This is an excellent biography about the fascinating French army officer and statesman, General Charles de Gaulle. Reading the biography certainly leaves one with the sense of something providential about De Gaulle’s life for the history of modern France, and it would seem that De Gaulle himself saw his life in these terms. His formation as a young man prepares the man intellectually and morally (and perhaps even physically) to become the embodiment of France and French aspirations during the Second World War. It is de Gaulle who through his courageous refusal to accept the 1940 capitulation to the invading German army saved the honour of France, and also ensured that France would be something of a player in the events of the Second World War, and more importantly in the shaping of post-war Europe. De Gaulle dominated French politics after the war, and struggled to ensure that the Anglo-American alliance would not push France out of the reckoning on the world stage and eventually ensured that France would remain a significant world power. In 1958 de Gaulle, who had left public life in the preceding years, was sought out as the one figure who could save France from descending into civil war as a result to Algerian crisis in 1958. It was the anarchic spirit of the Sixties which finally defeated de Gaulle. The student riots across France in 1968 were the catalyst to his final and definitive departure from politics only two years before his sudden death at the age of 80.
At times there is a certain ambiguity about the man: there is a certain ruthlessness in his determination to attain or hang on to power that is a bit unsettling. At the same time he is man of deep Catholic faith, and unshakeable moral rectitude, as exemplified in his frugal lifestyle, and dedication to his wife Yvonne and children, and in particular his remarkable affection for his daughter Anne who was born with Down’s Syndrome. In this in particular the difference between de Gaulle and many other French political figure then and since is striking. Another striking feature of de Gaulle is his sheer intellectual prowess: his memory was prodigious and his hunger for reading insatiable – even while still President of France he was reading three books each week.