(20th September 1872: Paris - 18th April 1958: Paris)

Maurice Gamelin was the son of an officer and army controller general wounded at the Battle of Solferino in 1859 and a mother from the Alsace, the daughter of Quartermaster General Ulrich and the niece of the military Governor of Strasbourg in 1870. From an early age he showed an aptitude for military skills and matters. After winning the national prize for philosophy, he continued his studies at the Ecole du Louvre and then decided to take the entrance examination for Saint-Cyr. Admitted in October 1891, he graduated top of his year in 1893 to be appointed to the 3rd regiment of Algerian tirailleurs (infantrymen) and then to the Topographic Section in Tunisia. Between 1896 and 1899, the young officer used his drawing skills in the army's geographic department in Paris. Achieving eighth place in the Ecole de Guerre's competitive examination, he soon came to the attention of his teachers, notably Foch and Lanrezac. Promoted to captain in 1901 in the 15th battalion of foot chasseurs, the following year he joined General Joffre at his headquarters. In 1906 he published a philosophical study of the art of warfare, a work that elevated him into the ranks of great military thinkers of his time, although he was only the generalissimo's ordnance officer in the 6th infantry division. He remained at his side in the 2nd army corps (1908) and in the Upper War Council, before taking command of the 11th battalion of Alpine chasseurs (Annecy) for two years from 1911. Head of the Chief of staff's 3rd Bureau, he chose to join General Joffre once again in March 1914.
It was as head of his military office that Gamelin took part in the operations of the Great War. Confidant to the generalissimo and a well-informed tactician, he led the 2nd half-brigade of foot chasseurs along the Linge (Alsace) and in the Somme, drafted the 2nd order that was at the root of the victory of the Marne (25th August 1914) and wrote the 6th order which triggered its offensive. As temporary Brigade General in December 1916, he was posted to the 16th infantry division, before being recalled to Joffre's HQ at the beginning of 1917. When Joffre was replaced by Nivelle, he requested a command position. In April/May, he was given the 9th infantry division with whom he distinguished himself on the Argonne, at Verdun, in the Aisne, around Noyon in March 1918 and halted the advance of German troops along the Oise. Promoted to Brigade General in September 1919, he was sent as head of the French military mission to Brazil and in 1921 published "Trois étapes de l'avant-guerre" (The three stages of the pre-war period) (Les oeuvres libres, no.13).

On his return to France in 1925, the young Division General took command of the French troops in Syria as Deputy to the High Commissioner Jouvenel (September 1925 to February 1929), with the mission of repressing the Djebel Druze rebellion alongside General Sarrail, a duty that he carried out brilliantly and which earned him the honour of being elevated to the dignity of officer of the Légion d'honneur (16th September 1926) and his General's stripes in the army corps (November 1927). Posted to the 20th army corps in Nancy, he became the second in command to the General Chief of Staff of the army before replacing Weygand as General Chief of Staff of the army on the 9th February 1931. Awarded the Grand Croix of the Légion d'honneur on the 14th July 1932, he held the vice presidency of the Upper War Council (January 1935) and was decorated with the military medal (31st December 1935). As General Chief of Staff of the national defence (21st January 1938), he took command of the allied forces in France in September 1939. However, his tactical ideas were outdated: he refused to make large-scale use of armoured weapons and the air force, preferring a defensive strategy relying on the Maginot line and showed a tendency to delegate command on the front; the French army could only put up futile resistance - "we are all, more or less inevitably, men of a certain time and background, even when we try to react against some parts of it", he would write in his memoirs as if to justify himself. On the 19th May 1940, General Gamelin was relieved of his command and placed under arrest by the Vichy regime on the 6th September. Imprisoned at the fort in Portalet with Blum, Daladier, Mandel and Reynaud, he was tried on the 19th February 1942 in front of the high court in Riom, which he forced to adjourn (11th April) by refusing to take part in the proceedings - "the trial became in fact one of "lack of preparation"", he would note in his memoirs. On the occupation of the free zone by the Wehrmacht, the Generalissimo was imprisoned in Buchenwald in March 1943 and then in Itter, in the Austrian Tyrol, until his liberation by American troops on the 5th May 1945. Returning to Paris, Maurice Gamelin devoted himself to writing his volumes of "Servir" memoirs, published in 1946, which he completed in 1954 with the story of his experience of the Great War and the manoeuvre that led to the victory of the Marne.

