Philippe Pétain

Henri Philippe Bénoni Omer Joseph Pétain (; 24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), better known as Marshal Pétain (, ), was a French marshal who commanded the French Army in World War I and later became the head of the collaborationist regime of Vichy France, from 1940 to 1944, during World War II.

Pétain was admitted to the Saint-Cyr Military Academy in 1876 and pursued a career in the military, achieving the rank of colonel by the outbreak of World War I. He led the French Army to victory at the nine-month-long Battle of Verdun, for which he was called "the Lion of Verdun" (). After the failed Nivelle Offensive and subsequent mutinies, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief and succeeded in restoring control. Pétain remained in command for the rest of the war and emerged as a national hero. During the interwar period, he was head of the peacetime French Army, commanded joint Franco-Spanish operations during the Rif War and served twice as a government minister. During this time he was known as ("the Old Marshal").

On 16 June 1940, with the imminent Fall of France and the government desire for an armistice, Prime Minister Paul Reynaud resigned, recommending to President Albert Lebrun that he appoint Pétain in his place, which he did that day, while the government was at Bordeaux. The government then resolved to sign armistice agreements with Germany and Italy. The entire government subsequently moved briefly to Clermont-Ferrand, then to the town of Vichy in central France. It voted to transform the French Third Republic into the French State, better known as Vichy France, an authoritarian puppet regime that was allowed to govern the southeast of France and which collaborated with the Axis powers. After Germany and Italy occupied all of France in November 1942, Pétain's government worked closely with the Nazi German military administration.

After the war, Pétain was tried and convicted for treason. He was originally sentenced to death, but due to his age and World War I service his sentence was commuted to life in prison. His journey from military obscurity, to hero of France during World War I, to collaborationist ruler during World War II, led his successor Charles de Gaulle to declare that Pétain's life was "successively banal, then glorious, then deplorable, but never mediocre".

Pétain, who was 84 years old when he became Prime Minister and later Chief of State, remains both the oldest person to become the head of government and the oldest person to become the head of state of France.

Early life

Pétain was born into a peasant family in Cauchy-à-la-Tour, in the Pas-de-Calais department, northern France, on 24 April 1856. He was one of five children of Omer-Venant Pétain (1816–1888), a farmer, and Clotilde Legrand (1824–1857), and was their only son. His father had previously lived in Paris, where he worked for photography pioneer Louis Daguerre, before returning to the family farm in Cauchy-à-la-Tour following the Revolution of 1848. One of his great-uncles, a Catholic priest, Father Abbe Lefebvre (1771–1866), served in the '' Grande Armée'' during the Napoleonic Wars.

Pétain's mother died when he was 18 months old, and he was raised by relatives after his father remarried. He attended the Catholic boarding school of Saint-Bertin in the nearby town of Saint-Omer, where he was an excellent student, showing an aptitude for geography and arithmetic. In 1875, with the intention of preparing for the Saint-Cyr Military Academy, Pétain enrolled in the Dominican college of Albert-le-Grand in Arcueil.

Early military career

Pétain was admitted to Saint-Cyr in 1876, beginning his career in the French Army. Between graduating in 1878 and 1899, he served in various garrisons with different battalions of the chasseurs, the elite light infantry of the French Army. Thereafter, he alternated between staff and regimental assignments.

Pétain's career progressed slowly, as he rejected the French Army philosophy of the furious infantry assault, arguing instead that "firepower kills". His views were later proved to be correct during the First World War. He was promoted to captain in 1890 and major (''chef de bataillon'') in 1900. In March 1904, by then serving in the 104th Infantry, he was appointed adjunct professor of applied infantry tactics at the ''École Supérieure de Guerre'', and following promotion to lieutenant-colonel was promoted to professor on 3 April 1908. He was brevetted to colonel on 1 January 1910.

Unlike many French officers, Pétain served mainly in mainland France, never French Indochina or any of the African colonies, although he participated in the Rif campaign in Morocco. As colonel, he was given command of the 33rd Infantry Regiment at Arras on 25 June 1911; a young lieutenant, Charles de Gaulle, who served under him, later wrote that his "first colonel, Pétain, taught (him) the Art of Command". In the spring of 1914, he was given command of a brigade (still with the rank of colonel). By then aged 58 and having been told he would never become a general, Pétain had bought a villa for retirement.

First World War

Beginning of war

Pétain led his brigade at the Battle of Guise (29 August 1914). The following day, he was promoted to brigade general to replace brigade general , who had taken his own life. He was given command of the 6th Division in time for the First Battle of the Marne; little over a month later, in October 1914, he was promoted yet again and became XXXIII Corps commander. After leading his corps in the spring 1915 Artois Offensive, in July 1915 he was given command of the Second Army, which he led in the Champagne Offensive that autumn. He acquired a reputation as one of the more successful commanders on the Western Front.

