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.

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.

Hindenburg, who came from a long line of Prussian army officers, was born in Posen (today Poznan) on 2 October 1847 to Robert von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, a lieutenant in the 18th infantry, and Louise Schwickart. Hindenburg was a cadet at the Wahlstatt military academy and in Berlin. In 1859 he was a second lieutenant in the Prussian Guard's 3rd infantry regiment and in 1866 took part in the Austro-Prussian War, fighting in particular at Rosberitz and Königgrätz. He participated in the 1870-1871 campaign against France at Saint-Privat in August and in the siege of Paris. On 16 January 1871 he was present at the proclamation of the German Empire at the chateau of Versailles. Hindenburg was admitted to the War Academy in 1873 and pursued his training with the general staff. He was a captain on the general staff of the 2nd army corps in Stettin in 1878 and of the 1st division in Königsberg in 1881. He was the head of a company of the 58th infantry regiment in 1884 before becoming a major in the operations section of the general staff led by von Schlieffen. In 1890 he became a war ministry department head.

Hindenburg was promoted to colonel in 1893 and headed the 91st infantry regiment in Oldenburg. In 1896 he became a brigadier general. He was the chief of staff of the 8th army corps in Koblenz before being appointed major general in command of the 28th division in Karlsruhe in 1900 and taking over as head of the 4th army corps in Magdeburg in 1903. He retired in 1911. On 23 August 1914 Hindenburg was called to command the 8th army and stopped the Russian offensive in East Prussia by defeating Samsonov at Tannenberg that month and Rennenkampf at the Mazurian Lakes in September. He was the Eastern front commander-in-chief in November 1914. The battles he won in Poland and Lithuania from 1914 to 1916 made the field marshal a national hero and Falkenhayn's successor as general chief of staff in August 1916. With Ludendorff as second in command, he took over as head of general military operations on all fronts. Hindenburg adopted a defensive stance in the West marked by the construction of a huge complex of fortified positions (the Hindenburg Line) and focused all efforts on Romania and Russia on the Eastern front, supported the Austrians on the Italian front and decided to wage unrestricted submarine warfare. In addition to military authority, Hindenburg and Ludendorff also had strong political clout and brought about the resignation of Bethmann-Hollweg, who disagreed with certain aspects of the conduct of the war, in July 1917. In 1918 the resumption of German offensives on the Western front failed. Beefed up by American units, the allied forces inexorably pushed back the German troops. Hindenburg urged the government to request an armistice. Hindenburg was demobilised in July 1919 and published his memoirs, Aus meinem Leben, the following year. In 1925 Hindenburg was elected president of the German Republic. In 1932 he ran again, this time against Adolf Hitler, whom he defeated but named chancellor the following year. On 2 August 1934 Hindenburg died in Neudeck, East Prussia.

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.

Wilhelm II, the son of Emperor Frederick and Empress Victoria, the grandson of Wilhelm I of Hohenzollern on his father's side and Queen Victoria of England on his mother's, was born in Potsdam on the 27th January 1859. After studying at the secondary school in Kassel, he took a two year course at the university of Bonn and began his military training in the Guards. He was made Lieutenant in the 1st regiment of Foot Guards in 1877 and Captain in 1880, Commander of the Guard's Hussars in 1881 and then of the 1st battalion of the 1st regiment of Foot Guards in 1883. He was promoted to Colonel, in charge of the hussars, in 1885 and appointed General in 1888. In the meantime, in 1881 he married Princess Augusta-Victoria, the daughter of Frederick Augustus of Schleswig-Holstein. In May 1844, he travelled to Russia to consolidate the alliance of the three Emperors (Germany, Austria and Hungary) in accordance with Chancellor Bismarck's orders. Crowned king of Prussia and Emperor of Germany on the 15th June 1888, following the three month reign of Frederick III, it was his intention to begin to exercise real political power. However, his involvement fluctuated wildly, depending on the state of his mental health.

His differences of opinion with Bismarck, most notably regarding social matters, relations with Russia and colonial policies became more frequent and, in 1890, the latter resigned. To replace him, Wilhelm II appointed Leo von Caprivi who would be succeeded in 1894 by Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, in 1900 by Prince Bernhard von Bülow and in 1909 by Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg. Responsible for the development of the military power and wealth of the German Empire, he embarked on a policy of commercial, colonial and maritime expansion. Germany witnessed great rapid economic development, gradually becoming the top industrial power in Europe. The impact on a social level was manifold but tensions were no less frequent. The social democrats continued to gain ground, securing the greatest representation in the Reichstag in 1912. On a domestic level, however, the country was also up against its minority groups: the Polish in Posen, the Danish in Schleswig and those from the Alsace and Lorraine region who refused to accept the policy of Germanisation. In Europe, Germany's growth as well as its foreign policy caused worry. Competition to seek out commercial opportunities, interventions in the Near East and the Balkan countries were just some of the subjects of disagreement, especially as the Emperor kept changing his position, first siding with one and then another of the other four great European powers (Great Britain, France, Austro-Hungary and Russia). He did not renew the mutual assistance treaty with Russia in 1890, concentrating his efforts on strengthening the Triple Alliance (Triplice) between Germany, Austria and Italy, which was renewed in 1892, 1902 and 1912, but not without a few attempts at bridge-building with Great Britain and France (who signed the treaty of Entente cordiale between themselves in 1904) and with Russia herself. However, Anglo-German relations continued to deteriorate. The defensive with Russia (the 1905 treaty of Björkö) was a failure. Similarly, the attempt at reconciliation with France following the Agadir affair (1911) did not succeed. Germany became increasingly diplomatically isolated. Wilhelm II stepped up the reinforcement of his army and navy.

As Commander in Chief of the armies during the conflict that broke out in 1914, he retained the power to make appointments to the highest positions, as well as his role of coordination and arbitration between politicians and the military. However, he had to hand over the management of operations to Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who had become very popular following the success at Tannenberg and the Mazures lakes in August and September 1914 and who were appointed in charge of the High Command in the summer of 1916. Confronted with German defeat and the revolutionary troubles of November 1918, the emperor abdicated on the 9th. He took refuge in the Netherlands, who refused the extradition request from the Allies seeking to apply sanctions against him as prescribed by the treaty of Versailles. He then devoted himself to writing and in 1922 and 1927 published his memoirs: Ereignisse und Gestalten, 1878-1918 and Aus meinem Leben, 1859-1888. He died in Doorn, in 1941.

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.