de Gaulle, Charles Andr� Joseph Marie 1890-1970
French general and first President of the Fifth Republic

Charles de Gaulle was born in Lille. He served as an army officer in World War I, and drew on this experience to develop a new theory of mechanized strategy, which was expounded in The Army of the Future published in 1932, and which, although largely ignored by the French military, clearly inspired the German Blitzkrieg of 1940. De Gaulle's prescience was rewarded with promotion to general and junior War Secretary the same year, but days before the signing of the French Armistice he sought refuge in England to found the Free French Army. Though largely ignored by both Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt, he served as a focus for the resistance movement, in which he played an active role during the rest of the war. He returned to Paris in 1944 with the first liberation forces.

He was the country's natural first choice as postwar leader. He failed to form an all-party coalition and resigned in 1946 to found a new party, Rally of the French People, which took 40 per cent of the votes in the 1947 election. He relinquished its leadership in 1953, and, in the wake of the failure by successive administrations to resolve the Algerian question, was free to accept office as first President of the Fifth Republic in 1958. In 1959-60 he granted self-government to all French African colonies (including Algeria, which finally achieved independence in 1962), and at home consolidated France's growing international importance by establishing its own nuclear deterrent, fostering better relations with West Germany, blocking Great Britain's attempts in 1962 and 1967 toenter the Common Market, and recognizing the Peking (Beijing) government in 1964.

Despite his extensive use of the referendum, his autocratic presidential style and the growing popularity of the Left among the new young electorate created by the postwar baby boom, he won re-election in 1965 after a second vote, and recovered with an overwhelming victory in 1968 on seeking a mandate in the wake of violent student riots. However, in 1969 the electorate's rejection, in a referendum, of his proposals for Senate and regional reforms brought his resignation, and he died a year later.

To the British and Americans in particular, Charles de Gaulle epitomized Gallic obstinacy and self-interest, but while he could not match Churchill's brilliance in wartime, he may be regarded as a more influential and effective national leader in peacetime.

Bibliography: His three-volume memoirs, M�moires de guerre, were published between 1954 and 1959. See also Brian Crozier, De Gaulle: The Warrior (1973) and De Gaulle: The Statesman (1974); Aidan Crawley, De Gaulle (1969).