Early life
De Gaulle was born in the industrial region of Lille in the Nord department, the third of five children. He was raised in a devoutly Catholic and traditional family. His father, Henri de Gaulle, was a professor of history and literature at a Jesuit college who eventually founded his own school.[1]
Henri de Gaulle came from a long line of parliamentary gentry from Normandy and Burgundy.[2]:13-16[3] The name is thought to be Flemish in origin, and may well derive from van der Waulle ("from the rampart").[1]:42 De Gaulle's mother, Jeanne (née Maillot), descended from a family of wealthy entrepreneurs from Lille. She had French, Irish, Scottish, Flemish, and German ancestry.[2]:13-16[3]
The family had lost most of its land in the French Revolution, which it opposed.[1]:41
De Gaulle's father encouraged historical and philosophical debate between his children at mealtimes, and through his encouragement, de Gaulle grew familiar with French history from an early age. Struck by his mother's tale of how she cried as a child when she heard of the French capitulation to the Germans at Sedan in 1870, he developed a keen interest in military strategy. He was also influenced by his uncle, also named Charles de Gaulle, who was a historian and passionate Celticist who wrote books and pamphlets advocating the union of the Welsh, Scots, Irish, and Bretons into one people. His grandfather Julien-Philippe was also a historian, and his grandmother Josephine-Marie wrote poems which impassioned his Christian faith.
Between the wars
Early-1920s: Poland and staff college[edit]
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.[1]:71-74
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.[25] 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.[26][1]:82
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.[27]
Mid-1920s: ghostwriter for Pétain[edit]
De Gaulle's career was saved by Marshal 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).[1]:82-83 From 1 July 1925 he worked for Pétain (as part of the Maison Pétain), largely as a "pen officer" (ghostwriter).[28] 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.[29] 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.[28]
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.[30] In October 1926 he returned to his duties with the Headquarters of the Army of the Rhine.[31]
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.[32]
Late-1920s: Trier and Beirut[edit]
After spending twelve years as a captain, a normal period, de Gaulle was promoted to commandant (major) on 25 September 1927.[32] 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).[33][1]:94
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.[34]
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.[35] In 1929 Pétain did not use de Gaulle's draft text for his eulogy for Ferdinand Foch, to whose seat at the Academie Francaise he was assuming.[30]
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.[36] 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.[1]:93-94 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.[37]
1930s: staff officer[edit]
In November 1931 he was posted to the general administration department (Secrétariat Général) of the Conseil Supérieur de la Défense Nationale (Secrétariat Général du Conseil Supérieur de la Défense Nationale (SGDN), effectively the ministry of defence) in Paris, initially as a "drafting officer".[38][1]:94 He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in December 1932 and appointed Head of the Third Section (operations), a role which gave him experience of the interface between army planning and government.[1]:97[39]
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 Centre des Hautes Études Militaires (CHEM), a senior staff college for generals, known as the "school for marshals"). The bill passed the Chamber of Deputies but failed in the Senate.[40]
1930s: prophet of armoured warfare[edit]
Unlike Pétain, de Gaulle believed in the use of tanks and rapid maneuvers rather than trench warfare.[1]:108 De Gaulle became a disciple of Emile Mayer (1851-25 November 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 prophet 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.[41]
In 1934 de Gaulle wrote Vers l'Armée de Métier (Toward a Professional Army). He proposed mechanization of the infantry, with stress on an élite force of 100,000 men and 3,000 tanks. Ironically, German panzer units, so effectively employed in the invasion of France in 1940, used similar theories, while the French dispersed and wasted their armour. The book imagined tanks driving around the country like cavalry. De Gaulle's mentor Emile Mayer was somewhat more prophetic than he 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".[42]
Only 700 copies were sold in France; the claim that thousands of copies were sold in Germany (see, for example)[15] 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.[43] 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.[44]
The de Gaulle family were very private.[45] 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.[46] He approved of the rearmament drive which the Popular Front government began in 1936-1937, although French military doctrine remained that tanks should be used in penny packets for infantry support.[47] 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 1935was for the best, likening it to Francois I's alliance with the Turks against the Emperor Charles V.[48]
Late-1930s: tank regiment[edit]
From April 1936, whilst still in his staff position at SGDN, de Gaulle was also a lecturer to generals at CHEM.[40] 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 Edouard 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.[1]:109[49]
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".[40] 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".[50]
By now de Gaulle was beginning to be a well-known figure, known as "Colonel Motor(s)".[1]:117 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".[51]After the liberation of Paris in August 1944, de Gaulle was given a hero's welcome in the French capital. As president of the provisional government, he guided France through the writing of the constitution on which the Fourth Republic was based. However, when his desires for a strong presidency were ignored, he resigned. An attempt to transform the political scene with a new party failed, and in 1953 he withdrew into retirement again.
In 1958, a revolt in French-held Algeria, combined with serious instability within France, destroyed the Fourth Republic. De Gaulle returned to lead France once more. The French people approved a new constitution and voted de Gaulle president of the Fifth Republic. Strongly nationalistic, de Gaulle sought to strengthen his country financially and militarily. He sanctioned the development of nuclear weapons, withdrew France from NATO and vetoed the entry of Britain into the Common Market. He also granted independence to Algeria in the face of strong opposition at home and from French settlers in Algeria.
In May 1968, violent demonstrations by university students shook de Gaulle's government. A general strike followed, paralysing France and jeopardising the Fifth Republic. De Gaulle held elections and the country rallied to him, ending the crisis. In April 1969, De Gaulle resigned the presidency after losing a referendum on a reform proposal. He retired to his estate at Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises and died of a heart attack on 9 November 1970.