CHARLES DE GAULLE

FREE FRENCH AND NATIONAL LEADER IN THE POST-WAR YEARS 1890-1970

An obscure army officer when World War II broke out, Charles de Gaulle fought the Germans bravely and then chose to flee to Great Britain with the fall of France, establishing himself as the leader of the nation’s anti-nazi movement. He established a somewhat contentious relationship with Allied leaders and sought to preserve the interests of France even though it had been occupied by the Nazis and its puppet Vichy regime was led by his former mentor, Marshal Philippe Pétain.

Estranged from Pétain, de Gaulle was tried in absentia by a Vichy tribunal and sentenced to death. However, his strong leadership and opposition to the Nazis brought support from some quarters in the French military. He raised Free French forces to fight the Germans and became provisional head of the French Republic from June 1944 to October 1946. Famously, he insisted that Allied troops liberate Paris in the summer of 1944 rather than bypassing the capital during the post D-day advance toward the German frontier.

The foremost French nationalist figure to emerge from World War II, General de Gaulle was elected president of France in 1958 and influenced the country’s political scene even beyond his death.