Alphonse Juin, son of a gendarme, was born in Bône, Algeria, on 16 December 1888. After his studies in Constantine and later in Algiers, he was admitted to Saint-Cyr in 1909. He graduated at the head of his class –the "de Fès" class, in 1912 – the same year as Charles de Gaulle. He chose to join the Algerian Tirailleurs. Assigned to Morocco at the end of 1912, Second Lieutenant Juin took part in the pacification operations in the country.

On 3 August 1914, Germany declared war on France. Lieutenant Juin joined the front with the Moroccan troops. In September 1914, he took part in the Battle of the Marne. Seriously wounded on the Champagne front in March 1915, he partially lost the use of his right arm. Captain in 1916, he joined the 5th battalion of Moroccan Tirailleurs at the Chemin des Dames. In February 1918, he completed army staff training at Melun before being seconded to the French military mission to the American army in October and assigned to developmental training courses for the liaison officers of the American Expeditionary Force.

He earned the certificate of the École Supérieure de Guerre in 1921 and served in Tunisia before returning to Morocco at the end of 1923, where he took part in the Rif Campaign. He returned to France with Maréchal Lyautey in the autumn of 1925 and worked under his orders at the Conseil Supérieur de la Guerre. Promoted to the rank of Battalion Chief in 1926, he left for the 7th Algerian Tirailleurs regiment in Constantine the following year.

In 1929 he was put in charge of the military staff offices of the Resident-General of Morocco, Lucien Saint, and played an active role in the last phase of the Atlas pacification plan. Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in March 1932, he became a professor of general tactics at the École Supérieure de Guerre in 1933 before being assigned second in command at the 3rd Zouave regiment in Constantine. He took command of this regiment on 6 March 1935. In June, he was promoted to Colonel. In 1937, he was assigned to the service of the Resident-General of Morocco, General Noguès, and also took courses at the Centre des Hautes Études Militaires.

Named Brigadier General on 26 December 1938, he was assigned to mobilisation at staff headquarters for the North Africa theatre of operations. As the situation in Europe was worsening, he was in Algiers preparing measures relative to raising divisions in Algeria and Tunisia. With the declaration of war in September 1939, he asked to serve in metropolitan France. The following 4 December, he took up command of the 15th Motorised Infantry Division. When the German forces launched their offensive in the west on 10 May 1940, his division entered Belgium, where it fought remarkably at Gembloux on 14 and 15 May. Further to the south, German troops broke through the front at Sedan. Juin received an order to pull back. He successively defended Valenciennes and the outskirts of Lille, providing cover for the retreat 1st French Army toward Dunkirk. He was captured in Lille on 30 May 1940 and imprisoned at Königstein fortress. Named Major General during his captivity, he was released in June of 1941 at Maréchal Pétain’s request as a specialist of North Africa. Named deputy to the Commanding General of the troops in Morocco on 16 July 1941, he was promoted to General of the Army Corps and replaced General Weygand at the head of the North Africa forces on the following 20 November. For the Army of Africa, he pursued the policy adopted by his predecessor: "defence against everybody" (both Axis and Allied forces).

On 8 November 1942, the British and Americans landed in Algeria and Morocco. Juin, who was not informed of the operation, was arrested in Algiers by members of the local resistance movement. The authorities quickly took back control of the city. Juin was freed and intervened to obtain a cease-fire between the landing forces and the French troops. Back in the war on the Allied side, the Army of Africa then participated in taking back France’s national territory, with Tunisia as the first theatre of operations. During this campaign (November 1942 – May 1943), General Juin commanded the French Army Detachment and was named Army General on 25 December 1942. He held the position of acting French Resident-General in Tunisia starting on 8 May 1943. During the summer, he set up the French Expeditionary Corps that he led into the Italian Campaign. After several successful battles, on the Pantano in December 1943, on the Rapido and at Belvedere in January 1944, he was victorious at Garigliano on 13 May, opening up the way to Rome for the Allies. He then moved north to Sienna and northern Tuscany. Juin left the French Expeditionary Corps and Italy in August.

Named general chief of the national defence staff under General de Gaulle, Head of the Provisional Government, he entered liberated Paris on 25 August alongside the General. As France’s liberation continued, he dedicated himself to reorganising the French armed forces to enable them to play a full role at the end of the operations. At the same time, as a military expert, he carried out many missions, notably to Moscow in December 1944 where he took part in the negotiations on the future Franco-Soviet pact and to the United States in April of 1945 for the foundation of the United Nations. In April 1946, General Juin was sent to the Far East to negotiate the withdrawal of Chinese troops occupying northern Indochina.

