Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle was a career army officer who had before the war argued presciently (and unsuccessfully) for a mechanised, professional armoured force. On 18 June 1940, the day after Marshal Pétain asked Germany for an armistice, de Gaulle broadcast from London — a junior general with no mandate, little money, and almost no followers — that France had lost a battle but not the war. His moral authority rested entirely on the claim that he embodied the real France; his political genius was in convincing first the British, then the Americans, and finally the French people that this was true. He led the Free French forces, negotiated relentlessly for French inclusion in Allied planning, and staged his entry into Paris on 26 August 1944 to establish the legitimacy of his Provisional Government beyond question. After the war he dominated French politics until 1969, shaping the Fifth Republic around a strong executive whose constitution he wrote. He remains the towering figure of modern French history.
- Lived: 1890 CE – 1970 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: general, head of government, head of state
