(It is quite amusing that I am now posting this De Gaulle entry exactly on the fourth anniversary of Nicholas Sarkozy assuming the office of the President of France. M. Sarkozy, of course, has represented himself as some kind of modern-day reincarnation of Charles De Gaulle, although, in my opinion, this claim has been grossly exaggerated.)
In a recent national poll, the French public voted General Charles de Gaulle, affectionately remembered as Le Général, as the greatest Frenchman of all time. While the shadow of Napoleon may have felt snubbed, it should not offend any other sensibilities (after all, Charlemagne was German!),--- except, perhaps, the purely political sensibilities of the English-speaking world, namely, the Americans, the British, and the English-speaking Canadians,--- because Charles de Gaulle was a bona fide genius, whose major influence on world affairs was not limited to his native France.
Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) lived over two world wars, and, considering his remarkable perspicacity regarding the things to come, it is not surprising that he had chosen the military career for himself. Since an early age, he was actively interested in history, and would become an exceptionally gifted writer of a series of prognosticative books. His first book L’Ennemi et le Vrai Ennemi was written during WWI, when he was held as a prisoner of war by the Germans. Published in 1924, the book analyzed the internal developments and contradictions within the German Empire.
During the decade of the 1930’s, he wrote several extraordinary, historically momentous books and articles on military subjects. In 1931 came Le Fil de l’Epée, a thoughtful analysis of military-political leadership. In 1934 came his great work Vers l’Armée de Métier, followed in 1934 by La France et Son Armée. There he advocated the creation of a mechanized army with special armored divisions manned by a corps of professional specialist soldiers, instead of the static theories, exemplified by the Maginot Line. Ironically, the books had no impact on French military thinking, but Vers l’Armée de Métier was immediately noticed and taken as an essential blueprint for military development both in Stalin’s Russia and in Hitler's Germany.
Stalin had this book promptly translated for him, like he had had it earlier with Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and, very much impressed with De Gaulle's revolutionary idea, ordered its study and implementation within the Soviet Army. As for Hitler, according to Albert Speer’s Inside the Third Reich, “Hitler claimed total credit for the success of the campaign in the West. The plan for it, he said, came from De Gaulle’s book. ‘I have again and again,’ he told us, ‘read Colonel de Gaulle’s book on methods of modern warfare employing fully motorized units and I have learned a great deal from it.’”
It is of course cruelly ironic that Hitler was able to trounce France in 1940 with De Gaulle’s indirect help, but on a brighter note, had it not been for De Gaulle’s genius, the Russians might not have been able to produce, in superhumanly record time, the legendary T-34 generally recognized as the best tank ever made,--- the machine which was, in turn, largely responsible for defeating Hitler himself.)
After the French surrender to Germany in 1940, De Gaulle became the leader of the FFL, Forces Françaises Libres, and for his defiance of the Vichy regime he was sentenced to death in absentia, as a traitor. After the war, he was seen as a national hero, and even served as President of the Provisional Government of France, from September 1944 until January 1946, when he resigned, because of a political conflict in France at that time and because of his condemnation of the proposed Constitution of the Fourth Republic, which he found too weak and ineffective. His self-removal from politics lasted from 1946 until 1958, when the weak Fourth Republic finally collapsed, and De Gaulle was enthusiastically elected as the President of the Fifth Republic, inaugurated in January 1959.
De Gaulle’s decade in office has been seen as the Golden Age of France, although it was deeply soaked in domestic and international controversy. His anti-American (he saw himself as a bastion of resistance to the new American hegemony in Western Europe and elsewhere), anti-British (he called Britain a Trojan Horse for the United States) and anti-Israel (he effectively blocked all ongoing French military assistance to Israel, which he inherited from the previous administration) stance was coupled with his perceived detente with the Soviet Union, Communist China, and the anti-Israeli Arab world. What all this amounted to, of course, was his brave decision to chart an independent course for France, where his policy of mild neutrality in the cold war between the US and the USSR was seen by the West not as a balancing act, which it was, but as an act of betrayal of Western interests and consorting with the other side.
In domestic policy, De Gaulle introduced the concept of dirigisme, a heavy involvement of the government in the functioning of the leading French enterprises, including five-year plans of economic development, in which an unmistakable influence of the Stalinist economic wonder can be found, but in a greatly improved version, in which entrepreneurial initiative was encouraged and rewarded.
Furthermore recognizing the disadvantages of excessive economic fragmentation, which had plagued French industry prior to the Second World War, De Gaulle’s government encouraged mergers and the formation of “national champions,” large industry groups backed by the government.
Remarkably, in this, too, de Gaulle proved to be a world leader ahead of his time. Previously distinguished mostly by his military genius (his groundbreaking emphasis on tank warfare), this idea of his of nationally-oriented government-sponsored business mega-corporations, national champions, has been effectively adopted in today’s Russia by Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev.
