Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Bénoni Omer Joseph Pétain, better known as Marshal Pétain, was a French military officer who commanded the French Army in World War I and later became the head of the collaborationist regime of Vichy France, from 1940 to 1944, during World War II.
Pétain was admitted to the Saint-Cyr Military Academy in 1876 and pursued a career in the military, achieving the rank of colonel by the outbreak of World War I. He led the French Army to victory at the nine-month-long Battle of Verdun, for which he was called "the Lion of Verdun". After the failed Nivelle Offensive and subsequent mutinies, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief and succeeded in restoring control. Pétain remained in command for the rest of the war and emerged as a national hero. During the interwar period, he was head of the peacetime French Army, commanded joint Franco-Spanish operations during the Rif War and served twice as a government minister. During this time he was known as le vieux Maréchal.
On 16 June 1940, with the imminent Fall of France and the government desire for an armistice, Prime Minister Paul Reynaud resigned, recommending to President Albert Lebrun that he appoint Pétain in his place, which he did that day, while the government was at Bordeaux. The government then resolved to sign armistice agreements with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The entire government subsequently moved briefly to Clermont-Ferrand, then to the town of Vichy in central France. It voted to transform the French Third Republic into the French State, better known as Vichy France, an authoritarian puppet regime that was allowed to govern the southeast of France and which collaborated with the Axis powers. After Germany and Italy occupied all of France in November 1942, Pétain's government worked closely with the German military administration.
After the war, Pétain was tried and convicted for treason. He was originally sentenced to death, but due to his age and World War I service his sentence was commuted to life in prison. His journey from military obscurity, to hero of France during World War I, to collaborationist ruler during World War II, led his successor Charles de Gaulle to declare that Pétain's life was "successively banal, then glorious, then deplorable, but never mediocre".
Pétain, who was 84 years old when he became Prime Minister and later Head of State, remains both the oldest person to become the head of government and the oldest person to become the head of state of France.
Early life
Pétain was born into a peasant family in Cauchy-à-la-Tour, in the Pas-de-Calais department, northern France, on 24 April 1856. He was one of five children of Omer-Venant Pétain, a farmer, and Clotilde Legrand, and was their only son. His father had previously lived in Paris, where he worked for photography pioneer Louis Daguerre, before returning to the family farm in Cauchy-à-la-Tour following the Revolution of 1848. One of his great-uncles, a Catholic priest, Father Abbe Lefebvre, served in the Grande Armée during the Napoleonic Wars.Pétain's mother died when he was 18 months old, and he was raised by relatives after his father remarried. He attended the Catholic boarding school of Saint-Bertin in the nearby town of Saint-Omer, where he was an excellent student, showing an aptitude for geography and arithmetic. In 1875, with the intention of preparing for the Saint-Cyr Military Academy, Pétain enrolled in the Dominican college of Albert-le-Grand in Arcueil.
Early military career
Pétain was admitted to Saint-Cyr in 1876, beginning his career in the French Army. Between graduating in 1878 and 1899, he served in various garrisons with different battalions of the chasseurs, the elite light infantry of the French Army. Thereafter, he alternated between staff and regimental assignments.Pétain's career progressed slowly, as he rejected the French Army philosophy of the furious infantry assault, arguing instead that "firepower kills". His views were proven to be correct during the First World War. He was promoted to captain in 1890 and major in 1900. In March 1904, by then serving in the 104th Infantry, he was appointed adjunct professor of applied infantry tactics at the École Supérieure de Guerre, and following promotion to lieutenant-colonel was promoted to professor on 3 April 1908. He was brevetted to colonel on 1 January 1910.
Unlike many French officers, Pétain served mainly in mainland France, never French Indochina or any of the African colonies, although he participated in the Rif campaign in Morocco. As colonel, he was given command of the 33rd Infantry Regiment at Arras on 25 June 1911; a young lieutenant, Charles de Gaulle, who served under him, later wrote that his "first colonel, Pétain, taught the Art of Command". In the spring of 1914, he was given command of a brigade. By then aged 58 and having been told he would never become a general, Pétain had bought a villa for retirement.
