He felt it was essential to his position before the French people that he should maintain a proud and haughty demeanour towards “perfidious Albion“, although in exile, dependent upon our protection and dwelling in our midst. 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.
Winston Churchill on de Gaulle
Recently on one of my ceaseless used book hunting forays, I picked up Jean Lacouture’s two volume biography of Charles de Gaulle. I had thought I was reasonably familiar with de Gaulle. Go here to read a post I wrote about his love for his daughter Anne, a Down Syndrome child. The basic facts of the man I know well. How he was an early enthusiast for armored warfare. How during the Fall of France in 1940 the attack of the armored division he led was one of the few bright spots in that debacle. How he led the Free French during World War II with the cry that France had lost a battle but France had not lost the war. How during the War he had been a pain in the side to his Anglo-American allies, but how for the French he became the living embodiment of an undefeated France. How he laid down his power in 1946, the squabbling politicians of the Fourth Republic failing to live up to his conception of France the Grand. How in the Algerian crisis of 1958 and the collapse of the Fourth Republic, he was swept back into power, and created under the Fifth Republic the office of a strong President, and who doubtless received a nod of approval from the Sun King in the world to come as he did so.
However, I lacked a real sense of the man, one I am beginning to acquire now. At the age of 24 as a young Lieutenant he was thrown into the maelstrom of the Great War, a War he had predicted for years. At Verdun he was taken captive, along with the platoon he led, after a heroic stand that left de Gaulle wounded and unconscious. For the 32 months he was a prisoner he made five serious attempts at escape, and was regarded by the Germans as one of their most troublesome prisoners. He gave lectures for the benefit of his fellow prisoners in which he gave clear eyed analyses of the mistakes being made in the attacks on the Western front by the French that had led to so many of them dying like flies in spider webs, his imagery. At the same time he lamented to his family in letters that he felt useless in captivity and how his greatest desire was to be back in the midst of the fighting. In short, de Gaulle was a military hard case combined with an intellect that allowed him to shrewdly analyze the world around him, a facet of the man which explains much about his subsequent career.
And this is why I love History, because its continual study has granted me an ever clearer view of the world in which I live. Perhaps that realization will gain a nod from de Gaulle in the world to come, or perhaps not.
One of the wonderful things about History is how it can often transmute events. For more than a hundred years after the Revolution in France, France remained bitterly divided between those who celebrated the Revolution and those who mourned it. This began to change during World War I, when Frenchmen of all shades of political opinion rallied together to defend France, and some of the symbols of the Revolution, the Tri-color flag and La Marseillaise, began to take on a patriotic meaning for almost all the French, shorn of their associations with the Revolution. Likewise the Maid of Orleans, who would be canonized in 1920, became a symbol of La Belle France and the determination of the French to fight against a foreign invader. This new synthesis culminated in 1944 in Paris when General Charles de Gaulle, a believing Catholic, gave a speech in liberated Paris on August 24, 1944:
Why do you wish us to hide the emotion which seizes us all, men and women, who are here, at home, in Paris that stood up to liberate itself and that succeeded in doing this with its own hands?
No! We will not hide this deep and sacred emotion. These are minutes which go beyond each of our poor lives. Paris! Paris outraged! Paris broken! Paris martyred! But Paris liberated! Liberated by itself, liberated by its people with the help of the French armies, with the support and the help of all France, of the France that fights, of the only France, of the real France, of the eternal France!
Well! Since the enemy which held Paris has capitulated into our hands, France returns to Paris, to her home. She returns bloody, but quite resolute. She returns there enlightened by the immense lesson, but more certain than ever of her duties and of her rights.
I speak of her duties first, and I will sum them all up by saying that for now, it is a matter of the duties of war. The enemy is staggering, but he is not beaten yet. He remains on our soil.
It will not even be enough that we have, with the help of our dear and admirable Allies, chased him from our home for us to consider ourselves satisfied after what has happened. We want to enter his territory as is fitting, as victors.
This is why the French vanguard has entered Paris with guns blazing. This is why the great French army from Italy has landed in the south and is advancing rapidly up the Rhône valley. This is why our brave and dear Forces of the interior will arm themselves with modern weapons. It is for this revenge, this vengeance and justice, that we will keep fighting until the final day, until the day of total and complete victory.
This duty of war, all the men who are here and all those who hear us in France know that it demands national unity. We, who have lived the greatest hours of our History, we have nothing else to wish than to show ourselves, up to the end, worthy of France. Long live France!
He led the crowd in a mass singing of La Marseillaise. This was a significant event in French history. De Gaulle’s parents, both devout Catholics, had not observed Bastille Day and had not sung La Marseillaise, but their son, who was no less a devout Catholic, realized that the events of the 20th century had transformed the meaning of those symbols for the people that he led. It is important that we learn from History, but we can also never forget that we live within it, as contemporary events transform how we view the past and look to the future.
