page_title: Charles de Gaulle
section_title: Return to France
hierarchical_section_title: Charles de Gaulle / Second World War: leader of the Free French in exile / Return to France
caption_attribution_description: العربية: جماهيرٌ حاشدة من الفرنسيين الوطنيين مُصطفَّة في شارع الإليزيه لتُلقي نظرة على دبَّابات جيش فرنسا الحُرَّة وقطعٌ حربيَّةٌ أُخرى من اللواء المُدرَّع الثاني التابع للفريق أوَّل (الجنرال) لوكير وهي تعبر قوس النصر، بعد أن حُررت باريس من الاحتلال النازي يوم 26 آب \ أغسطس سنة 1944. يُمكنُ رؤية بعض اليافطات المرفوعة وسط الحشود تأييدًا للقائد شارل ديغول. English: Crowds of French patriots line the Champs Elysees to view Free French tanks and half tracks of General Leclerc's 2nd Armored Division passes through the Arc du Triomphe, after Paris was liberated on August 26, 1944. Among the crowd can be seen banners in support of Charles de Gaulle. Español: La multitud viendo a los blindados de la 2ª División Blindada, y al frente en la foto la semioruga "KICHI-KICHI", con su jefe DESTRAY, el chófer LAMBOURG y los ocupantes HABERMACHRER, THOMAS, CLERMONT, BISSON, ARANDA y ZIDONY, desfilando el 26 de agosto de 1944 en la avenida de los Campos Elíseos de París. Français&#160;: Foule sur les Champs Élysées regardant les blindés de la 2e DB avec des banderoles "De Gaulle au pouvoir" et "Vive De Gaulle", 26 août 1944. Le Half-track "KICHI-KICHI", avec à son bord l’Adjudant-chef DESTRAY, chef de voiture, LAMBOURG, chauffeur et l’équipage&#160;: HABERMACHRER, THOMAS, CLERMONT, BISSON, ARANDA et ZIDONY, défile le 26 août 1944 sur les Champs Elysées. Tiếng Việt: Quân đội Pháp trên đại lộ Champs-Élysées sau khi Paris được giải phóng năm 1944.
context_page_description: Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French army officer and statesman who led the Free French Forces against Nazi Germany in World War II, and chaired the Provisional Government of the French Republic from 1944 to 1946 in order to re-establish democracy in France. In 1958, he came out of retirement as President of the Council of Ministers. He rewrote the Constitution of France and founded the Fifth Republic after approval by referendum. He was elected President of France later that year, a position to which he was reelected in 1965 and held until his resignation in 1969. He was the dominant figure of France during the early part of the Cold War era; his memory continues to influence French politics.
  Born in Lille, he graduated from Saint-Cyr in 1912. He was a decorated officer of the First World War, wounded several times and later taken prisoner at Verdun. During the interwar period, he advocated mobile armoured divisions. During the German invasion of May 1940, he led an armoured division which counterattacked the invaders; he was then appointed Undersecretary for War.
context_section_description: De Gaulle ignored les Anglo-Saxons, and proclaimed the authority of Free France over the metropolitan territory the next day. Under the leadership of General de Lattre de Tassigny, France fielded an entire army – a joint force of Free French together with French colonial troops from North Africa – on the Western Front. Initially landing as part of Operation Dragoon, in the south of France, the French First Army helped to liberate almost one third of the country and participated in the invasion and occupation of Germany. As the invasion slowly progressed and the Germans were pushed back, de Gaulle made preparations to return to France.
  On 14 June 1944, he left Britain for France for what was supposed to be a one-day trip. Despite an agreement that he would take only two staff, he was accompanied by a large entourage with extensive luggage, and although many rural Normans remained mistrustful of him, he was warmly greeted by the inhabitants of the towns he visited, such as the badly damaged Isigny. Finally he arrived at the city of Bayeux, which he now proclaimed as the capital of Free France. Appointing his Aide-de-Camp Francois Coulet as head of the civil administration, de Gaulle returned to the UK that same night on a French destroyer, and although the official position of the supreme military command remained unchanged, local Allied officers found it more practical to deal with the fledgling administration in Bayeux in everyday matters. De Gaulle flew to Algiers on 16 June and then went on to Rome to meet the Pope and the new Italian government. At the beginning of July he at last visited Roosevelt in Washington, where he received the 17-gun salute of a senior military leader rather than the 21 guns of a visiting head of state. The visit was 'devoid of trust on both sides' according to the French representative, however, Roosevelt did make some concessions towards recognising the legitimacy of the Bayeux administration.
  Meanwhile, with the Germans retreating in the face of the Allied onslaught, harried all the way by the resistance, there were widespread instances of revenge attacks on those accused of collaboration. A number of prominent officials and members of the feared Milice were murdered, often by exceptionally brutal means, provoking the Germans into appalling reprisals, such as in the destruction of the village of Oradour-sur-Glane and the killing of its 642 inhabitants.
  Liberation of the French capital was not high on the Allies' list of priorities as it had comparatively little strategic value, but both de Gaulle and the commander of the French 2nd Armored Division, General Philippe Leclerc were still extremely concerned about a communist takeover. De Gaulle successfully lobbied for Paris to be made a priority for liberation on humanitarian grounds and obtained from Allied Supreme Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower an agreement that French troops would be allowed to enter the capital first. A few days later, General Leclerc's division entered the outskirts of the city, and after six days of fighting in which the resistance played a major part, the German garrison of 5000 men surrendered on 25 August, although some sporadic outbreaks of fighting continued for several days. General Dietrich von Choltitz, the commander of the garrison, was instructed by Adolf Hitler to raze the city to the ground, however, he simply ignored the order and surrendered his forces.
  It was fortunate for de Gaulle that the Germans had forcibly removed members of the Vichy government and taken them to Germany a few days earlier on 20 August; it allowed him to enter Paris as a liberator in the midst of the general euphoria, but there were serious concerns that communist elements of the resistance, which had done so much to clear the way for the military, would try to seize the opportunity to proclaim their own 'Peoples' Government' in the capital. De Gaulle made contact with Leclerc and demanded the presence of the 2nd Armoured Division to accompany him on a massed parade down the Champs-Élysées, "as much for prestige as for secur
caption: The 2nd Armored Division passes through the Arc de Triomphe. Signs read "Long live de Gaulle" and "De Gaulle to power".
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