(24th October 1899: Port-au-Prince, Haiti - 20th November 1962: Cormeilles-en-Parisis, Val-d'Oise)

Philippe Kieffer was Alsatian by birth through his teacher father, whose family had fled from Otterswiller to Jamaica following the German annexation of 1870, and British through his mother. Having only just completed his studies as a reserve officer in 1918, nothing short of a literally Rhinian throwback to shed his blood for his homeland could have predisposed him for a career in the armed services. A graduate of the Upper College of Business Studies, he had followed a career as a banker in North America until the age of forty. However, he volunteered as a reserve officer at the beginning of the Second World War. On the 10th September 1939 he was a sub- lieutenant in the navy after a first tour of duty in the land army, carrying out the role of interpreter on board the battleship Courbet. At Dunkirk, assigned to Admiral Nord's general staff, he witnessed the invasion of the Wehrmacht in May 1940 and on the 19th June decided to support General de Gaulle in London. He joined the ranks of the Free French (France Libre) Naval Forces on the very day they were created, the 1st July 1940. As an Interpreter and Cipher Officer, he understood the importance of British commandos and set up a unit of French Naval Fusiliers in Portsmouth in May 1941: the 1st Company of the Battalion of Marine Fusilier Commandos (1re compagnie du bataillon de fusiliers-marins commandos or BFMC). Trained at the commando training centre in Achnacarry, it did not take long for the twenty or so volunteers to become involved in the operations of the 2nd Unit of British Commandos: promoted to Ship-of-the-Line Lieutenant on the 1st July 1942, Kieffer led his men to Dieppe on the 19th August 1942. The BFM, increased by a company, took part in preparatory raids in Normandy with a view to landing in 1943, covering themselves with even more glory the following year in Lieutenant Colonel Dawson's famous 4th British Commandos belonging to General Lord Lovat's 1st Brigade. On the 6th June, his Green Berets landed on "Sword" beach in Ouistreham, breaking through in Colleville, Saint-Aubin-d'Arquenay, Amfreville and Bavant to join up with British airborne troops at Benouville (Pegasus Bridge). Wounded at the beginning of the assault, the Lieutenant Commander remained with his comrades in arms for a further two days before being evacuated, rejoining his unit on the 13th July for the advance on Honfleur.

From Normandy, he rushed to Paris with two of his men and was the first to enter the city. In October 1944, his battalion, increased by a company, was sent to the Netherlands for an assault on the island of Walcheren. His marine fusiliers took Flessinge, the key to the port of Anvers, continuing the liberation of the Dutch islands through concerted operations with British commandos. At the end of the war, he was on the inter-allied general staff before leaving active service to work on the reconstruction of the country on the 1945consultative committee, becoming involved on a local level with terms in office as General Councillor for the Calvados region (September 1945 - June 1946) and Town Councillor for Grandcamp-les-Bains. He published his book of memoirs, Béret vert (Green Beret) in 1948 and was appointed Captain of Frigate six years later in 1954. He was an advisor for the film The Longest Day in 1965 before he died on the 20th November the same year. He was laid to rest in the cemetery at Grandcamp-les-Bains. In homage to this servant of France, the 6th Battalion of Commandos, established on the 6th June 2008, bears the name of Marine Commando "Kieffer". Located in Lorient, this company specialising in new technologies is a strong maritime unit belonging to the force of marine fusiliers and commandos (force des fusiliers marins et commandos or FORFUSCO).

The son of Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders (the brother of King Léopold II) and Princess Marie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Albert I was Prince of Belgium, Duke of Saxony and Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. On the 2nd October 1900, he married Elisabeth, the Duchess of Bayern, with whom he would have three children: Léopold, who would become Léopold III, Charles-Théodore, Regent of the kingdom from 1944 to 1951 and Marie-José who would become Queen of Italy for just three months from the 9th May to the 13th June 1946. Albert I was sworn in on the 23rd December 1909, becoming the third King of the Belgians after Léopold I and Léopold II, sovereigns not of a kingdom, but of a nation (in the same way as Louis-Philippe I was "King of the French people" in 1830). Succeeding his uncle, King Léopold II, he discovered an opulent country with two communities, the Flemish and the Walloons, with the latter predominating, and endowed with a rich colony, the Congo. In 1914, Albert I rejected the ultimatum issued by Emperor Wilhelm II to secure the free passage of his troops across Belgian soil. On the 4th August, the Germans invaded Belgium, whose army, following fierce fighting at Liege and Anvers, took up position behind the Yser river on the 15th October.

