Charles De Gaulle

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French General and politician, a national hero who was elected as the first President of the Fifth Republic from 1959-1969. A voracious reader and a writer of poetry as a child, the young De Gaulle was raised to be a soldier. Entering the national military academy at Saint-Cyr in 1909, he graduated 13th in his class of 221 cadets in 1911 and joined the 33rd Infantry Regiment at Arras under the command of Colonel Philippe Petain. De Gaulle served with honor in WW I, during which he was wounded, decorated and promoted, On the battlefield of Verdu where a thousand men died per square meter he was left for dead on 2/21/1916. When De Gaulle revived he was taken prisoner and spent the rest of the war attempting to escape from the German camps. When he was released, Petain, now Marshal of France, took the former prisoner under his wing. During the '20s, De Gaulle quickly rose through the ranks, displaying exceptional talents coupled with an abrasive personality that earned him more enemies than friends. He served in Poland where he helped break the Bolshevik offensive against Warsaw, and in Syria and Lebanon. The Middle East stimulated his drive for power and control. "Here are to be found peoples who have never been satisfied with anything or anyone, but who will bow to the will of the strongest if only that will is expressed," he wrote. De Gaulle wrote "The Army of the Future" in 1934 in which he advocated for France the mechanized warfare by which the Germans would conquer France six years later. He was promoted to Brigadier General in 1940 and became the Undersecretary of War in the cabinet of Premier Paul Reynaud. He was vehemently opposed to the Franco-German armistice and fled to London in June1940 where he organized the Free French Forces and rallied several French colonies to his movement. This act earned him a death sentence in absentia by a French military court. The Free French forces were successful in Syria, Madagascar and North Africa, after which De Gaulle became co-president along with General Henri Honore Giraud of the newly formed French Committee of National Liberation at Algiers. In June 1944, after ousting Giraud, De Gaulle became the sole president and his party was proclaimed the provisional government of France. The exiled General De Gaulle returned to France on 8/26/1946 and became the head of yet another party, the Rassemblement de Peuple Francais, which claimed to be the mouthpiece of all French citizens. The party enjoyed minimal electoral success but De Gaulle dissolved it in 1953 and subsequently entered retirement. In 1958, political crisis in the French colony of Algiers brought De Gaulle back into the forefront as a leader due to the fact that he was the only individual with sufficient military and political background to deal with the situation at hand. He became premiere with the power to rule by decree for six months. During this time a new constitution was drawn up, strengthening the presidency and providing for the French Community. De Gaulle was inaugurated as the first president of the New Fifth Republic in 1959. Determined to raise France to its former world stature, he made bold strides in his government by increasing the value of the franc, fostering ties with West Germany and establishing diplomatic relations with The People's Republic of China. His reelection in 1965 brought him to the bargaining tables of NATO and he promoted the French development of atomic weapons. Student protests in 1968 followed by massive workers strikes nearly topped the Gaullist government, yet he was reelected in June of the same year. He formally resigned as president one year later when he was defeated in a referendum on constitutional reform. He married Yvonne Vendroux on 4/06/1921 and their son Philippe, who later became a rear-admiral, was born on 12/28/1921. Their daughter Elizabeth was born in 1928 with Down's Syndrome and died in 1949; daughter Anne was born in 1929. De Gaulle died on 11/9/1970 of a heart attack at Colombey Les Deux Eglises. Link to Wikipedia biography