Charles de Gaulle dead at 79

By Patrick Mondout

General de Gaulle, born Charles André Joseph Marie De Gaulle on November 22, 1890 in Lille, France, died of a heart attack on November 9, 1970. His death came a year after he resigned the presidency after his defeat in a referendum.

The First 50 Years

De Gaulle's remarkable career began as a second leutenit during World War I. After the war, he wrote books on military strategy and history and continued his career in the military. During the early stages of the French involvement in World War II, he  was named a brigadier general (a title he retained throughout his life). After the fall of France in 1940, he escaped to London where he planned and formed a French national committee in exile. As president of this committee, de Gaulle coordinated the efforts of his Free French troops with the Allied armies as well as those participating in the French Resistance in Vichy France.

After the War

With the help of the U.S. government, de Gaulle's National committee was installed as France new government after the war. Disillusioned over the the opposition to his plans to give more powers to the presidency (or, to put it another way, more power to himself), de Gaulle resigned on January 20, 1946. Between 1946 and 1958, de Gaulle criticized the constitution, openly opposed the French communists, and wrote several volumes of his memoirs. In 1958, the threat of a civil war over the question of independence for Algeria gave de Gaulle the opportunity he had been waiting for. The National Assembly handed him all the power he had asked for in 1946 and more. De Gaulle architected the "Fifth French Republic" and served as its first president from 1959 until his resignation in 1969.

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