Vanity Vindicated

FRANCE REBORN by Robert Aron. 490 pages. Scribner. $ 8.50.

Everyone knows how exasperating Charles de Gaulle was during World War II. Arrogant and aloof, he demanded his own way, and when he did not get it he sulked. At times he seemed to irritate F.D.R. more than Hitler or Tojo, and Churchill grumped that "My biggest cross is the Cross of Lorraine." But French Historian Robert Aron contends that the Allies never understood what De Gaulle was up to.

Conquest by Coup d'Etat. It was not mere vanity that motivated De Gaulle. His obstinacy had a political purpose. The Communists, Aron convincingly shows in this superlative account of the Liberation, were about to seize power in many parts of France. They made up a great part of the Resistance, and no one could fault them for their courage during the Occupation. De Gaulle realized that only by appearing as an utterly uncompromising, incorruptible leader could he win the confidence of Frenchmen and stave off a Communist takeover.

The Allies had refused to recognize De Gaulle as the head of a provisional French government, had even toyed with the idea of creating a "third force" in France, minus De Gaulle. They kept him in the dark about the Normandy invasion, allowed him to set foot on French soil only eight days later. But De Gaulle was unperturbed. As soon as he landed in France, he declined an invitation to lunch with Field Marshal Montgomery. "We have not come to France to have luncheon with Montgomery," he said scornfully, and headed straight for the first sizable town to be liberated--Bayeux. He promptly took over and installed his faithful deputy Francois Coulet as administrative head of the region. Coulet promptly fired the incumbent Vichyite subprefect, whom the British had instructed to stay on the job, and replaced him with a Resistance fighter. It was a simple coup d'etat: when the infuriated British came to protest, Coulet banged his fist "on his new desk, shouting: "My presence here has nothing to do with you. I'm here on De Gaulle's orders." The British retreated.

Calculated Insults. De Gaulle pursued the same tactics throughout France. He was followed by what Aron calls his "Trojan horse," a column of administrators specially trained in London and Algiers to take over the French government. In southern France, the Communists had seized power in majorities, but De Gaulle's well-schooled lieutenants eased them out with a mininum of bloodshed. De Gaulle went out of his way to insult the Communists publicly, no matter how bravely they lad fought in the Resistance. In Toulouse, when a Communist in proletarian overalls casually introduced himself, De Gaulle snapped: "Stand to attention when you are speaking to a superior officer." When De Gaulle finally entered Paris amid jubilant cheers, he was all calculation. "How far have you got with the purge?" were his first words to his newly appointed prefect.

De Gaulle's later maneuvers obscured his victory over the Communists. In December 1944, he traveled to Moscow to sign a pact with Stalin. Later, as head of the provisional government, ic brought some Communists into his Cabinet. But by then he could afford to be conciliatory, for the Communist threat had receded. For all the praise and blame heaped on De Gaulle, little has been made of this particular triumph. Robert Aron has finally given it the scholarly attention and admiration it deserves.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.