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50 free Charles De Gaulle trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Charles de Gaulle trivia for history buffs, Francophiles and anyone who has flown through the airport named after him. The quiz begins with the tall Lille schoolboy who chose Saint-Cyr, the lieutenant wounded at Dinant and captured at Verdun, the five failed escapes from German camps, and the interwar years as Pétain's ghostwriter and a lonely prophet of tank warfare. Then comes June 1940: the flight to London, the BBC appeal that almost nobody heard, the death sentence from Vichy, the Brazzaville Manifesto, and the long road back to Bayeux and the Champs-Élysées. Later rounds cover the resignation of 1946, the return in the crisis of 1958, the constitution Michel Debré drafted, the Évian Accords and the exodus of the pieds-noirs, the machine-gun ambush at Petit-Clamart, Gerboise Bleue and the force de frappe, the two vetoes of Britain, the NATO walkout, 'Vive le Québec libre', May 68 and the flight to Baden-Baden, the lost referendum of 1969, and the quiet grave at Colombey next to his daughter Anne. Questions run from easy to expert, and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. See also our France, World War II and Winston Churchill quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which French city was Charles de Gaulle born in 1890?
Lille
He was the third of five children in a devoutly Catholic, monarchist household.
Q 02What was the profession of de Gaulle's father, Henri?
Professor of history and literature
He taught at a Jesuit college and later founded his own school; family debates fed young Charles's love of history.
Q 03The surname de Gaulle is thought to derive from which language?
Dutch
It may come from van der Walle or de Waal, meaning 'from the wall' or 'rampart'.
Q 04Which military academy did de Gaulle set his sights on from July 1906?
Saint-Cyr
Applications had fallen below 700 that decade because the army was being used for strike-breaking.
Q 05Where did de Gaulle receive his first wound, a bullet in the knee, in August 1914?
The Battle of Dinant
It came on 15 August, his baptism of fire as a platoon commander with the 33rd Regiment.
Q 06At which 1916 battle was de Gaulle bayoneted, gassed and taken prisoner?
Verdun
He was one of the few survivors of his battalion at Douaumont on 2 March.
Q 07How many escape attempts did de Gaulle make as a prisoner of war?
Five
He tried a laundry basket, a tunnel, a hole in a wall and even dressing as a nurse.
Q 08What nickname did fellow prisoners give de Gaulle for his patriotic fervour?
Le Connétable
It was the title of the medieval commander-in-chief of the French army.
Q 09Which future Red Army commander did de Gaulle befriend in the Ingolstadt prison camp?
Mikhail Tukhachevsky
The Russian's ideas about a fast-moving mechanised army closely matched de Gaulle's own.
Q 10For which marshal did de Gaulle work as a ghostwriter from 1925?
Philippe Pétain
They fell out over credit for the book Le Soldat; de Gaulle later quipped that the marshal 'died in 1925, but he did not know it'.
Q 11De Gaulle's 1934 book Vers l'Armée de Métier argued for what?
A professional mechanised army with 3,000 tanks
It sold only about 700 copies in France, but caught the eye of politician Paul Reynaud.
Q 12Which German-held village near Laon did de Gaulle's armoured division attack in May 1940?
Montcornet
It was one of the few French counterattacks of the campaign.
Q 13Which London airport did de Gaulle land at when he fled France in mid-1940?
Heston
He saw Churchill that afternoon and was offered airtime on the BBC.
Q 21Which president asked de Gaulle to form a government during the crisis of May 1958?
René Coty
Coty told parliament the nation was 'on the brink of civil war'.
Q 22At what age did de Gaulle say in 1958 he was unlikely to 'start a career as a dictator'?
67
He insisted he would take power only from lawfully constituted authorities.
Q 23Who actually drafted the text of the Fifth Republic's constitution?
Michel Debré
He put de Gaulle's ideas on paper and became the Republic's first prime minister.
Q 24What share of voters approved the new constitution in the referendum of 28 September 1958?
Q 14De Gaulle's famous BBC broadcast urging France to keep fighting was made on which date?
18 June 1940
Few people heard it; it was aimed largely at French soldiers evacuated from Norway and Dunkirk.
Q 15What sentence did a Vichy court martial pass on de Gaulle in absentia on 2 August 1940?
Death
Pétain remarked he would make sure it was never carried out.
Q 16Which colonial governor was the first to switch to de Gaulle, in September 1940?
Félix Éboué of Chad
De Gaulle then went to Brazzaville and issued his manifesto forming an Empire Defence Council.
Q 17Which Normandy town did de Gaulle proclaim capital of Free France on 14 June 1944?
Bayeux
He set up a civil administration there under his aide François Coulet before returning to England the same night.
Q 18How many guns did de Gaulle's July 1944 Washington salute have, marking him as a general?
17
Roosevelt never warmed to him; Eisenhower was far more cooperative.
Q 19Whose division was allowed to enter Paris first in August 1944, at de Gaulle's insistence?
General Leclerc
The German garrison of 5,000 surrendered on 25 August after six days of fighting.
Q 20On what date did de Gaulle abruptly resign as head of the provisional government?
20 January 1946
He expected to be recalled quickly as a stronger executive; instead he waited twelve years.
82.6%
Every African colony backed it except Guinea, which chose immediate independence.
Q 25Which was the only French African colony to vote for immediate independence in 1958?
Guinea
It immediately lost all French assistance.
Q 26Which March 1962 agreements ended the Algerian War?
The Évian Accords
A referendum a month later legitimised them, and Algeria became independent that July.
Q 27Roughly how many pieds-noirs left Algeria in just a few months of 1962?
900,000
The exodus accelerated after the Oran massacre of 5 July.
Q 28Which group ambushed de Gaulle's Citroën DS with machine guns at Petit-Clamart in August 1962?
The OAS
Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry organised the attack; the general and his wife escaped unhurt.
Q 29The 1962 referendum changed the presidency to be chosen how?
By direct universal suffrage
It was the first direct presidential election since Louis Napoleon in 1848.
Q 30What was the code name of France's first nuclear test in February 1960?
Gerboise Bleue
It was detonated near Reggane in the Sahara, making France the fourth nuclear power.