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BiographyCharles André Joseph Marie De Gaulle was born Lille in 1890. He was educated in the Saint-Cyr Military Academy. During the first World War in 1916 he served at the Battle of Verdun where he was wounded three times. He was eventually taken prisoner by the Germans. During World War II he attained the rank of brigadier general. After the fall of France he escaped to London, where he formed a French national committee which became officially recognized by the Allied governments and the Resistance leaders in France. As president of the Free French he commanded French troops fighting with the Allied armies as well as those participating in the Resistance in German-occupied France. They made an unsuccessful attack on Dakar in September 1940, and in 1941 he joined the British forces in the conquest of Syria. |
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In 1942 his troops took control of Madagascar, and one
year later he joined the French Committee of National Liberation in Algiers.
That year, De Gaulle became the sole president of the committee and he
moved his headquarters from Algiers to London. After the liberation of
France by allied troops in August 1944 he moved back to Paris. Shortly
after the committee was recognized by the United States government as the
de facto government of France.