“Mort pour la France”

Louis Pergaud was born on 22 January 1882 in Belmont, in the Doubs department. Son of a lay schoolteacher, he spent his childhood in small villages, exploring the countryside and trout fishing with his buddies. A brilliant student, he was admitted to the École Normale in 1898 and was appointed schoolteacher at Durnes in October 1901. The death of his two parents in February and March of 1900 was a great shock to the young man, which he got over by reading the poems of Léon Deubel, inspiring his literary passion.

In 1902, he did his military service, which left him with bad memories; his marriage to Marthe Caffot in 1903 was a failure and his daughter died in 1904. At the same time, his militant Republicanism caused him some problems with the population, leading to his transfer to Landresse at a time when the relations between the Church and Republican schools were extremely tense. Louis Pergaud was dissatisfied with life and withdrew into hunting and walking, awaking the scents of his childhood, and discussions with friends, including the extravagant café owner, Duboz. He soon fell in love with one of his daughters, Delphine. Léon Deubel, who had helped him get his first collection of poems published in 1904, asked him to come and join him in Paris.

Pergaud decided to change his life. He moved to the capital in 1907 and had Delphine join him and he married her after his divorce. Léon Deubel supported him in his desire to write. To make a living, he went back to his profession of schoolteacher and during his holidays he gathered material for his works. Louis Pergaud immediately became a figure in the literary world: he received the Prix Goncourt in 1910 for his first book, De Goupil à Margot, which met with great success.

In 1912, he published The War of the Buttons, the novel of my twelfth year. On the backdrop of the rivalries between two villages, the author uses sometimes fierce humour to develop subjects that were dear to him: country life, parochialism, the quarrels between the church and the secular state, etc. For Pergaud, 1913 was a happy period with the success of his novel Miraut the Hunting Dog, but it was also painful due to Léon Deubel’s suicide.

A naturalist writer, Pergaud used rich, dense writing to create a hymn to life that is still wild, with an innovative side in seeking out empathy with animals. He revisited his rural world, preparing several texts that he sent to Mercure de France in the spring of 1914 under the title Les rustiques. The book had not yet been published when Louis Pergaud was mobilised. War broke out on 2 September. With recruitment roll number 2216 in Belfort, he was assigned as a sergeant to the 166th Infantry Regiment at Verdun. “A pacifist and antimilitarist, I did not want the Kaiser’s boot more than any other boot rammed onto my country.”  (1)

He reached the front in October, in the Woëvre sector of the Meuse, a damp region whose hills saw fierce fighting. His correspondence deplored "bedroom patriots", describing the courage of the "poilus" – the French soldiers – the mud in the trenches and ever-present death. The childhood fights between the Lebrac gang and the Aztec gang of Les Gués, the heroes of The War of the Buttons, took on the mortal dimension of an adult conflict.

Second lieutenant Louis Pergaud (centre).

In the spring of 1915, the French launched an offensive in the Hauts de Meuse. During the night of 7 April, Second Lieutenant Pergaud’s company set out from Fresnes-en-Woëvre, attacking hill 233 in the direction of Marchéville. Near the enemy trenches, under the pouring rain, the soldiers met with intense gunfire. Louis Pergaud’s section was decimated, the survivors hid and then withdrew in the early morning. No one ever saw the writer again. Some of the men said he was wounded. German stretcher-bearers may have retrieved him and transported him to a trench while waiting to be able to evacuate him. But to take the Les Éparges Ridge, hill 233 had to be taken: the next day, the French artillery pounded the area, destroying the entire landscape, forever burying the men in this land, without distinction.

On 4 August 1921, a judgement by the court of the Seine, Louis Pergaud, who had disappeared, was declared “Mort pour la France” (Dead for France) on 8 April 1915 at Fresnes-en-Woëvre. He was one of the 1,160 soldiers who died or disappeared from the 166th Infantry Regiment during the year 1915. There is no tomb, but his books carry on the memory of this writer and his broken destiny.

Commemorative plaque, 3 rue Marguerin, Paris 14e. Source: © Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

(1) Letter to Lucien Descaves, March 1915.

Mustafa Kemal was born in Salonika, Macedonia, on 19 May 1881.

After graduating from military high school and the military academy in Istanbul, he was appointed Staff Captain in 1905 before being assigned to the Fifth Army based in Damascus, Syria, fighting against the Druzes. At the same time, he formed a small opposition society, called Vatan ve Hürriyet (Motherland and Liberty). In Autumn 1907, he was appointed Senior Captain of the Third Army in Salonika, where he met the Committee of Union and Progress and the Young Turks who opposed the regime which re-established the Constitution in 1876. In April 1909, he became Chief of Staff under General Mahmud Shevket, commander of the army put in place by constitutionalist officers to combat the uprising in Istanbul led by the defenders of absolutism. 

He made a name for himself in December 19911, in Libya, during the Italo-Turkish war, winning the Battle of Tobruk before he took military command of Derna, in March of the following year. However, Montenegro having declared war on Turkey in October, he returned to take part in the first Balkan war which saw Turkey fighting against Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece. Chief of Staff in Gallipoli, he forced back the Bulgarian offensive. He was made military attaché to Sofia in 1913.