Battle of Verdun

Pétain commanded the Second Army at the start of the Battle of Verdun in February 1916. During the battle, he was promoted to Commander of Army Group Centre, which contained a total of 52 divisions. Rather than holding down the same infantry divisions on the Verdun battlefield for months, akin to the German system, he rotated them out after only two weeks on the front lines. His decision to organise truck transport over the " Voie Sacrée" to bring a continuous stream of artillery, ammunition, and fresh troops into besieged Verdun also played a key role in grinding down the German onslaught to a final halt in July 1916. In effect, he applied the basic principle that was a mainstay of his teachings at the École de Guerre (War College) before World War I: "''le feu tue!''" or "firepower kills!"in this case meaning French field artillery, which fired over 15 million shells on the Germans during the first five months of the battle. Although Pétain did say ''"On les aura!"'' (an echoing of Joan of Arc, roughly: "We'll get them!"), the other famous quotation often attributed to him – ''"Ils ne passeront pas!"'' (" They shall not pass"!) – was actually uttered by Robert Nivelle who succeeded him in command of the Second Army at Verdun in May 1916. At the very end of 1916, Nivelle was promoted over Pétain to replace Joseph Joffre as French Commander-in-Chief.

Mutiny

Because of his high prestige as a soldier's soldier, Pétain served briefly as Army Chief of Staff (from the end of April 1917). He then became Commander-in-Chief of the entire French army, replacing General Nivelle, whose Chemin des Dames offensive failed in April 1917 and thereby provoked widespread mutinies in the French Army. They involved, to various degrees, nearly half of the French infantry divisions stationed on the Western Front. Pétain restored morale by talking to the men, promising no more suicidal attacks, providing rest for exhausted units, home furloughs, and moderate discipline. He held 3400 courts martial; 554 mutineers were sentenced to death but over 90% had their sentences commuted. The mutinies were kept secret from the Germans and their full extent and intensity were not revealed until decades later. Gilbert and Bernard find multiple causes:

The immediate cause was the extreme optimism and subsequent disappointment at the Nivelle offensive in the spring of 1917. Other causes were pacifism, stimulated by the Russian Revolution and the trade-union movement, and disappointment at the nonarrival of American troops.

Pétain conducted some successful but limited offensives in the latter part of 1917, while the British carried out an offensive at Passchendaele that autumn. Pétain, instead, held off from major French offensives until the Americans arrived in force on the front lines, which did not happen until the early summer of 1918. He was also waiting for the new Renault FT tanks to be introduced in large numbers, hence his statement at the time: ''J'attends les chars et les Américains'' ("I am waiting for the tanks and the Americans.")

End of World War I

The year 1918 saw major German offensives on the Western Front. The first of these, Operation Michael in March 1918, threatened to split the British and French forces apart, and, after Pétain had threatened to retreat on Paris, the Doullens Conference was called. Just prior to the main meeting, Prime Minister Clemenceau claimed he heard Pétain say ''"les Allemands battront les Anglais en rase campagne, après quoi ils nous battront aussi"'' ("the Germans will beat the English in open country, then they'll beat us as well"). He reported this conversation to President Raymond Poincaré, adding "surely a general should not speak or think like that?" Haig recorded that Pétain had "a terrible look. He had the appearance of a commander who had lost his nerve". Pétain believed – wrongly – that Gough's Fifth Army had been routed like the Italians at Caporetto. At the Conference, Ferdinand Foch was appointed as Allied Generalissimo, initially with powers to co-ordinate and deploy Allied reserves where he saw fit. Pétain eventually came to the aid of the British and secured the front with forty French divisions.

Pétain proved a capable opponent of the Germans both in defence and through counter-attack. The third offensive, "Blücher", in May 1918, saw major German advances on the Aisne, as the French Army commander (Humbert) ignored Pétain's instructions to defend in depth and instead allowed his men to be hit by the initial massive German bombardment. By the time of the last German offensives, Gneisenau and the Second Battle of the Marne, Pétain was able to defend in depth and launch counter offensives, with the new French tanks and the assistance of the Americans. Later in the year, Pétain was stripped of his right of direct appeal to the French government and requested to report to Foch, who increasingly assumed the co-ordination and ultimately the command of the Allied offensives. On the day of the armistice, Pétain wanted to continue offensive operations into Germany to prevent another war but was overruled by Foch.
After the war ended Pétain was made Marshal of France on 21 November 1918.

