Realities

It is natural to feel nostalgic for what the Empire was, just as one might regret the gentle light of oil lamps, the splendor of the fleet at sail and the charm of the temps des equipages [ship's crew].  But so what? There is no policy worth anything outside of realities.

    - French President Charles de Gaulle, August 1960, speaking on the ongoing war in Algeria.

Quoted by Richard Vinen in his recent book, The Last Titans: How Churchill and de Gaulle Saved Their Nations and Transformed the World.   Vinen goes on to write of de Gaulle, ". . . de Gaulle was a reactionary . . . this made him unsentimental.  He looked back with regret but there was almost a playful self-conciousness about any suggestion that the past could be revived."

This is an account by Harold Macmillan of an afternoon spent with De Gaulle in Algiers in 1943:

"After that lunch [with King George VI and Giraud], de Gaulle asked me what I planned to do with my afternoon. I thought of driving to Tipasa to go swimming. He asked if he could accompany me, alone. That is how I spent three and a half hours driving, strolling through the ruins, and in ceaseless discussion with this strange man—captivating and yet impossible. We talked about every imaginable subject, politics, religion, philosophy, the classics, ancient and modern history, etc. Everything more or less related to the problems preoccupying his mind. 

Macmillan himself was a fascinating character.  At the time he was British Resident Minister at Allied Headquarters in North Africa, representing his government's political interests.  Like Winston Churchill, he came from an upper class family with a British father and American mother.  He was a classics graduate of Balliol College.  Enlisting in the army in 1914, Macmillan saw extensive action, being wounded at Loos in 1915, after returning to the front lines he was severely wounded at the Somme in September 1916, where he lay in a shell hole for 12 hours before being rescued.  Spending the next two years in hospital, he was left with a limp due to a hip wound, and a weak grip in his hand which also affected his handwriting.

Elected to Parliament in 1924 as a Conservative member, in the 1930s he became an advocate for a mixed economy (government and private ownership).  In 1940 he voted against the government in the Norway debate, a vote which precipitated the resignation of Neville Chamberlain and the appointment of Winston Churchill. 

Returning to Parliament in 1945 he became Housing Minister in 1951 when the Conservatives returned to power under Churchill, later serving as Minister of Defence, Foreign Secretary, and Chancellor of the Exchequer, before ending his political career as Prime Minister, serving from 1957 until 1963.  As Prime Minister, Macmillan had a close relationship with President Kennedy and accelerated Britain's decolonization in Africa.