In 1947, Juin returned to North Africa where he was appointed to the position of France’s Resident-General in Rabat, Morocco. The situation in the Far East continued to deteriorate, however, and in October 1950, the government sent him on a new mission to Indochina. Inspector general of the French armed forces in January 1951, he took on command of the allied forces in the Central Europe sector the following September under the Atlantic Alliance. His functions put him in the centre of domestic and international problems: France’s place in the Atlantic Alliance, the debate on the European Defence Community (EDC), the movement of the North African countries toward independence, the war in Indochina, etc. At the same time, he was promoted to the rank of Maréchal de France on 7 May 1952 and was admitted to the Académie Française on 26 June.

In February 1957, he published his first book, “Le Maghreb en Feu”, and then dedicated himself to writing his Memoires and various books.

Maréchal Juin died on 27 January 1967.

He had received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour and held the Médaille Militaire, the War Cross 1914-1918, the War Cross 1939-1945, the War Cross for Foreign Operational Theatres, the Colonial Medal for Morocco and Tunisia, as well as many foreign decorations.

Joseph-Simon was born on the 24th April 1849 in Saint-Béat. He was the son of Lieutenant Gallieni, an Italian who had enlisted in a foreign regiment in 1829 and become a neutralised French citizen in 1841, before commanding the garrison at Val d'Aran. A student at the Prytanee Military Academy in La Flèche, he then attended the Special Military School of St Cyr in 1868. On the 15th July 1870, four days before the beginning of the Franco-Prussian war, he was assigned as a sub-lieutenant to the 3rd regiment of marine infantry. On the 30th August he received the order to defend the Hauts-de-Meuse between Mouzon and Carignan. Taken prisoner in September and imprisoned for seven months alongside the members of his unit who had survived the Battle of Bazeilles, he was held in Ingolstadt prison and then in Magdebourg and released on the 12th March 1871. On returning from captivity, he was posted to Paris and then to Rochefort, before embarking for the island of Reunion on the 1st April 1872, where he served for three years as a lieutenant. In June 1875, he returned to metropolitan France and joined the 1st Regiment of Marine Infantry in December 1876. Posted to Goree Island, he later became commander of Thiès where he distinguished himself through his diplomatic and strategic qualities and his desire to "reach the souls of the people". At headquarters in Senegal, General Brière de l'Isle assigned him to exploration missions to the valleys of the Senegal and Niger rivers and in the Sudan. On the 29th March 1880, through the treaty of Bafoulabe, he established the French protectorate on Mali. The following year he negotiated the French protectorate treaty on the Niger with Sultan Ahmadou.

In June 1881, on leaving the 3rd Infantry Regiment, he returned to Paris before taking up his duties as Chief of Battalion in Toulon in March 1882. After three years spent in Martinique (1883-1886), in May 1886 Lieutenant Colonel Gallieni set off for the Sudan, where he was appointed Superior Commander on the 20th December, in order to re-establish order in the upper valley of the Senegal. In July 1888 he was Commander of the 4th Regiment of Marine Infantry in Toulon, followed by the 8th Regiment in April 1890. A graduate of the École de guerre (war academy), in March 1891 he was promoted to Colonel at the headquarters of the Marine Infantry. From September 1892 to August 1896, he took part in the pacifying campaigns in Tonkin at the head of the 3rd regiment of Tonkinese tirailleurs. Supported by Commander Lyautey, he pursued pirates on the China Sea and laid the foundations of the French colonial system. As Brigade General in 1896, at the request of the Minister for the colonies André Lebon, Gallieni was sent to Madagascar, becoming Governor General there in September. He forced Queen Ravanalo the Third to abdicate and established the island's economic development programme. Promoted to Division General in 1899, his duties brought him back to Paris before his return to Madagascar in June 1900. Gallieni was appointed Commander in Chief of the troops of the Eastern Africa group in 1903, two years before returning to France and resigning from his post of Governor General.

