title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle's unit gained recognition for repeatedly crawling out into no man's land to listen to the conversations of the enemy in their trenches, and the information brought back was so valuable that on 18 January 1915 he received the Croix de Guerre. On 10 February he was promoted to captain, initially on probation. On 10 March 1915, de Gaulle was shot in the left hand, a wound which initially seemed trivial but became infected. The wound incapacitated him for four months and later forced him to wear his wedding ring on the right hand. In August he commanded the 10th company before returning to duty as regimental adjutant. On 3 September 1915 his rank of captain became permanent. In late October, returning from leave, he returned to command of 10th company again.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: As a company commander at Douaumont (during the Battle of Verdun) on 2 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 left thigh after being stunned by a shell and was captured after passing out from the effects of poison gas. He was one of the few survivors of his battalion. He was pulled out of an empty shell crater by German soldiers and taken prisoner. The circumstances of his capture would later become a subject of debate as anti-Gaullists spread rumour that he had actually surrendered, a claim de Gaulle nonchalantly dismissed.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle spent 32 months in six different prisoner camps, but he spent most time in the , where his treatment was satisfactory.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In captivity, de Gaulle read German newspapers (he had learned German at school and spent a summer vacation in Germany) and gave talks on his view of the course of the conflict to fellow prisoners. His patriotic fervour and confidence in victory earned him yet another nickname, "Le Connétable" ("The Constable"), the title of the medieval commander-in-chief of the French army. In Ingolstadt were also journalist Remy Roure, who would eventually become a political ally of de Gaulle, and Mikhail Tukhachevsky, a future commander of the Red Army. During his time as a POW, de Gaulle got to know well Tukhachevsky, whose theories about a fast-moving, mechanized army closely resembled his. While a prisoner of war, de Gaulle wrote his first book, "Discorde chez l'ennemi (The Enemy's House Divided)", analysing the issues and divisions within the German forces. The book was published in 1924.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle made five unsuccessful escape attempts, and was moved to a higher-security facility and punished on his return with long periods of solitary confinement and with the withdrawal of privileges such as newspapers and tobacco. He attempted escape by hiding in a laundry basket, digging a tunnel, digging a hole through a wall, and even posing as a nurse to fool his guards. 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 armistice. On 1 December 1918, three weeks later, he returned to his father's house in the Dordogne to be reunited with his three brothers, who had all served in the army and survived the war.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: After the armistice, de Gaulle served with the staff of the French Military Mission to Poland as an instructor of Poland's infantry during its war with communist Russia (1919–1921). He distinguished himself in operations near the River Zbrucz, with the rank of major in the Polish army, and won Poland's highest military decoration, the Virtuti Militari.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle returned to France, where he became a lecturer in military history at St Cyr. He was already a powerful speaker, after practice as a prisoner of war. He then studied at the "École de Guerre" (staff college) from November 1922 to October 1924. Here he clashed with his instructor Colonel Moyrand by arguing for tactics based on circumstances rather than doctrine, and after an exercise in which he had played the role of commander, he refused to answer a question about supplies, replying ""de minimis non-curat praetor"" ("a leader does not concern himself with trivia") before ordering the responsible officer to answer Moyrand. He obtained respectable, but not outstanding grades – 15 or so out of 20 – on many of his assessments. Moyrand wrote in his final report that he was "an intelligent, cultured and serious-minded officer; has brilliance and talent" but criticised him for not deriving as much benefit from the course as he should have done, and for his arrogance: his "excessive self-confidence", his harsh dismissal of the views of others "and his attitude of a King in exile". Having entered 33rd out of 129, he graduated in 52nd place, with a grade of "assez bien" ("good enough"). He was posted to Mainz to help supervise supplies of food and equipment for the French Army of Occupation.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle's book "La Discorde chez l'ennemi" had appeared in March 1924. In March 1925 he published an essay on the use of tactics according to circumstances, a deliberate gesture in defiance of Moyrand.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle's career was saved by Pétain, who arranged for his staff college grade to be amended to "bien" ("good"—but not the "excellent" which would have been needed for a general staff posting). From 1 July 1925 he worked for Pétain (as part of the "Maison Pétain"), largely as a "pen officer" (ghostwriter). De Gaulle disapproved of Pétain's decision to take command in Morocco in 1925 (he was later known to remark that "Marshal Pétain was a great man. He died in 1925, but he did not know it") and of what he saw as the lust for public adulation of Pétain and his wife. In 1925 de Gaulle began to cultivate Joseph Paul-Boncour, his first political patron. On 1 December 1925 he published an essay on the "Historical Role of French Fortresses". This was a popular topic because of the Maginot Line which was then being planned, but his argument was quite nuanced: he argued that the aim of fortresses should be to weaken the enemy, not to economise on defence.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Friction arose between de Gaulle and Pétain over "Le Soldat", a history of the French soldier which he had ghost-written and for which he wanted greater writing credit. He had written mainly historical material, but Pétain wanted to add a final chapter of his own thoughts. There was at least one stormy meeting late in 1926 after which de Gaulle was seen to emerge, white with anger, from Pétain's office. In October 1926 he returned to his duties with the Headquarters of the Army of the Rhine.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle had sworn that he would never return to the "École de Guerre" except as commandant, but at Pétain's invitation, and introduced to the stage by his patron, he delivered three lectures there in April 1927: "Leadership in Wartime", "Character", and "Prestige". These later formed the basis for his book "The Edge of the Sword" (1932). Many of the officers in the audience were his seniors, who had taught and examined him only a few years earlier.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: After spending twelve years as a captain, a normal period, de Gaulle was promoted to "commandant" (major) on 25 September 1927. In November 1927 he began a two-year posting as commanding officer of the 19th "chasseurs à pied" (a battalion of élite light infantry) with the occupation forces at Trier (Treves).