In November 1914, Turkey joined the war fighting alongside Germany. As Lieutenant Colonel, Mustafa Kemal was tasked with forming the 19th infantry division and made a reputation for himself during the German-Turkish counter-offensive which aimed to prevent the French and British troops landing in the Dardanelles Strait. Pushing back the allied assaults, he claimed a major victory on the Anafarta front in August 1915. Promoted to general, in 1916 he took command of the 16th army corps in the Caucasus then of the 2nd army in Diyarbakir. Confronting the Russian troops, he took Mus and Bitlis. Recalled to Syria, where he served under German General Erich von Falkenhayn, he was given command of the 7th army. When he returned to Istanbul in autumn 1917, he accompanied the crown prince Vahidettin on an official trip to Germany. He returned to Syria again in August 1918 where he took order of the 7th army against the British until the signing of the Armistice of Mudros on 30 October 1918.

After the armistice and in opposition to the occupation and dismemberment of Turkey, he established an organised national resistance movement.

Appointed as general inspector of the northern and north-eastern armies in May 1919, he was tasked with assuring the security of the Samsun region, where Turkish, Greek and Armenian populations were fighting, and ordered the forces against the Greek troops which landed in Smyrna. 

Following disagreements with the Sultan’s politics, he made an announcement putting the Turkish War of Independence in motion, in the town of Amasya on 22 June 1919. He then called for national conferences to be held in Erzurum and Sivas in July and September respectively. Finally, the meeting of the Grand National Assembly in Ankara on 23 April 1920 resulted in the formation of a national government of which Assembly President Mustafa Kemal was elected as leader. 

Securing the withdrawal of the French from Cilecia and Armenia’s return of the occupied territories, he also succeeded in driving the Greeks out of Anatolia, importantly leading and winning the Battle of Dumlupinar (30 August 1922) and signing the Armistice of Mudanya on 11 October 1922.

In the meantime, the Sultan accepted on 10 August 1920 the Treaty of Sèvres which considerably shrank the Turkish Empire. Mustafa Kemal fought against this treaty and successes in having the Allies revise the terms. On 24 July 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne put an end to the Armenian and Greek claims and recognised Turkish sovereignty across the entire national territory.

Having got this far, Mustafa Kemal went even further, introducing major political, economic and social reforms to bring Turkey into the modern age. The sultanate was abolished (1 November 1922) and the Republic declared on 29 October 1923. Elected President, he made Ankara the capital, incorporated secularism into the constitution and set the country on the path to economic development. In line with the law of 1934 enforcing Turkish citizens to adopt a surname, he took the name Atatürk, meaning “Father of all the Turks”

He died on 10 November 1938 in Istanbul.

In May of 1927, L’oiseau blanc, the plane flown by Charles Nungesser and François Coli, disappeared over the Atlantic. This accident put an end to the life of one of the “Flying Aces” of the Great War.

Charles Nungesser was born in Paris on 15 March 1892. He was a daredevil from childhood, with a passion for mechanics, driving race cars and flying airplanes.

In 1907, after studying at the école des Arts et Métiers, Charles Nungesser travelled to South America.

He worked as a mechanic in Buenos Aires for an engine importer, participating in one of the first automobile rally raids in the Andes in 1909. He became part of the aviation world, showing off his talents as a pilot at an air show and during many flights over Uruguay and Argentina.

When the Great War broke out, Nungesser returned to France and joined a cavalry regiment.

He took part in the battle of the borders but was surrounded. He managed to get back to the French lines on 3 September 1914 after intercepting a German army staff car, killing the four officers riding in it and crossing the entire region occupied by the Germans at high speed.

This act of bravery earned him the French Médaille Militaire.

But Nungesser, who dreamt of aviation, asked to enlist in the air force. On 22 January 1915, he started training and on 8 April obtained his pilot’s licence. He was assigned to the 106th bomber squadron based in Saint-Pol, near Dunkirk, and flew his first mission over occupied Flanders on 11 April, flying a Voisin 3.

On the 26th, Nungesser engaged in his first dogfight against a German Albatros. His Voisin was hit four times, but he brought the plane back to the base. He received an army commendation for his exploits.

Nungesser was named warrant officer on 5 July and went to Nancy with his wing. He shot down his first enemy aircraft in the night of 30-31 July.

Wounded, he returned to the front to continue his missions

After an advanced training course for fighter missions, Charles Nungesser joined the N65 fighter squadron, based in Nancy, in November. It was during this period that he painted the fuselage of his Nieuport with his legendary coat of arms: a black heart with a silver skull and crossbones above a coffin with burning torches on either side.

During the Battle of the Somme in September 1916, Nungesser achieved the feat of shooting down three enemy planes in the same day. In December, his twentieth victory earned him an army commendation and the Military Cross.