“He led the crowd in a mass singing of La Marseillaise. This was a significant event in French history. De Gaulle’s parents, both devout Catholics, had not observed Bastille Day and had not sung La Marseillaise, but their son, who was no less a devout Catholic…”
I’m not sure that’s something to be celebrated. France is one of the most secularized countries in Europe. Islam has surpassed Christianity in different parts of the country, the clergy is overwhelmingly liberal and it is astounding to see how few people go to Mass in those wonderful cathedrals and old churches. Poor eldest daughter of the church! May her many saints intercede for her.
That is largely a development of the sixties. If anything WWII led to a religious revival in France.
he clergy is overwhelmingly liberal
If my understanding is correct, those who attend the traditional rite in France (regular or offered by the SSPX) are at least as numerous as those who attend the novus ordo.
“That is largely a development of the sixties”
Well, De Gaulle was the President during the sixties, from 1959 to 1969. In any case what I meant was that the “rapprochement” between the Church and the institutions issued from the 1789 revolution quickly led to the secularization of the Church in France, whose bishops actually likened the Vatican Council as “1789 in the Church” (as if that were a good thing). I don’t doubt that De Gaulle was sincerely Catholic (so was Petain, by the way) but in retrospect, it seems the idea of reconciling with a regime that was substantially anti-Catholic was disastrous.
“traditional rite in France”
Yes, France is the European country with the largest number of traditionalist Catholics (linked to both regularized and non-regularized groups). It’s a direct result of the extreme liberalization of the French clergy, which made many of the faithful flee from their parishes.
“but in retrospect, it seems the idea of reconciling with a regime that was substantially anti-Catholic was disastrous.”
Had nothing to do with it. The disaster was all the result of Vatican II, and various demons unleashed in the secular world including the demonstrations in France in 1968. De Gaulle was as much of an ultimate victim of the sixties as was the Church. This of course was a phenomenon throughout the West and not limited to France. Franco’s Spain, for example, also encountered this at the same time.
With all due respect, “had nothing to do wih it” is a very risky sentence for an historian and, in this case, I’d say it’s indefensible. How could the major actions and decisions of French Catholics and the French Church immediately before the crisis have nothing to do with the crisis?
“This of course was a phenomenon throughout the West and not limited to France. Franco’s Spain, for example, also encountered this at the same time”
Actually, both countries were at that point (and are now) in a very different situation. French bishops were largely part of the progressive group in the Council and Spanish bishops were part of the traditional group. The destruction of the Church in France started a lot earlier (during De Gaulle’s watch, be that a cause or a correlation) and is a lot more advanced now than in Spain. Of course, Spain is doing its best to overtake its neighbour, but is still a good way behind. The French clergy (with some very good exceptions, such as the Frejus-Toulon bishop) is much older and doctrinally a lot worse (again, that is the reason why, as a reaction, there are a lot more traditional groups in France than in Spain). The percentage of French Catholics who attend Mass is probably the lowest in the world (and around half of Spain’s percentage).
It’s all a moot point, now, of course, since Catholicism seems eager to commit suicide everywhere throughout the West. May God send us holy Popes and bishops who can put an end to this madness.
I still won’t recognize Bastille Day anything more than a farce. But that’s just my opinion.
Long Live the King!
As a Canadian I have a hard time getting past a speech President de Gaulle gave from the balcony of Montreal city hall during our 1967 centennial year celebrations in which he shouted “Vive La Quebec libre!” (Long live free Quebec) … a rallying cry for Quebec separatists. This was de Gaulle’s reward for Canada’s great sacrifices in two world wars defending and liberating France.
My father, a sergeant air gunner in the Royal Canadian Air Force during WWII and an aero-engine tech afterwards, at the time was stationed in Lahr Germany at a French base being taken over by Canada when we were kicked out of Marville France when France abandoned NATO. My dad and his ground crew ended up in a near donnybrook with the French commandant of the base who was sitting with an adjacent table with some of his officers, and who took exception to nasty comments about de Gaulle expressed by outraged Canadian airmen. Chairs were raised a cudgels and the French Canadian airmen were shouting insults at the French commandant. Fortunately, the German police arrived to quell the fight, no doubt preventing my dad and his crew from being court marshalled for attacking French officers. My dad thought it would have been well worth it if it meant he could have punched the lights out of those arrogant and ungrateful frogs. Interestingly, years later I was buying my crew a beer in a gasthaus (pub) in Baden Germany when the place erupted into a huge fight between the US marines and the French Air Force. Don’t know who won as we Canucks bailed out the back door, but my money was on the Marines, one of whom grabbed me lifted me off my feet and was going to put me in the hospital (he was huge) until he saw I was a Canadian officer, set me down, brushed me off, apologized and sent me on my way. The stuff of family legend.
John the Mad, Major (Ret’d).