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle trained his men hard (a river crossing exercise of the freezing Moselle River at night was vetoed by his commanding general). He imprisoned a soldier for appealing to his deputy (Member of Parliament) for a transfer to a cushier unit, and when investigated initially tried to invoke his status as a member of the "Maison Pétain", eventually appealing to Pétain to protect himself from a reprimand for interfering with the soldier's political rights. An observer wrote of de Gaulle at this time that although he encouraged young officers, "his ego...glowed from far off". In the winter of 1928–1929, thirty soldiers ("not counting Annamese") died from so-called "German flu", seven of them from de Gaulle's battalion. After an investigation, he was singled out for praise in the ensuing parliamentary debate as an exceptionally capable commanding officer, and mention of how he had worn a mourning band for a private soldier who was an orphan earned an exclamation of praise from the Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: The breach between de Gaulle and Pétain over the ghost-writing of "Le Soldat" had deepened in 1928. Pétain brought in a new ghostwriter, Colonel Audet, who was unwilling to take on the job and wrote to de Gaulle in some embarrassment to take over the project. Pétain was quite friendly about the matter but did not publish the book. In 1929 Pétain did not use de Gaulle's draft text for his eulogy for the late Ferdinand Foch, whose seat at the "Academie Française" he was assuming.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: The Allied occupation of the Rhineland was coming to an end, and de Gaulle's battalion was due to be disbanded, although the decision was later rescinded after he had moved to his next posting. De Gaulle wanted a teaching post at the "École de Guerre" in 1929. There was apparently a threat of mass resignation of the faculty were he appointed to a position there. There was talk of a posting to Corsica or North Africa, but on Pétain's advice he accepted a two-year posting to Lebanon and Syria. In Beirut he was chief of the 3rd Bureau (military operations) of General Louis-Paul-Gaston de Bigault du Granrut, who wrote him a glowing reference recommending him for high command in the future.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In the spring of 1931, as his posting in Beirut drew to a close, de Gaulle once again asked Pétain for a posting to the "École de Guerre". Pétain tried to obtain an appointment for him as Professor of History there, but once again the faculty would not have him. Instead de Gaulle, drawing on plans he had drawn up in 1928 for reform of that institution, asked Pétain to create a special post for him which would enable him to lecture on "the Conduct of War" both to the "École de Guerre" and to the "Centre des Hautes Études Militaires" (CHEM – a senior staff college for generals, known as the "school for marshals"), and also to civilians at the "École Normale Supérieure", and to civil servants.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Pétain instead advised him to apply for a posting to the "Secrétariat Général du Conseil Supérieur de la Défense Nationale" (SGDN – General Secretariat of the Supreme War Council, reporting to the Under-Secretary to the Prime Minister, although later moved to the Ministry of War in 1936) in Paris. Pétain promised to lobby for the appointment, which he thought would be good experience for him. De Gaulle was posted to SGDN in November 1931, initially as a "drafting officer".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in December 1932 and appointed Head of the Third Section (operations). His service at SGDN gave him six years' experience of the interface between army planning and government, enabling him to take on ministerial responsibilities in 1940.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: After studying arrangements in the US, Italy, and Belgium, de Gaulle drafted a bill for the organisation of the country in time of war. He made a presentation about his bill to the CHEM. The bill passed the Chamber of Deputies but failed in the Senate.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Unlike Pétain, de Gaulle believed in the use of tanks and rapid maneuvers rather than trench warfare. De Gaulle became a disciple of Émile Mayer (1851–1938), a retired lieutenant-colonel (his career had been damaged by the Dreyfus Affair) and military thinker. Mayer thought that although wars were still bound to happen, it was "obsolete" for civilised countries to threaten or wage war on one another as they had in previous centuries. He had a low opinion of the quality of French generals, and was a critic of the Maginot Line and a proponent of mechanised warfare. Lacouture suggests that Mayer focused de Gaulle's thoughts away from his obsession with the mystique of the strong leader ("Le Fil d'Epée": 1932) and back to loyalty to Republican institutions and military reform.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In 1934 de Gaulle wrote "Vers l'Armée de Métier" ("Towards a Professional Army"). He proposed mechanization of the infantry, with stress on an élite force of 100,000 men and 3,000 tanks. The book imagined tanks driving around the country like cavalry. De Gaulle's mentor Emile Mayer was somewhat more prophetic than he was about the future importance of air power on the battlefield. Such an army would both compensate for France's population shortage, and be an efficient tool to enforce international law, particularly the Treaty of Versailles, which forbade Germany from rearming. He also thought it would be a precursor to a deeper national reorganisation, and wrote that "a master has to make his appearance [...] whose orders cannot be challenged – a man upheld by public opinion".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Only 700 copies were sold in France; the claim that thousands of copies were sold in Germany is thought to be an exaggeration. De Gaulle used the book to widen his contacts among journalists, notably with André Pironneau, editor of "L'Écho de Paris". The book attracted praise across the political spectrum, apart from the hard left who were committed to the Republican ideal of a citizen army. De Gaulle's views attracted the attention of the maverick politician Paul Reynaud, to whom he wrote frequently, sometimes in obsequious terms. Reynaud first invited him to meet him on 5 December 1934.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: The de Gaulle family were very private. De Gaulle was deeply focused on his career at this time. There is no evidence that he was tempted by fascism, and there is little evidence of his views either on domestic upheavals in 1934 and 1936 or the many foreign policy crises of the decade. He approved of the rearmament drive which the Popular Front government began in 1936, although French military doctrine remained that tanks should be used in penny packets for infantry support (ironically, in 1940 it would be German panzer units that would be used in a manner similar to what de Gaulle had advocated). A rare insight into de Gaulle's political views is a letter to his mother warning her that war with Germany was sooner or later inevitable and reassuring her that Pierre Laval's pact with the USSR in 1935 was for the best, likening it to Francis I's alliance with the Turks against the Emperor Charles V.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: From April 1936, whilst still in his staff position at SGDN, de Gaulle was also a lecturer to generals at CHEM. De Gaulle's superiors disapproved of his views about tanks, and he was passed over for promotion to full colonel in 1936, supposedly because his service record was not good enough. He interceded with his political patron Reynaud, who showed his record to the Minister of War Édouard Daladier. Daladier, who was an enthusiast for rearmament with modern weapons, ensured that his name was entered onto the promotion list for the following year.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In 1937 General Bineau, who had taught him at St Cyr, wrote on his report on his lectureship at CHEM that he was highly able and suitable for high command in the future, but that he hid his attributes under "a cold and lofty attitude". He was put in command of the 507th Tank Regiment (consisting of a battalion of medium Char D2s and a battalion of R35 light tanks) at Metz on 13 July 1937, and his promotion to full colonel took effect on 24 December that year. De Gaulle attracted public attention by leading a parade of 80 tanks into the Place d'Armes at Metz, in his command tank "Austerlitz".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: By now de Gaulle was beginning to be a well-known figure, known as "Colonel Motor(s)". At the invitation of the publisher Plon, he produced another book, "La France et son Armée (France and Her Army)" in 1938. De Gaulle incorporated much of the text he had written for Pétain a decade earlier for the uncompleted book "Le Soldat", to Pétain's displeasure. In the end, de Gaulle agreed to include a dedication to Pétain (although he wrote his own rather than using the draft Pétain sent him), which was later dropped from postwar editions. Until 1938 Pétain had treated de Gaulle, as Lacouture puts it, "with unbounded good will", but by October 1938 he privately thought his former protégé "an ambitious man, and very ill-bred".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: At the outbreak of World War II, de Gaulle was put in command of the French Fifth Army's tanks (five scattered battalions, largely equipped with R35 light tanks) in Alsace. On 12 September 1939 he attacked at Bitche, simultaneously with the Saar Offensive.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: At the start of October 1939, Reynaud asked for a staff posting under de Gaulle, but in the event remained at his post as Minister of Finance. De Gaulle's tanks were inspected by President Lebrun, who was impressed, but regretted that it was too late to implement his ideas. He wrote a paper "L'Avènement de la force mécanique (The coming of the Armoured Force)" which he sent to General Georges (commander-in-chief on the northeast front – who was not especially impressed) and the politician Leon Blum. Daladier, Prime Minister at the time, was too busy to read it.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In late-February 1940, Reynaud told de Gaulle that he had been earmarked for command of an armoured division as soon as one became available. Early in 1940 (the exact date is uncertain), de Gaulle proposed to Reynaud that he be appointed Secretary-General of the War Council, which would in effect have made him the government's military adviser. When Reynaud became prime minister in March he was reliant on Daladier's backing, so the job went instead to the politician Paul Baudouin.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In late-March, de Gaulle was told by Reynaud that he would be given command of the 4th Armoured Division, due to form by 15 May. The government appeared likely to be restructured, as Daladier and Maurice Gamelin (commander-in-chief) were under attack in the aftermath of the Allied defeat in Norway, and had this happened de Gaulle, who on 3 May, was still lobbying Reynaud for a restructuring of the control of the war, might well have joined the government. By 7 May he was assembling the staff of his new division.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: The Germans attacked the West on 10 May. De Gaulle activated his new division on 12 May. The Germans broke through at Sedan on 15 May 1940. That day, with three tank battalions assembled, less than a third of his paper strength, he was summoned to headquarters and told to attack to gain time for General Robert Touchon's Sixth Army to redeploy from the Maginot Line to the Aisne. General Georges told him it was his chance to implement his ideas.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle commandeered some retreating cavalry and artillery units and also received an extra half-brigade, one of whose battalions included some heavy B1 bis tanks. The attack at Montcornet, a key road junction near Laon, began around 04:30 on 17 May. Outnumbered and without air support, he lost 23 of his 90 vehicles to mines, anti-tank weapons, or Stukas. On 18 May he was reinforced by two fresh regiments of armoured cavalry, bringing his strength up to 150 vehicles. He attacked again on 19 May and his forces were once again devastated by German Stukas and artillery. He ignored orders from General Georges to withdraw, and in the early afternoon demanded two more divisions from Touchon, who refused his request. 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: He delayed his retreat until 20 May. On 21 May, at the request of propaganda officers, he gave a talk on French radio about his recent attack. In recognition for his efforts de Gaulle was promoted to the rank of temporary (acting, in Anglophone parlance) brigadier-general on 23 May 1940. Despite being compulsorily retired as a colonel on 22 June (see below) he would wear the uniform of a brigadier-general for the rest of his life.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: On 28–29 May, de Gaulle attacked the German bridgehead south of the Somme at Abbeville, taking around 400 German prisoners in the last attempt to cut an escape route for the Allied forces falling back on Dunkirk.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: The future General Paul Huard, who served under de Gaulle at this time, recorded how he would often stand on a piece of high ground, keeping other officers literally at six yards' distance, subjecting his subordinates to harsh criticism and making all decisions autocratically himself, behaviour consistent with his later conduct as a political leader. Lacouture points out that for all his undoubted energy and physical courage there is no evidence in his brief period of command that he possessed the "hunter's eye" of the great battlefield commander, and that not a single one of his officers joined him in London, although some joined the Resistance in France.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle's rank of brigadier-general became effective on 1 June 1940. That day he was in Paris. After a visit to his tailor to be fitted for his general's uniform, he visited Reynaud, who appears to have offered him a government job for the first time, and later afterwards the commander-in-chief Maxime Weygand, who congratulated him on saving France's honour and asked him for his advice. On 2 June he sent a memo to Weygand vainly urging that the French armoured divisions be consolidated from four weak divisions into three stronger ones and concentrated into an armoured corps under his command. He made the same suggestion to Reynaud.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: On 5 June, the day the Germans began the second phase of their offensive "(Fall Rot)", Prime Minister Paul Reynaud appointed de Gaulle a government minister, as Under-Secretary of State for National Defence and War, with particular responsibility for coordination with the British. Weygand objected to the appointment, thinking him "a mere child". Pétain (Deputy Prime Minister) was also displeased at his appointment and told Reynaud the story of the ghost-writing of "Le Soldat". His appointment received a good deal of press attention, both in France and in the UK. He asked for an English-speaking aide and Geoffroy Chodron de Courcel was given the job.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: On 8 June, de Gaulle visited Weygand, who believed it was "the end" and that after France was defeated Britain would also soon sue for peace. He hoped that after an armistice the Germans would allow him to retain enough of a French Army to "maintain order" in France. He gave a "despairing laugh" when de Gaulle suggested fighting on.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: On 9 June, de Gaulle flew to London and met British Prime Minister Winston Churchill for the first time. It was thought that half a million men could be evacuated to French North Africa, provided the British and French navies and air forces coordinated their efforts. Either at this meeting or on 16 June, he urged Churchill in vain to throw more Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft into the Battle of France, but conceded there and then that Churchill was right to refuse.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In his memoirs, de Gaulle mentioned his support for the proposal to continue the war from French North Africa, but at the time he was more in favour of the plan to form a "redoubt" in Brittany than he later admitted.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Italy entered the war on 10 June. That day de Gaulle was present at two meetings with Weygand (he only mentions one in his memoirs), one at the defence committee and a second where Weygand barged into Reynaud's office and demanded an armistice. When Weygand asked de Gaulle, who wanted to carry on fighting, if he had "anything to suggest", de Gaulle replied that it was the government's job to give orders, not to make suggestions. De Gaulle wanted Paris to be stubbornly defended by de Lattre, but instead it was declared an open city. At around 23:00 Reynaud and de Gaulle left Paris for Tours; the rest of the government left Paris on 11 June.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: On 11 June, de Gaulle drove to Arcis-sur-Aube and offered General Charles Huntziger (Commander of the Central Army Group) Weygand's job as Commander-in-Chief. Huntziger accepted in principle (although according to Henri Massis he was merely amused at the prospect of forming a Breton redoubt – Huntziger would sign the armistice on behalf of Pétain a few weeks later) but de Gaulle was unable to persuade Reynaud to sack Weygand.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Later on 11 June, de Gaulle attended the meeting of the Anglo-French Supreme War Council at the Chateau du Muguet at Briare. The British were represented by Churchill, Anthony Eden, General John Dill (Chief of the Imperial General Staff), General Hastings Ismay and Edward Spears, and the French by Reynaud, Pétain, Weygand, and Georges. Churchill demanded that the French take to guerrilla warfare, and reminded Pétain of how he had come to the aid of the British with forty French divisions in March 1918, receiving a dusty answer in each case. De Gaulle's fighting spirit made a strong impression on the British. At the meeting de Gaulle met Pétain for the first time in two years. Pétain noted his recent promotion to general, adding that he did not congratulate him, as ranks were of no use in defeat. When de Gaulle protested that Pétain himself had been promoted to brigadier-general and division commander at the Battle of the Marne in 1914, he replied that there was "no comparison" with the present situation. De Gaulle later conceded that Pétain was right about that much at least. De Gaulle missed the second day of the conference as he was in Rennes for a meeting (not mentioned in his memoirs) to discuss the plans for the Breton redoubt with General René Altmayer. He then returned to attend a cabinet meeting, at which it was clear that there was a growing movement for an armistice, and which decided that the government should move to Bordeaux rather than de Gaulle's preference for Quimper in Brittany.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: On 13 June, de Gaulle attended another Anglo-French conference at Tours with Churchill, Lord Halifax, Lord Beaverbrook, Spears, Ismay, and Alexander Cadogan. This time few other major French figures were present apart from Reynaud and Baudoin. He was an hour late, and his account is not reliable. Reynaud demanded that France be released from the agreement which he had made with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in March 1940, so that France could seek an armistice. De Gaulle wrote that Churchill was sympathetic to France seeking an armistice, provided that an agreement was reached about what was to happen to the French fleet. This claim was later made by apologists for the Vichy Regime, e.g., General Georges, who claimed that Churchill had supported the armistice as a means of keeping the Germans out of French North Africa. However, is not supported by other eyewitnesses (Churchill himself, Roland de Margerie, Spears) who agree that Churchill said that he "understood" the French action but that he did "not" agree with it. He murmured at de Gaulle that he was ""l'homme du destin (the man of destiny)"", although it is unclear whether de Gaulle actually heard him. At the cabinet meeting that evening Pétain strongly supported Weygand's demand for an armistice, and said that he himself would remain in France to share the suffering of the French people and to begin the national rebirth. De Gaulle was dissuaded from resigning by the Interior Minister Georges Mandel, who argued that the war was only just beginning, and that de Gaulle needed to keep his reputation unsullied.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle arrived at Bordeaux on 14 June, and was given a new mission to go to London to discuss the potential evacuation to North Africa. He had a brief meeting with Admiral Darlan about the potential role of the French Navy. That evening, by coincidence, he dined in the same restaurant as Pétain: he went over to shake his hand in silence, the last time they ever met. Next morning no aircraft could be found so he had to drive to Brittany, where he visited his wife and daughters, and his aged mother (whom he never saw again, as she died in July), before taking a boat to Plymouth (he asked the skipper if he would be willing to carry on the war under the British flag), where he arrived on 16 June. He ordered the boat "Pasteur", with a cargo of munitions, to be diverted to a British port, which caused some members of the French Government to call for him to be put on trial.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: On the afternoon of Sunday 16 June, de Gaulle was at 10 Downing Street for talks about Jean Monnet's mooted Anglo-French political union. He telephoned Reynaud – they were cut off during the conversation and had to resume later – with the news that the British had agreed. He took off from London on a British aircraft at 18:30 on 16 June (it is unclear whether, as was later claimed, he and Churchill agreed that he would be returning soon), landing at Bordeaux at around 22:00 to be told that he was no longer a minister, as Reynaud had resigned as prime minister after the Franco-British Union had been rejected by his cabinet. Pétain had become prime minister with a remit of seeking an armistice with Nazi Germany. De Gaulle was now in imminent danger of arrest.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle visited Reynaud, who still hoped to escape to French North Africa and declined to come to London. Reynaud still had control of secret government funds until the handover of power the next day. It has been suggested that he ordered de Gaulle to go to London, but no written evidence has ever been found to confirm this. Georges Mandel also refused to come.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: At around 09:00 on the morning of 17 June, he flew to London on a British aircraft with Edward Spears. The escape was hair-raising. Spears claimed that de Gaulle had been reluctant to come, and that he had pulled him into the aircraft at the last minute, although de Gaulle's biographer does not accept this. Jean Laurent brought 100,000 gold francs in secret funds provided to him by Reynaud. De Gaulle later told André Malraux of the mental anguish which his flight to London – a break with the French Army and with the recognised government, which would inevitably be seen as treason by many – had caused him.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle landed at Heston Airport soon after 12:30 on 17 June 1940. He saw Churchill at around 15:00 and Churchill offered him broadcast time on BBC. They both knew about Pétain's broadcast earlier that day that stated that "the fighting must end" and that he had approached the Germans for terms. That evening de Gaulle dined with Jean Monnet and denounced Pétain's "treason". The next day the British Cabinet (Churchill was not present, as it was the day of his "Finest Hour" speech) were reluctant to agree to de Gaulle giving a radio address, as Britain was still in communication with the Pétain government about the fate of the French fleet. Duff Cooper (Minister of Information) had an advance copy of the text of the address, to which there were no objections. The cabinet eventually agreed after individual lobbying, as indicated by a handwritten amendment to the cabinet minutes.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle's "Appeal of 18 June" exhorted the French people not to be demoralized and to continue to resist the occupation of France. He also – apparently on his own initiative – declared that he would broadcast again the next day. Few listened to the 18 June speech; the speech was published in some newspapers in metropolitan (mainland) France. It was largely aimed at French soldiers who were then in Britain after being evacuated from Norway and Dunkirk; most showed no interest in fighting for de Gaulle's Free French Forces and were repatriated back to France to become German prisoners of war.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In his next speech, intended for 19 June, de Gaulle denied the legitimacy of the government at Bordeaux. He called on the North African troops to live up to the tradition of Bertrand Clausel, Thomas Robert Bugeaud, and Hubert Lyautey by defying orders from Bordeaux. The British Foreign Office protested to Churchill, and it was not actually broadcast although appearing in de Gaulle's collection of his speeches. Britain still hoped that the new French government would cooperate, and did not want to publicly support a possible alternative whom Alexander Cadogan described as a "crank".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: The 18 June speech invited French soldiers and civilians to join de Gaulle. Although the French embassy did not release his address, some found de Gaulle at his borrowed apartment. The general told one visitor "We are starting from zero" as he had no men, money, or premises. The visitor could help, de Gaulle said, by staying while he went to lunch so that someone would be there to answer the phone or door.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle also tried, largely in vain, to attract the support of French forces in the French Empire. He telegraphed to General Charles Noguès (Resident-General in Morocco and Commander-in-Chief of French forces in North Africa), offering to serve under him or to cooperate in any way. Noguès, who was dismayed by the armistice but agreed to go along with it, refused to cooperate and forbade the press in French North Africa to publish de Gaulle's appeal. Noguès told the British liaison officer that de Gaulle's attitude was "unseemly". De Gaulle also sent a telegram to Weygand offering to serve under his orders, receiving a dismissive reply.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: After the armistice was signed on 21 June 1940, de Gaulle spoke at 20:00 on 22 June to denounce it. The Bordeaux government reacted immediately, annulling his temporary promotion to brigadier-general with effect from the same day, and forcibly retiring him from the French Army (with the rank of colonel) on 23 June "as a disciplinary measure" ("par mesure de discipline"). On 23 June the British Government denounced the armistice as a breach of the Anglo-French treaty signed in March, and stated that they no longer regarded the Bordeaux Government as a fully independent state. They also "took note" of the plan to establish a French National Committee "(FNC)" in exile, but did not mention de Gaulle by name. Jean Monnet, Chairman of the Anglo-French Coordinating Committee, believed de Gaulle could not yet claim that he alone represented fighting France, and that French opinion would not rally to a man operating from British soil. He said this in a letter to de Gaulle on June 23, and noted he had made his concerns known to British Foreign Office officials Cadogan and Robert Vansittart, as well as Edward Spears. Monnet soon resigned as Chairman of the Anglo-French Coordinating Committee, and departed for the US to continue his work securing supplies from North America (now with the British Purchasing Commission.)