In February 1906 he was commander of the 13th army corps in Clermont-Ferrand and then promoted to Military Governor of Lyon in June and appointed at the head of the 14th Army Corps. Assigned to the Upper War Council and the Presidency of the provisional council for the defence of the colonies in 1908, he carried out inspection visits in North Africa. Elected to the Upper Council for National Defence in 1911, he gave Joffre the opportunity to become Commander in Chief of the French Army. Reaching the upper age limit in April 1914, the General was recalled on the 26th August by Viviani's government to take command of the armies' entrenched Paris camp. He totally reorganised the defence of the capital and secured reinforcements from Maunoury's 6th Army, the 45th Algerian Division and the 4th Corps of the 3rd Army. On the 2nd September, he received full civilian and military powers. He provided a new impetus for national defence, most notably by requisitioning all automobiles and horse drawn vehicles, as well as the Parisian taxis which would play a decisive role in the counter-offensive that liberated Paris from the threat of the army of the Reich. On the 8th September, Maunoury returned under Joffre's orders. Gallieni however retained his authority over Paris throughout the month of November and dissolved his civilian cabinet on the 7th December. On his return to government, Aristide Briand offered him the portfolio of War Minister on the 29th October 1915. It was a difficult task: to improve the effectiveness of the High Command and reorganise the operation of its administration. On the 2nd December the post of Commander in Chief of all the armies was created and given to him. Challenged by the President of the Council following his suggestion to reform the High Command on the 7th March 1916, he resigned three days later for health reasons. He was admitted to hospital in Versailles in April 1916 and died on the night of the 27th to 28th May. Following a state funeral, the "Saviour of Paris" was buried at the Saint-Raphaël cemetery. Joseph Gallieni was posthumously made Marshal France on the 6th May 1921. He held the Great Cross of the Légion d'honneur and the Military Medal.

Théodose "Tom" Morel

Théodose Morel was born on 1 August 1915 in Lyon. His father came from a long line of silk manufacturers from Lyon while his mother descended from officers and lawyers from Savoy.

After receiving his primary and secondary schooling from Jesuit Fathers, he chose to follow a career in arms and prepared, from 1933 to 1935, the competitive entrance exam for the Special Military School (ESM) in Saint-Cyr at Sainte Geneviève School in Versailles. Admitted into the ESM in 1935 (Lyautey year), his results two years’ later allowed him to choose his posting: the 27th Battalion of Alpine Hunters (27th BCA), in Annecy, where he arrived on 1 October 1937, the day of his appointment to the rank of sub-lieutenant.

Trained as a scout/skier in Chamonix, Théodose Morel, who married Marie-Germaine Lamy in November 1938, became an officer and assistant to the commander of the scouts/skier section in Abondance before being promoted to this post himself. In May 1939, his section took Savoy and the Italian border. It was stationed above Val d'Isère. On 21 September he was promoted to the grade of lieutenant and then the 27th BCA left for the Eastern Front, his section, to his great regret, staying behind to defend the borders.

He nonetheless managed to make a difference between 12 and 20 June when faced with Italian Alpine troops; thanks to a smart but risky manoeuvre, he and another hunter managed to take four prisoners during a reconnaissance operation.

Shot in the right arm on 18 June, he continued to support his hunters and consequently was awarded the Military Cross. On 21 and 22 June 1940, called to reinforce his section near Petit Saint-Bernard Pass, he managed to locate the enemy troops which allowed the artillery to launch defensive fire forcing the enemy to retreat. Lieutenant Morel received a second commendation and the Legion of Honour Cross.

He subsequently served in the Armistice Army in Annecy where Commander Vallette d'Osia took command of the 27th BCA while preparing his unit for attack.

In August 1941, Lieutenant Morel was appointed to the post of instructor in Saint-Cyr, transferred to Aix-en-Provence, and it was driven by this spirit of combat that he directed and instructed his students. After the invasion of the southern zone by the Germans in November 1942 and the demobilisation of the Armistice Army, he joined the Haute-Savoie resistance movement and took part in covert operations working undercover at a weaving company. Teaming up with Vallette d'Osia, commander of the Secret Army (AS) of the département, and Captain Anjot of the 27th BCA, he endeavoured to set up the AS for Haute-Savoie, inadvertently helped by the introduction of the Compulsory Work Service (STO) in February 1943. Following Vallette d'Osia’s arrest in September 1943 by the Germans, who had replaced the Italians, then his escape to England, the AS of Haute-Savoie lost its leader. He was replaced by Henri Romans-Petit, chief of the AS of Ain. Morel doubled the army’s activity, while his family narrowly escaped arrest.

