‘How Charles de Gaulle Rescued France,’ ‘New Yorker,’ 20 August 2018 by Adam Gopnik.
This piece gets Le Grand Charles better than anything else I have read in English. It gives him credit for his major accomplishments which was rescuing France from itself in 1940, and then again in 1960. It also avoids the common errors, e.g., attributing De Gaulle’s resignation to the events of May 1968. But it fails to explain his distrust of les Anglais, and I think that I can. But before that, let us have a few words about the accomplishments to set the scene.
He arrived in London in June 1940 in his brigadier’s uniform. That’s it. No retinue. No luggage. No change of socks. No nothing.
From that he created Fighting France which became Free France. Through sheer willpower, which infuriated the English and Americans, he raised a 100,000+ army that played crucial roles, usually omitted in English-speaking accounts, in North Africa, Italy, and Alsace. He also convinced the leaders of various Resistance factions to unite and they in turn recognised him as the figurehead behind which to rally. With annoying persistence he got France to sit at the table as an equal partner when Germany surrendered.
In 1960 he did the impossible and vacated Algeria. It was done reluctantly but he bowed to reality.
Finally, far from weakening his position, the turmoil of May 1968 strengthened it, but the journalists who dredge this matter up never do any research and simply repeat the wishful thinking promoted at the time by the previous fake newsers.
In fact, a subsequent counter demonstration supporting Le Grand Charles put one million followers on the streets of Paris, as compared to the 50,000 May Day demonstrators. In fact, his party made substantial gains in the following parliamentary elections later that year. In fact, in 1969 he proposed changes to make the Senate more electorally accountable, and this was defeated in a referendum by a combination of conservatives and communists, both of whom liked the sinecure that the Senate offered and still does. Then at age 78 he resigned.
Why the animosity to the English-speakers? In general, De Gaulle was never convinced of the British commitment to Europe. Brexit is now a case in point. Now for some specifics.
Free France was completely excluded from planning the D-Day invasion. Completely. Read every book on the subject listed by Amazon and there never is any participation in the planning by representatives of Free France. That a small contingent of Free French troops participated in the landing was a late addition forced on les Anglais by De Gaulle himself.
General Dwight Eisenhower’s plan called for France to be occupied by American, Canadian, and English military governors as though it were a hostile country. These designated governors had been selected, trained, staffed, and were ready to follow the invasion force. Neither De Gaulle nor any other Free Frenchman was consulted on this plan. (Dean Rusk was one of the architects of this plan, by the way, for those who know his subsequent career.)
De Gaulle, when he learned of this occupation plan he did what he did best: le beau geste. Eight days after the invasion, with a dozen associates he landed in Normandy without support, permission, or knowledge of Eisenhower, and as he walked through the rubble, the French followed him. He set about designating local officials.
Ever the realist, Eisenhower saw that the occupation plan had been trumped and cancelled it at the hour of its implementation.
There were also other stabs. As the front line extend in late 1944, les Anglais took Strasbourg, aided in part by passive and active resistance from within. Then for strategic reasons, les Anglais withdrew from the city and region, and the Germans re-occupied it with a vengeance and murdered those who had earlier resisted to aid the les Anglais. Again the Free French were not consulted on this move.
Earlier, les Anglais tried at times to remove DeGaulle and replace him with a Free French leader who would be more malleable, like General Henri Giraud. Imagine if De Gaulle had lobbied Clement Attlee to replace Churchill or campaigned for Thomas Dewey against FDR, and that is the picture.
Giraud, Normandy, and Strasbourg convinced De Gaulle that he could never trust les Anglais.
Yes, Churchill, against the advice of those around him, was magnanimous to De Gaulle and the Free French. True. It is also true that De Gaulle insured that France paid back its war debt as a matter of honour, a fact seldom noted in the English-speaking accounts, leaving the implication that it was not done. It was. And quickly considering the circumstances.
Jean Lacouture’s multi-volume biography of De Gaulle supplies the details.
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