Interwar period

Respected hero of France

Pétain ended the war regarded "without a doubt, the most accomplished defensive tactician of any army" and "one of France's greatest military heroes" and was presented with his baton of Marshal of France at a public ceremony at Metz by President Poincaré on 8 December 1918. He was summoned to be present at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919. His job as Commander-in-Chief came to an end with peace and demobilisation, and with Foch out of favour after his quarrel with the French government over the peace terms, it was Pétain who, in January 1920, was appointed Vice-Chairman of the revived '' Conseil supérieur de la Guerre'' (Supreme War Council). This was France's highest military position, whose holder was Commander-in-Chief designate in the event of war and who had the right to overrule the Chief of the General Staff (a position held in the 1920s by Pétain's protégés Buat and Debeney), with Pétain holding the vice chairmanship until 1931. Pétain was encouraged by friends to go into politics, although he protested that he had little interest in running for an elected position. He nevertheless tried and failed to get himself elected President following the November 1919 elections.

Shortly after the war, Pétain had placed before the government plans for a large tank and air force, but "at the meeting of the ''Conseil supérieur de la Défense Nationale'' of 12 March 1920, the Finance Minister, François-Marsal, announced that although Pétain's proposals were excellent they were unaffordable". In addition, François-Marsal announced reductions – in the army from fifty-five divisions to thirty, in the air force, and did not mention tanks. It was left to the Marshals, Pétain, Joffre, and Foch, to pick up the pieces of their strategies. The General Staff, now under General Edmond Buat, began to think seriously about a line of forts along the frontier with Germany, and their report was put forward on 22 May 1922. The three Marshals supported this. The cuts in military expenditure meant that taking the offensive was now impossible and a defensive strategy was all they could have.

Rif War

Pétain was appointed Inspector-General of the Army in February 1922, and produced, in concert with the new Chief of the General Staff, General Marie-Eugène Debeney, the new army manual entitled ''Provisional Instruction on the Tactical Employment of Large Units'', which soon became known as 'the Bible'. On 3 September 1925, Pétain was appointed sole Commander-in-Chief of French Forces in Morocco to launch a major campaign against the Rif tribes, in concert with the Spanish Army, which was successfully concluded by the end of October. He was subsequently decorated in Toledo by King Alfonso XIII with the Spanish '' Medalla Militar''.

Vocal critic of defence policy

In 1924 the National Assembly was elected on a platform of reducing the length of national service to one year, to which Pétain was almost violently opposed. In January 1926, the Chief of Staff, General Debeney, proposed to the ''Conseil'' a "totally new kind of army. Only 20 infantry divisions would be maintained on a standing basis". Reserves could be called up when needed. The ''Conseil'' had no option in the straitened circumstances but to agree. Pétain disapproved of the whole thing, pointing out that North Africa still had to be defended and in itself required a substantial standing army. But he recognised, after the new Army Organisation Law of 1927, that the tide was flowing against him. He would not forget that the Radical leader, Édouard Daladier, even voted against the whole package, on the grounds that the Army was still too large.

On 5 December 1925, after the Locarno Treaty, the ''Conseil'' demanded immediate action on a line of fortifications along the eastern frontier to counter the already proposed decline in manpower. A new commission for this purpose was established, under Joseph Joffre, and called for reports. In July 1927 Pétain himself went to reconnoitre the whole area. He returned with a revised plan and the commission then proposed two fortified regions. The Maginot Line, as it came to be called, (named after André Maginot the former Minister of War) thereafter occupied a good deal of Pétain's attention during 1928, when he also travelled extensively, visiting military installations up and down the country. Pétain had based his strong support for the Maginot Line on his own experience of the role played by the forts during the Battle of Verdun in 1916.

Captain Charles de Gaulle continued to be a protégé of Pétain throughout these years. He even allegedly named his eldest son after the Marshal, although it is more likely that he named his son after his family ancestor Jean Baptiste Philippe de Gaulle, before finally falling out over the authorship of a book he had said he had ghost-written for Pétain.

Election to the ''Académie française''

In 1928, Pétain had supported the creation of an independent air force removed from the control of the army, and on 9 February 1931, following his retirement as Vice-Chairman of the Supreme War Council, he was appointed Inspector-General of Air Defence. His first report on air defence, submitted in July that year, advocated increased expenditure. In 1931 Pétain was elected a Fellow of the ''Académie française''. By 1932 the economic situation had worsened and Édouard Herriot's government had made "severe cuts in the defence budget... orders for new weapons systems all but dried up". Summer manoeuvres in 1932 and 1933 were cancelled due to lack of funds, and recruitment to the armed forces fell off. In the latter year General Maxime Weygand claimed that "the French Army was no longer a serious fighting force". Édouard Daladier's new government retaliated against Weygand by reducing the number of officers and cutting military pensions and pay, arguing that such measures, apart from financial stringency, were in the spirit of the Geneva Disarmament Conference.

