Charles de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle was born in the northern French city of Lille into a Catholic family that prized education, his father a teacher of literature and history. From boyhood he had a keen interest in history and military affairs and resolved to enter the army; he later gained admission to the famous Saint-Cyr military academy and began a long military career as a young infantry officer.

During the First World War he was wounded and taken prisoner at the Battle of Verdun, spending an unwilling stretch of time in a prisoner-of-war camp. After the war he returned to the army, teaching and writing at once, and put forward a vision of modern warfare centered on mechanized armored forces, advocating a lean, mobile, professional army. These forward-looking ideas were not fully adopted by the French military of the time.

In 1940 France collapsed swiftly under the German offensive. As the homeland sought an armistice, de Gaulle went into exile in London, calling on the French by radio to keep resisting, and set about organizing the “Free France” forces, rallying overseas troops and the colonies to fight on. This choice gradually transformed him from a general into a symbol of the French Resistance.

After the liberation of Paris he returned to the capital and headed the Provisional Government of the French Republic, directing the restoration of order and reconstruction in the early postwar period; but owing to disagreements with the various parties over the constitutional system, he soon resigned and withdrew, returning to the countryside to concentrate on writing his memoirs, entering a waiting period that lasted more than a decade.

In 1958 the political turmoil sparked by the Algerian crisis pushed him back to the fore. Recalled at the urging of many sides, he presided over the drafting of a new constitution strengthening presidential power, founded the Fifth French Republic, and became its first president. In office he pursued an independent foreign policy, advancing Franco-German reconciliation, establishing diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, and withdrawing France from NATO's integrated military command.

In his later years de Gaulle lived through the social upheaval of 1968 and, after losing a referendum, chose to resign the presidency and return to his country home to live out his days in quiet, dying the following year. However posterity may judge him, he is widely seen as one of the most far-reaching figures in twentieth-century French history, his name bound tightly to “Free France” and the Fifth Republic.