Episode 146: The Great Escapes of Charles de Gaulle
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How did Charles de Gaulle respond to capture at Verdun and life as a POW?
Charles de Gaulle was wounded and captured at Verdun in March 1916, but this was just the beginning of a new phase of his First World War. Over the next two and a half years, he would dedicate himself to escaping captivity and rejoining the fight. This is the story of how the future president of France became one of the most notorious escape artists of the First World War.
Welcome to Not So Quiet on the Western Front, the podcast where we lift the lid, bust the myths, and explore the incredible history of the First World War. I'm Dan Hill, a military historian and battlefield guide specializing in the history of the war on the Western Front. And I'm
Dr. Spencer Jones, author and senior lecturer in war studies at the University of Wolverhampton. Well, hi James. Pleased to be joining you on the podcast. As always, just you and I, no Dan, still on his travels. And this is the second part, although it can be enjoyed completely independently of the first part, of the story of Charles de Gaulle's First World War. Of course, last week. We went through his early life, his early military career, his relationship with Philippe Patan, one of those fascinating echoes of history. We covered his war record, but wounded multiple times in the knee and in the leg in nineteen fourteen, in the hand in fifteen, and then finally bayoneted, grenaded, and captured in March nineteen sixteen and taken into captivity.
This man who'd, of course, dedicated so much of his life to the idea of redeeming the defeat of 1870, now in the hands of that very enemy, Germany, he'd devoted so much time to planning the defeat of. And James, it's probably worth reflecting a little bit here about what the experience of of what this must have been like for a man so proud, so passionate about France. Uh ultra patriot, and by extension certainly very anti-German, captured and captured, perhaps not leading a glorious charge, as I'm sure de Gaulle would have wanted to do, but just maneuvering in a very chaotic battlefield. We can only speculate really, but what do you think kind of effect this m might have had on him?
This is going to stay with him for the rest of his life. Historians like Julian Jackson and others have have sort of formulated that this experience of being taken prisoner, spending the second half of the First World War in Germany as a prisoner of war, uh is something that he will carry with him and will clearly define his his stance when it comes to nineteen forty to forty-five. Uh and it is something Something that there might have been some shame internally from him to from himself to have been taken a prisoner. So he's going to make the time that he is spending in prison as difficult as possible for the Germans out of the sense of, well, I always have to get back, I always have to be serving France.
And we'll see. It creates some some pretty interesting stories that. have been and should make more no movies and TV shows. I'm thinking of like that's growing up. If anybody else watched young Indiana Jones, when young Indiana Jones is taken prisoner on the Somme, he's put in a prison with Charles de Gaulle, and the escape attempts are really taken from some of the insane realities that we're gonna see here.
I've gl really glad you mentioned that because to the best of our knowledge, we're discussing this before the show started, the only portrayal of Charles de Gaulle as a prisoner is from the young and Deanna Jones Chronicles. And listeners, if you know of any other movies or TV shows, perhaps French language, that portray Charles de Gaulle in prison, we'd love to hear from you in the comments. But you made a great point, James. He's almost from the moment he's recovered from his wounds, he is determined to be difficult for his captors. He is not the sort of prisoner who is going to accept his lot and get on, try and keep his head down and just think, well, the war's over for me. I'm going to do what I can.
From the moment he's recovered, he is active. And de Gaulle has an advantage in that he can speak and read German.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How did Charles de Gaulle respond to capture at Verdun and life as a POW?
0:00–7:48
2
What was de Gaulle’s first escape plan at Osnabrück, and why did it fail?
7:48–16:28
3
Why was Fort Number Nine considered escape-proof, and what happened inside?
16:28–24:51
4
How did de Gaulle use a staged illness to escape Fort Number Nine’s hospital?
24:51–32:40
5
How did de Gaulle and fellow officers escape Rosenberg Castle using bedsheets and a ladder?
32:40–36:47
6
Why did de Gaulle’s escape from Rosenberg fail, and how did he try again?
36:47–42:53
7
How did de Gaulle continue plotting escapes at Wolfsburg in 1918?
42:53–50:03
8
How did captivity shape de Gaulle’s postwar career and refusal to surrender?
50:03–55:46
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from WW1: Not So Quiet On The Western Front!
Episode 145: Charles de Gaulle in WWI: From Academy to Verdun
Episode 144: Who Won the Battle of the Somme
Episode 143: The Ancre: The Final Major Battle of the Somme
Episode 142: French Army on the Somme
Episode 141: Thiepval 1916: Storming the Impossible Ridge
Episode 140: Flers-Courcelette: The Somme's Tactical Turning Point?