One cannot talk long about the liberation of Paris, which culminated on Aug. 25, 1944, without stumbling over the gargantuan figure of Charles de Gaulle, who would go on from that day to become the most important leader, as well as the most difficult, modern France has had.
By the time de Gaulle fled France for London, on June 17, 1940, he had survived one world war, largely in custody; been promoted up the chain of command in the French army despite his querulousness; and watched as his superiors and politicians capitulated to the Nazis at the outset of the next war.
The next day, he made a speech for BBC broadcast, in French, saying, “Believe me, I who am speaking to you with full knowledge of the facts, and who tells you that nothing is lost for France!”
De Gaulle rallied the French as best he could from across the channel, but he was notoriously cold and British officials never warmed to him. Alexander Cadogan, the permanent undersecretary for foreign affairs, said that month, “I can’t tell you anything about de Gaulle except that he’s got a head like a banana and hips like a woman.” De Gaulle, however, compared himself to Joan of Arc, which left Winston Churchill dumbfounded. The American Allies, and President Roosevelt in particular, liked de Gaulle even less. He was prissy, punctilious and powerfully presumptuous.
Yet he was respected by Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, the commander in North Africa, where de Gaulle went in 1943, to French territory the Allies had liberated. Eisenhower promised him, on no authority, that when the Allies invaded France, a French force would liberate Paris.
As the Allies stormed Normandy on D-Day, in June 1944, de Gaulle gave another speech, in French, via the BBC, saying, “The supreme battle has begun ... The directives given by the French government” – his government in exile – “must be followed to the letter.” It was, said Churchill, writing to Roosevelt the next day, “remarkable, as he has not a single soldier in the great battle now developing.”
By the end of the month, a French army from North Africa followed the Allies into France, under Gen. Philippe Leclerc. By the end of July, the Allies were halfway to Paris. In the city, there were sporadic uprisings against the long Nazi rule. Railway workers went on strike, followed by French police.
On Aug. 20, de Gaulle was flown to liberated northern France. On Aug. 21, fighting in Paris increased between the French Resistance and retreating German troops. On Aug. 23, Eisenhower allowed Leclerc’s units to move on Paris. The bulk arrived Aug. 25. De Gaulle arrived at 5 p.m., as the German commander of Paris, Gen. Dietrich Von Choltitz, was surrendering, contrary to his orders to destroy the city.
De Gaulle met the leaders of the Resistance for the first time that day. Most French citizens still had no clue who he was beyond that voice on the radio. He gave a speech at the Hôtel de Ville – “Paris outraged! Paris Broken! Paris martyred! (a long pause) But Paris liberated!” – in which he managed to not mention either the Allies or the Resistance.
The next day, in a carefully staged event, he walked slowly down the Champs-Elysées, at the head of his official entourage, towering above them, to show himself to the people – “a supreme example of de Gaulle’s instinctive showmanship,” Julian Jackson writes in his recent de Gaulle biography. “It was probably the largest gathering of its kind in the history of France.”
De Gaulle had won his war.