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: The armistice took effect from 00:35 on 25 June. Alexander Cadogan of the foreign office sent Gladwyn Jebb, then a fairly junior official, to ask de Gaulle to tone down his next broadcast on 26 June; de Gaulle backed down under protest when Jebb told him that he would otherwise be banned from broadcasting. He claimed erroneously that the French fleet was to be handed over to the Germans. On 26 June de Gaulle wrote to Churchill demanding recognition of his French Committee. On 28 June, after Churchill's envoys had failed to establish contact with the French leaders in North Africa, the British Government recognised de Gaulle as leader of the Free French, despite the reservations of Halifax and Cadogan at the foreign office. Cadogan later wrote that de Gaulle was "that c*** of a fellow", but other foreign office figures Robert Vansittart and Oliver Harvey were quite sympathetic, as was "The Times" which gave de Gaulle plenty of coverage.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle had little success in attracting the support of major figures. Ambassador Charles Corbin, who had strongly supported the mooted Anglo-French Union on 16 June, resigned from the French Foreign Office but retired to South America. Alexis Leger, Secretary-General at the Quai d'Orsay (who hated Reynaud for sacking him) came to London but went on to the US. Roland de Margerie stayed in France despite his opposition to the armistice. De Gaulle received support from Captain Tissier and André Dewavrin (both of whom had been fighting in Norway prior to joining the Free French), Gaston Palewski, Maurice Schumann, and the jurist René Cassin.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Pétain's government was recognised by the US, the USSR, and the Papacy, and controlled the French fleet and the forces in almost all her colonies. At this time de Gaulle's followers consisted of a secretary of limited competence, three colonels, a dozen captains, a famous law professor (Cassin), and three battalions of legionnaires who had agreed to stay in Britain and fight for him. For a time the New Hebrides were the only French colony to back de Gaulle. On 30 June 1940 Admiral Muselier joined the Free French.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle initially reacted angrily to news of the Royal Navy's attack on the French fleet (3 July); Pétain and others wrongly blamed him for provoking it by his 26 June speech (in fact it had been planned at least as early as 16 June). He considered withdrawing to Canada to live as a private citizen and waited five days before broadcasting. Spears called on de Gaulle on 5 July and found him "astonishingly objective" and acknowledging that it was the right thing from the British point of view. Spears reported to Churchill that de Gaulle had shown "a splendid dignity". In his broadcast of 8 July he spoke of the "pain and anger" caused by the attack and that it was a "hateful tragedy not a glorious battle", but that one day the enemy would have used the ships against England or the French Empire, and that the defeat of England would mean "bondage forever" for France. "Our two ancient nations...remain bound to one another. They will either go down both together or both together they will win".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: On Bastille Day (14 July) 1940 de Gaulle led a group of between 200 and 300 sailors to lay a wreath at the statue of Ferdinand Foch at Grosvenor Gardens. A mass of anonymous flowers were left on his mother's grave on 16 July 1940, suggesting he was not without admirers in France.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: From 22 July 1940 de Gaulle used 4 Carlton Gardens in central London as his London headquarters. His family had left Brittany (the other ship which left at the same time was sunk) and lived for a time at Petts Wood. As his daughter Anne was terrified by the Blitz they moved to Ellesmere in Shropshire, a four-hour journey from London and where de Gaulle was only able to visit them once a month. His wife and daughter also lived for a time in the country at Rodinghead House, Little Gaddesden, in Hertfordshire, 45 kilometres (28 miles) from central London. De Gaulle lived at the Connaught Hotel in London, then from 1942 to 1944 he lived in Hampstead, North London.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: The small audience of the 18 June appeal grew for later speeches, and the press by early August described Free French military as fighting under de Gaulle's command, although few in France knew anything about him. (When he returned to France after liberation, people sometimes greeted another, more senior officer with him as de Gaulle, believing that he must be a five-star general.) Many thought that "Degaule", "Dugaul", or "Gaul" was a nom de guerre, disbelieving that the mysterious general describing himself as the nation's liberator was called the ancient name of France. Agnès Humbert, who had heard the 18 June speech, wrote in her diary of distributing pamphlets supporting de Gaulle's cause, despite his being