Calm, modest and almost self-effacing, King Albert was to demonstrate his power by insisting on exercising his constitutional prerogative to take command of the army. He refused to follow the Belgian government in exile in Sainte-Adresse, on the outskirts of Le Havre, setting up his general headquarters in La Panne in Western Flanders and living alongside his soldiers for the duration of the war. He was admirably supported by his wife, Queen Elisabeth (1876-1965). Bavarian by birth (née Von Wittelsbach) and the niece of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, the wife of Emperor Franz Josef, she devoted herself to caring for the wounded and refugees, founding a hospital in La Panne, where she worked as a nurse. Their son, Prince Léopold, Duke of Brabant, enlisted in 1915 as a simple soldier in the 12th regiment in Ligne, at the age of 13. In September 1918, Albert I actively took part in the decisive offensive launched by Foch to conquer the Flanders ridge (29th September) and the battle of Torhout-Tielt (14th - 18th October), which resulted in the reconquering of Bruges. On the 22nd November 1918, accompanied by Queen Elizabeth and his children, Albert I finally returned triumphantly to Brussels. The nobleness of his demeanour at the head of his army earned him the nickname of the "Knight King". In the period after the war, he represented Belgium at the peace negotiations at Versailles, defending his country's interests whilst also trying, in vain, to oppose the policy of excessive humiliation of Germany. An ardent climber, he died climbing one of the Marche-les-Dames rocks near Namur in the Meuse valley on the 17th February 1934.

William Ridell Birdwood was born in Kirkee in India on the 13th September 1865.

After studying at Clifton College in Bristol and at the royal military college at Sandhurst, in 1883 he began his career in the Royal Scots Fusiliers. Appointed to the cavalry in 1885, he served with the 12th lancers, the 11th lancers and the Viceroy's Bodyguard in India, where he took part in operations on the North-Western border. In 1899, he was posted to South Africa and General Kitchener's general staff, during the Boer war led by the colonists against the British sovereignty. Returning to India, he was promoted to Major General in 1911 and became Department Secretary in the Indian army the following year. In November 1914, Kitchener, then the British Minister of War, put him in charge of training an army corps of Australian and New Zealander troops, who underwent training in Egypt before being sent to the Western Front. This corps, known as Anzac (Australian and New-Zealand Army Corps), took part in its first operation on landing on the Gallipoli peninsula on the 25th April 1915, with the objective of taking control of the Dardanelles straits linking the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea via the Bosporus straits. During the campaign, he briefly replaced Ian Hamilton at the head of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, before being promoted to Lieutenant General in mid-November 1915 and taking command of the British army in the Dardanelles, then comprising Anzac, the 8th British corps and the 9th corps.

In March 1916, following changes within Anzac, he took command of the 1st Anzac corps, formed from the 1st and 2nd Australian divisions and the New Zealand division, which was sent to the French front. Made General on the 23rd October 1917, he was in charge of the Australian corps when, at the turning point of 1917-1918, the five Anzac divisions were combined into a single corps. He took command of the 5th British Army on the 31st May 1918, and led them in the last offensives, which gave victory to the Allies. At the end of the conflict, he commanded the Northern Army in India until 1925, when, promoted to the dignified position of Marshal he became Commander in Chief of the British army in India. On retiring from the army in 1930, he had aspirations of becoming Governor General of Australia, but was never to achieve the position. He died on the 17th May 1951 at Hampton Court Palace. In 1916, he was made Baron Birdwood of Anzac and Totnes in Devon and became a Peer in 1919. For services rendered during the First World War, he was a holder of the Cross of War and the Belgian Cross of War; he was decorated with the Order of the Crown by Belgium and the Order of the Nile by Egypt.

