Charles de Gaulle on the Normandy landings and commemorations
From "C'était de Gaulle"
In the WW2 mythos, the effort of General de Gaulle is assimilated to that of the Allied cause and by extension to the Normandy landings. But it was not so. Throughout his time in power, he refused to participate in the commemorations which are now so ubiquitous amongst French presidents.
In the days leading up to Operation Overlord, Winston Churchill had grown increasingly irritated by what he deemed to be lack of cooperation displayed by the leader of the Free French Forces. The operation was only revealed to the General on the eve of the landings.
Churchill revealed that according to Roosevelt’s wishes, France was to be placed under Allied military occupation and administration. Currency backed by that administration would be printed and circulated, probably wrecking havoc on the French economy.
An explosive encounter ensued, and De Gaulle directed all French liaison officers to “desert the liberation effort underway.” General Eisenhower had also drafted a speech he wished for him to read to the BBC. De Gaulle stormed out and told a companion the same day “I have just told Eisenhower to stuff it.”
Churchill drafted a letter rebuking him, writing that he would “make plain to the world that the personality of General de Gaulle is the sole and main obstacle between the great democracies of the west and the people of France, to whose rescue they are coming, no matter what the cost may be.” He wrote that he was to leave as soon as possible as his presence was no longer required.
De Gaulle ended up compromising, gave a speech to the BBC (much later than requested), and allowed 20 out of the 120 officers to go. Churchill’s letter ended up in a drawer with a large note, “DO NOT SEND.”
In his view, that letter would have supposedly completed the sidelining of De Gaulle and prevented him from being at the head of the provisional government formed by the Liberation Committee. Instead, Roosevelt would not get his wish for a general election (which would surely have been won by the Communists).
General de Gaulle would secure the landing of Leclerc’s 2nd Armored Division, and he would himself arrive on French shores to begin placing people loyal to himself in civil administrations. In the end, de Gaulle would arrive triumphant in Paris and refuse to proclaim a new regime. Instead, he considered it more important that France had never fallen, and that its pre-war regime had remained alive in his personhood.
In 1946, seeing that the regime change he aimed for was not materializing, he resigned as head of the government citing the insufficient authority this position held. The Republic had never fallen, but that also meant that neither did the regime of petty party factionalism which had provoked defeat, disarray, and dishonor. It would take 12 more years.
When questioned on his opinion of the man, Churchill said: “If I regard de Gaulle as a great man? He is selfish, he is arrogant, he believes he is the center of the world. He… You are quite right. He is a great man.”
On the circumstances surrounding the Normandy landings
Salon doré, January 23, 1963.
CDG: “What the Americans want is to be sovereign in our home. In 1944, they were preparing to govern France through the AMGOT. If I hadn't imposed the authority of the provisional government through my representatives and the Resistance when I came to Bayeux eight days after the landing, France would have been treated as an enemy and conquered country, just like Italy was and as Germany was about to be; but not Belgium and Holland, whose governments had taken refuge in London. Already in 1942, the Americans had made secret agreements with Darlan, transferring French sovereignty over North Africa to the United States.”
AP: “Is that why Darlan was assassinated?”
CDG: “Darlan was not assassinated! He was executed by the Resistance. Four men drew lots to decide who would be responsible for his execution.”
AP: “Were you aware of this?”
CDG: “No, not of this specific plan. But I knew well that Darlan would be executed sooner or later. For me, it was as good as done. If it hadn't been those four, it would have been others. This execution had a spontaneous and elemental character.”
“The thing one must never surrender,” he concluded, “is legitimacy, you see, it's the higher interest of the nation, it's its sovereignty. Primum omnium salus patriae.”
On Churchill
After the Council meeting, I point out to the General that the English were not always “the poor English.” If they are now, isn't it because they don't have a Churchill?
The General calmly reiterates a lesson he's already taught me: “Oh! Make no mistake! Churchill was magnificent until '42. After that, as if he was exhausted by a great effort, he passed the torch to the Americans and erased himself behind them.”
With that, the General recounts a memory that my comment must have revived in his mind.
“I was arguing with Churchill over the recognition of the authority of the Provisional Government over the territories of France that would be liberated after the landing. The Americans wanted to give authority to Eisenhower and AMGOT. They had prepared proclamations, fake banknotes, etc, which the American troops were ready to distribute. Naturally, the English were following the Americans' lead.”