By late January 1944, Lieutenant Théodose Morel, alias Tom, received the order from Henri Romans-Petit, commander of the Maquis in Haute-Savoie and the mission, to receive the parachute drops on the plateau in Les Glières at 1,500 metres altitude and 15 kilometres from Annecy. The resistance and sabotage actions were intensified and martial law was declared in the département. Tom then decided to unite 120 resistance fighters in Les Glières. Two companies were formed. From February, over six weeks, the number of clashes multiplied with the Gardes Mobiles de Réserve (mobile reserve groups) surrounding the plateau on which they were stationed. At the end of February, over 300 men formed three companies.

Using the resources at his disposal, Tom energetically organised the defence of the site in Les Glières and instructed his battalion to establish a strong and homogenous unit to fight for liberation. Under his command, the battalion – which adopted the motto vivre libre ou mourir (live free or die) – regrouped battalions from the AS (Secret Army) but also from the Franc-Tireurs et Partisans (literally ‘free shooters and partisans’) and several dozen Spanish Republicans, effectively merging different branches of the Savoy resistance movement.

A first parachute drop of 54 containers supplied the fighters with small arms. On 2 March, he decided to lead an operation against the Hôtel Beau Séjour in Saint Jean de Sixt, where members of the GMR were stationed. Thirty GMR soldiers were captured, a bargaining chip to negotiate the release of Michel Fournier, a student of medicine and nurse for the maquis, arrested in Grand Bornand a few days earlier. But despite the gentlemen’s agreement made with the police intendant Lelong from Annecy, Fournier remained imprisoned.

On 5 March, a second parachute drop was made on Les Glières, supplying 30 containers. To force Lelong into keeping his promise and after receiving precise information, Tom decided to lead, on the night of 9 March 1944, an important operation against the GMR's headquarters based in Entremont, for which he rallied together some 100 men. He saved himself for the main objective: the attack on the Hôtel de France, the headquarters of the police staff. The scouts/skiers section succeeded in penetrating the building following a fierce battle.

At the moment the hunters released their prisoners, Commander Lefèvre, head of the GMR, took out a concealed weapon from his pocket and cowardly shot Tom Morel who fell, hit in the heart, before being killed himself.

Lieutenant Théodose Morel was buried by his comrades, on Plateau des Glières, on 13 March. On 2 May 1944, his body was brought down into the valley. He was later buried at the military cemetery in Morette, today the National Necropolis of Les Glières, in Haute-Savoie.

• Knight of the Legion of Honour
• Companion of the Liberation - decree of 20 November 1944
• Military Cross, 1939-1945 (two commendations)

Source: http://www.ordredelaliberation.fr

(Turin, 10 August 1810-Turin, 6 June 1861)

Cavour, a liberal-minded Piedmontese political leader, was an architect of closer Franco-Italian ties and negotiated the Treaty of Turin, which attached Nice and Savoy to France on 24 March 1860. Camillo Benso, Count Cavour, descended from an old Catholic Piedmontese noble family on his father's side; his mother was a Swiss Calvinist. He started his career as an army corps of engineers officer, but his liberal opinions led him to resign in 1835 and he spent the next 20 years on his estate in Levi, turning his interest to his century's innovations: agricultural techniques, machines, the railroad and credit institutions. He founded the Agrarian Association in 1842 and published a study on railroads in Italy in 1846. Cavour's travels enabled him to hone his knowledge of politics and of the French language. In 1847 he founded the newspaper Il Risorgimento, where he campaigned to establish a constitutional monarchy.

In 1848, Cavour was elected to Piedmont's parliament as a conservative but anticlerical deputy and held various positions in the government, including minister of agriculture in 1850 and of finance in 1851. That is when he became a leading figure in Piedmont's politics. Cavour campaigned to expand Piedmont at Austria's expense. After Austria defeated Italy in the war of 1849 (Treaty of Milan, August 1849), he concluded that it was necessary to seek outside help to achieve Italian unity under Piedmont's authority. The count thought that Napoleon III's France would be the most reliable ally. He took advantage of the seat that the belligerent powers offered him at the April 1856 Congress of Paris after the Crimean War (a military rather than political and strategic presence) to raise the Italian issue and test the ambitions of French foreign policy. Cavour worked on bringing about closer economic and cultural ties between the two sides. One result of his efforts was that work on the Mont-Cenis tunnel began in 1857. Meanwhile, he was preparing for war against Austria, in particular by turning Alexandria into a fortress and creating the maritime arsenal in La Spezia.