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: The Vichy regime had already sentenced de Gaulle to four years' imprisonment; on 2 August 1940 he was condemned to death by court martial "in absentia", although Pétain commented that he would ensure that the sentence was never carried out. De Gaulle said of the sentence, "I consider the act of the Vichy men as void; I shall have an explanation with them after the victory". He and Churchill reached agreement on 7 August 1940, that Britain would fund the Free French, with the bill to be settled after the war (the financial agreement was finalised in March 1941). A separate letter guaranteed the territorial integrity of the French Empire.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: General Georges Catroux, Governor of French Indo-China (which was increasingly coming under Japan's thumb), disapproved of the armistice and congratulated de Gaulle, whom he had known for many years. He was sacked by Vichy and arrived in London on 31 August; de Gaulle had gone to Dakar, but they met in Chad four weeks later. He was the most senior military figure to defect to the Free French.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle's support grew out of a base in the colonial French Equatorial Africa. In the fall of 1940, the colonial empire largely supported the Vichy regime. Félix Éboué, governor of Chad, switched his support to General de Gaulle in September. Encouraged, de Gaulle traveled to Brazzaville in October, where he announced the formation of an Empire Defense Council in his "Brazzaville Manifesto", and invited all colonies still supporting Vichy to join him and the Free French forces in the fight against Germany, which most of them did by 1943.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In October 1940, after talks between the Foreign Office and Louis Rougier, de Gaulle was asked to tone down his attacks on Pétain. On average he spoke on BBC radio three times a month.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Prime Minister Pétain moved the government to Vichy (2 July) and had the National Assembly (10 July) vote to dissolve itself and give him dictatorial powers, making the beginning of his "Révolution nationale" (National Revolution) intended to "reorient" French society. This was the dawn of the Vichy regime.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: 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. The British historian Christopher Flood noted that there were major differences between the speeches of de Gaulle and Pétain, which reflected their views on themselves and of France. Pétain always used the personal pronoun "je", portrayed himself as both a Christ-like figure sacrificing himself for France while also assuming a God-like tone of a semi-omniscient narrator who knew truths about the world that the rest of the French did not. De Gaulle began by making frequent use of "I" and "me" in his war-time speeches, but over time, their use declined. Unlike Pétain, de Gaulle never invoked quasi-religious imagery to enhance his prestige. De Gaulle always mentioned Pétain by name whereas Pétain never mentioned de Gaulle directly, referring to him as the ""faux ami"" ("false friend").


