50
Executive Power
be associated with a demand for strong government, by what seemed to be both an obvious and an urgent analogy with the conduct of military operations.16 The shift in mood was particularly pronounced in France, historically the country most reluctant to recognize the special character and importance of the executive. War, as Tocqueville had noted in Democracy in America, “invariably and immeasurably increases the powers of civil government, into whose hands it almost inevitably increases the control over all men and all things.”17 This is what happened in his native land between 1914 and 1918. Yet no particular program of industrial mobilization had been con templated by the military authorities. All the planning of the general staff was based on the expectation of a short war that could be fought by drawing down the stocks of matériel built up in peacetime. Already by the end of 1914, the prolongation of hostilities had altered the out look of both generals and politicians. New methods had to be devised for producing arms and munitions, managing shortages, levying requi sitions, and ensuring the daily subsistence of the civilian population in the face of supply disruptions. Military strategy had become inseparable from circumstances on the home front. T here was no alternative, then, to unified and coordinated action, and for this purpose an executive ca pable of fortifying the nation’s resolve and concentrating its energies was crucial. A fragmented ministerial system subject to the uncertain w ill of parliament plainly would not do. It was in this context that De Gaulle’s thinking about the rehabilitation of the executive began to take shape. “The conduct of war,” he wrote in 1917, “consists in a people straining to gather all its strength.”18 The problem facing France, he continued, was that [because] we have no sovereign, . . . no person, not even theoretically, can combine government and command. In point of fact, the Consti tution of 1875 proclaims that the president of the Republic is the head of the executive, that the army and navy are subject to his o rders, that he signs treaties and approves all civil and military appointments; and so, according to the letter of the Constitution, it seems perfectly normal that the president of the Republic should effectively supervise the gen eral conduct of the war. But our customs, our political traditions have in fact denied the president of the Republic executive power in the strict sense, and have made him a permanent member of the Council of Ministers and a representative figure.19