Wounded and discharged, he nonetheless received an authorisation to continue flying and shot down two enemy planes on 1 May 1917. On 16 August he scored his thirtieth victory. But due to his injuries, his health began to fail, notably after he was seriously injured in a car accident in which Pochon, his mechanic, was killed. Nonetheless, Lieutenant Nungesser was back on the front in December.

When he shot down his thirty-sixth plane on 5 June 1918, he received another commendation as well as France’s Legion of Honour, declaring, “After this, I can die now!”

After another hospital stay, Nungesser returned to the front on 14 August.

On the 15th, he scored his forty-fifth and last victory.

When the war was over, Charles Nungesser agreed to set up a flight school in Orly. But this great athlete and daredevil had in mind a project to fly across the Atlantic.

On 8 May 1927, L’oiseau blanc, the plane flown by Nungesser and Coli, a comrade in arms, took off from Le Bourget, headed for the North American continent. He was never seen again.

(18th January 1879: Paris - 11th March 1949: Dijon)

From a humble Alsation family who had settled in Paris - his father was a coal merchant - Henri Giraud, a young man with an adventurous nature, excelled in his secondary education at the Stanislas, Bossuet and Louis-le-Grand high schools, joining the ranks of the French army in 1900 on leaving the Saint-Cyr military academy.

He was posted to the 4th Zouaves, in North Africa, with which unit he was sent to the front in 1914. Wounded, he was taken prisoner on the 30th August at the Battle of Guise, during a counter attack by General Lanrezac against von Bulow's Second German Army. He managed to escape at the end of September with the help of Doctor Frère's network, meeting up with the French military attaché at La Haye, who evacuated him to the United Kingdom, from where he was able to return to France. He distinguished himself once again in the autumn of 1917 when the 3rd Battalion of the 4th Zouaves recaptured the fort of La Malmaison, on the Chemin des Dames and then during the offensives planned by Pétain following the crisis of spring 1917. After the war, he joined General Franchet d'Esperey's troops in Constantinople, returning with his Colonel's stripes to Morocco at Lyautey's request to fight against the Berber rebellion movements. He thus contributed to the surrender of Abd-el-Krim (27th May 1926) during the Rif war, for which brave feat he was awarded the légion d'honneur.

Promoted to Military Commander of the town of Metz, he met Colonels Charles de Gaulle and Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. Made a General in 1936 and Commander of the 7th army and member of the Upper War Council, Giraud, who did not believe in the effectiveness of armoured tanks, was challenging the tactics advocated by de Gaulle when the Second World War broke out. On the 10th May 1940 his units, having been sent to the Netherlands, delayed the German advance, most notably at Breda on the 13th May. He was taken prisoner on the 19th May in Wassigny whilst trying to stand in the way of the Panzer divisions with the 9th Army in the Ardennes. He was imprisoned in Silesia at Koenigstein castle, near Dresden. On the 17th April 1942, Giraud escaped from there with the help of some loyal supporters, Generals Mesny, Mast and Baurès and the British secret services who facilitated his escape from Schandau onwards. He then reached the Alsace and, later, Vichy. His adventure, which quickly became general knowledge and which he relates in Mes evasions (My Escapes), annoyed the German government who wanted him to return to prison, but he escaped this sanction by signing a letter to Marshal Pétain expressing his intention not to oppose his regime. Living under supervision, it was not long before Giraud was contacted by the Allies who were anxious to keep General de Gaulle away from the preparations for Operation Torch. Exfiltrated in November 1942 via Gibraltar, he met Eisenhower from whom he obtained permission to remain in command of the French troops. On the ground, the situation degenerated into a civil war, with Admiral Darlan's men refusing to recognise his authority. The assassination of Darlan on the 24th December put an end to the conflict. Giraud took over as his successor, maintaining the institutions, as well as the exceptional status of Jews and having some of the resistance fighters who had assisted in the landings interned in camps in the Southern Sahara. Present at the conference of Casablanca, he was forced to release these resistance fighters and make his government more democratic. He then went on the board of directors of the French Committee for National Liberation (Comité français de Libération nationale or CFLN) and so the "dual between Giraud and de Gaulle" reached its peak. However, he was quickly overwhelmed by General de Gaulle's rallying actions and had to give in to him. His unfailing support for Pierre Pucheu ended up discrediting him amongst his partisans. Pétain's former Minister of the Interior had in fact persuaded Morocco to serve the colours of the Free French (France Libre), but his move was considered to be too late for someone accused of collaboration with the enemy and participation in the arrest of hostages.