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Pétain exonerated the French military of responsibility for the defeat of 1940 which he blamed on the moral decline of French society (thus making his "Révolution nationale" necessary) while de Gaulle blamed the military chiefs while exonerating French society for the defeat (thus suggesting that French society was nowhere near as rotten as Pétain claimed, making the "Révolution nationale" unnecessary). Pétain claimed that France had "stupidly" declared war on Germany in 1939 at British prompting while de Gaulle spoke of the entire era since 1914 as ""la guerre de trente ans"" ("the thirty years' war"), arguing the two world wars were really one with a long truce in between. The only historical figure Pétain invoked was Joan of Arc as a model of self-sacrificing French patriotism in the "eternal struggle" against England whereas de Gaulle invoked virtually every major French historical figure from the ancient Gauls to World War I. De Gaulle's willingness to invoke historical figures from before and after 1789 was meant to suggest that his France was an inclusive France where there was room for both left and right, in contrast to Pétain's demand for national unity under his leadership. Most significantly, Pétain's speeches always stressed the need for France to withdraw from a hostile and threatening world to find unity. By contrast, de Gaulle's speeches, while praising the greatness of France, lacked Pétain's implicit xenophobia; the fight for a free, democratic and inclusive France was always portrayed as part of a wider worldwide struggle for world freedom, where France would be an anchor for a new democratic order.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle spoke more of "the Republic" than of "democracy"; before his death René Cassin claimed that he had "succeeded in turning de Gaulle towards democracy". However, claims that de Gaulle was surrounded by Cagoulards, Royalists and other right-wing extremists are untrue. Some of André Dewavrin's closest colleagues were Cagoulards, although Dewavrin always denied that he himself was. Many leading figures of the Free French and the Resistance, e.g., Jean Moulin and Pierre Brossolette, were on the political left. By the end of 1940 de Gaulle was beginning to be recognised as the leader of the Resistance, a position cemented after Jean Moulin's visit to London in autumn 1941. In the summer of 1941 the BBC set aside five minutes per day (later increased to ten) for the Free French, with Maurice Schumann as the main spokesman, and eventually there was a programme "Les Francais parlent aux Francais". A newspaper "France" was also soon set up.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle organised the Free French Forces and the Allies gave increasing support and recognition to de Gaulle's efforts. In London in September 1941 de Gaulle formed the French National Committee, with himself as president. It was an all-encompassing coalition of resistance forces, ranging from conservative Catholics like himself to communists. By early 1942, the "Fighting French" movement, as it was now called, gained rapidly in power and influence; it overcame Vichy in Syria and Lebanon, adding to its base. Dealing with the French communists was a delicate issue, for they were under Moscow's control and the USSR was friendly with Germany in 1940–41 as a result of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. They came into the Free French movement only when Germany invaded Russia in June 1941. De Gaulle's policy then became one of friendship directly with Moscow, but Stalin showed little interest. In 1942, de Gaulle created the Normandie-Niemen squadron, a Free French Air Force regiment, in order to fight on the Eastern Front. It is the only Western allied formation to have fought until the end of the war in the East.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In his dealings with the British and Americans (both referred to as the "Anglo-Saxons", in de Gaulle's parlance), he always insisted on retaining full freedom of action on behalf of France and was constantly on the verge of losing the Allies' support. Some writers have sought to deny that there was deep and mutual antipathy between de Gaulle and British and American political leaders.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle personally had ambivalent feelings about Britain, possibly in part because of childhood memories of the Fashoda Incident. As an adult he spoke German much better than he spoke English. He had a multilingual translator and driver, Olivia Jordan, from 1940 to 1943. He had thought little of the British Army's contribution to the First World War, and even less of that of 1939–40, and in the 1930s he had been a reader of the journal "Action Française" which blamed Britain for German foreign policy gains at France's expense. De Gaulle explained his position:


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In addition, de Gaulle harboured a suspicion of the British in particular, believing that they were seeking to seize France's colonial possessions in the Levant. Winston Churchill was often frustrated at what he perceived as de Gaulle's patriotic arrogance, but also wrote of his "immense admiration" for him during the early days of his British exile. Although 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:


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle described his adversarial relationship with Churchill in these words: "When I am right, I get angry. Churchill gets angry when he is wrong. We are angry at each other much of the time." On one occasion in 1941 Churchill spoke to him on the telephone. De Gaulle said that the French people thought he was a reincarnation of Joan of Arc, to which Churchill replied that the English had had to burn the last one. 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, "No Nation has friends, only interests."


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: After his initial support, Churchill, emboldened by American antipathy to the French general, urged his War Cabinet to remove de Gaulle as leader of the Free France. But the War Cabinet warned Churchill that a precipitate break with de Gaulle would have a disastrous effect on the whole resistance movement. By autumn 1943, Churchill had to acknowledge that de Gaulle had won the struggle for leadership of Free France.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle's relations with Washington were even more strained. President Roosevelt for a long time refused to recognize de Gaulle as the representative of France, insisting on negotiations with the Vichy government. Roosevelt in particular hoped that it would be possible to wean Pétain away from Germany. Roosevelt maintained recognition of the Vichy regime until late 1942, and saw de Gaulle as an impudent representative of a minority interest.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: After 1942, Roosevelt championed General Henri Giraud, more compliant with US interests than de Gaulle, as the leader of the Free France. At the Casablanca Conference (1943), Roosevelt forced de Gaulle to cooperate with Giraud, but de Gaulle was considered as the undisputed leader of the Resistance by the French people and Giraud was progressively deprived of his political and military roles. The British and Soviet governments urged Roosevelt to recognise de Gaulle's provisional government, but Roosevelt delayed doing so as long as possible and even recognised the Italian provisional government before the French one. British and Soviet allies were outraged that the US president unilaterally recognised the new government of a former enemy before de Gaulle's one and both recognised the French government in retaliation, forcing Roosevelt to recognise de Gaulle in late 1944, but Roosevelt managed to exclude de Gaulle from the Yalta Conference. Roosevelt eventually abandoned his plans to rule France as an occupied territory and to transfer French Indochina to the United Nations.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: On 21 April 1943, de Gaulle was scheduled to fly in a Wellington bomber to Scotland to inspect the Free French Navy. On take-off, the bomber's tail dropped, and the plane nearly crashed into the airfield's embankment. Only the skill of the pilot, who became aware of sabotage on takeoff, saved them. On inspection, it was found that aeroplane's separator rod had been sabotaged, using acid. Britain's MI6 investigated the incident, but no one was ever apprehended. Publicly, blame for the incident was cast on German intelligence; however, behind closed doors de Gaulle blamed the Western Allies, and later told colleagues that he no longer had confidence in them.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Working with the French Resistance and other supporters in France's colonial African possessions after Operation Torch in November 1942, de Gaulle moved his headquarters to Algiers in May 1943, leaving Britain to be on French territory. He became first joint head (with the less resolutely independent General Henri Giraud, the candidate preferred by the US 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle was held in high regard by Allied commander General Dwight Eisenhower. 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 the UK to carry out that liberation. 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: As preparations for the liberation of Europe gathered pace, the US in particular found de Gaulle's tendency to view everything from the French perspective to be extremely tiresome. Roosevelt, who refused to recognize any provisional authority in France until elections had been held, referred to de Gaulle as "an apprentice 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. Roosevelt directed Churchill to not 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 considered weak, posing a risk since the Free French refused to use British or American codes. De Gaulle refused to share coded information with the British, who were then obliged secretly to break the codes to read French messages.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Nevertheless, a few days before D-Day, Churchill, whose relationship with the General had deteriorated since he arrived in Britain, decided he needed to keep him 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: 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!" 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 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".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle became worried that the German withdrawal from France might lead to a breakdown of law and order in the country and even a possible communist takeover. 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 very concerned that an American takeover of the French administration would just provoke a communist uprising.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Churchill then lost his temper, saying that Britain would always be an ally to the United States, 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 this would always be the case. The next day, de Gaulle refused to address the French nation as 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 accused de Gaulle of treason in the height of battle, and demanded that he be flown back to Algiers "in chains if necessary".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle and Churchill had a complex relationship during the wartime period. De Gaulle did show respect and admiration for Churchill, and even some light humorous interactions between the two have been noted by observers such as Duff Cooper, the British Ambassador to the French Committee of Liberation. Churchill explained his support for de Gaulle during the darkest hours, calling him "L'homme du destin".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In Casablanca in 1943, Churchill supported de Gaulle as the embodiment of a French Army that was otherwise defeated, stating that "De Gaulle is the spirit of that Army. Perhaps the last survivor of a warrior race." Churchill supported de Gaulle as he had been one of the first major French leaders to reject Nazi German rule outright, stating in August 1944 that "I have never forgotten, and can never forget, that he [de Gaulle] stood forth as the first eminent Frenchman to face the common foe in what seemed to be the hour of ruin of his country and possibly, of ours."


