A Life of General De Gaulle: The Last Great Frenchman [Hardcover]

This is one of the best political biographies I have ever read.

Without going into too much detail, Charles Williams covers the life of this difficult, charismatic, democratic and yet tyrannical leader who gave France her selfrespect back after the terrible eventsof 1940 and certainly saved the country from civil war over Algeria in the 50's.

Even if you read this work as I did with a sketchy knowledge of french politics it is a truly fascinating read. De gaulle comes across as n almost mystical figure who himself as THE embodiement of France. He was highly democratic in his use of the referendum and yet generally disliked politicians and when recalled to power at the height of the Algerian war of independence assumed, and wanted, the powers of a dictator.
All these foibles are brilliantly described witout any judgemental air and make for scintilating reading. This book deserves to be read as a classic

It would take a complete buffoon to make the life of Charles de Gaulle anything less than fascinating. Obviously Charles Williams is no buffoon. The book is well written and easy to read (that is meant to be a compliment). He keeps a good pace, giving equal weight to each major period of de Gaulle's life. He clearly has great respect for de Gaulle, without descending in hagiography

Highly recommended

OK - what did I know about de Gaulle, prior to reading this? Well, Peter Lorre in "Casablanca" refers to the two letters of transit as "signed by General de Gaulle"; a suspicious character in the same film is gunned down in front of a Free France picture (I think.) Flanders and Swann did a varient of "This Old Man" entitled "All Gall" which made references to a batch of things I'd vaguely heard of - crosses of Lorraine, Adenauer, the French fleet being withdrawn from NATO. And finally, as a boy I saw a picture in "The Chronicle of the Twentieth Century" of de Gaulle, seemingly shouting, with the title "de Gaulle rebuffs Wilson". It was something to do with EEC membership.

So as you can probably guess, beyond knowing that de Gaulle was a fairly important Frenchman who was involved in opposing the Nazis in World War Two, and that he later went on to lead France, I had essentially no knowledge of Charles de Gaulle AT ALL before starting this book.

Once I'd started, it was pretty clear that I was reading a very, very well written biography. Instead of laboriously covered every aspect of de Gaulle's childhood, the book moves on at pace without skimping on character development. When the First World War starts, de Gaulle, as a young officer, is the central point of the chapter - rather than a tedious and frankly derivative section describing the battles, the mud, the horror and the tedium, which most biographers insert whenever the Great War is mentioned, Williams is interested in these things only in so far as they are of direct relevance to de Gaulle. This is a strategy repeated throughout the book, even up to one of the last defining crises of de Gaulle's career, the student riots in 1968.

The result of this is that a book which could very easily have been twice as long and several times more boring is one that is very, very readable without descending from a high intellectual plain. Observations about de Gaulle are borne out by anecdotes, comments from contemporaries, and persuasive arguments. In short, Charles Williams knows his subject, is sure of history and his own interpretation, and is thus able to guide the reader through them without tedium. De Gaulle is conveyed as a characer with a clear set of duties, obligations and morals, which is probably true. The notion that the General played the role of "de Gaulle" more and more towards the end of his life is a workable and viable one; and despite the fact that it negates the value of what de Gaulle actually said in public appearances (as Williams notes), it is difficult not to be impressed by this figure even during the 1960s as the world moved on.

There are villains, obviously; the de Gaulle-Roosevelt animosity reflects badly on FDR, and Mitterand comes out of the book as a rather scheming character. I can't comment on the accuracy of these observations but it's impressive that the reader feels that way despite most of the vitriol coming from de Gaulle, who at times is closer to an anti-hero than a saviour of France.

In all, I feel that this book is not only a first-class introduction to de Gaulle, but is also something for the more established historical-biography-reading crowd who want an honest and readable take on a figure who almost uniquely provided continuity from the Victorian era, through both world wars, into the 1970s (just.)

Entirely recommended!