In concluding this entry, I assert that throughout his life Charles de Gaulle exhibited a genius which not only fully qualifies him as a great Frenchman (arguably, the greatest), but also as one of the most outstanding and influential geniuses in all world history. I wish Michael Hart had made a note of this, in his Top 100 List!
In a recent national poll, the French public voted General Charles de Gaulle, affectionately remembered as Le Général, as the greatest Frenchman of all time. While the shadow of Napoleon may have felt snubbed, it should not offend any other sensibilities (after all, Charlemagne was German!),--- except, perhaps, the purely political sensibilities of the English-speaking world, namely, the Americans, the British, and the English-speaking Canadians,--- because Charles de Gaulle was a bona fide genius, whose major influence on world affairs was not limited to his native France.
Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) lived over two world wars, and, considering his remarkable perspicacity regarding the things to come, it is not surprising that he had chosen the military career for himself. Since an early age, he was actively interested in history, and would become an exceptionally gifted writer of a series of prognosticative books. His first book L’Ennemi et le Vrai Ennemi was written during WWI, when he was held as a prisoner of war by the Germans. Published in 1924, the book analyzed the internal developments and contradictions within the German Empire.
During the decade of the 1930’s, he wrote several extraordinary, historically momentous books and articles on military subjects. In 1931 came Le Fil de l’Epée, a thoughtful analysis of military-political leadership. In 1934 came his great work Vers l’Armée de Métier, followed in 1934 by La France et Son Armée. There he advocated the creation of a mechanized army with special armored divisions manned by a corps of professional specialist soldiers, instead of the static theories, exemplified by the Maginot Line. Ironically, the books had no impact on French military thinking, but Vers l’Armée de Métier was immediately noticed and taken as an essential blueprint for military development both in Stalin’s Russia and in Hitler's Germany.
Stalin had this book promptly translated for him, like he had had it earlier with Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and, very much impressed with De Gaulle's revolutionary idea, ordered its study and implementation within the Soviet Army. As for Hitler, according to Albert Speer’s Inside the Third Reich, “Hitler claimed total credit for the success of the campaign in the West. The plan for it, he said, came from De Gaulle’s book. ‘I have again and again,’ he told us, ‘read Colonel de Gaulle’s book on methods of modern warfare employing fully motorized units and I have learned a great deal from it.’”
It is of course cruelly ironic that Hitler was able to trounce France in 1940 with De Gaulle’s indirect help, but on a brighter note, had it not been for De Gaulle’s genius, the Russians might not have been able to produce, in superhumanly record time, the legendary T-34 generally recognized as the best tank ever made,--- the machine which was, in turn, largely responsible for defeating Hitler himself.)
After the French surrender to Germany in 1940, De Gaulle became the leader of the FFL, Forces Françaises Libres, and for his defiance of the Vichy regime he was sentenced to death in absentia, as a traitor. After the war, he was seen as a national hero, and even served as President of the Provisional Government of France, from September 1944 until January 1946, when he resigned, because of a political conflict in France at that time and because of his condemnation of the proposed Constitution of the Fourth Republic, which he found too weak and ineffective. His self-removal from politics lasted from 1946 until 1958, when the weak Fourth Republic finally collapsed, and De Gaulle was enthusiastically elected as the President of the Fifth Republic, inaugurated in January 1959.
De Gaulle’s decade in office has been seen as the Golden Age of France, although it was deeply soaked in domestic and international controversy. His anti-American (he saw himself as a bastion of resistance to the new American hegemony in Western Europe and elsewhere), anti-British (he called Britain a Trojan Horse for the United States) and anti-Israel (he effectively blocked all ongoing French military assistance to Israel, which he inherited from the previous administration) stance was coupled with his perceived detente with the Soviet Union, Communist China, and the anti-Israeli Arab world. What all this amounted to, of course, was his brave decision to chart an independent course for France, where his policy of mild neutrality in the cold war between the US and the USSR was seen by the West not as a balancing act, which it was, but as an act of betrayal of Western interests and consorting with the other side.
In domestic policy, De Gaulle introduced the concept of dirigisme, a heavy involvement of the government in the functioning of the leading French enterprises, including five-year plans of economic development, in which an unmistakable influence of the Stalinist economic wonder can be found, but in a greatly improved version, in which entrepreneurial initiative was encouraged and rewarded.
Furthermore recognizing the disadvantages of excessive economic fragmentation, which had plagued French industry prior to the Second World War, De Gaulle’s government encouraged mergers and the formation of “national champions,” large industry groups backed by the government.
Remarkably, in this, too, de Gaulle proved to be a world leader ahead of his time. Previously distinguished mostly by his military genius (his groundbreaking emphasis on tank warfare), this idea of his of nationally-oriented government-sponsored business mega-corporations, national champions, has been effectively adopted in today’s Russia by Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev.
In concluding this entry, I assert that throughout his life Charles de Gaulle exhibited a genius which not only fully qualifies him as a great Frenchman (arguably, the greatest), but also as one of the most outstanding and influential geniuses in all world history. I wish Michael Hart had made a note of this, in his Top 100 List!
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