GENERALS DE GAULLE, DUMITRESCU AND HERUVIM, GRADUATES OF SAINT-CYR

Abstract

A very important Romanian historical event took place on 14 May 1968 when General Charles de Gaulle, the president of The French Fifth Republic, visited Bucharest, an initiative stemming from this visionary head of state’s idea of a unified Europe stretching “from the Atlantic to the Urals’. Have you heard of Romanian generals Polihron Dumitrescu and Ioan Heruvim? Charles de Gaulle’s visit proved quite difficult to manage for the communist regime, one of the difficulties being the French general’s meeting with these two generals, former classmates from the Special Military School of Saint-Cyr. His itinerary included the cities of Craiova and Târgoviște because of these expectedly emotional meetings with Dumitrescu and Heruvim, the former having been de Gaulle’s class president, and the latter one of its most brilliant students, and the city of Cetatea Băniei where the French general performed an official military salute.