First World War
Beginning of war
Pétain led his brigade at the Battle of Guise. The following day, he was promoted to brigade general to replace brigade general, who had taken his own life. He was given command of the 6th Division in time for the First Battle of the Marne; little over a month later, in October 1914, he was promoted yet again and became XXXIII Corps commander. After leading his corps in the spring 1915 Artois Offensive, in July 1915 he was given command of the Second Army, which he led in the Champagne Offensive that autumn. He acquired a reputation as one of the more successful commanders on the Western Front.Battle of Verdun
Pétain commanded the Second Army at the start of the Battle of Verdun in February 1916. During the battle, he was promoted to Commander of Army Group Centre, which contained a total of 52 divisions. Rather than holding down the same infantry divisions on the Verdun battlefield for months, akin to the German system, he rotated them out after only two weeks on the front lines. His decision to organise truck transport over the "Voie Sacrée" to bring a continuous stream of artillery, ammunition, and fresh troops into besieged Verdun also played a key role in grinding down the German onslaught to a final halt in July 1916. In effect, he applied the basic principle that was a mainstay of his teachings at the École de Guerre before World War I: "le feu tue!" or "firepower kills!"in this case meaning French field artillery, which fired over 15 million shells on the Germans during the first five months of the battle. Although Pétain did say "On les aura!", the other famous quotation often attributed to him – "Ils ne passeront pas!" – was actually uttered by Robert Nivelle who succeeded him in command of the Second Army at Verdun in May 1916. At the very end of 1916, Nivelle was promoted over Pétain to replace Joseph Joffre as French Commander-in-Chief.Mutiny
Because of his high prestige as a soldier's soldier, Pétain served briefly as Army Chief of Staff. He then became Commander-in-Chief of the entire French army, replacing General Nivelle, whose Chemin des Dames offensive failed in April 1917 and thereby provoked widespread mutinies in the French Army. They involved, to various degrees, nearly half of the French infantry divisions stationed on the Western Front. Pétain restored morale by talking to the men, promising no more suicidal attacks, providing rest for exhausted units, home furloughs, and moderate discipline. He held 3400 courts martial; 554 mutineers were sentenced to death but over 90% had their sentences commuted. The mutinies were kept secret from the Germans and their full extent and intensity were not revealed until decades later. Gilbert and Bernard find multiple causes:The immediate cause was the extreme optimism and subsequent disappointment at the Nivelle offensive in the spring of 1917. Other causes were pacifism, stimulated by the Russian Revolution and the trade-union movement, and disappointment at the nonarrival of American troops.
Pétain conducted some successful but limited offensives in the latter part of 1917, while the British carried out an offensive at Passchendaele that autumn. Pétain, instead, held off from major French offensives until the Americans arrived in force on the front lines, which did not happen until the early summer of 1918. He was also waiting for the new Renault FT tanks to be introduced in large numbers, hence his statement at the time: ''J'attends les chars et les Américains''
End of World War I
The year 1918 saw major German offensives on the Western Front. The first of these, Operation Michael in March 1918, threatened to split the British and French forces apart, and, after Pétain had threatened to retreat on Paris, the Doullens Conference was called. Just prior to the main meeting, Prime Minister Clemenceau claimed he heard Pétain say "les Allemands battront les Anglais en rase campagne, après quoi ils nous battront aussi". He reported this conversation to President Raymond Poincaré, adding "surely a general should not speak or think like that?" Haig recorded that Pétain had "a terrible look. He had the appearance of a commander who had lost his nerve". Pétain believed – wrongly – that Gough's Fifth Army had been routed like the Italians at Caporetto. At the Conference, Ferdinand Foch was appointed as Allied Generalissimo, initially with powers to co-ordinate and deploy Allied reserves where he saw fit. Pétain eventually came to the aid of the British and secured the front with forty French divisions.Pétain proved a capable opponent of the Germans both in defence and through counter-attack. The third offensive, "Blücher", in May 1918, saw major German advances on the Aisne, as the French Army commander ignored Pétain's instructions to defend in depth and instead allowed his men to be hit by the initial massive German bombardment. By the time of the last German offensives, Gneisenau and the Second Battle of the Marne, Pétain was able to defend in depth and launch counter offensives, with the new French tanks and the assistance of the Americans. Later in the year, Pétain was stripped of his right of direct appeal to the French government and requested to report to Foch, who increasingly assumed the co-ordination and ultimately the command of the Allied offensives. On the day of the armistice, Pétain wanted to continue offensive operations into Germany to prevent another war but was overruled by Foch.
After the war ended Pétain was made Marshal of France on 21 November 1918.