Maurice Gamelin
Maurice Gustave Gamelin was a French general who served as head of the French Army from 1935 and as Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies in France from the outbreak of the Second World War to his dismissal during the Battle of France in May 1940. The strategic choices Gamelin made ultimately left France vulnerable to a lightning offensive through the Ardennes and have been extensively criticised by historians.
Gamelin distinguished himself in the First World War. As an advisor to Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre, he played an active role in planning the First Battle of the Marne in 1914. Later, as commander of a division in 1918, he successfully contributed to the halting of the initial push of the German spring offensive despite being vastly outnumbered. Between 1919 and 1924, Gamelin headed the French military mission to Brazil. In September 1925, he was placed in command of French troops in the Levant and led the pacification of the Great Syrian Revolt.
In 1931, Gamelin assumed the position of Chief of the Army Staff, later succeeding General Maxime Weygand as Vice-President of the Conseil supérieur de la guerre in 1935. A staunch republican, Gamelin ensured that the army stayed out of politics following the election of the Popular Front in 1936 and developed a close working relationship with Édouard Daladier. Gamelin's responses to the geopolitical crises of the interwar period, up until the 1939 Danzig crisis, were marked by caution and served to dissuade French politicians from military intervention.
Gamelin's war strategy envisioned a long war in which Germany would be weakened by an Allied blockade while Britain and France built up their forces, eventually creating the conditions for a decisive offensive. During the Phoney War, Gamelin opted for the Dyle plan, which extended the planned forward defence into Belgium. He amended the plan in March 1940 to commit more forces to the forward defence, depleting the northern strategic reserve, which played directly into the hands of the German invasion plan. Gamelin was dismissed from command in the midst of the subsequent rapid French collapse on 19 May, just nine days into the battle.
Disgraced after the defeat, Gamelin was imprisoned by the Vichy regime and tried at the Riom Trial in 1942, where he refused to answer the charges against him. In March 1943, he was arrested by the Germans and taken to Tyrol where he was held alongside other French VIP prisoners. He and the other French VIPs were freed after the Battle of Castle Itter in May 1945. After the war, Gamelin lived a life of solitude until his death in 1958.
Early years and education
Maurice Gustave Gamelin was born on 20 September 1872 at 22 Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris to Zéphyrin Auguste Joseph Gamelin and Pauline Adèle Uhrich. His father was an adjutant first class in the Quartermaster Corps at the time of his birth. His father had previously been wounded at the Battle of Solférino and later became inspector general of the army, while his mother had been born into a family of officers. His great uncle on his mother's side had been the last military governor of Strasbourg before the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine in 1871. Among his ancestors were sixteen generals.Gamelin enrolled at Collège Stanislas in 1883 where he excelled academically, receiving his baccalauréats in literature and science in 1889 and 1890 respectively. Hesitant as to whether to become a painter or an officer, Gamelin began preparing for the entrance exam to Saint-Cyr to which he was admitted in 1891. Out of 2,450 applicants, he came 44th, with 463 admitted.
Early military career
Upon graduating top of his class as a second lieutenant in 1893, Gamelin chose to serve with the 3rd Algerian Tirailleurs Regiment which was garrisoned in Constantine.In 1895, he was assigned to a topographical brigade where he excelled in cartography and participated in the 1896 topographical campaign in Tunisia. With the help of his father, Gamelin secured a transfer to the 102nd Infantry Regiment in Paris in 1896 that would allow him to prepare for the War College to which he was admitted in 1899. Among his instructors he especially came to respect Lieutenant Colonel Ferdinand Foch and graduated in 1901, second in his class. Having been conferred the rank of captain and completed a series of staff internships, primarily with the 15th Army Corps in Marseille, Gamelin assumed command of a company of the 15th Battalion of the Chasseurs Alpins :fr:15e bataillon de chasseurs alpins| in 1904, garrisoned in Remiremont. Gamelin remained neutral during the Dreyfus affair, though he was one of very few officers, like his father, who did not believe Alfred Dreyfus was guilty.
In March 1906, Gamelin was authorised to publish Étude philosophique sur l'art de la guerre, a book aimed at officers preparing for the War College, which was commended in reviews by military figures. He bought around fifty copies which he sent to all the generals in positions of responsibility while his father offered copies to influential political leaders. In April General Joseph Joffre selected him as his new aide-de-camp, initially stationed in Paris before Joffre was placed in command of the 2nd Army Corps in Amiens in 1908. Gamelin followed Joffre to the Conseil supérieur de la guerre in 1910, based in Paris, officially becoming his chief of staff in August 1911 after Joffre had been selected as Vice-President of the CSG. Having been conferred the rank of commandant that June, Gamelin assumed command of the 11th Battalion of the Chasseurs Alpins :fr:11e bataillon de chasseurs alpins| in September, based in Annecy. He was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour in July 1913. In August he fathered an illegitimate child with Henriette Gras of whom he would become godfather, as was commonplace at the time. He was assigned to the 3rd Bureau of the General Staff in November, before returning to Joffre's office in March 1914 where he remained at the outbreak of the First World War.