“On the eve of the landing, Churchill invites me to lunch in a train on the English coast, near Portsmouth. A train! As if there were already a tunnel under the Channel and he was about to enter France in his train! I was there with Palewski (here, the General is mistaken: according to his own Memoirs, it was Viénot). He receives me for lunch in his wagon. And right in the middle of lunch, in the presence of some English ministers, he throws a terrible fit at me and shouts at the top of his lungs: ‘Make no mistake, de Gaulle, every time I have to choose between Europe and the open sea, I will always choose the open sea! When I have to choose between you, de Gaulle, and Roosevelt, I will always choose Roosevelt! If we are liberating Europe now, it's because the Americans are with us to do it! We cannot take a different position from that of the United States! And if we only had the FFL to help us, we would quickly have to re-embark. Just like at Dunkirk four years ago!’“
“That was Churchill's conviction. Eden nodded in agreement. Bevin came to me after lunch and said in a loud and clear voice: ‘The Prime Minister spoke in his own name, not at all on behalf of the British Cabinet.’ Yet, broadly speaking, that has been the English policy since 1942, whether the government was Labour or Tory.”
“Except for a quickly closed parenthesis: Eden, after Nasser's move on Suez. But he gave in; the dollar pressured the pound, and the City pressured Eden, who didn't have strong enough nerves.”
For the General, the quality of one's nerves comes above all else. A man with nerves of steel holds out. A man with less hardened nerves throws challenges beyond his strength only in a fleeting fit of anger. A man with no nerves at all collapses.
On his attitude towards the post-war ceremonies commemorating the landings, his refusal to participate
By appointing Jean Sainteny as Minister of Veterans Affairs in December 1962, the General had asked him to dedicate his energy to the year 1964. It was a suitable time to rekindle the memory of two glorious years: the fiftieth anniversary of 1914 and the twentieth anniversary of 1944.
At the end of the Council meeting on October 30, 1963, where Sainteny mentioned the ceremonies planned for the commemoration of the Liberation, Pompidou took me aside: “Try to get the General to reconsider his refusal to go to the Normandy beaches…” I was astonished both by the information and the request. “Anyway,” continued Pompidou, “take precautions… I hit a brick wall.” Sainteny then informed me that he had also hit a brick wall. Naturally, I would as well.
Salon doré
AP (with an innocent look): “Do you believe, General, that the French will understand that you are not present at the Normandy ceremonies?”
CDG (severely): “Is it Pompidou who asked you to bring this up again? (I do not flinch.) Well, no! My decision is made! France was treated like a doormat! Churchill summoned me from Algiers to London on June 4. He had me come to a train where he had set up his headquarters, like a lord of the manor summoning his maître d'hôtel. And he announced the landing to me, without any French unit scheduled to participate. We clashed harshly”
“I reproached him for putting himself at Roosevelt's orders instead of imposing a European will (emphasizes). He shouted at me with all his might: ‘De Gaulle, mark my words, when I have to choose between you and Roosevelt, I will always prefer Roosevelt! When we have to choose between the French and the Americans, we will always prefer the Americans! When we have to choose between the continent and the open sea, we will always choose the open sea!’”
(He has told me this before. This memory is indelible.)
“The June 6 landing was the Anglo-Saxons' affair, from which France was excluded. They were determined to settle in France as in enemy territory! Just as they had done in Italy and were preparing to do in Germany! They had prepared their AMGOT, which was to govern France sovereignly as their armies advanced. They had printed their counterfeit money, which would have had forced circulation. They would have behaved as in a conquered country.”
“That's exactly what would have happened if I hadn't imposed, yes imposed, my Republic commissioners, my prefects, my sub-prefects, my liberation committees! And you want me to go commemorate their landing, when it was the prelude to a second occupation of the country? No, no, do not count on me! I want things to happen gracefully, but my place is not there!”
“And on top of that, it would contribute to the belief that if we were liberated, we owe it only to the Americans. This would essentially disregard the Resistance. Our natural defeatism is already too inclined to adopt these views. We must not give in to that!”
“On the other hand, my place will be at Mount Faron on August 15, since French troops were predominant in the Provence landing, since our 1st Army was involved from the very first minute, and since its rapid advance up the Rhône Valley forced the Germans to evacuate the entire South and the Massif Central under Resistance pressure. And I will commemorate the liberation of Paris, and then Strasbourg, because these are French feats, because the French from within and outside united there, around their flag, their anthem, their homeland! But to associate myself with the commemoration of a day when the French were asked to surrender to others rather than rely on themselves, no!”