On the 13th September 1943, he sent French troops to support Corsican resistance fighters by landing on the island. It was a military success but Giraud was the subject of much criticism from General de Gaulle for having armed the communist Corsican resistance movement, giving a political tone to the operations for the liberation of Europe and weakening the unification work of the resistance movement. He finally lost his seat on the CFLN. In April 1944, Giraud organised French participation in the Italian campaign, but, considered to be too implicated in the repressive Vichy system, he was discharged from his position of Commander in Chief and had to withdraw from the military involvement with the France Libre. He would share his experiences of these troubled times in his book: Un seul but: la Victoire, Alger, 1942-1944(Just one goal: Victory, Algiers1942-1944). On the 28th August 1944 he survived an assassination attempt in Mostaganem. In 1946, Giraud stood for the position of Deputy in Lorraine for the second National Constitutional Assembly on the list of the Republican Party of Liberty and of the Agrarian Independents. Elected on the 2nd June, he whipped support for the group of independent republicans and contributed to the creation of the Fourth Republic, despite his refusal to vote for the constitution. He took part in debates on the situation of non-repatriated prisoners of war (25th July 1946) and on the general policy of the government in Algeria (22nd August 1946). He sat on the Upper War Council until December 1948 and on the 10th March 1949 he received the Military Medal for his outstanding escape. He died the following day and is buried at Les Invalides.

Blenheim, 30 November 1874 – London, 24 January 1965

Winston Churchill was a British politician descended from one of the greatest English aristocratic families, that of the Dukes of Marlborough.

Born on 30 November 1874, Winston Churchill was a mediocre student until he was admitted to Sandhurst military school in 1893. He graduated 20th out of 130 in 1896.

He fought against the Spanish in Cuba, India and Sudan, where he signed up with General Kitchener in 1898. In 1899, during the Second Boer War in South Africa, he was taken prisoner and managed to escape, an incredible story applauded by the domestic and international press. From then on, half officer and half journalist, he wrote lively, expressive articles that were highly appreciated, opening the doors to the House of Commons to him in 1900.

Elected to Parliament as a Conservative in 1900, he left the party and joined the Liberals in 1904, with whom he began a brilliant political career – he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1905, Trade Minister in 1908 and Home Minister in 1910.

In 1908, he met and married Clementine Hozier, with whom he had five children.

In 1911, at thirty-seven, he became First Lord of the Admiralty. He held this position at the outbreak of World War I.

In 1915, he prepared a Franco-British naval expedition against Turkey, Germany’s ally, to occupy the Dardanelles and to open up communication with Russia. But the landing at Gallipoli, in the spring of 1915, was an outright disaster that forced him to leave the government and nearly destroyed his career once and for all. He then briefly served on the French Front, commanding the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, but Lloyd George called him back to the government, entrusting him with the portfolio of Minister for Munitions (1917), then Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air (1918-1921).

With the Liberal Party’s loss in 1922, Churchill lost his seat in Parliament. He returned to the Conservative Party, which welcomed him back with no hard feelings in 1924, naming him Chancellor of the Exchequer.

In the 1930s, he repeatedly warned, in vain, of the threat posed by Hitler’s Germany.

Thus, when Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement in 1938, he said, "You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war."

In September 1939, Churchill was once again appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. After Neville Chamberlain’s resignation on 10 May 1940, he became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He proved to be a veritable war leader, firmly resolved to lead his country to victory and, in his inaugural speech before the House of Commons, announcing the dark days of the Battle of Britain, he declared, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat".

At the age of 66, Churchill had managed to reach the summit of power for the first time, and he was to remain there until the end of the conflict. He played a crucial role in supporting the morale of the British. The man with his incisive speeches, his cigar and his ‘V for Victory” came to symbolise Britain’s resistance against Nazism. He organised the evacuation of the Dunkirk pocket, allowed de Gaulle to launch his famous “Appel du 18 Juin”, exalted the tenacity of the British people during the Battle of Britain ("Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few", Speech to the House of Commons, 20 August 1940), and made victory a non-negotiable necessity.

He had always been for cooperation with France, even though his relations with the leader of the Free French were often difficult despite the mutual respect the two men had for each other, but he did not hesitate to sink the French fleet at Mers el-Kébir to keep it from falling into Axis hands. Likewise, even though he was a fervent anti-Communist, he extended a hand to Stalin when the USSR was attacked by Germany on 22 June 1941, while signing the Atlantic Charter with Roosevelt in August 1941.

All his policies focused on a single goal – resisting Nazism and defeating Hitler, no doubt making him one of the main artisans of the allied victory.

At the end of the war, Churchill tried to convince Roosevelt to adopt a firmer attitude toward the USSR, but he was unable to stop the division of Europe between the Soviets and the Americans at the Yalta Conference in Ukraine.

In 1945, the elections were won by the Labour Party. Churchill became the leader of the Conservative opposition, denouncing the “Iron Curtain” in 1946 and insisting on the importance of the Commonwealth and privileged relations with the United States.

He was re-elected Prime Minister in 1951, turning the position over to Anthony Eden in April 1955. He dedicated the last years of his life to painting and literature.

Awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1953, Sir Winston Churchill wrote many books, including his War Memoirs (1948-1954), a priceless testimony to his extraordinary tenacity during one of the darkest periods in the history of Great Britain and the free world.

He died of a stroke in London on 24 January 1965, at the age of 90.

