When Charles de Gaulle published the first volume of his war memoirs, in 1954, it looked like an acknowledgment that he no longer belonged to the present, but to history. His achievements during the Second World War were indeed historic. In June 1940, as France collapsed and its leaders agreed to a humiliating armistice, de Gaulle escaped to London. There, he went on the radio, to appeal to his countrymen to continue the struggle against the Axis. Over the next four years, he became the moral symbol and political leader of Free France, rallying support in the overseas colonies and among domestic resistance groups. After D-Day, he returned to France in the wake of the British and American armies, quickly created a provisional government, and led the liberated country in the Allied victory.
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