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Involvement
in WWII
World
War II
At the outbreak of the war
he commanded a tank brigade attached to the French 5th Army. In May 1940, having been made
a temporary brigadier general in the 4th Armoured Division, the rank that he kept for the
rest of his life, he was twice given the opportunity to apply his theories on tank warfare
as far as was possible with the inadequate material available at the time. As a result, he
was mentioned by General Maxime Weygand, the commander in chief, as "an admirable,
energetic, and courageous leader." On June 6 he entered the government of Paul
Reynaud as undersecretary of state for defense and war, and he undertook several missions
to England to explore the possibilities of continuing the war. When the Reynaud government
was replaced by that of Marshal Pétain, who intended to seek an armistice with the
Germans, de Gaulle left for England. On June 18, he broadcast from London his first appeal
to his compatriots to continue the war under his leadership.
Contrary to popular legend, this appeal did not include the famous phrase: "France
has lost a battle; she has not lost the war." That phrase appeared on posters in
England. But the emphasis was the same: the war could be won, France was not alone,
General de Gaulle would lead French resistance from London. On August 2, 1940, a French
military court tried him and sentenced him to death, deprivation of military rank, and
confiscation of property.
De Gaulle entered on his wartime career as a political leader with tremendous liabilities.
He had only a handful of randomly recruited political supporters and volunteers for what
were to become the Free French Forces. He had no political status and was virtually
unknown both in England and in France. What assets he had were wholly personal: his
absolute belief in his own mission, his conviction that he possessed the qualities of
leadership he had described in his writings, his total devotion to France, and the
strength of character (or stubbornness as it often appeared to the British) to fight for
French interests as he saw them with all the resources at his disposal, however puny they
might be. His impact on his hosts was unforgettably described by Sir Winston Churchill in
Their Finest Hour:
He had to be rude to the British to prove to French eyes that he was not a British puppet.
He certainly carried out this policy with perseverance. He even one day explained this
technique to me, and I fully comprehended the extraordinary difficulties of his problem. I
have always admired his massive strength.
His liabilities in the eyes of his own countrymen were increased by the fact that, to the
politicians of the left, a career officer who was a practicing Roman Catholic was not an
immediately acceptable political leader, while to those on the right, he was a rebel
against Philippe Pétain, a national hero and then France's only field marshal. Gradually,
however, the course of the war, the broadcasts from London, the action of the Free French
Forces, and the contacts of resistance groups in France either with his own organization
or with those of the British secret services brought national recognition of his
leadership. But full recognition by his allies came only after the liberation of Paris and
the demonstration beyond all doubt of the French nation's acceptance of him.
Meanwhile, in London, de Gaulle's relations with the British government were never easy,
and de Gaulle often added to the strain, at times through his own misjudgment or
touchiness. In 1943 he moved his headquarters to Algiers, where he became president of the
French Committee of National Liberation, the central organization guiding the Free French
war effort--at first jointly with General Henri Giraud. De Gaulle's successful campaign to
edge Giraud out gave the world proof of his skill in political maneuver. On September 9,
1944, he and his shadow government, the Committee of National Liberation, returned from
Algiers to Paris. He headed two successive temporary governments but, on January 20, 1946,
abruptly resigned, apparently owing to irritation with the political parties forming the
left-wing tripartite alliance government.
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