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In the years to come, the sometimes hostile, sometimes friendly dependent wartime relationship of de Gaulle and his future political peers reenacted the historical national and colonial rivalry and lasting enmity between the French and the British, and foreshadowed the deep distrust of France for post-war Anglo-American partnerships.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle ignored "les Anglo-Saxons", and proclaimed the authority of Free France over the metropolitan territory 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 participated in the invasion and occupation of Germany. As the invasion slowly progressed and the Germans were pushed back, de Gaulle made preparations to return to France.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: 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 the UK 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. 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, however, Roosevelt did make some concessions towards recognising the legitimacy of the Bayeux administration.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Liberation of the French capital was not high on the Allies' list of priorities as it had comparatively little strategic value, but both de Gaulle and the commander of the French 2nd Armored Division, General Philippe Leclerc were still extremely concerned about a communist takeover. 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 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. General Dietrich von Choltitz, the commander of the garrison, was instructed by Adolf Hitler to raze the city to the ground, however, he simply ignored the order and surrendered his forces.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: 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, 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-Élysées, "as much for prestige as for security". 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-Pierre Koenig as Governor of Paris.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: 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. Later, on entering the Notre Dame Cathedral 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 FFI and police fired back. A BBC correspondent who was present reported;


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle himself though wrote, "There were no bullets whistling around my ears." ("Aucune balle ne siffle à mes oreilles.") He thought the shots were probably over-excited troops firing at shadows. No culprits, if there were any, were ever identified.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Later, in the great hall of the Hôtel de Ville, de Gaulle was greeted by a jubilant crowd and, proclaiming the continuity of the Third Republic, delivered a famous proclamation;


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: That evening, the Wehrmacht launched a massive aerial and artillery barrage of Paris in revenge, leaving several thousand dead or injured. 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', 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: The same day, Washington and London agreed 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Roosevelt insisted that an Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories (AMGOT) should be implemented in France, but this was opposed by both the Secretary of War and the Under-Secretary for War, as well as by Eisenhower, who had been strongly opposed to the imposition of AMGOT in North Africa. Eisenhower, unlike Roosevelt, wanted to cooperate with de Gaulle, and he secured a last-minute promise from the President on the eve of D-Day that the Allied officers would not act as military governors and would instead cooperate with the local authorities as the Allied forces liberated French Territory. De Gaulle would later claim in his memoirs that he blocked AMGOT.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: With the prewar parties and most 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 Göring.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Living conditions immediately after the liberation were even worse than under German rule. About 25% of the city was in ruins and public services and fuel were almost nonexistent. Large-scale public demonstrations erupted all over France, protesting the apparent lack of action at improving the supply of food, while in Normandy, bakeries were pillaged. The problem was not French agriculture, which had largely continued operating without problems, but the near-total breakdown of the country's infrastructure. 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: On 10 November 1944, Churchill flew to Paris to a reception by de Gaulle and the two together were greeted by thousands of cheering Parisians on the next day. Harold Nicolson stated that Anthony Eden told him that "not for one moment did Winston stop crying, and that he could have filled buckets by the time he received the Freedom of Paris." He said "they yelled for Churchill in a way that he has never heard any crowd yell before." At an official luncheon, de Gaulle said, "It is true that we would not have seen [the liberation] if our old and gallant ally England, and all the British dominions under precisely the impulsion and inspiration of those we are honouring today, had not deployed the extraordinary determination to win, and that magnificent courage which saved the freedom of the world. There is no French man or woman who is not touched to the depths of their hearts and souls by this."


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Believing them to be a dangerous revolutionary force, de Gaulle moved to break up the liberation committees and other militias. The communists were not only extremely active, but they received a level of popular support that disturbed de Gaulle. As early as May 1943, the US Secretary of State Cordell Hull had written to Roosevelt urging him to take action to attempt to curb the rise of communism in France.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: On 10 September 1944 the Provisional Government of the French Republic, or Government of National Unanimity, formed. It included many of de Gaulle's 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. While 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 et 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: There were also a number of new faces in the government, including a literary academic, Georges Pompidou, who had written to one of de Gaulle's recruiting agents offering his services, and Jean Monnet, who in spite of his past opposition to the General now recognized the need for unity and served as Commissioner 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 République) 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 Fréville, Raymond Aubrac and Michel Debré, 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 continued to be implicated in controversial events such as the Paris massacre of 1961, eventually being convicted of crimes against humanity in 1998.)


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In social policy, legislation was introduced in February 1945 that provided for the establishment of works committees in all private industrial establishments employing more than 50 (originally more than 100) people.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle's policy was to postpone elections as long as 2.6 million French were in Germany as prisoners of war and forced laborers. 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 Pétain when he was serving the Vichy regime. Raymond Aubrac said that the General showed himself to be ill-at-ease at social functions; in Marseille and Lyon he became irate when he had to sit next to former Resistance leaders and also voiced his distaste for the rowdy, libidinous behavior of French youths during the Maquisard parades which preceded his speech. 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: 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!"