(Wissembourg, 14th June 1864 - Strasbourg, 1st April 1939) Although today he is almost forgotten, in the first half of the 20th century Auguste Spinner was one of the greatest figures of the Alsace, as a French painter, decorator, architect, spy, journalist, soldier and then civil servant. Born in Wissembourg in 1864, Auguste Spinner was deeply affected by the Battle of the 4th August 1870 that touched the town where he was born and was thus to grow up with an abiding memory of France, the Alsace at the time being annexed to Wilhelm's Reich. After studying at the Fine Arts College in Karlsruhe, in the 1890's he took over the family painting and decorating business. He is most notably responsible for the frescoes that adorn the inside of the historic museum in Hagenau. With a passion for history, in 1905 he was involved in founding the Verein zur Erhaltung der Altertümer in Weissenburg und Umgegend or Society for the preservation of the antiques of Wissembourg and the surrounding areas, of which he became treasurer. Auguste Spinner was also recognised at the time as one of the major collectors of weapons and uniforms of the Alsace and one of the best historians on the war of 1870 in the North of the Alsace.

In addition, in 1908 he published one of the first detailed studies of the adventures of Count von Zeppelin during the Schirlenhofe affair, which was responsible for the first two casualties of the Franco-German war. From 1906 onwards, he started a project in Wissembourg to build a commemorative monument to the French soldiers who had fallen on the field of honour under the command of Marshal de Villars (1705-1706), Marshal Coigny (1744), General Hoche (1793) and General Abel Douay (1870). Assisted shortly afterwards by Paul Bourson, and then by all the Francophile Alsatian leaders of the time, his project came to fruition in 1909, after bitter negotiations with the imperial German government. The inauguration of the monument, which took place on the 17th October 1909, turned into a fantastic pro-French demonstration, during which more than 50,000 citizens from the Alsace and Lorraine gave a stunning performance of the Marseillaise to the accompaniment of the municipal Reichshoffen band, in front of the dumbfounded German authorities. Appointed general representative of the Souvenir Français association in the Alsace, Spinner continued his work to promote France by encouraging the creation of new sections of the Souvenir association and federating French ex-servicemen's associations for veterans of the Crimea, Italy, Mexico and the 1870 war. In 1910, he even intervened, alongside the chairman of the French ex-servicemen's association, Joseph Sansboeuf, and Maurice Barrès, in order to make the French National Assembly create a medal commemorating the war of 1870-1871.
Far removed from all fanaticism and jingoism, on the 24th July 1910 he organised one of the first ceremonies of Franco-German reconciliation in history to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the Schirlenhofe skirmish. He brought together a party of former key players in the battle over the graves of the first two victims of the conflict of 1870. However, faced with increasing political lawsuits and arrests within Francophile circles affecting those close to him, notably the Abbot Wetterlé, Hansi and Zislin etc. Auguste Spinner began to feel threatened and in September 1912 chose to go into exile in Nancy, whilst still remaining very active in the annexed Alsace-Lorraine. In 1912 he was involved in founding the Westercamp Museum in Wissembourg to whom he bequeathed his collections and became vice president of the Alsace and Lorraine Souvenir association, which was dissolved by the Imperial authorities in 1913. Hansi later implicitly dedicated to him his album entitled Mon village - Ceux qui n'oublient pas, (My village - Those who will not forget) published at Christmas in 1913, in which Auguste Spinner's father, Laurent, who remained in Wissembourg, appears in the character of the night watchman.
During this period, Spinner became a special agent of Lieutenant Colonel Albert Carré who, in 1913, was given the task by the French High Command of organising a rallying centre in Besançon for Alsatian deserters from the German army in the event of war. Enlisting as a volunteer in the French army on the 28th July 1914, Spinner was called to the army as an interpreter officer before hostilities had even begun. Following an open letter from Maurice Barrès to the war Minister on the 22nd August 1914, he was given the task of selecting men from the Alsace and Lorraine from amongst the German prisoners of war. Awarded the Légion d'Honneur in 1915, he was posted from 1916 to the Information Service at army headquarters. Appointed Deputy Trustee of the town of Wissembourg, he was the first French soldier to enter the town which had become French again on the 24th November 1918. Demobilised in 1920, he then became the Director of the warehouse for tobacco manufactured in Strasbourg and held important positions in the Bas Rhin Souvenir Français association, the Federation of Volunteers in Action and various other patriotic associations. He ended his military career in 1935 with the rank of Interpreter Commander and the officer's rosette of the Légion d'Honneur. An occasional contributor to the Alsace Française review, in 1934-1935 he organised an important ceremony to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Wissembourg monument. This was held on the 28th July 1935, presided over by General Gamelin and brought together more than 75 generals of Alsatian origin and several thousand spectators, including his friend Hansi.
The victim of an attack at the end of March 1939, Auguste Spinner died on the 1st April 1939. A grand funeral was arranged and, in accordance with his last wishes, his coffin was wrapped in a tricolour flag that had been flown during the 1909 inauguration ceremony. A year later "his" monument was blown up using dynamite by the Nazi authorities and his family was forced into exile. After the liberation, his son Georges, who had become an architect for listed buildings in France, recovered a few blocks of sandstone from the destroyed monument in order to create a stele for his father's grave in Wissembourg. A new monument was later built and inaugurated in le Geisberg on the 13th November 1960.