“The French are already too inclined to believe they can sleep soundly, that they only need to rely on others to defend their independence! We must not encourage them in this naive trust, which they then pay for with ruins and massacres! We must encourage them to count on themselves! Come on, come on, Peyrefitte! We need more memory than that! We must commemorate France, not the Anglo-Saxons! I have no reason to celebrate that ostentatiously. Tell this to your journalists.”
He continued: “Those who gave their lives for their homeland on our soil — the English, the Canadians, the Americans, the Poles — Sainteny and Triboulet will be there to honor them properly.”
I said nothing to the journalists. I even said: “It was not brought up at the Council of Ministers,” which is true. The General surely noticed that I had not fulfilled that mission. No remarks. Perhaps he appreciated it?
[…]
Hoping that the General will have forgotten his sharp retort, or at least will have forgotten that he addressed it to me, I bring up the question again, ten and a half months later, on May 13, 1964.
AP: “Do you not fear that if we do not provide at least some explanations, your absence on June 6th in Normandy will be misinterpreted?”
CDG: “But I have already told you! There was never any question of me going there! I did not go for the fifth anniversary; nor for the tenth; nor for the fifteenth. Why would you expect me to go for the twentieth? And I asked the Prime Minister not to go either. Moreover, the British Prime Minister is not going. Johnson will not go either. Why should we go?” (Obviously, Wilson and Johnson are not going because de Gaulle is not going.)
AP: “Eisenhower and Montgomery are supposed to go.”
CDG: “They are actors, who are paid handsomely by television1.”
After the Council of June 10, 1964, the General once again shows his irritation:
“These gentlemen of the press who reproach me for not going to Normandy twenty years later, what were they doing then? Were they fighting for France to regain its freedom, for it to contribute to its liberation? What were they doing during the war? They were not fighting in Normandy, or anywhere else. The Liberation happened without them. It happened without them.”
He leans back in his chair, adjusts his back. He feels like talking.
CDG: “Do you think the Americans and the British landed in Normandy to do us a favor? What they wanted was to move north along the coast, destroy the V1 and V2 bases, take Antwerp, and from there, launch the assault on Germany. Paris and France did not interest them. Their strategy was to reach the Ruhr, which was the arsenal, and not to lose a day along the way.”
“Churchill had asked Eisenhower to try to liberate Paris by Christmas. He had told him: ‘No one could ask more of you.’ Well actually, yes, we were determined to ask for more! The people of Paris rose up spontaneously and would probably have been crushed under the rubble, like the people of Warsaw, if they had not been supported. But there were men who, three years earlier, in Koufra2, had sworn to liberate Paris, then Strasbourg. It was they who liberated Paris with its people.”
“But we did not have the agreement of the Americans. When I saw that the Paris uprising was about to be crushed by an intact German division coming from Boulogne-sur-mer, I ordered Leclerc to charge. That's how we avoided Paris's fate being Warsaw's. We forced the Anglo-Saxons to change their strategy. The Americans cared no more about liberating France than the Russians did about liberating Poland. What they wanted was to finish off Hitler, with as few losses as possible. What they wanted to spare was the blood of the boys, not the blood, suffering, and honor of the French.”
“Indeed, if the Anglo-Saxons had been able to carry out their strategy to the end, they might have succeeded in striking Germany in the heart more quickly. Anyway, Hitler would have eventually been defeated, and France would have eventually been liberated. But if the French had remained passive, if we had not had a part in Hitler's defeat, it would have been he who would have conquered France in the end.”
[…]
At the Council meeting on August 14, 1964, Jean Sainteny provides the schedule for the anniversary events of the liberation of Paris: on August 25, the General will go to Montparnasse station, to the Police Prefecture, to City Hall where he will deliver a speech.
CDG: "A speech, yes, but no balcony! Once was enough! A podium on the steps!"
Does he retain bad memories of the balcony scene, where Bidault and the National Council of the Resistance had tried — in vain — to get him to proclaim the Republic? Or perhaps, out of authenticity, he does not want to proceed with a false reenactment, just as he has always refused to repeat his appeal of June 18, for which no recording was kept? He doesn't like being pressured. And he doesn't like it when he seems to be made the godfather of the Republic. The Republic is not above France and the State. It is only one of their incarnations through time. He took it with him to London, along with the State and France. He certainly wasn't going, on August 25, 1944, to proclaim... himself.