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: As the war entered the 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. Immediately after the liberation, countless women accused of aiding, abetting, and taking German soldiers as lovers were subjected to public humiliations such as being shaved bald and paraded through the streets in their underwear. Many others were simply attacked by lynch mobs. 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 4,500 people, 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 chanteuse Édith Piaf, the stage actor Sacha Guitry and Coco Chanel, who was briefly detained but fled to Switzerland.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Keenly aware of the need to seize the initiative and to get the process under firm judicial control, de Gaulle appointed Justice Minister François de Menthon to lead the Legal Purge (Épuration légale) 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. Of the near 2,000 people who received the death sentence from the courts, fewer than 800 were executed. De Gaulle commuted 998 of the 1,554 capital sentences submitted before him, including all those involving women. Many others were given jail terms or had their voting rights and other legal privileges taken away. It is generally agreed that the purges were conducted arbitrarily, with often absurdly severe or overly lenient punishments being handed down. 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 René Bousquet—escaped consequences 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Later, there was the question of what to do with the former Vichy leaders when they were finally returned to France. Marshal Pétain and Maxime Weygand were war heroes from World War I and were now extremely old; convicted of treason, Pétain received a death sentence which his old protégé de Gaulle commuted to life imprisonment, while Weygand was eventually acquitted. 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. 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 antagonized the court throughout with his bizarre behavior. 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 Laval's execution was "an indispensable 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: The winter of 194445 was especially difficult for most of the population. Inflation showed no sign of slowing down and food shortages were severe. 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 Bidault's MRP and the Communists for the large scale nationalisation programme and other social changes that formed the main tenets of the CNR Charter. At the 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. 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. 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 Gaulle's 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: 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 de Gaulle seemed to seek out real or imagined insults to take offence at whatever possible. De Gaulle believed Britain and the US were intending to keep their armies in France after the war and were secretly working to take over its overseas possessions and to prevent it from regaining its 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: On Armistice Day in 1945, Winston Churchill made his first visit to France since the liberation and received a good reception in Paris where he laid a wreath to Georges Clemenceau. The occasion also marked the first official appearance of de Gaulle's wife Yvonne, but the visit was less friendly than it appeared. De Gaulle had instructed that there 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".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: With the Russian forces making more rapid advances into German-held territory than the West, there was a sudden public realisation that the Soviet Union was about to dominate large parts of eastern Europe. In fact, in October 1944, Churchill had reluctantly agreed to allow Bulgaria and Romania, already occupied by the Red Army, and Hungary to fall under the Soviet sphere of influence after the war, with shared influence in Yugoslavia. The UK was to retain hegemony over Greece, although there had been no agreement over Poland, whose eastern territories were already in Soviet hands under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Germany, and which retained a government in exile in London. 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: 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 Soviet Union. 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 the Soviet Union, but a number of writers make the point that his version of events differs significantly from that of the Soviets, of foreign news correspondents, and with their own eyewitness accounts.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle wanted access to German coal in the Ruhr as reparations after the war, 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 constant contact with Churchill throughout the visit, said that it would be impossible to make such an agreement without the consent of Britain and America. He suggested that it might be possible to add France's 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, but de Gaulle refused on the grounds that this would be 'un-French', as it would mean it being a junior partner in an alliance. During the visit, de Gaulle accompanied the deputy Soviet leader Vyacheslav Molotov on a tour of the former battleground at Stalingrad, where he was deeply moved at the scene of carnage he witnessed and surprised Molotov by referring to "our joint sacrifice".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Though the treaty which was eventually signed by Bidault and Molotov carried symbolic importance in that it enabled de Gaulle to demonstrate that he was recognised as the official head of state and show that France's voice was being heard abroad, it was of little relevance to Stalin due to France's lack of real political and military power; it did not affect the outcome of the post-war settlement. Stalin later commented that like Churchill and Roosevelt, he found de Gaulle to be awkward and stubborn and believed that he was 'not a complicated person' (by which he meant that he was an old-style nationalist). Stalin also felt that he lacked realism in claiming the same rights as the major powers and 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: 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 Eisenhower's order to French troops to evacuate Strasbourg, which had just been liberated so as to straighten the defensive line against the German counterattack. 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".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: 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. De Gaulle was faced with his first major ministerial dispute when the very able but tough-minded economics minister Pierre Mendès 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. When de Gaulle, knowing there would be little appetite for further austerity measures sided with Lepercq, Mendès France tendered his resignation, which was rejected because de Gaulle knew he needed him. Lepercq was killed in a road accident a short time afterwards and was succeeded by Pleven, but when in March, Mendès 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle was never invited to the summit conferences of Allied leaders such as Yalta and Potsdam. He never forgave the Big Three leaders (Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin) for their neglect and continued to rage against it as having been a negative factor in European politics for the rest of his life.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: 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. Churchill pressed hard for France to be included 'at the inter-allied table', but on 6 December 1944 the American president wired both Stalin and Churchill to say that de Gaulle's presence would "merely introduce a complicating and undesirable factor".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, despite Stalin's opposition, Churchill and Roosevelt insisted that France be allowed a post-war occupation zone in Germany, and also made sure that it was included among the five nations that invited others to the conference to establish the United Nations. This was important because it guaranteed France a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, a prestigious position that, despite pressure from emerging nations, it still holds today.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: 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 to 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".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle's 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. 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 Truman and hinted he would work closely with Stalin, leading Truman to tell his staff, "I don't like the son of a bitch."


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: The first visit by de Gaulle to Truman in the U.S. was not a success. Truman told his visitor that it was time that the French got rid of the Communist influence from its government, to which de Gaulle replied that this was France's own business. 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 Gaulle's 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 port of Nouméa in New Caledonia as a base against the Japanese.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In May 1945 the German armies surrendered to the Americans and British at Rheims, and a separate armistice was signed with France in Berlin. 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. Mary's 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, "Voilà 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."


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: 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. Truman 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: However, de Gaulle was generally well received in the United States immediately after World War II and supported the United States in public comments. He visited New York City on 27 August 1945 to great welcome by thousands of people of the city and its mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. On that day, de Gaulle wished "Long live the United States of America". He visited New York City Hall and Idlewild Airport (now John F. Kennedy International Airport), and presented LaGuardia with the Grand Croix of the Legion of Honour award.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: On VE Day, there were also serious riots in French Tunisia. A dispute with Britain over control of Syria and Lebanon quickly developed into an unpleasant diplomatic incident that demonstrated France's weaknesses. In April, de Gaulle sent General Beynet to establish an air base in Syria and a naval base in Lebanon, provoking an outbreak of nationalism in which some French nationals were attacked and killed. On 20 May, French artillery and warplanes fired on demonstrators in Damascus. After several days, upwards of 800 Syrians lay dead.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Churchill's 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".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: On 31 May, Churchill told de Gaulle "immediately to order French troops to cease fire and withdraw to their barracks". British forces moved in and forced the French to withdraw from the city; they were then escorted and confined to barracks. With this political pressure added, the French ordered a ceasefire; De Gaulle raged but France was isolated and suffering a diplomatic humiliation. The secretary of the Arab League Edward Atiyah said, "France put all her cards and two rusty pistols on the table". De Gaulle saw it as a heinous Anglo-Saxon conspiracy: he told the British ambassador Duff Cooper, "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".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: At the Potsdam Conference in July, to which de Gaulle was not invited, a decision was made to divide Vietnam, which had been a French colony for over a hundred years, into British and Chinese spheres of influence. 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. However, Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Viet Minh independence movement, declared independence of Vietnam in September, and the First Indochina War broke out that lasted until France was defeated in 1954.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Since the liberation, the only parliament in France had been an enlarged version of the Algiers Provisional 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, 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In the election, 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: 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.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: 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, de Gaulle believed that the draft constitution placed too much power in the hands of parliament with its shifting party alliances. One of his ministers said he was "a man equally incapable of monopolizing power as of sharing it".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: 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 percent 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. Although the MRP managed to broker a compromise which saw the budget approved with amendments, it was little more than a stop-gap measure.