBC Radio Three, episode 5/5, first broadcast, 16 September 2011 82. ^ Crawley p.381 83. ^ The Other Empire, episode 5/5, BBC Radio Three, first broadcast 16 September 2011 84. ^ "Vote Of Confidence In General De Gaulle Conclusive Referendum Verdict On Algeria Peace". The Times. 9 April 1962. 85. ^ "M. Pompidou Takes Over from M. Debre Few Changes in New Cabinet". The Times. 16 April 1962. 86. ^ Julian Jackson, The Other Empire, BBC Radio 3, episode 5/5, first broadcast 16 September 2011 87. ^ "De Gaulle Challenge to Parliament To Retire if Referendum not Approved Call to Nation before Debate on Censure Motion". The Times. 5 October 1962. 88. ^ "De Gaulle against the Politicians Clear Issue for October Referendum Assembly Election Likely after Solid Censure Vote". The Times. 6 October 1962. 89. ^ ""Yes" Reply for Gen. De Gaulle Over 60 p.c. of Valid Votes President Likely to Keep Office". The Times. 29 October 1962. 90. ^ Kolodziej, Edward A (1974). French International Policy under de Gaulle and Pompidou: The Politics of Grandeur. New Haven, Conn: Cornell University Press. p. 618. ISBN 0-300-10980-6. 91. ^ Purnells History of the Second World War: No 123 1966 By Kenneth Macksey

92. ^ France's GDP was slightly higher than the UK's at the beginning of the 19th century, with the UK surpassing France around 1870. See e.g. Maddison, Angus (1995). L'conomie mondiale 18201992: analyse et statistiques. OECD Publishing. p. 248. ISBN 92-64-24549-9, 9789264245495., Google Books link Maddison, Angus (1995). ibid. ISBN 978-92-64-24549-5. http://books.google.com/?id=A5BFpqBqQ_gC&lpg=PA248&dq=pib%20france%201820&pg=PA248#v=onepage &q=pib%20france%201820. Retrieved 13 May 2010. 93. ^ Haine, W. Scott (1974). Culture and Customs of France. Westport CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006. p. 315. ISBN 0-313-32892-7, 9780313328923. 94. ^ "Marshal Juin Defended General de Gaulle on Moral Issue". The Times. 8 April 1954. 95. ^ "Weekend of Rejoicing in France". The Times. 15 February 1960. 96. ^ Ledwidge p. 341 97. ^ "Independents Fear for France's Future Gaullist Policy Queried". The Times. 18 August 1967. 98. ^ Crawley p.431 99. ^ a b c Fontana History of England - Britain & the World role; Robert Holland 1991 100. ^ a b Present at the Creation - My Years in the State Department - Dean Acheson 1969 101. ^ Purnell's history of the Second World War - number 123 - 1974 102. ^ a b TIME magazine, 8 August 1960 103. ^ Futurist of the Nation: Regis Debray. 1994 104. ^ Twentieth Century Britain. Denis Richards & Antony Quick, 1974 105. ^ "How the EU was built". BBC News. 5 December 2000. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1055729.stm. Retrieved 18 August 2007. 106. ^ "Fondation Charles de Gaulle". http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/article.php3?id_article=375. Retrieved 13 January 2009. 107. ^ "European NAvigator (ENA) General de Gaulle's first veto". http://www.ena.lu/general_gaulle_veto020100862.html. Retrieved 17 January 2009. 108. ^ Moravscik, Andrew (December 2008). The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-3509-9. 109. ^ Harold Wilson Autobiography 110. ^ "Just a Normal Winter's Day in Dover". The Times. 2 January 1973. 111. ^ "Recognition of Peking by France Relations with two regimes Chiang protest but no break". The Times. 28 January 1964. 112. ^ "Chiang Breaks with France". The Times. 11 February 1964. 113. ^ "Nixon's China's Visit and "Sino-U.S. Joint Communiqu". http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/ziliao/3602/3604/t18006.htm. Retrieved 13 January 2009. 114. ^ "De Gaulle's Warm Welcome to Nixon". The Times. 1 March 1969. 115. ^ "Fondation Charles de Gaulle". http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/article.php3?id_article=497. Retrieved 13 January 2009. 116. ^ "Gen. De Gaulle Takes His Legend To S. America 40 Speeches To Be Made During 20,000-Mile Tour". The Times. 18 September 1964. 117. ^ Crawley p.427 118. ^ "France Again Elects Gen. De Gaulle M. Mitterrand Concedes Within 80 Minutes Centre Votes Evenly Divided". The Times. 20 December 1965. 119. ^ "Address by the President of the French Republic (General de Gaulle), Phnom Penh, Cambodia, September 1, 1966". Fondation Charles de Gaulle. 2008. http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/article.php3?id_article=530. Retrieved 2 November 2008. 120. ^ "France Ends Boycott of Common Market No Winners or Losers after Midnight Agreement". The Times. 31 January 1966. 121. ^ "Fondation Charles de Gaulle De Gaulle and Europe". http://www.charles-degaulle.org/article.php3?id_article=178. Retrieved 18 January 2009.[dead link] 122. ^ "European NAvigator (ENA) General de Gaulle's second veto". http://www.ena.lu/general_gaulles_second_veto-020102622.html. Retrieved 17 January 2009. 123. ^ "French Emphasis on Long-Term Issues". The Times. 7 June 1967. 124. ^ The Cherbourg Boats by Doron Geller 125. ^ "Fondation Charles de Gaulle De Gaulle and the Third World". http://www.charles-degaulle.org/article.php3?id_article=180. Retrieved 17 January 2009.[dead link] 126. ^ "France-Israel: from De Gaulle's arms embargo to Sarkozy's election". Ejpress.org. http://www.ejpress.org/article/28101. Retrieved 9 March 2010.