First World War
In August 1914, Gamelin followed Joffre to the Grand Quartier Général in Vitry-le-François where he served as an advisor to Joffre, also being used as his personal messenger to the army commanders, and was in charge of his liaison with the 3rd Bureau. On 4 September, Gamelin invited Joffre to the 3rd Bureau map room where he outlined the opportunities for a counterattack, to which Joffre declared that they would fight on the Marne rather than retreating behind the Seine as had been otherwise proposed. Though Gamelin would later claim in 1930 to be the architect of the First Battle of the Marne once the other officers in Joffre's immediate circle were dead, the plan was a collective work of officers at the GQG in which he played an active role. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in November and that same month met with the singer and actress Mistinguett who wished to ask him whether she should use her relationship with Prince Gottfried von Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst to obtain information for the Allies.File:Joffre gamelin 1915.png|thumb|left|upright=1.46|Joffre visiting the Italian front in the Carnic Alps, 1915. Gamelin is standing behind the car on the left.
In June 1915, Gamelin was appointed head of the 3rd Bureau for the armies of the north and east and prepared the Franco-British offensives in Artois and Champagne that would be launched that autumn. Amid the failure of the offensives and the need for him to complete another period of command, he requested a transfer with Joffre placing him in command of a brigade, a position typically occupied by a brigadier general or a colonel with several years of experience. In February 1916, Gamelin assumed command of the 2nd Chasseurs Brigade on the Vosges front and was promoted to colonel in March, with the brigade transferred to the Somme in July. In December, he was appointed temporary brigadier general and briefly tasked with creating the 168th Infantry Division before he was summoned by Joffre and appointed Chief of Staff of the GQG amid the series of events that would lead to Joffre's sidelining and resignation.
With Joffre replaced by General Robert Nivelle, Gamelin was appointed Chief of Staff of the Reserve Army Group in Dormans on 27 December under General Joseph Alfred Micheler. Gamelin initially supported the April 1917 Chemin des Dames offensive, though a few days in and amid colossal losses he advocated halting the attack. With the dissolution of the GAR in May, Gamelin assumed command of the 9th Infantry Division :fr:9e division d'infanterie | which was later placed in reserve in January 1918. In March, the 9th Infantry Division was tasked with stemming the German advance with Gamelin setting up a temporary command post in Noyon. Faced with vastly superior forces, Gamelin's division successfully slowed the advance until reinforcements could arrive with more forces thereafter placed under his command. Following these intense battles, the division was rested and moved to the east where, in July as part of the Fifth Army, it successfully repelled an offensive in the Tardenois region and counterattacked. After a period of rest in August, Gamelin's division participated in the Meuse–Argonne offensive until the signing of the armistice on 11 November.
Interwar period
Initially assigned in January 1919 to a less important position, in command of a brigade, Gamelin obtained an assignment to the French military mission to Brazil, arriving in Rio de Janeiro later that month and officially becoming head of the mission in February. During this time he advised Brazilian governments on reorganising their army and advised Brazilian officers to keep the army neutral amid political turmoil, with the mission leading to significant orders of French armaments.Gamelin returned to France in December 1924 and, amid setbacks in the early stages of the Great Syrian Revolt, he was appointed deputy to General Maurice Sarrail, the High Commissioner of the Levant, in September 1925 and tasked with leading the subsequent operations. To suppress an October insurrection in Damascus, Gamelin ordered the bombardment of the city which garnered the attention of international journalists. He was promoted to the rank of divisional general in December, with his position as commander-in-chief of the French troops in the Levant formalised a few days later. Gamelin commanded a pacification campaign that ran from autumn 1925 to the end of June 1926 and which effectively suppressed the revolt. In September 1927, he married Eugénie Marchand in Paris, while retaining his position, and was promoted to général de corps d'armée that November. Gamelin left Syria in August 1928 and, after his end-of-campaign leave, assumed command of the 20th Army Corps :fr:20e corps d'armée | in Nancy in March 1929.
File:Maxime Weygand, Joseph Paul-Boncour, Maurice Gamelin, 1932.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.15|Foreground : Weygand, Minister of War Joseph Paul-Boncour, and Gamelin during September 1932 military exercises :fr:Manœuvres militaires françaises de 1932|
In January 1930, Gamelin was informed by Minister of War André Maginot of the government's decision to appoint him First Deputy Chief of the Army Staff with the understanding that he would in effect be third-in-line to head the army after Vice-President of the CSG Philippe Pétain and soon-to-be Chief of the Army Staff Maxime Weygand. Pétain retired in February 1931 and was replaced by Weygand while Gamelin assumed the position of Chief of the Army Staff, thus joining the CSG.
In January 1932, and amid budgetary constraints on the army, Gamelin warned of the covert German rearmament before the parliamentary National Defence Budget Committee. However, he sought to play down the scale of the German threat later that year and supported the efforts of the World Disarmament Conference, believing in the effectiveness of the League of Nations.
File:Gamelin czechoslovakia 1934.png|thumb|upright=1.15|Gamelin and General Jan Syrový during a trip to Czechoslovakia in 1934
Gamelin agreed with Weygand that the Maginot Line could not be an end in of itself and similarly opposed the extension of the Maginot Line towards Belgium on the basis that the country was an ally and the necessary funds would hinder the modernisation of the army. In contrast to Weygand who was uncompromising when it came to matters of national security, Gamelin believed that military leaders should not obstruct government policy regardless of the consequences.