(29th November 1895: Alès, Gard - 1st July 1962: Paris)

Eligible for Saint-Cyr in 1914, the class of the "Great Return", Edgard de Larminat, whose father was a Forest and Waterways Officer, continued the family tradition dating back to the 17th century of service to the state. Raised amongst the Jesuit community of Montfré and Les Postes, he attended high schools in Gap and Troyes and signed up at the age of 19 as a simple soldier in the 27th Infantry Regiment. Posted to the 134th, he undertook special studies as a student at Saint-Cyr and then joined in turn the 321st and 121st Infantry Regiments. Promoted to Captain in September 1917, he ended the war with four mentions on the military order of the day and was wounded three times, including once by gas (March 1918), having proved exemplary bravery at the fort de Vaux where he had been wounded by an exploding shell in June 1916. Because of this he would be singled out by the Légion d'honneur. With an independent nature and curious about distant horizons, he joined the marines (colonial army) in 1919 when his training at saint Cyr was completed. Sent to Morocco to implement the policies of Marshal Lyautey, he proved his full capability in commanding the 13th Battalion of Senegalese Tirailleurs of Ouezzane, a quality that earned him a further mention.

His command of the Kiffa Circle in Mauritania, between 1923 and 1926, left a lasting impression, as did his mission to Indochina from 1928 to 1931. As Head of Battalion in 1929, he studied at the Upper War Academy from 1933 to 1935, getting himself noticed for the depth of his cultural knowledge and his ability to understand military matters. As Lieutenant Colonel, he was posted to the Levant in January 1936 to carry out the role of Chief of Staff for the General Commander in Chief in the theatre of operations in the Middle-East. Made Colonel in March 1940, De Larminat refused to surrender his arms: whilst General Mittelhauser decided to follow the orders of the government in Bordeaux, he arranged the passage to Palestine of those troops who still wanted to carry on fighting. Arrested and imprisoned, he escaped, reaching Damascus on the 1st July and then joining the Free French (France Libre) whom he served with relentless fervour.

In Egypt, he regrouped the French contingents from Syria and then went as second in command to General Legentilhomme in Djibouti. Learning about the uprisings in Chad, Cameroon and French Equatorial Africa during a stay in London, he went to Léopoldville from where he prepared for the surrender of the garrison at Brazzaville on the 28th August, deposing the Governor General, taking command of the troops and the civilian and military command of the countries he had won over. Promoted to Brigade General, he carried out the duties of Superior Commander and Governor General and then High Commissioner until July 1941, when, appointed Division General, he returned to Syria alongside General Catroux. In December his North African adventure began. Commanding the French Forces in Libya, he took part in the Western Desert campaign, distinguishing himself at the battles of Gazalla (May 1942) and El-Alamein (October- November 1942) against Rommel.

He organised the 1st Free French Division at the head of which he brilliantly represented his homeland during the last operations of the Tunisian campaign, in May 1943 at Takrouna and Djebel Garci, thereby earning his stripes as General of the Army Corps. As Chief of Staff of the Free French Forces at the French Commission for National Liberation in June and July, in August 1943 he took command of the 2nd Army Corps, with whom he led the Italian campaign in May and June 1944 as deputy to the Commander of the French Expeditionary Corps to Italy. At its head, between the 10th June and the 4th July, he made his mark on the most glorious days of this operation between Viterbo and Sienna, in Tuscany, earning a further mention and the title of Commander of the Légion d'honneur. On the 16th August, De Larminat landed in Provence with the 2nd Army Corps, fighting through to Marseilles, liberating Toulon and opening the way for the reconquering of the country. Between October 1944 and June 1945 he led the Army Detachment of the Atlantic at the head of the Western Forces and played a decisive role in reducing the German pockets of resistance at Lorient, La Rochelle, Rochefort and la Pointe de Grave. During the winter of 1944-1945 he also carried out the task of turning the units of French Homeland Forces, which came from the resistance groups, into regular units. The army, the resistance movement and the Nation provided him with the subject matter for three books: L'Armée dans la Nation (the Army in the Nation); Bertie Albrecht, Pierre Arrighi, général Brosset, D. Corticchiato, Jean Prévost, 5 parmi d'autres (Bertie Albrecht, Pierre Arrighi, General Brosset, D. Corticchiato, Jean Prévost, to name but 5) ; Que sera la France de demain? (What will become of France tomorrow?)

