Charles de Gaulle

Childhood and origins

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was born on 22 November 1890 in Lille, the third of five children. He was raised in a devoutly Roman Catholic, conservative, and monarchist family. His father, Henri de Gaulle, was a professor of history and literature at a Jesuit college and eventually founded his own school.

Henri de Gaulle came from a long line of parliamentary gentry from Normandy and Burgundy. The name "de Gaulle" is thought to be Dutch in origin, and may have derived from van der Walle, de Walle ("from the rampart, defensive wall"), or de Waal ("the wall"). De Gaulle's mother, Jeanne (born Maillot), descended from a family of wealthy entrepreneurs from Lille. She had French, Irish, Scottish, and German ancestry.

De Gaulle's father encouraged historical and philosophical debate between his children and through his encouragement, de Gaulle learned French history from an early age. Struck by his mother's tales 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 advocated the union of the Welsh, Scots, Irish, and Bretons into one people. His grandfather Julien-Philippe was also a historian, and his grandmother Joséphine-Marie wrote poems which impassioned his Christian faith.

Officer cadet and lieutenant

In 1909, De Gaulle won a place at Saint-Cyr. His class ranking was mediocre (119th out of 221). Under a law of 21 March 1905, aspiring army officers were required to serve a year in the ranks, including time as a private and as a non-commissioned officer (NCO), before attending the academy. Accordingly, in October 1909, de Gaulle enlisted (for four years, as required, rather than the normal two-year term for conscripts) in the 33rd Infantry Regiment of the French Army, based at Arras. This was a historic regiment with Austerlitz, Wagram, and Borodino amongst its battle honours. In April 1910, he was promoted to corporal. His company commander declined to promote him to sergeant, the usual rank for a potential officer, commenting that the young man clearly felt that nothing less than Constable of France would be good enough for him. He was eventually promoted to sergeant in September 1910.

De Gaulle took up his place at Saint-Cyr in October 1910. By the end of his first year, he had risen to 45th place. He was nicknamed "the great asparagus" because of his height (196 cm, 6'5"), high forehead, and nose. He did well at the academy and received praise for his conduct, manners, intelligence, character, military spirit, and resistance to fatigue. In 1912, he graduated 13th in his class and his passing-out report noted that he was a gifted cadet who would undoubtedly make an excellent officer. The future Marshal Alphonse Juin was first in the class, although the two do not appear to have been close at the time.

Preferring to serve in France rather than the overseas colonies, in October 1912 de Gaulle rejoined the 33rd Infantry Regiment as a second lieutenant. The regiment was now commanded by Colonel (and future Marshal) Philippe Pétain, whom de Gaulle would follow for the next 15 years. He later wrote in his memoirs: "My first colonel, Pétain, taught me the art of command".

It has been claimed that in the build-up to World War I, de Gaulle agreed with Pétain about the obsolescence of cavalry and traditional tactics, and often debated great battles and the likely outcome of any coming war with his superior. Lacouture is sceptical, pointing out that although Pétain wrote glowing appraisals of de Gaulle in 1913, it is unlikely that he stood out among the 19 captains and 32 lieutenants under his command. De Gaulle would have been present at the 1913 Arras manoeuvres, at which Pétain criticised General Gallet to his face, but there is no evidence in his notebooks that he accepted Pétain's unfashionable ideas about the importance of firepower against the dominant doctrine emphasizing "offensive spirit". De Gaulle stressed how Maurice de Saxe had banned volley fire, how French armies of the Napoleonic period had relied on infantry column attack, and how French military power had declined in the nineteenth century because of – supposedly – excessive concentration on firepower rather than élan. He also appears to have accepted the then-fashionable lesson drawn from the recent Russo-Japanese War of how bayonet charges by Japanese infantry with high morale had succeeded in the face of enemy firepower.

De Gaulle was promoted to first lieutenant in October 1913.

De Gaulle married Yvonne Vendroux on 7 April 1921 in Église Notre-Dame de Calais. They had three children: Philippe (1921–2024), Élisabeth (1924–2013), who married General Alain de Boissieu, and Anne (1928–1948). Anne had Down syndrome and died of pneumonia at the age of 20.

De Gaulle always had a particular love for his daughter Anne: one Colombey resident recalled how he used to walk with her hand-in-hand around the property, talking quietly about the things she understood. He retained the service of a nun, Marguerite Potel, for the care of Anne.

