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Date of Birth
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22-November-1890
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Place of Birth
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Lille
(Nord, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France)
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Nationality
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France
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Also know as
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Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle, Charles Andre Joseph Marie de Gaulle, The Great Asparagus, de Gaulle, Charles
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Profession
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Soldier
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Quotes
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- Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.
- The sword is the axis of the world, and grandeur is indivisible.
- The graveyards are full of indispensable men.
- Old age is a shipwreck.
- For glory gives herself only to those who have always dreamed of her.
- In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.
- Treaties are like roses and young girls -- they last while they last
- Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back.
- I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
- How can you govern a country with two hundred and forty six varieties of cheese?
- Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.
- Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him.
- Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.
- Every man of action has a strong dose of egoism, pride, hardness, and cunning. But all those things will be regarded as high qualities if he can make them the means to achieve great ends.
- France has lost a battle. But France has not lost the war.
- Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.
- Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains, they drown in every drop.
- In the tumult of men and events, solitude was my temptation; now it is my friend. What other satisfaction can be sought once you have confronted History?
- When I am right, I get angry. Churchill gets angry when he is wrong. So we were often angry at each other.
- Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself. He imposes his own stamp of action, takes responsibility for it, makes it his own.
- No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent.
- I respect only those who resist me; but I cannot tolerate them.
- For my part, I can say that the comradeship of arms, sealed on the battlefield of Abbeville in May-June 1940, between the French armoured division, which I had the honour to command, and the gallant 51st Scottish Division under General Fortune, played its part in the decision which I made to continue the fight at the side of the Allies, to the end, come what may.
- Deliberation is a function of the many; action is the function of one.
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Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first president from 1959 to 1969.
De Gaulle came to the fore in the interwar army as a proponent of mobile armoured divisions. During World War II, he attained the rank of brigadier general. De Gaulle led the Free French Forces and a government in exile against France's pro-German Vichy government while he was in London and Africa, gained control of most French colonies, and participated in the liberation of Paris. Despite France's initial defeat, de Gaulle insisted that she be treated as a great power by the other Allies. His promotion of French national interests led to confrontations with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, due to their initial unwillingness to inform him of the D-Day landings in June 1944.
De Gaulle secured a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for France in 1945. After the war ended, de Gaulle became prime minister in the French Provisional Government, resigning in 1946 because of political conflicts. He founded his own political party, the Rally of the French People—Rassemblement du Peuple Francais, —in 1947. When the Algerian war crisis was ripping apart the Fourth Republic, the Assembly brought him back to power as President of the Council of Ministers during the May 1958 crisis. De Gaulle led the writing of a new constitution founding the Fifth Republic, and was elected President of France. Gaullism, de Gaulle's foreign policy strategy as president, asserted that France is a major power and should not rely on other countries, such as the United States, for its national security and prosperity. Often criticized for his "Politics of Grandeur", de Gaulle oversaw the development of French atomic weapons and promoted a foreign policy independent of "Anglo Saxon" influences. He withdrew France from NATO military command—although remaining a member of the Western alliance—and twice vetoed Britain's entry into the European Community. In May 1968, he appeared likely to lose power amidst widespread protests by students and workers, but survived the crisis with an increased majority in the Assembly. However, de Gaulle resigned in 1969 after losing a referendum in which he proposed more decentralization.
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