127. ^ "Text of de Gaulle's Answer to Letter From Ben-Gurion". Select.nytimes.com. 10 January 1968. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10C11F73C541B7B93C2A8178AD85F4C8685F9&scp=1&sq=d e+Gaulle+dignified+minorities&st=p. Retrieved 9 March 2010. 128. ^ "920 Days of Fighting, Death and Hunger". The Times. 12 January 1970. 129. ^ Saha, Santosh C. (2006). Perspectives on Contemporary Ethnic Conflict: Primal Violence Or the Politics of Conviction?. Lanham MD: Lexington Books. pp. 344, p.184184. ISBN 0-7391-1085-3, 9780739110850. 130. ^ Depoe, Norman (24 July 1967). "'Vive le Qubec libre!'". On This Day. CBC News. Archived from the original on 24 July 2012. http://www.webcitation.org/69Oj6PyT2. Retrieved 24 July 2012. 131. ^ Gillan, Michael (26 July 1967). "Words unacceptable to Canadians: De Gaulle Rebuked by Pearson". The Globe and Mail (Toronto): pp. 1, 4. 132. ^ Spicer, Keith (27 July 1967). "Paris perplexed by De Gaulle's Quebec conduct". The Globe and Mail (Toronto): p. 23. 133. ^ "Gen De Gaulle Rebuked by Mr Pearson Canada Rejects Efforts to Destroy Unity Quebec Statements Unacceptable". The Times (London). 26 July 1967. 134. ^ Reuters (1 November 1977). "Levesque pays tribute to Charles de Gaulle". The Leader-Post (Regina, Saskatchewan): p. 2. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=d1RVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=gT4NAAAAIBAJ&dq=charles%20de%20gaulle %20vive%20le%20quebec%20libre%20speech%201967&pg=3782%2C11903. Retrieved 25 July 2012. 135. ^ "De Gaulle and "Vive le Qubec Libre"". The Canadian Encyclopedia. 2012. Archived from the original on 24 July 2012. http://www.webcitation.org/69PPnq4FN. Retrieved 24 July 2012. 136. ^ Ellis, Peter Berresford (1993). The Celtic dawn : a history of Pan Celticism. London: Constable. p. 62. 137. ^ "Les femmes et le pouvoir". http://www.histoire-politique.fr/index.php?numero=01&rub=dossier&item=7. Retrieved 13 January 2009. "of the first eleven governments of the Fifth Republic, four contained no women whatsoever. Furthermore, in May 1968, the executive was 100 per cent male." 138. ^ a b Dogan, Mattei (1984). "How Civil War Was Avoided in France". International Political Science Review / Revue internationale de science politique 5 (3): 245277. JSTOR 1600894. 139. ^ "Autocrat of the Grand Manner". The Times. 28 April 1969. 140. ^ Crawley p.454 141. ^ Crawley (p.454) also writes that de Gaulle was undoubtedly using the term in his barrack-room style to mean 'shit in the bed'. De Gaulle had said it first in Bucharest while on an official visit from which he returned on 19 May 1968. Pompidou told the press that de Gaulle used the phrase after the Cabinet Meeting on 19 May. 142. ^ "Dropping the Pilot". The Times. 11 July 1968. 143. ^ "Dclaration du Conseil constitutionnel suite la dmission du Gnral de Gaulle, Prsident de la Rpublique". Constitutional Council of France. 1969. http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionnel/francais/lesdecisions/depuis-1958/decisions-par-date/1969/declaration-de-vacance-1969/decision-declaration-de-vacance1969-du-28-avril-1969.7153.html. 144. ^ "Press Release re Resignation". Fondation Charles de Gaulle. 2008. http://www.charles-degaulle.org/article.php3?id_article=532. Retrieved 2 November 2008. 145. ^ "Charles de Gaulle Defeated". UPI.com. 1969. http://www.upi.com/Audio/Year_in_Review/Events-of1969/Charles-DeGaulle-Defeated/12303189849225-8/. Retrieved 20 May 2010. 146. ^ a b c d e f TIME magazine, 23 November 1970 147. ^ "Site non officiel du Parti socialiste franais". http://www.psinfo.net/elections/municipales/2001/pariscopie/listes/fn.php3. Retrieved 17 January 2009.[dead link] 148. ^ "Assemble Nationale". http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/12/tribun/fiches_id/1437.asp. Retrieved 15 January 2009. 149. ^ "World Leaders to Gather in Paris to Honour General de Gaulle". The Times. 11 November 1970. 150. ^ "Testament de Charles de Gaulle, 16 janvier 1952". Histoire de France et d'ailleurs. http://www.histoire-defrance-et-d-ailleurs.com/articles/Testaments/TestamentdeGaulle.htm. Retrieved 3 February 2009. 151. ^ "1970 Year in Review. De Gaulle and Nasser die". UPI.com. http://www.upi.com/Audio/Year_in_Review/Events-of-1970/DeGaulle-and-Nasser-Die/12303235577467-8. Retrieved 20 May 2010. 152. ^ "Fondation Charles de Gaulle Retirement". http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/article.php3?id_article=377. Retrieved 17 January 2009. 153. ^ Mitterrand, le prfr des Franais [archive], site de TF1-LCI, 2 janvier 2006. 154. ^ Charles de Gaulle, ex-prsident prfr des Franais [archive], Le Nouvel Observateur, 4 novembre 2009. 155. ^ Ahmed Ben Bella, De Gaulle voyait plus loin, in L'Express, 26 October 1995. 156. ^ a b c De Gaulle: Statesmanship, Grandeur and Modern Democracy: Daniel Mahoney 2000 157. ^ Reynolds D. One World Divisible: A Global History Since 1945. 2000. New York: W W Norton and Company.p182