De Gaulle had an older brother Xavier, an older sister Marie-Agnes, and two younger brothers, Jacques and Pierre.

One of de Gaulle's grandsons, also named Charles de Gaulle, was a member of the European Parliament from 1994 to 2004, his last tenure being for the far-right National Front. The younger Charles de Gaulle's move to the anti-Gaullist National Front was widely condemned by other family members: "It was like hearing the Pope had converted to Islam", one said. Jean de Gaulle, Another grandson, was a member of the French parliament for the centre-right Union for a Popular Movement until his retirement in 2007.

Berstein, Serge, and Peter Morris. The Republic of de Gaulle 1958–1969 (The Cambridge History of Modern France) (2006) excerpt and text search

Cameron, David R. and Hofferbert, Richard I. "Continuity and Change in Gaullism: the General's Legacy." American Journal of Political Science 1973 17(1): 77–98. ISSN 0092-5853, a statistical analysis of the Gaullist voting coalition in elections 1958–73 Fulltext:. JSTOR 2110475.

Cogan, Charles G. "The Break-up: General de Gaulle's Separation from Power," Journal of Contemporary History Vol. 27, No. 1 (Jan. 1992), pp. 167–199, re: 1969. JSTOR 260783.

Diamond, Robert A. France under de Gaulle (Facts on File, 1970), highly detailed chronology 1958–1969. 319pp

Furniss, Edgar J. Jr. De Gaulle and the French Army. (1964)

Gough, Hugh and Horne, John, eds. De Gaulle and Twentieth-Century France. (1994). 158 pp. essays by experts

Hauss, Charles (1991). Politics in Gaullist France: Coping with Chaos. Archived from the original on 28 June 2011 – via Questia.

Hoffmann, Stanley. Decline or Renewal? France since the 1930s (1974) online edition Archived 3 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine

Jackson, Julian. "General de Gaulle and His Enemies: Anti-Gaullism in France Since 1940," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6th Ser., Vol. 9 (1999), pp. 43–65. JSTOR 3679392.

Merom, Gil. "A 'Grand Design'? Charles de Gaulle and the End of the Algerian War," Armed Forces & Society(1999) 25#2 pp: 267–287 online

Nester, William R. De Gaulle's Legacy: The Art of Power in France's Fifth Republic (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)

Northcutt, Wayne. Historical Dictionary of the French Fourth and Fifth Republics, 1946–1991 (1992)

Pierce, Roy, "De Gaulle and the RPF—A Post-Mortem," The Journal of Politics Vol. 16, No. 1 (Feb. 1954), pp. 96–119. JSTOR 2126340.

Rioux, Jean-Pierre, and Godfrey Rogers. The Fourth Republic, 1944–1958 (The Cambridge History of Modern France) (1989)

Shepard, Todd. The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France. (2006). 288 pp.

Williams, Philip M.; Harrison, Martin (1965). De Gaulle's Republic. Archived from the original on 28 June 2011 – via Questia.

Legal purges (Épuration légale)

Keenly aware of the need to seize the initiative and get the process under firm judicial control, de Gaulle appointed Justice Minister François de Menthon to lead the Legal Purge (Épuration légale) to punish traitors and clear away traces of the Vichy regime. Knowing that he would need to reprieve many of the "economic collaborators"—such as police and civil servants who held minor roles under Vichy to keep the country running—he assumed, as head of state, the right to commute death sentences. Of the nearly 2,000 people who received the death sentence from the courts, fewer than 800 were executed; de Gaulle commuted 998 of the 1,554 capital sentences submitted before him, including all those who were women. Many others were given jail terms or had their voting rights and other legal privileges taken away. It is generally agreed that the purges were conducted arbitrarily, with often absurdly severe or overly lenient punishments being handed down. Less well-off people who were unable to pay for lawyers were more harshly treated. As time went by and feelings grew less intense, a number of people who had held fairly senior positions under the Vichy government—such as Maurice Papon and René Bousquet—escaped consequences by claiming to have worked secretly for the resistance or to have played a double game, working for the good of France by serving the established order.

Pétain received a death sentence, which his old protégé de Gaulle commuted to life imprisonment, while Maxime Weygand was eventually acquitted. There was a widespread belief, particularly in the years that followed, that de Gaulle was trying to appease both the Third Republic politicians and the former Vichy leaders who had made Laval their scapegoat.