Charles de Gaulle was wounded during his first combat

The future general Charles de Gaulle experienced his baptism of fire on August 15, 1914 in Dinant at the age of 23. While he was crossing the city bridge with his unit, he received a bullet in the knee and narrowly escaped death by crawling on his stomach to a nearby house. This striking episode of his youth was the subject of war notebooks published in 2014, and the bridge of Dinant bears his name today.