Charles de Gaulle
French general and statesman (1890–1970)
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (22 November 1890 – 9 November 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces against Nazi Germany and its puppet state of Vichy France in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government of the French Republic from 1944 to 1946 to restore democracy back in France. Following the 1958 Algiers putsch, he came out of retirement at the request of President René Coty, who appointed him Prime Minister. He commissioned a new 1958 French constitution which was approved by voters in a swift majority, during a referendum, establishing the French Fifth Republic. He was subsequently elected the President of France later that year, a position he held until his resignation in 1969.
Born in Lille, he was a decorated officer of World War I, wounded several times and was taken prisoner of war by the German Empire. During the 1918–1939 interwar period, he advocated mobile armoured divisions. During the German invasion of May 1940, he led an armoured division that counterattacked the Nazi German invaders; he was then appointed Undersecretary for War. Refusing to accept his government's armistice with Germany, de Gaulle fled to Britain and exhorted the French to continue the fight in his Appeal of 18 June. He led the Free French Forces and later headed the French National Liberation Committee and emerged as the undisputed leader of Free France. He became head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic in June 1944, the interim government of France following its liberation.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Charles de Gaulle” as french general and statesman (1890–1970). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as french general and statesman (1890–1970). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2042. VIAF identifies the subject as 27064969. The Library of Congress control number is n79041762. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1890, 1970, 1944 and 1946.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Charles de Gaulle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.