On 9 April 1865 Erich Ludendorff was born to a family of shopkeepers in Kruszewnia, in the province of Posen (today Poznan, Poland). Ludendorff was a cadet at the schools of Pl½n and Lichterfeld from 1877 to 1882, second lieutenant in the 57th infantry regiment in Wessel and lieutenant in the 2nd marine battalion in Kiel-Wilhemshaven and 8th grenadiers in Frankfurt-am-Oder before entering the War Academy in Berlin, graduating in 1895 with the rank of captain. He was assigned to the general staff, where he headed the operations section from 1908 to 1912 and participated in drawing up the plan for the invasion of France under Schlieffen's and Moltke's orders. This period was interspersed with more or less brief stints at the head of an infantry company in Thorn and on the general staffs of the 9th infantry division in Glogau and the 5th army corps in Posen. He was promoted major in 1900, lieutenant-colonel in 1907 and colonel in 1911.

Ludendorf was assigned to the 39th infantry regiment in Düsseldorf in late 1912. He took command of the 85th infantry brigade in Strasbourg in April 1914 while continuing to participate in many general staff activities. In August 1914 Ludendorff was quartermaster of the 2nd army commanded by von Bülow and actively participated in taking Liege during the invasion of Belgium, which earned him the appointment of chief of staff of the 8th army on the Eastern front on 21 August 1914. After the victory of Tannenberg he became commander-in-chief Hindenburg's chief of staff. When Hindenburg succeeded Falkenhayn as the German armies' general chief of staff in summer 1916, Ludendorff became first quartermaster general, dealing with supply issues, drawing up military plans and directing operations. He advocated total war and ardently defended unrestricted submarine warfare, which brought him into conflict with Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, causing the latter to step down in July 1917. Ludendorff was also one of the main negotiators of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918), which took Poland, the Baltic States, Finland and Ukraine away from Russia. Despite fierce fighting, his major Western front offensives in spring 1918 failed to prevent Germany's defeat. In late September he urged the government to request an armistice but retracted the decision.

In October 1918 he resigned and fled to Sweden, blaming Germany's civilian leaders for losing the war. In spring 1919 he went to Bavaria and got involved in politics, growing close to the National Socialists and supporting Hitler in his failed 1923 putsch. In May of the following year he was elected to the Reichstag. In March 1925 he stood for president as the nationalists' candidate but won few votes, losing the election to Hindenburg. In 1926 he founded his own party, the Tannenberg Bund. In 1935 he rejected Hitler's offer to raise him to the dignity of marshal. In addition to his war memoirs (1919), he was the author of many military works and political writings. He died in Tutzing, Bavaria on 20 December 1937.

Adolphe Thiers, historian and statesman, was symbolic of the emerging Third Republic, the "executioner of the Commune" and founder of the Republic. Marie-Louis-Joseph-Adolphe Thiers was born in Marseille into a middle-class family. Helped by the extravagance of his father, the young Adolphe had a brilliant education by means of a scholarship. After studying law in Aix-en-Provence, he settled in Paris in 1821, where he moved in liberal society, embarking on a career as a journalist at Le Constitutionnel, before founding Le National on the 3rd January 1830 with Auguste Mignet and Armand Carrel, opposing through their articles the sovereignty of Charles X. In 1824, with his friend Auguste Mignet, he began a historical account of the Revolution of 1789. Thiers then devoted himself to Napoleon and was the first to provide a complete account, albeit partisan, of his career in his History of the Consulate and the Empire, published between 1845 and 1862 - in addition, in 1936 and 1940, he requested the return of Napoleon's ashes. His works earned his election to the French Academy in December 1834. Politically, Thiers was a "liberal", a man of progress, with a belief in the principle of national sovereignty, expressed through free elections and through representatives controlling the executive.

He played an active role in the July revolution in organising the resistance of those journalists threatened by the "Four Orders" (laws aimed at "muzzling" the press), going so far as to support Louis-Philippe when he came to power. The latter called him into his government as Under-Secretary of State for Finance, Minister of the Interior and then Minister of Agriculture and Trade. He was thus in permanent opposition with legitimists, republicans and the supporters of Bonaparte. During the Second Republic (1848-1851) Thiers worked with a regime that he was to consider "disappointing", as it was too conservative. As a member of parliament, Thiers laid down Proudhon's socialist theses, writing at the time a short treaty for the general public on Property, supporting the Falloux law and the Rome expedition. He was even to go so far as to support the candidate Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte during the presidential elections, but was to oppose the coup d'état of the 2nd December 1851, a stance that was to see him exiled to England, Italy and then Switzerland. Thiers therefore disappeared from the political scene in Napoleon the Third's 's first year in power. He returned to politics to oppose the left under the liberal Empire (1860-1870). "Thiers, who was even classed as an "Orléanist" because of his past from 1830-48, was, in fact, the leader of the handful of royalists who remained faithful to liberalism." (M. Aguhlon). He accepted the Crimean expedition but remained very critical of Napoleon the Third's foreign policy, which he considered too liberal and unsuitable for the Italian peninsula and Germany; he demanded the liquidation of the Mexican expedition.

