Contradictory figure
ROBERT GILDEA finds much to admire in a biography that unpicks the life and legend of one of France’s greatest leaders
A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle by Julian Jackson Charles de Gaulle has been described as “the last great Frenchman”, and is credited with saving his country not once but twice. In 1940– 44, when France was defeated, occupied and divided by the Third Reich, he masterminded liberation. Then, in 1958– 62, when the Algerian war threatened the French empire and the destruction of the parliamentary republic, he returned to power to end the war and found the strong, presidential Fifth Republic that exists today.
To write about de Gaulle is a challenge because he not only made history for much of the 20th century, but also because he manufactured the myth of his own greatness as he went along. In this ambitious and magisterial account, leading historian Julian Jackson explores both the history and the myth.
He presents de Gaulle as ahead of his time in many ways: as a showman who mastered the arts of radio and television; but behind his contemporaries too, in that the trauma of France’s defeat in 1870 largely shaped his conservative and Catholic worldview. He spoke of France fighting a “30 years war” between 1914 and 1944, and saw the nation’s enemy as German militarism rather than Nazism. Jackson nevertheless shows that de Gaulle was able to change, becoming more democratic as he sought the support of the French Resistance, and realising that the pressures of war, the United States and the United Nations made it pointless to hold on to Algeria.
Jackson is deeply intrigued by de Gaulle’s personality and returns often to his complexities. The general identified himself with the fate of France, and battled to save her physically and spiritually not only from Germany but also from the Anglo-Saxon powers. He found it difficult to express emotions and lacked a human touch, except in his love for his close comrades-in-arms, straitlaced wife and disabled daughter.
Having spent the majority of the First World War in a German prisoner of war camp, he was determined to make his mark on the Second. He suffered from depression and thought of suicide in September 1940 when he led a failed mission to liberate Dakar from Vichy France. Yet in his arrogance, he ultimately felt that France did not deserve him. He left power twice, first in 1946 when he opposed the restoration of parliament’s power, and in 1969, after the student and workers’ revolt of 1968, when the contemporary world caught up with him and made him redundant.
Jackson’s work is the fruit of a decade of research and writing. He has made the fullest use of de Gaulle’s voluminous writings, which often hide inconvenient truths, and the writings of the myriad politicians, diplomats, and writers who observed, loved and hated him. Jackson masters both the public arc of de Gaulle’s career, and the detail of his private life and daily routines. He writes elegantly, with punch, insight and authority. In terms the general would have appreciated, he concludes that de Gaulle
“saved the honour of France”.