A year later, when Madagascar was added to a repeat of Syria as a scene of de Gaulle-induced trouble, they had a more serious quarrel. The atmosphere was vitiated by the presence on that occasion of four other people, so there could be no smoke-wreathed tâte-à-tête on a sofa. And by then - 30 September 1942 - the tension for Churchill was increased by the looming proximity of the Anglo-American landings in North Africa and by de Gaulle’s complete inability or unwillingness to make himself acceptable to Roosevelt. Just over three months later there occurred the farce of the shot-gun ‘embrace’ (actually it was only a hand-shake in spite of their being French generals) between Giraud and de Gaulle in Casablanca, with Roosevelt and Churchill seated behind them and looking like duennas who had each produced an offspring for the nuptial. De Gaulle was summoned from London in a British aeroplane to be received as a client in an American security enclave on sovereign French territory. He arrived truculently but he none the less achieved as great a star role in Casablanca in 1943 as Bogart and Bergman together had done in 1942. In 1942-5 American power was nearly always decisive. It defeated Keynes at Bretton Woods in 1944. But in 1943 it did no good for Giraud against de Gaulle. By November the four-star general had been eliminated by the two-star one (it was part of de Gaulle’s strength that, although he referred to himself as General de Gaulle as automatically as the US Chief of Staff and future Secretary of State called himself General Marshall, he never advanced his military rank and eschewed both the polished field boots and ‘scrambled egg’ képis to which most French generals were then attracted; he dressed as a junior general, but modestly so, almost as a desk-bound one).
Churchill frequently contemplated withdrawing support from de Gaulle and trying to eliminate him as leader of the Fighting French (as they had become in 1942) and on one occasion delivered himself of the immortal phrase: ‘Si vous m’obstaclerez, je vous liquiderai.’ But he knew that he could not do so for three reasons of mounting order of importance. First, he had Eden as a sometimes exasperated but courageous and persistent ally of de Gaulle sitting on his doorstep. He set higher store by Roosevelt, but Eden was more present. Second, he did not in the last resort wish to ditch de Gaulle. He was sentimental and the General was for him part of the magic myth of 1940. Third, de Gaulle’s strength in France (and his popularity in Britain) grew almost inexorably with every wartime year that went by. The unknown and presumptuous brigadier of 1940 became the national leader of 1942, 1943 and 1944. In the second half of the war he could not have been jettisoned without the most appalling consequences on the French internal resistance movement.
De Gaulle was not allowed much of a role in the Normandy invasion. On 4 June, two days before D-day, he was summoned to Britain after an absence of a full year in North Africa and given a briefing by Churchill. The military part of the discussion went well, the political part much less so. De Gaulle wrote in his memoirs that Churchill had said: ‘How can you expect us to differ from the United States? We are able to liberate Europe only because the Americans are with us. Any time we have to choose between Europe and the open seas (le grand large), we shall always be for the open seas. Every time I have to choose between you and Roosevelt, I shall choose Roosevelt.’ These do not strike me as ipsissima verba, but no doubt they approximate to the reality, and in any event were what de Gaulle believed Churchill had said, which was what counted for the future.
After some hesitation de Gaulle was allowed to pay a forty-eight-hour visit to the bridgehead starting on the eighth day of the invasion. His visit was regarded as an irritating distraction by both the Americans and the British, but not by the French population. In Bayeux he was received with an emotion and an automatic acceptance of his authority that was wholly spontaneous because he was not expected and people at first had difficulty realizing that it was he. This first bain de Joule on metropolitan French soil was a major fortification of his self-confidence. It did not make him more amenable but it made him calmer. He accepted a further two months away from France, mostly with his provisional government in North Africa, but interspersed with visits first to the Pope in Rome and then to Roosevelt in Washington. The latter did not go as badly as it might have done.
He returned to France (from North Africa) only after the allied troops had broken out of the Normandy peninsula and the liberation of Paris seemed imminent. He came in an American plane which broke down on the way, and he was full of suspicion. But he reached Eisenhower’s headquarters on 20 August and mostly got his way with him. Leclerc’s French division was allowed to lead a direct assault on Paris and de Gaulle himself entered the city on 25 August. His objectives then were a mixture of the warm and the cold. He wanted to savour, in joyous unity with some of those who had helped him achieve it, one of the most remarkable turns of fortune in a span of fifty months ever brought about by any individual. He also wanted to make clear to the leaders of the Resistance, many of whom were Communists, who was boss.