A Blueprint for European Backbone? Charles de Gaulle’s War Memoirs are not easy reading. They are grandiose, deliberate, and unmistakably self-serving. Yet in the brittle geopolitical moment we now find ourselves in—2025, with the United States shifting inward and unpredictable—Europe’s leaders could do far worse than sit down and actually read – or listen to – them.
De Gaulle’s memoirs cover the years 1940 to 1946, charting his lonely rise as the self-declared voice of Free France. There is a towering arrogance throughout. He speaks of France not as it was—crushed, humiliated—but as an eternal ideal only he seemed capable of resurrecting. But beneath the pomp lies a brutally clear message: sovereignty is not a gift, it is seized. And then it is guarded, jealously.
Today, as Europe faces war on its eastern flank, questions about American reliability, and the slow death of post-Cold War assumptions, de Gaulle’s unapologetic nationalism feels oddly fresh. His vision of an independent Europe, led not by Washington’s whims but by its own strategic compass, is suddenly relevant again. Back then, it made him a thorn in both the British and the American sides. Now, it sounds like common sense.
Yes, he blocked Britain from joining the EEC. Twice. He saw Britain as too tethered to the United States, and he wasn’t wrong. His scepticism about supranational dilution of national interests, while deeply inconvenient at the time, now reads like prophecy in a Europe still fumbling for a cohesive foreign policy.
But the War Memoirs are not a policy manual. They are more valuable than that. They are a rare account of leadership under siege, where principles aren’t compromised just because the odds are bad. They show what it looks like when someone refuses to be a junior partner, no matter how isolated it makes them. That kind of stubbornness might be exactly what European defence and diplomacy need right now. There are problems with the book. De Gaulle gives himself all the credit and none of the blame. He edits history to suit his myth. Others are either ignored or used as stage props. But none of that changes the fact that the book burns with intent and vision. It is not a memoir of nostalgia. It’s a manual for standing up when everyone else is bending the knee. Here are some examples of De Gaulle’s claims, fact-checked.
- The Prophet of Armoured Warfare (1930s)
Claim: De Gaulle portrays himself as an early champion of mechanised, armoured warfare, in contrast to France’s backwards-looking generals still dreaming of static trench defence.
Reality: Yes, in his 1934 book Vers l’Armée de Métier (Toward a Professional Army), he did advocate for mobile, professional forces centred around tanks. But he was hardly alone—British strategist J.F.C. Fuller and Germany’s Heinz Guderian had similar views. De Gaulle’s ideas were ignored by the French high command, who clung to the Maginot Line doctrine. Still, in the memoirs, he casts himself as the Cassandra of blitzkrieg—correct but dismissed by fools. - The Sole Voice of Free France (1940)
Claim: De Gaulle repeatedly frames his June 18, 1940 BBC broadcast from London as the birth of Free France—his moment of defiance while others capitulated.
Reality: He was one of the few senior French figures to reject the armistice and call for continued resistance. But the narrative leaves out how marginal and unsupported he initially was. He was a junior general, unknown to the public, and his exile was not coordinated with any large resistance network at the start. He builds the myth of solitary heroism, and while there’s some truth in it, he exaggerates the inevitability of his rise. - The True Government of France (1940–44)
Claim: De Gaulle paints the Free French movement and the Comité Français de Libération Nationale (CFLN) as the only legitimate French government-in-waiting during the occupation.
Reality: The Allies didn’t see it that way. Roosevelt, in particular, distrusted de Gaulle and preferred to deal with General Henri Giraud or even the Vichy administration in North Africa for a time. The War Memoirs brush past this messy political reality and assert a kind of moral inevitability to his leadership, ignoring the serious doubts many had about his legitimacy. - He Rescued the Republic in 1944
Claim: De Gaulle argues that without him, France would have descended into chaos or foreign occupation after liberation.
Reality: He did skilfully assert French control after D-Day, quickly forming a provisional government and sidelining Allied plans for an Allied Military Government (AMGOT) in France. But again, his narrative skips over the fact that much of the power he assumed was not granted—it was taken. He presents it as France reclaiming its dignity, which is partially true—but it’s also a story of political force majeure dressed up as destiny. - He Predicted the Need for European Independence
Claim: While not always explicit in the memoirs, de Gaulle hints at his long-term belief that Europe must not rely on external powers—especially not the United States.
Reality: This became clearer in the 1960s when he pulled France out of NATO’s integrated military command. In the memoirs, he retroactively justifies this independence streak as having roots in the war years, portraying himself as always wary of foreign domination—British, American, or Soviet. It’s consistent with his worldview, but the memoirs pretend this thinking was present from the start, when in fact it developed more fully later.
For European leaders stuck in Brussels committee-think or trying to please both Washington and Beijing, War Memoirs is a cold slap of clarity. It asks a simple question: Who are you actually fighting for?
But even with its distortions, War Memoirs remains one of the great political autobiographies—not because it tells the truth, but because it tells you how a leader thinks truth should sound. Read it not for its historical details, but for its force of will. That’s what’s missing today. Not just tanks or treaties, but the raw refusal to be told what Europe should be. De Gaulle didn’t wait for permission. He acted and then expected the world to catch up with him. In an era when Europe lacks bold, independent voices, that alone makes it worthwhile to read.
