Few individuals in history have had such a profound impact on the destiny of a nation as Charles de Gaulle, who from the time of his heroic refusal to accept the humiliating defeat of the French in 1940 at the hands of the rampaging Germans, to his resignation of the Presidency in 1969, symbolized French independence and guided his country's re-emergence as a great nation.
             It may come as a surprise to those who are unfamiliar with French history that de Gaulle was just a colonel in the French Army at the start of Second World War. But he was no ordinary colonel, a fact that was belatedly recognized by the French government when, amidst the military debacle of May-June 1940, he was given command of the 4th Armored Division1, and then appointed as the undersecretary of defense just before the complete capitulation of the French government. Hence, it was only with a tenuous mandate to represent the French nation2 that de Gaulle made his famous call in a BBC radio broadcast on June 18, 1940 to his countrymen for resistance against the Germans. Given the ground realities at the time, De Gaulle's "appeal" may have appeared quixotic, but his refusal to accept the armistice was, in the words of Pierre Manent, "the decision from which the whole Gaullist epic sprang." (Manent, 202) In France's darkest hour, de Gaulle's defiance, gave faith and hope to his fellow Frenchmen who had fallen into despair.
             From his exile in London, de Gaulle then set about doggedly lobbying for acceptance of France's sovereignty by the Allied powers. He also single-handedly galvanized the expatriate Frenchmen, and the French resistance inside France, to join him in his "fight" against Nazi Germany by forming the Free French movement. During 1940-44, de Gaulle never compromised on the independence of his actions and by his unflinching will and sense of honor made himself the embodiment of the French state its...