As a Companion of the Liberation he carried out the role of Inspector General of the Overseas Forces between November 1945 and July 1947, was named as a titled member of the Upper War Council in 1950 and presided over the European Union Military Committee for Defence (1951-1954) - a subject that he covers in L'Armée européenne (The European Army). He was promoted to the rank of Army General in 1953, officiating as Inspector of Colonial Troops in 1955, before moving into the reserves on the 29th November 1956. Recalled in June 1962, when he had just finished Chroniques irrévérencieuses (Disrespectful Chronicles) (a book of memoirs of his early days at the end of the Second World War), De Larminat was given the presidency of the Military Court of Justice charged with instructing the trial of the instigators of the Algiers rebellion of April 1961. The trial was to open on the 2nd July against a background of the end of the war in Algeria, of a nation in tatters, contested power and virulent media campaigns. His dilemma was choosing his homeland, the army or allegiance to Gaullism, which led De Larminat to take his own life the day before the first session. On the 6th July General Dio read his funeral eulogy in the Cour des Invalides, ending his tribute as follows: "My General, may the God of the Army look after you. And may the earth in your small village in the Jura be soft. Your former comrades in arms, who are attached to you through so many memories, will piously preserve your memory " General Edgard de Larminat rests in the cemetery at Montain, in the Jura.

On the suicide of De Larminat: www.larminat-jm.com Historical publications, nos. 610, 615, 620, 632 Philippe Oulmont, editor. Larminat, un fidèle hors série (Larminat an out of the ordinary loyal supporter), Charles de Gaulle Foundation / LBM Publications. Distributed by Ouest France, 2008

(19th November 1868, Saint-Michel de Maurienne: Savoie - 16th February 1932: Paris) 

Gustave Ferrié was born on the 19th November 1868 to Pierre Ferrié, an engineer for the Southern Railway and Antoinette Manecy. From his childhood, he grew up surrounded by so many drawings and inventions that when he was admitted to the Ecole Polytechnique in 1887, he chose military engineering. He was a radio transmissions engineer and in 1891 he was posted to this corps until 1898. His work during this period most notably involved increasing the range of the Eiffel Tower transmitter from 400 to 6,000km. In 1899, he was won over by wireless telegraphy after having attended a demonstration by Marconi on this new technology. The Minister for War, Freycinet, appointed him that same year to the Committee on Wireless Telegraphy Research between France and the United Kingdom in order to submit a report on the military applications for this means of communication. In addition, he worked on developing mobile military radio-communication units and in 1900 improved Branly's radio-detection system by inventing an electrolytic detector, an appliance that made sound transmission possible, the last version of which (1910) would be used by the French army during the First World War. As a Colonel in 1914, he identified the properties of the electron tube and considerably increased the range of the field transmitter/receivers used by the allied troops from 1916.

It was thanks to Ferrié's devices that in 1917 Mata-Hari' messages were intercepted and the spy's espionage activities were brought to an end. Promoted to General in 1919, he continued his research and the development of its military application: the construction of radio sets for the navy, the colonies and the air force. With such new links now possible, he refined the measurement of longitude and the earth's dimensions. Having reached the upper working age limit, he carried on working by special permission. Working on developing radio-electric techniques, he created a radio department at the Ecole supérieure d'Electricité. The scientific community recognised the major advances of his discoveries in the field of radio-telecommunications. The honours followed: in 1922, he was elected to the Academy of Sciences and became president of the International Scientific Radio Union as well as the international commission of longitudes by radio. He was also vice-president of the International Board of Scientific Unions, presided over the Committee of Geodesy and Geophysics and received the medal of honour from the Institute of Radio Engineers. Awarded the Legion of Honour, Gustave Ferrié was raised to the Dignity of the Great Cross in 1932. He died a short time later, on the 16th February, in hospital at the Val-de-Grâce hospital. His body rests in the Père-Lachaise Cemetery (89th division) beside his wife Pierrette Pernelle, whom he had married in 1908.

Further reading on the subject: Amoudry (Michel), Le Général Ferrié et la naissance des transmissions et de la radiodiffusion, Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 2000

(21st January 1867: Brussels - 28th January 1965: Paris)

Maxime Weygand was born in Brussels of unknown parents. His origins continue to intrigue journalists and historians: was he the natural child of Countess Kosakowska, the illegitimate son of Léopold II of Belgium, the result of the union between Colonel Van der Smissen and Empress Charlotte of Mexico or of the latter with an Indian from Mexico? The file remains open. Entrusted at the age of six to David Cohen de Léon, a Jewish leather merchant from Marcheille, he took the name of the country of his tutor and, after an exemplary education at the Vanves, Louis-le-Grand and Henri-IV high schools, in 1885 he was admitted to Saint-Cyr as a foreign entrant under the name of Maxime de Nimal. Graduating in 1887, he chose the cavalry and was trained at Saumur before being sent to the 4th Dragoon Regiment. Aged twenty, he was officially adopted by his tutor's accountant, François Weygand, and was granted French nationality. He moved between garrison towns (Chambéry, Saint-Étienne, Lunéville, Saumur, Niort and Nancy) and received his Captain's stripes in 1896. Punished "for having taken, a stance that might have a political nature" in favour of Colonel Henry during the Dreyfus affair, he married in 1900 and pursued his career as an officer with the 9th Dragoon Regiment. As Lieutenant-Colonel in 1912, he was noticed for his qualities as an instructor at the Saumur Cavalry School and joined the Centre of higher military studies. He was promoted to the dignity of Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur in 1913.

