WI: Charles De Gaulle is killed during the battle of Dinant in August of 1914

At the start of WW1 Charles De Gaulle was shot in the knee at the Battle of Dinant, what if instead of simply being injured, he was killed during the early stages of the First World War?
 

Driftless

Donor
How would DeGaulle's loss alter interwar thinking on the use of tanks, particularly by the French? I know he was supposed to be a significant theorist, but how much of his thought got put into action and applied in the Battle of France?
 
How would DeGaulle's loss alter interwar thinking on the use of tanks, particularly by the French? ... but how much of his thought got put into action and applied in the Battle of France?

Next to none. There were quite a few others. DeGaulle is famous due to the book he published interwar. His thinking was a variation among many of how France should organize armored forces. Were he dead someone else's book might be known, someone else would command the 4thDCR in May 1940. Someone else would command the free French. The real difference might be post war. DeGaulles stamp on French politics and international relations was a bit more unique. Giraud, Darlan, or whomever as the senior French leader in 1945 starts off the post war politics in a different direction.
 

Driftless

Donor
There appears to be a Mohs Hardness Scale analog on this site of animosity for bumping off 20th Century leaders: Hitler, Stalin, McArthur, Mussolini, Churchill, TR, DeGaulle, Monty, Mao, Chang, FDR. You could argue about the relative level of animosity for each.
 
Georges Catroux may eventually step forward, but he wouldn't have the force of character that de Gaulle had. I doubt that anyone but de Gaulle could've carried France through WWII and kept her position as a great power intact. Remember, FDR wanted France to be governed as conquered territory. He even planned for France to be carved up. If France survives the war, then it would be a France 'without greatness'; dishonoured, without a place at the peace table and with little say in global politics. God knows about the colonies.

As much as some people accuse him of being arrogant, aloof and self-centered, Charles de Gaulle really was the 'child of destiny'.
 
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