De Gaulle

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30094, 30 March 1963, Page 3

De Gaulle

De Gaulle. By Edward Ashcroft Odhams Press. Ltd. 272 pp. Index. Charles de Gaulle has long been an enigmatic and controversial figure, admired by some for his idealistic devotion to France, and accused by others of self-deception and delusions of grandeur. Mr Ashcroft, while sympathetic to de Gaulle, and admitting that objectivity at such close range is impossible, tries to achieve a reasonable balance between the extremes of adulation and resentment. He separates de Gaulle’s political career into five major phases.

In the first of these de Gaulle was a soldier of great courage who possessed an imaginative vision of mechanised warfare in advance of his time. There followed his leadership of the French Resistance, and, just after the war, the formation of the Rassemblement du Peuple Francais. In 1946, after his failure to achieve national unity, de Gaulle went into retirement, where he remained until 1958, when he was called upon to take over government of the country in an attempt to settle the Algerian crisis.

The central motive of de Gaulle's ambition has been, as Mr Ashcroft sees it, an “abstract” love of his country, both single-minded and intractable. Coupled with this devotion is an isolation and aloofness that have prevented him from co-operating successfully with other men. To many of his critics he is a man whose humanity has been absorbed by an ideal. In support of this view Mr Ashcroft quotes some comments on de Gaulle’s character by d’Astier de la Vigerie: “He does not like men; he only loves their history, especially the history of France, of which he was doing a chapter himself, writing it in his mind as he went along.” Elsewhere d’Astier described de Gaulle as a man “motivated by a single historical idea, the greatness of France, and for whom this road seems to replace all others—that of God, that of man, that of progress, that of all ideologies.” Such idealism can carry with it dangers of self-decep-tion; and some people have seen in de Gaulle a wouldbe dictator, bent on destroying all impediments to power. The author is quick to point out, however, that on the two occasions when de Gaulle could easily have established a dictatorship—in 1944, and again in 1958—he did not do so. If he was impatient with the methods of political parties. it was because he believed it necessary to be in a superior position where he could use them for his own purpose of achieving national unity. The author sees de Gaulle’s fundamental role as that of a unifier. Both.in 1940 and 1958 de Gaulle represented the continuity of France in a time of grave national stress.

“Did his actions between 1940 and 1944 reunite the French? The answer is yes. Did they after 1958? The answer, yes, has not the confident ring of the other. But without de Gaulle? Would there have been civil war in 1958? Would any other statesman have been able to put into effect a policy of selfdetermination in Algeria and to decolonise Africa? If it is a fact that de Gaulle failed in his task, it is reasonable to ask what his absence from the scene would have implied." Summing up, Mr Ashcroft sees de Gaulle as a solitary and noble figure committed to the ideal of France as a great power, and to a vision of himself as a unifying force in French life. Some readers of this book may not share Mr Ashcroft’s optimism that an obsessive vision of national greatness can in the long run be to the common good; and such caution would indeed seem to be justified by recent events. These questions, however, can only be finally answered when, in the perspective of time, the full pattern becomes clear; in the meantime Mr Ashcroft has provided an insight into character and motive which must enrich our understanding even if it may not win our sympathy.