On the fall of the Second Empire Thiers, who had been elected in the previous Empire elections in 1869, participated in the Government of National Defence, which he ended up managing, having actively contributed since the 10th September 1870 in peace preparations: the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jules Favre, asked him in the name of the government to moderate the offensive policies of the European powers, in particular the ambitions of Bismarck - so, from 1873 until 1875 Thiers carried out a lengthy tour of all the European capitals. Following the signing of the armistice on the 28th January 1871, Thiers was elected head of the new government in the elections of the 8th February 1871. As head of the executive power, he brought the communard movement to an end in a bloodbath in the spring of 1871; he was known as the "executioner of the Commune". The suppression of the Parisian uprising, the "Federates" movement, was led by Thiers with an army of "men of Versailles", the government having then established itself in Versailles. He was at the head of the 63,500 men, reinforced by the 130,000 liberated French prisoners of war and supported by Bismarck, who, between March and June 1871, besieged Paris and the neighbouring villages. The fighting would account for around thirty thousand dead from the ranks of the Federates. Up until 1874, four emergency courts passed judgement on the "Communards": 13,804 sentences were pronounced, including several for the labour camps of Guyana and New Caledonia - there would be no amnesty until July 1880. On the 24th May 1873, the parliamentary right, who had brought him to power, but were hostile to the republican orientation that Thiers gave to the Government, secured his resignation and replaced him with Mac Mahon. Adolphe Thiers died on the 3rd September 1877. Despite the refusal of his family to hold a state funeral, a funeral cortège with 384 wreaths, followed by Gambetta and Hugo, was to turn the final journey of this multi-faceted statesman into a national affair.

Sources: AGUHLON (Maurice), "Adolphe Thiers", in: Célébrations nationales 1997, Paris, Direction des Archives de France. MOURRE (Michel), Dictionnaire encyclopédique d'histoire, Paris, Bordas, 1996 (1978).

Maurice (Paul-Emmanuel) Sarrail was born in Carcassonne on 6 April 1856, entered Saint-Cyr military academy in 1875, chose the infantry and served in Algeria and southern Tunisia, where he took part in many campaigns. He was admitted to the War Academy in 1883 and trained with the general staffs from 1885. In 1900, as the passions stirred by the Dreyfus affair were still running high, General André, the minister of war, choose him as aide-de-camp: that is when he began developing friendships in leftist political circles, which often furthered his career as well as earned him enemies. He was commander of the Saint-Maixent school, where he championed democratic ideas. He was commander of the Chamber of Deputies for several years before being called from 1907 to 1911 to the position of director of infantry at the War Ministry. In 1911 he was a major general, commanding the 6th army corps early in the war. On 2 September he replaced General Ruffey as head of the 3rd army and took a glorious part in the Battle of the Marne. His army, which was located between the fortress of Verdun and Sainte-Menehould gorge, led a successful push against the German forces.

