Winston Churchill or Charles de Gaulle – who was the greater leader? A niche question about bygone times but relevant given their ability to lead their country through perilous times. A new dual biography of them shows how different they were: one patrician and curiously childish, the other a bourgeois brigadier.
Winston Churchill, 30 November 1874 1.30am Woodstock, England; Charles de Gaulle, 22 November 1890 4am Lille, France.
They did have some similarities and in different ways rallied morale. Both had an adventurous, upbeat Mars Jupiter conjunction in an Air sign – de Gaulle in Aquarius and Churchill in Libra. Both had a determined Pluto in the 8th giving them unseen power and influence and a streak of stubbornness.
Indeed both had Pluto and Neptune in the 8th giving them the ability to project a powerful and mesmerising aura – as indeed did Hitler.
‘Churchill, who believed that nothing was inevitable, was a more optimistic human being than de Gaulle whose thinking “was permeated by … a melancholy, sometimes apocalyptic, belief that all human enterprises will fail sooner rather than later. In his darker moments, he was not sure that even France would endure.”
Churchill had a fiery Sagittarius Sun in his communicative 3rd house and a Leo Moon conjunct Regulus; where De Gaulle was a Sun Scorpio with a cautious Saturn in Virgo. De Gaulle did have his Venus and Mercury in Sagittarius and an Aries Moon. But he lacked WC’s Fire Grand Trine of Moon trine Neptune North Node in Aries trine Venus in Sagittarius.
A Fire Grand Trine is inspirational, has strong self-belief, is a risk-taker, can be arrogant and unrealistic. “For one extraordinary moment all his defects became qualities . . his defiance of the rules, even his “detachment from reality”, of which his colleagues had long despaired, became a “superb optimism of the will”. At that moment he became the personification of a colossal national effort.
What is interesting is Churchill’s relationship chart with the UK which has a fated composite yod of Jupiter sextile Saturn inconjunct Pluto North Node – tr Jupiter was moving through Aries as war started in September 1939 with Churchill moving from Head of the Navy to PM in 1940.
De Gaulle’s relationship chart with France was also inspirational in its own way with a composite Jupiter trine Pluto trine Neptune; though also tied together with a focal point controlling Pluto which possibly made De Gaulle a better peacetime leader than Churchill who was better suited to Boys Own Paper escapades.
Churchill was rife with flaws – bad judgement of people. He liked Mussolini and Stalin, was racist and fought to keep Edward VIII on the throne. There is an unnerving thought that had Edward not abdicated it is unlikely when Chamberlain resigned, that as king he would have accepted the recommendation to send for Churchill, the “warmonger”, rather than an appeaser.
But for all that his Fire Grand Trine was wildly unrealistic and over the top, it was that which made the difference as he ‘empowered Britain to stand among the Second World War’s victors as probably no other contemporary Englishman could have contrived.’
It’s extraordinary to think that Churchill was born a decade after the American Civil War, rode in a cavalry charge in 1898, lived through atomic bombs and died a decade before the foundation of Microsoft.
The post Churchill and De Gaulle – leaders of men first appeared on Astroinform with Marjorie Orr – Star4cast.
