FEATURE: The Many (Failed) Escapes of Charles de Gaulle

Last week I looked at both the childhood and background of Charles de Gaulle:

FREE ARTICLE: Charles de Gaulle: Origins

And then the active part he played in the First World War:

FEATURE: Charles de Gaulle’s First War

Captured at Verdun in March 1916, de Gaulle would spend the second half of the conflict trying desperately to escape German captivity. ‘You can imagine how sad I am, finishing the campaign like this,’ he wrote, from Osnabrück in May; wounded once again. He felt isolated, he felt worthless, frustrated, and even ashamed. History was being made and he was to play no part in it.

As soon as he was sufficiently recovered from his third wound, his determination to rejoin the fighting became acute. The first escape attempt, if you can call it that, was ambitious, and apparently involved finding a boat and making a dash for it on the Danube. De Gaulle’s plans were detected, and as a punishment he was sent to a former saw-mill at Szuczyn in Lithuania, which was reserved for prisoners deserving of ‘reprisals.’ He was one of about fifty French officers sleeping on straw mattresses side by side, and they lived in the company of about a hundred Russians.

Nominally in charge of the prisoners was a complete head case: Lieutenant-Colonel Tardiù, a Marine who had spent most of his career in French Indochina: ‘a little crooked man with a chin like a shoe, whose insolence towards his keepers was so great that he was court-martialled 37 times, and by the time of the armistice he had been given about a hundred years of detention.’ His crowning glory was attempting to stoke the beginnings of a German revolution in November 1918 whilst screaming: ‘I AM ORGANISING CHAOS!’

Attempt #2 was little better than the first for de Gaulle, despite some diligent planning. He found that on the grotty mattress next to him was one Lieutenant Roederer. An engineer in the Department of Mines, he happened to speak Russian. This is the guy you want as your best friend: he spoke the local language and was an expert in tunnels. By August they had begun digging a hole in the corner of the barn in which they slept, but they were soon found out and sweeping punishment came down on all of the French officers at Szuczyn. Tardiù insisted that they all take the blame together, and among other consequences they lost access to their Russian batmen.

Evidently, de Gaulle and Roederer could not be trusted. In September 1916, Szuczyn was disbanded and instead, both were sent to Fort IX at Ingolstadt in Bavaria. Perched overlooking the Danube, this was essentially the WW1 version of Colditz. Set within the fortifications of the town itself, it was regarded as a high security prison camp. Up to 150 troublesome Allied officers were incarcerated here, including Lieutenant A.J. Evans, a British pilot captured on the Somme who would write a book: The Escaping Club. Then there was a Russian officer named Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the journalist Rémy Roure, the publisher Berger-Levrault, ‘the very aristocratic’ Major Catroux, (who would find de Gaulle again in 1940) Captain Lelong and the famous Roland Garros. ‘They are all criminals here,’ complained General Peter, the commandant: ‘Straw mattresses were set fire to all the time; water bombs, concerts on mess-tins conducted by Colonel Tardiù and carried on late into the night were a permanent feature.’