When ordered to retreat, the troops pulled back approximately 50km without losing contact with Verdun, enabling them to repel the Kronprinz's army when the general offensive resumed. If Verdun had fallen then, it would have jeopardized the victory of the Marne. Like Galliéni, who was defending the fortified camp of Paris, and Foch, in the Saint-Gong marshes, Sarrail was an architect of the victory of the Marne, which saved France. In late 1915 General Sarrail became commander-in-chief of the Allied Armies of the Orient. In difficult conditions, he organised the defence of Salonica and ordered the offensive that led to the taking of Monastir in November 1916. He was relieved of his command on 14 December 1917. Sarrail did not have the time to personally harvest the fruits of his two years of perseverant efforts, but left his successors, General Guillaumat and, later, General Franchet d'Esperey, a sound situation that served as the foundation for the final push. In April 1918 General Sarrail became a reserve officer. The following year he made a bid for office in the legislative elections, hoping to represent Paris, but lost. Later he was reintegrated into the officer corps despite being over the age limit, a reward granted to all the generals who had served as commanders-in-chief before the enemy. In November 1924 he was appointed High Commissioner of the French Republic in Syria and replaced General Weygand as commander-in-chief of the Army of the Levant. After the Druze uprising and the violent way he quelled it, he was recalled to France. Henry de Jouvenel replaced him in Beirut. He returned to Paris in late 1925 and ended his military career. He died in Paris of a lung infection on 23 March 1929 and was buried in the Invalides.

Distinctions: Grand-croix de la Légion d'honneur Médaille Militaire with the Croix de Guerre.

Douglas Haig was born in Edinburgh (Scotland) in 1861 to a family of whisky-makers. His father, John, made him study the classics. With a degree from Clifton College and Brasenose College, Oxford, he enrolled at the Royal Military College in Sandhurst in 1864 and was commissioned into the 7th Regiment of Hussars. Douglas Haig did his training in India in 1886, where he received his first promotion. He was then sent on active service to the Sudan (1898) before taking part in the Boer War (1899-1902) under the command of Major-General Sir John French. Promoted to the rank of colonel, Haig returned to India in 1903, where he carried out various administrative roles (as colonel and inspector general of the cavalry) beside Lord Kitchener. Showing particular aptitude for a career in the military, Douglas Haig became the youngest ever Major General in the British army when, in 1906, he was appointed Director of Military Training at the War Office. He thus worked closely with the Secretary of State for War, R. B. Haldane, establishing a territorial army, as well as a British expeditionary force.

As Army General in 1914, he took command of the 1st Army corps of the BEF in France and Belgium, where he distinguished himself during fighting at Mons and Ypres. Hitherto second in command of the British forces in France under the orders of General French, he took control of the expanded BEF in December 1915, with French taking supreme command of the British forces. After February 1916, he was subjected to pressure from the French high command to speed up preparation for the offensive planned on the Somme for the summer of 1916, and thus create a diversion for the Verdun front. Between July and November 1916 he was sent with his troops to fight in the battle of the Somme, where he actively participated in the allied breakthrough over 12 km of the front, operations that caused the loss of 420,000 men from the ranks of the British army and earned him the nickname "the butcher of the Somme", and later in the bloody assaults around Passchendaele in 1917 (the third battle of Ypres), which enabled him to obtain his Marshall's baton and to be described by Pershing as "the man who won the war".

In 1918, Douglas Haig was the instigator of the British victory on the western front (the fronts of the Somme and the Aisne). As a member of the Armistice military council convened in Senlis by Foch, he gave his approval to the military conditions for the armistice with the central empires. However his costly military successes won him some post-war critics for his policies, such as David Lloyd George, the British prime Minister and some British media organisations who called the 1st July 1916 "the bloodiest day for the British army". On his return from the front and until his retirement in 1921, Douglas Haig was commander in chief of the British Home forces. After ceasing active service and having been awarded the title of count, he devoted a great deal of his time to veterans through the Royal British Legion. He died at his London home in 1928 and was given a state funeral.

The son of a cavalry officer in the African Chasseurs, Louis Franchet d'Esperey was born in Mostaganem on the 25th of May 1856. On leaving the Saint Cyr military academy in 1876, he served in North Africa in the first regiment of Algerian Fusiliers. He was accepted to study at the Higher Military School in 1881, but did not attend until the following year, so that he could take part in the Tunisian expedition against the Kroumirs. On leaving the school, he joined Tonkin for two years, taking part in the battles of Lang Son and Lao Qay. On returning to France in 1886, he was posted to army headquarters and then to the Cabinet office of Freycinet, the minister for war, before commanding a battalion in Toul and later the 18th Foot Battalion of Nancy. In 1900, commanding the French zone in Peking, he took part in the Chinese expedition against the Boxers. Returning to France, he commanded the 69th Infantry Regiment in Nancy followed by the 77th Infantry Brigade in Toul. Promoted to colonel in 1903, he commanded the 60th Infantry Regiment in Besançon.