In 1914 at the head of the 5th Regiment of Hussars, he took part in the Battle of Morhange. On the 28th August, promoted to Colonel, he was assigned to Foch, the Chief of Staff. Promoted to Brigade General in 1916, he remained faithful to Foch during his ostracism, putting himself in a favourable position to return to his side in 1917 following the failure of the Nivelle plan. At the Rapallo conference (6th and 7th November), he worked on the constitution of a higher inter-allied command, which became effective from the Doullens conference (26th March 1918) with the appointment of Foch at its head and Weygand in the role of Major General. The two men negotiated the terms of the armistice in November. In 1920, he was General of the army corps, carrying out a mission to Poland as military advisor to Marshal Pilsudski in his fight against Soviet Russia. In 1923, he rose to the rank of Army General, replacing Gouraud as High Commissioner in Syria. On returning to France, he was appointed to the Upper War Council and then to the management staff of the Centre of Higher Military Studies, writing the biographies of Foch (1929) and Turenne (1930). In 1931, Weygand succeeded Foch at the Académie Française, publishing a work about the 11th November (1932) and, on retiring from active management in 1935, he devoted himself to writing the military history of Méhémet-Ali and his sons (1936), Comment élever nos fils? (How should we raise our sons?) (1937), La France est-elle défendue? (Is France well defended?) (1937) and Histoire de l'armée française (History of the French Army) (1938).

On the outbreak of the Second World War President Daladier recalled him to command French troops in the Middle East with the title of Head of Theatre of Operations of the Eastern Mediterranean and the mission of coordinating the action of the men in the Levant and the Balkans. In May 1940, Reynaud, the President of the Council, recalled him to Paris to succeed General Gamelin in supreme command of the French army due to the crushing defeat of the French army in the East. He tried to establish a counter-offensive with the Belgian and British armies but the plan was abandoned on the 24th May, as Franco-British troops were surrounded at Dunkirk. The following day, during an extraordinary meeting at the Elysée, the possibility of an armistice was suggested. On the 11th June, during the Briare conference and in the light of Churchill's decision not to schedule any large-scale attacks on the front line by the Royal Air Force, the position of the French high command began to take shape: to carry on with the struggle in the empire or decide to request an armistice? Weygand and Pétain considered that the government could not leave French territory and that an armistice would preserve its military honour. The pace of events quickened? The flood of refugees, swelled by the army beating its retreat, compounded the general confusion. The government, which had moved to Bordeaux, still hesitated over the policy to adopt. On the 17th June, a consensus was reached through the vice-president of the Council, Camille Chautemps, and the request for an armistice was made to the German authorities. Pétain replaced Reynaud and Weygand was appointed Minister of National Defence. However, although he made sure that armament contracts between France and American manufacturers were transferred to benefit the British allies and that deliveries were redirected to British ports, he disapproved of General de Gaulle's attitude and demoted him to the rank of colonel, having him sentenced to death in his absence.

As a Minister and then General Representative of the Vichy government in Africa, Weygand tried to maintain the balance between the Allies, the demands of the Reich and his fidelity to the only government he believed to be legitimate: he refused to hand over the facilities in North Africa to Germany (July 1940 and May 1941), applied the legislation of Vichy, negotiated the conditions of supplies with the American Murphy (February 1941) and demanded that soldiers from the African army swear allegiance to the Marshal following the campaign to Syria. His behaviour embarrassed Berlin and the Vichy government recalled him to the mainland in November 1941. In November 1942, following the Anglo-American landing in North Africa and the total occupation of the mainland by German and Italian troops, Weygand was arrested by the Germans and placed under house arrest under the authority of the camp of Dachau.

Freed on the 5th May 1945, he was arrested two days later. Detained for acts of collaboration at Val-de-Grâce until May 1946, the case was dismissed in 1948.

He spent the last years of his life working: as president of the Jeanne d'Arc association, on reworking the memoirs of Philippe Pétain, publishing opinion columns in Le Monde, and pursuing his career as a writer, at the same time settling the score with de Gaulle and Reynaud: Foch (1947), Le Général Frère (General Frère) (1949), Mémoires (Memoirs), 1950-1957, Forces de la France (Forces of France)(1951), Et que vive la France! (And long live France) (1953), En lisant les mémoires du Général de Gaulle (On reading General de Gaulle's memoirs) (1955), L'Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile (1960), Histoire de l'armée française (History of the French Army) (1961), Maxime Weygand, L'Armée à l'Académie (Maxime Weygand, The Army to the Academy) (Maxime Weygand, (1962), Lettres inédites relatives aux testaments de Leurs Majestés le roi Louis XVI et la reine Marie-Antoinette (Previously unpublished letters regarding the testaments of Their Majesties King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette) (1965).

Maxime Weygand died on the27th January 1965 of complications to a fractured femur. He was buried in the Saint-Charles cemetery in Morlaix, in Finistère.

(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.