Volume 2, Number 5 · April 16, 1964
The Enigma of De Gaulle
By George Lichtheim
De Gaulle and the French Army: A Crisis in Civil-Military Relations
by Edgar S. Furniss Jr.
Twentieth Century Fund, 331 pp., $4.00
De Gaulle Entre Deux Mondes
by Paul-Marie de la Gorce
Fayard (Paris), 766 pp., Frs. 27.50
In June it will be six years since General de Gaulle returned to power after a prolonged stay in the wilderness; and twenty-four years since he issued his celebrated call to resistance which—though he did not say so at the time—was also a call for revolt against the French Government that had just signed an armistice with Germany. The link between the two upheavals is more apparent to Frenchmen than to foreigners, who have trouble understanding how the rebel of 1940 could become the defender of 'republican legitimacy' in 1958-64. It is thus welcome to find an American historian turn his attention, and his solid professional apparatus, to the fascinating theme of the French Army in politics. American-French relations are currently so bad that they can scarcely get worse. Until they take a turn for the better, no harm is done if all concerned apply their minds to the theme of French nationalism and its latest avatar.
Review, 1687 words
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