158. ^ [2] 159. ^ [[Time (magazine)|]] , 23 November 1970 160. ^ a b c d "Rgis Debray, "Charles de Gaulle: Futurist of the Nation"". 1994. http://dvd-copy.com/books/BiographyAutobiography/Charles-De-Gaulle/0860914526/free_online.htm. 161. ^ a b De Gaulle; the statesman: Brian Crozier (Methuen). 1974 162. ^ Futurist of the Nation: Rgis Debray. 1994 163. ^ 20th Century Britain. Denis Richards & Anthony Quick. 1974 164. ^ Nickname originally used by French settlers in Algeria. Roger Peyrefitte (9 February 1976). "Des Livres Tableaux de chasse". Albin Michel. pp. 448 p., 45 F.. http://referentiel.nouvelobs.com/archives_pdf/OBS0587_19760209/OBS0587_19760209_011.pdf. Le Nouvel Observateur; In 1948 he made a speech in Edinburgh regarding France's historical alliance with Scotland; Charles de Gaulle described the alliance between Scotland and France as "the oldest alliance in the world". He also declared that:[8] In every combat where for five centuries the destiny of France was at stake, there were always men of Scotland to fight side by side with men of France, and what Frenchmen feel is that no people has ever been more generous than yours with its friendship. Vialatte Alexandre, Sigoda Pascal "Alexandre Vialatte L'Age d'Homme". (31 July 1997). Collection : Les dossiers h. p.150. ISBN 2-8251-2453-2 ISBN 978-2-8251-2453-6 google books 165. ^ Coat of arms 166. ^ Coat of Arms in Frederiksborg Castle 167. ^ rp.pl - Virtuti Militari de Gaulle'a

[edit] References

Aussaresses, General Paul (2010). The Battle of the Casbah: Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in Algeria, 19551957. New York: Enigma Books, ISBN 978-1-929631-30-8. Crawley, Aidan (1969). De Gaulle. London: The Literary Guild. ASIN B000KXPUCK. Rgis Debray (1994) Charles de Gaulle: Futurist of the Nation translated by John Howe, Verso, New York, ISBN 0-86091-622-7; a translation of Debray, Rgis (1990) A demain de Gaulle Gallimard, Paris, ISBN 2-07-072021-7 Fenby, Jonathan. The General: Charles de Gaulle and The France He Saved. Simon and Schuster, 2010. ISBN 978-1-84737-392-2 Haine, W. Scott (2006). Culture and Customs of France. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-328927. Saha, Santosh C. (2006). Perspectives on Contemporary Ethnic Conflict: Primal Violence or the Politics of Conviction?. Lexington Books. ISBN 0-7391-1085-3. Speer, Albert (1997). Inside the Third Reich. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-68482949-5. Dimitri Kitsikis, L'attitude des Etats-Unis l'gard de la France, de 1958 1960. Revue franaise de science politique, 1966, vol.16, no.4.

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