Charles de Gaulle's Impact on France's Re-emergence as a Great Nation
Few individuals in history have had such a profound impact on the destiny of a nation as Charles de Gaulle, who from the time of his heroic refusal to accept the humiliating defeat of the French in 1940 at the hands of the rampaging Germans, to his resignation of the Presidency in 1969, symbolized French independence and guided his country's re-emergence as a great nation.It may come as a surprise to those who are unfamiliar with French history that de Gaulle was just a colonel in the French Army at the start of Second World War. But he was no ordinary colonel, a fact that was belatedly recognized by the French government when, amidst the military debacle of May-June 1940, he was given command of the 4th Armored Division1, and then appointed as the undersecretary of defense just before the complete capitulation of the French government. Hence, it was only with a tenuous mandate to repre
This, however, was not be his last contribution to French politics by any means as he was destined to play a more telling role in French reemergence as a major power. During 1940-44, de Gaulle never compromised on the independence of his actions and by his unflinching will and sense of honor made himself the embodiment of the French state itself. As a result, although the Free French forces only played a minimal, symbolic role in the fight for France's liberation alongside the Allied Army, de Gaulle was at the head of the liberating force when it entered Paris and took over as the Prime Minister-President of the new French government (Ibid. In 1958, after the failure of a weak French government to control a guerrilla insurrection in French Algeria, de Gaulle was again invited to head the government. sent the French nation2 that de Gaulle made his famous call in a BBC radio broadcast on June 18, 1940 to his countrymen for resistance against the Germans. " (Manent, 202) In France's darkest hour, de Gaulle's defiance, gave faith and hope to his fellow Frenchmen who had fallen into despair. De Gaulle belonged to that rare breed of men who change history with the sheer dint of their will. He not only gave hope to France in its darkest hour but also played a key role in its re-emergence as a great nation. In this period, de Gaulle gave France a new constitution, enhanced the powers of the President, extracted France from its colony of Algeria, made his country a nuclear power, laid the foundation of an independent foreign policy, initiated European integration, and oversaw rapid expansion of the French economy (Kedourie 43-47). Given the ground realities at the time, De Gaulle's "appeal" may have appeared quixotic, but his refusal to accept the armistice was, in the words of Pierre Manent, "the decision from which the whole Gaullist epic sprang. De Gaulle accepted the challenge with relish and went on to guide his country on the path of unprecedented prosperity and development during the next 11 years. From his exile in London, de Gaulle then set about doggedly lobbying for acceptance of France's sovereignty by the Allied powers. )De Gaulle remained the head of the provisional French government for less than two years before resigning in January 1946 due to increasing opposition to his proposal of strengthening the Presidential powers and his disapproval of the proposed constitution of the Fourth Republic. He also single-handedly galvanized the expatriate Frenchmen, and the French resistance inside France, to join him in his "fight" against Nazi Germany by forming the Free French movement.
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