In 1912, Major General Franchet d'Esperey served close to Lyautey as commander of the troops occupying western Morocco and took part in various peacekeeping operations in the Tadla, Chaouïa and Grand Atlas sectors. When war was declared, he was in command of the 1st army corps in Lille. During the Battle of the Frontiers he was at Charleroi in Belgium and then led a victorious counter attack against German troops along the Oise river. On the 3rd of September, Joffre entrusted him with the 5th army, which was a deciding factor in the victory of the Marne. He commanded groups of the eastern armies in 1916 and then the northern armies in 1917. In June 1918, he replaced General Guillaumat as head of the allied armies in the Orient, leading them to the ultimate victory. His victorious Moglena offensive in the Balkans, marked by the capture of Dobro Polje, forced the Bulgarians to sign the armistice in September 1918. Within a few weeks this led to the collapse of Turkey and Austro-Hungary and the German armistice request.

At the end of the conflict and until 1920, whilst in command of occupation troops in Constantinople, he led operations in the Ukraine and in Bessarabia. In 1921, General Franchet d'Esperey was promoted to the esteemed rank of Marshall of France. As Inspector General of the North African troops, he devoted his time and skills to the African Army. He also undertook the creation of trans-Saharan railway lines and on the 19th of March 1933 was seriously injured in Gabès, in an automobile accident whilst carrying out a study of a link between Tunisia and Morocco via the south. During this time, whilst representing France at official ceremonies and carrying out missions in central Europe and Africa, he started writing his memoirs and published various reports. Elected to the French Academy in 1934, he founded "les Amitiés africaines" (African friendships), a social group responsible for the "Dar el Askri" (servicemen's homes), which bring together and come to the aid of ex-servicemen. In 1940, he retired to the Tarn area, to Saint-Amancet, where he died on the 8th of July 1942. He was buried on the 24th of October 1947 in the crypt of the church of Saint-Louis-des-Invalides in Paris. He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour and held the military medal and the Cross of War for the 1914-1918 war.

John Joseph Pershing was born on the 13th of September 1860 in Linn Country, a village in Missouri. His family was originally from the Alsace - one of his ancestors had emigrated to America in the middle of the 18th century. At the age of 22, after having been a teacher, he went to the West Point Military Academy. He left in 1886 and then followed a classic military career: as sub-lieutenant in Arizona, an instructor in military science and tactics at the University of Nebraska (1891) where he also studied law and in the 10th Cavalry Regiment in Montana. As a lieutenant in Washington (1897), he took part in the Cuban war and then in the suppression of the Moros uprising in the Philippines. In 1901, Captain Pershing was military attaché in Tokyo and closely followed the Russo-Japanese war. In 1906, he was appointed Brigadier General and carried out a new mission in the Philippines before taking a post in Europe, where he studied French and in 1914 he took charge of the Western Division in San Francisco. He took part in suppressing the revolt by Pancho Villa in Mexico. In August 1915, his wife and three of his children died in a fire in San Francisco. On the 10th of May 1917, President Wilson appointed him as commander of the American Expeditionary Corps in Europe. On the 13th of June 1917, General Pershing arrived in Paris.

Thirteen days later, the first American troops landed at Saint-Nazaire. Until the 11th of November 1918, General Pershing continually strove to create a vast autonomous American army along the French front. General Pershing left France on the 1st of September 1919; on the 29th of September, American Congress stated that his country could be proud of him. Just after the war, Pershing was appointed Commander in Chief of the American Army (1921). In 1924 he became a reserve officer. He thus retired from public life, only becoming involved in an official capacity for commemorative ceremonies, in which he participated every year as the founding chairman of the "American Battle Monuments Commission", the organisation that manages American graves and memorials in Europe. In 1937 he also took part in the inauguration of his own statue at Versailles. He came back to France for the last time in May 1939. He published "My Experiences in the World War" in 1931, a work that was to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize the following year (published in France by librairie Pion). On the 4th of August 1940, he addressed the American people for the last time via a radio message in which he took a stance against Hitlerism. In 1944, he was admitted to the Walter Reed hospital in Washington; that is where he was to receive General de Gaulle in July of the same year. John J. Pershing died on the 15th of July 1948 and was buried at the Arlington national cemetery in the presence of President Harry S. Truman.