Cavour was Italy's envoy at a seven-hour meeting with Napoleon III in Plombières in July 1858, when he negotiated the details of the Franco-Piedmontese alliance, including the conclusion of a military front against Austria (confirmed in January 1859), the creation of a confederated Italian state, Italy's handover of Nice and Savoy, and Prince Jerome Bonaparte's marriage to the daughter of Victor Emmanuel II, the king of Piedmont. He was personally involved in Italy's march towards freedom from the Austrian yoke and resigned from the Piedmontese parliament in July 1859 after the Franco-Austrian armistice of Villafranca. Victor Emmanuel II won the war and pursued his goal of unifying the peninsula by annexing the insurgent states of central Italy. Cavour was asked to join the government in January 1860, when he was put in charge of negotiating French ratification in return for the handover of Nice and Savoy by referendum (Treaty of Turin, 24 March 1860).

Cavour and Victor Emmanuel II backed Garibaldi's march on Rome in secret because of their concern for how France and Austria would react. After the Roman and Sardinian troops were crushed, the count established Piedmont's laws and administrative systems throughout Italy. On 14 March 1861 he witnessed his work's crowning achievement when Italy's first parliament elected Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont the king of Italy.

King of Sardinia then of Italy (Turin, 14 March 1820 - Rome, 9 January 1878)

Victor Emmanuel's life mirrors developments in the Italian Peninsula through most of the 19th century. He was the son of Charles Albert and of Queen Theresa, the daughter of the Grand Duke Ferdinand of Tuscany. Italy's two most prominent families, in other words, bequeathed him their combined influence. His marriage to Maria Adelaide of Austria bears witness to the weight that the Hapsburgs of Vienna had had since the days of Charles Quint. This alliance served him well when his father abdicated in his favour on 23 March 1849, while the war with Austria was raging. Victor Emmanuel was constrained to sign the Treaty of Milan on 6 August 1849, but remained true to his father's promises and to the dynasty's plans to build a unified and free Italian state. He preserved the Piedmont's constitutional status (the Proclamation of Moncalieri) in defiance of Austria's demands - even if doing so entailed consenting to Imperial troops occupying part of that region. He championed freedom, and was nicknamed the re galatuomo (gentleman king). He chose his advisors wisely. He appointed one of them, the Count of Cavour, Prime Minister in 1852.

His foreign-policy agenda involved cementing Italy's identity and its presence in the concert of nations. Sending General La Marmora to Crimea in 1855 earned Italy a seat in the Congress of Paris. The July 1858 interview at Plombières between the Count of Cavour and Napoleon III, and the ensuing January 1859 military agreement, earned him an ally in his ongoing conflict with Vienna and ushered in a new dynasty (Clotilde married Napoleon III's first cousin, prince Jerome). Victor Emmanuel excelled in Palestro (one of the 1859 war battles), won the battle of Solferino, entered Milan as a liberator and went on to unify Italy's armed forces in spite of Napoleon's defection (he had signed an armistice with Austria in Villafranca by then). Sardinian troops annexed Parma, Modena and the Romagnas in 1860. In exchange, Victor Emmanuel agreed to hand over Nice and Savoy to France in the 24 March 1860 Treaty of Turin.

The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies fell to Garibaldi's "Thousand" expedition, which the Piedmont government secretly endorsed. Italy was unified from a military standpoint, and the Italian Senate acknowledged Victor Emmanuel as that country's king by 129 votes for and 2 against shortly thereafter.

He thus became Italy's constitutional king on 14 March 1861. His policy was one of moderation: he cooled the ardour of Garibaldi's partisans, moved to ease tension with the Holy See, and backed Cavour's work on the economic and diplomatic front. Napoleon III's mediation at the October 1865 Biarritz Interview allowed him to form an alliance with Bismarck's Prussia in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War. He then incorporated Venetia as a result of the Prague and Vienna treaties. The defeat of France - a difficult ally - in 1870 opened up an opportunity to occupy Rome that year, and to enter it on 2 July 1871. He spent his last years on the throne consolidating Italy and - especially - cementing the territory. That led him to conduct an "offensive" border occupation and control policy. Hostility to France's Third Republic materialised in the Alps, with the fortification of Tende in response to the Séré de Rivières system.