On August 26, 1964, Sainteny receives warm compliments.
CDG: “Your celebrations were well organized. Everything went smoothly. It's a bit surprising to have grand festivities coincide with the anniversary of bloody battles. But it's not useless. It's a beneficial reminder for public consciousness.”
Reminder3, as one would say of a vaccine? He must be thinking mainly of the reminder of History, given by those who lived it to those who did not. He accompanies the compliments with a few jabs:
“Don't let yourselves get carried away by the associations! Now they've issued a stamp for the orphans of the 2nd DB4! But these orphans are thirty years old! National ceremonies are not about the 2nd DB! I don't want to see that in Strasbourg! The Liberation is not the affair of an association, it's the affair of France and therefore the affair of the State.”
“It's the affair of France.” The Resistance, the Liberation are a heritage of honor that belongs to all. More than anyone, the General knows the cowardice and divisions of the past. They are vivid in him, in his private judgment of people. But he does everything to erase them from collective memory. The French are in no way bound by them; on the contrary, they are elevated by the struggles of all Resistances. Including his own resistance to the Liberators.
On his own legitimacy, and the legality of Free France
Salon doré, May 23, 1963.
I ask the General what he means by legitimacy and the difference he makes with legality. “In normal circumstances,” he tells me patiently, “institutions and customs ensure order. But real order can only rest on national independence, public freedoms, the proper functioning of justice, and popular sovereignty. There are periods when, even if apparent order continues to reign, it loses its meaning because, underneath, the real order is broken. Do you see what I mean? That's what happened with the armistice, before repeating under the regime of parties, which auctioned off France's sovereignty. As Péguy5 said: ‘Order, and order alone, ultimately creates freedom; disorder creates servitude. Only the order of freedom is legitimate.’”
AP: “But how can we distinguish what is legitimate from what is legal?”
CDG: “Under normal circumstances, apparent order reflects deep order. It is expressed through laws and regulations. It is even expressed, look, through protocol, a reflection of the hierarchy by which order is maintained. But we must not be its slave. We must interpret it, relativize it. Always, put the spirit before the letter."
[…]
Salon doré, July 8, 1964.
The General asks me to prepare to give a speech on Péguy in Orléans for the fiftieth anniversary of his death.
AP: “You once quoted a saying of Péguy to me: ‘Order, and order alone, ultimately creates freedom.’ You seemed to attach some importance to it. Don't you think, General, that the saying can be reversed: ‘Freedom, and freedom alone, ultimately creates order?’”
The General sketches a smile: “It happens that the best sayings can be reversed... These two notions are interdependent. In June 1940, order was cast down, as rarely happened in our history. There was neither order nor freedom. It was clear that a new order could only be rebuilt from freedom. That is, from the Free French, and only in a liberated France. The order of Vichy was invalid because that regime was not free. These people made the mistake of believing they could create a national revolution while being subjugated. That is when necessity propelled me outside the legal paths.”
“Necessity,” or rather his faith in the country and in himself...
AP: “Is that why you invented the concept of legitimacy?”
CDG: “At best, I reinvented it: it was very much alive in the last century, and even in the preceding centuries. I invoked legitimacy because legality was against Free France. Everything that represented legality distanced itself from me then. With few exceptions, the civil servants from the mainland and overseas, the army, the air force. The navy preferred to get itself sunk at Mers-el-Kébir, or sink itself at Toulon, or be interned at Alexandria. The worst: the French abroad. André Maurois, Jules Romains, Alexis Léger, and so many others chose to comfortably settle in the United States; justifying themselves by rallying Roosevelt and Congress against me.”
“In London, in a publication that had the audacity to call itself ‘La France libre’, Raymond Aron and André Labarthe did not hide their hostility towards me. Raymond Aron called me Badinguet. He helped spread the idea in the United States that I was just a Latin American-style pronunciamento general.”
In the end Eisenhower and Montgomery, who had announced their participation, did not show up.
He is referring here to the Oath of Kufra. After the Battle of Kufra General Philippe de Hautecloque, dubbed “Leclerc”, raises the French flag over the fort and swears along with his men to never put down their weapons until these same colors fly again over the Cathedral of Strasbourg. They fulfilled that oath.
Here, “rappel”, is also the same word used for vaccine booster shots.
The 2nd Armored Division (2e Division Blindée), commanded by General Leclerc. It had the honor of being the first unit to enter Paris.
Charles Péguy, his favorite poet. He was a large influence on his political thinking.