De Gaulle’s pursuit of national grandeur required sacrificing Algeria.

Evidence

In his enigmatic utterances the saviour did little to dispel such tenets, so that the eventual disillusion would be all the greater. Critics and adversaries of de Gaulle could—with reason—accuse him of every manner of volte-face in his handling of Algeria, but with their eyes blinkered by the immediacy of the war itself they were unable to see on what de Gaulle’s gaze was fixed. From his great height the eyes quested far over the heads of lesser humans to the peaks of a distant promised land. If there was one thing in the pursuit of which he was unwavering all through his life, it was the grandeur de la France, dreamed of in those solitary years in the wilderness. In the long term nothing else mattered, or would be allowed to stand in its way, and this should be retained in the mind as a key to all the enigma of his subsequent actions. He would achieve his dream; even though in the course of it Algeria would be lost, had to be lost. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 913

Categorization

• XREF: The grandeur-driven abandonment of Algeria is core to the reader’s interest in how France fought back and then surrendered the colonial idea. — connects to: De Gaulle took power in June 1958 offering no Algerian solution.; De Gaulle’s pursuit of national grandeur dictated abandoning Algeria; December’s lesson reshaped de Gaulle’s subsequent Algeria policy (+8 more)

Related

• De Gaulle’s pursuit of national grandeur dictated abandoning Algeria (similarity 0.96)
• Algeria was only one element of de Gaulle’s larger ambitions. (similarity 0.92)
• De Gaulle took power in June 1958 offering no Algerian solution. (similarity 0.87)
• De Gaulle’s Algerian independence was framed as a victory over French self (similarity 0.87)
• De Gaulle’s triumphant Algeria slogans masked his private conviction the colony was doomed (similarity 0.87)
• Porous frontiers shaped the Algerian War’s outcome and de Gaulle’s rise (similarity 0.87)
• De Gaulle’s true intentions on Algeria remain a fundamentally contested riddle. (similarity 0.86)
• De Gaulle’s allies saw Algeria as subordinate to the French state’s crisis (similarity 0.86)
• Gaulle hid his Algeria intentions to avoid capsizing French public opinion. (similarity 0.85)
• De Gaulle leveraged Algeria to demand France’s nuclear and NATO independence (similarity 0.85)
• De Gaulle sought army success to reconcile it to Algerian independence (similarity 0.85)
• France ending Algeria was a victory over itself, not a defeat (similarity 0.85)
• De Gaulle hid his Algerian self-determination policy because public opinion was unready (similarity 0.84)
• de Gaulle’s self-determination offer came too late to save Algérie française (similarity 0.84)
• De Gaulle’s true intentions on Algeria remain irreducibly ambiguous even to his closest associates. (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• De Gaulle concealed his Algerian aims to avoid capsizing public passions #expands (0.60) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1155
• De Gaulle hid his Algerian self-determination policy because public opinion was unready #corroborates (0.60) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1154
• De Gaulle sought army success to reconcile it to Algerian independence #expands (0.50) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1002
• De Gaulle’s Algerian independence was framed as a victory over French self #expands (0.50)
• Defeat in Algeria paradoxically produced a stronger France #complicates (0.40)