Charles DeGaulle by Don Cook

DeGaulle was a major figure for almost two decades in post-World War II Europe.  After being the lone voice for a free France after its collapse in the face of the German invasion, he managed against all odds to create a movement which was often at loggerheads with the very forces (the British and Americans) who paid for, fed, equipped, and supplied his small forces (most of French rescued at Dunkirk had decided to return to France rather than stay in the U.K. and continue the fight).  He was egotistical, dogmatic, tightly controlled, and he shaped Europe more through his inactions than through his actions. 

The driving force in his life was his 19^th century view of France surrounded in glory and acknowledged by the rest of Europe as the economic, political and military leader of France (much as modern day China wishes to see itself in Asia).  Fortunately for Europe, he was out of power when the first steps for a European Common Market were taken and he battled to keep the U.K. out of the European market as he disliked the influence of the “Anglo-Saxons” (the U.K. and the U.S.).  Had DeGaulle been in power during that critical time of European growth, it is highly likely that the EU would have been delayed or perhaps not even born.

He was filled with anger; anger at the Americans due to their wealth and having been snubbed by President Franklin Roosevelt, anger at the British because Churchill did not go along with all DeGaulle’s demands and because Churchill was willing to give all to the Americans in the effort to defeat Hitler; he as angry at Frenchmen who did not agree with him and his anger drove him into inflated visions of France’s ability to direct the foreign policy of the Soviet Union.

A man of simple personal tastes, he was a loner, kept his own counsel and never forgave a slight, no matter how small nor how imagined. 

DeGaulle was a man who saw the glory of France as paramount in his life, a man who was unable to deal with the realities of the post-World War II world.  As a result, he ended damaging France and made her more reliant on Germany.