In 1938, Pétain encouraged and assisted the writer André Maurois in gaining election to the ''Académie française'' – an election which was highly contested, in part due to Maurois' Jewish origin. Maurois made a point of acknowledging with thanks his debt to Pétain in his 1941 autobiography, ''Call no man happy'' – though by the time of writing their paths had sharply diverged, Pétain having become Head of State of Vichy France while Maurois went into exile and sided with the Free French.

Minister of War

Political unease was sweeping the country and, on 6 February 1934, the Paris police fired on a group of far-right rioters outside the Chamber of Deputies, killing 14 and wounding a further 236. President Lebrun invited 71-year-old Doumergue to come out of retirement and form a new "government of national unity". On 8 February, Pétain was invited to join the new French cabinet as Minister of War, which he only reluctantly accepted after many representations.

His important success that year was in getting Daladier's previous proposal to reduce the number of officers repealed. He improved the recruitment programme for specialists and lengthened the training period by reducing leave entitlements. However, Weygand reported to the Senate Army Commission that year that the French Army still could not resist a German attack. Marshals Louis Franchet d'Espèrey and Hubert Lyautey (the latter died suddenly in July) added their names to the report. After the autumn manoeuvres, which Pétain had reinstated, a report was presented to Pétain that officers had been poorly instructed, had little basic knowledge and no confidence. He was also told by Maurice Gamelin that, if the plebiscite in the Territory of the Saar Basin went for Germany, "it would be a serious military error" for the French Army to intervene. Pétain responded by again petitioning the government for further funds for the army.

During this period, he repeatedly called for a lengthening of the term of compulsory military service for conscripts from two to three years, to no avail. Pétain accompanied President Lebrun to Belgrade for the funeral of King Alexander, who had been assassinated on 6 October 1934 in Marseille by Vlado Chernozemski, a Bulgarian nationalist from IMRO. Here he met Hermann Göring and the two men reminisced about their experiences in the Great War. "When Göring returned to Germany he spoke admiringly of Pétain, describing him as a 'man of honour'".

Critic of government policy

In November, the Doumergue government fell. Pétain had previously expressed interest in being named Minister of Education (as well as of War), a role in which he hoped to combat what he saw as the decay in French moral values.Paxton, Robert O. (1982). ''Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940–1944'', pp. 36–37. Columbia University Press. . Now, however, he refused to continue in Flandin's short-lived government as Minister of War and stood down – in spite of a direct appeal from Lebrun himself. At this moment an article appeared in the newspaper '' Le Petit Journal'', calling for Pétain as a candidate for a dictatorship. 200,000 readers responded to the paper's poll. Pétain came first, with 47,000, ahead of Pierre Laval's 31,000 votes. These two men travelled to Warsaw for the funeral of the Polish Marshal Piłsudski in May 1935 (and another cordial meeting with Göring). Although ''Le Petit Journal'' was conservative, Pétain's high reputation was bipartisan; socialist Léon Blum called him "the most human of our military commanders". Pétain did not get involved in non-military issues when in the Cabinet, and unlike other military leaders he did not have a reputation as an extreme Catholic or a monarchist.

He remained on the ''Conseil superieur''. Weygand had been at the British Army 1934 manoeuvres at Tidworth Camp in June and was appalled by what he had seen. Addressing the ''Conseil'' on the 23rd, Pétain claimed that it would be fruitless to look for assistance to the United Kingdom in the event of a German attack. On 1 March 1935, Pétain's famous article appeared in the '' Revue des deux mondes'', where he reviewed the history of the army since 1927–28. He criticised the reservist system in France, and her lack of adequate air power and armour. This article appeared just five days before Adolf Hitler's announcement of Germany's new air force and a week before the announcement that Germany was increasing its army to 36 divisions. On 26 April 1936, the general election results showed 5.5 million votes for the Popular Front parties against 4.5 million for the Right on an 84% turnout. On 3 May Pétain, was interviewed in ''Le Journal'' where he launched an attack on the Franco-Soviet Pact, on Communism in general (France had the largest communist party in Western Europe), and on those who allowed Communists intellectual responsibility. He said that France had lost faith in her destiny. Pétain was now in his 80th year.

Some argue that Pétain, as France's most senior soldier after Foch's death, should bear some responsibility for the poor state of French weaponry preparation before World War II. Others say that Pétain was one of many on a large committee responsible for national defence, and interwar governments frequently cut military budgets. In addition, with the restrictions imposed on Germany by the Versailles Treaty there seemed no urgency for vast expenditure until the advent of Hitler. It is argued that while Pétain supported the massive use of tanks he saw them mostly as infantry support, leading to the fragmentation of the French tank force into many types of unequal value spread out between mechanised cavalry (such as the SOMUA S35) and infantry support (mostly the Renault R35 tanks and the Char B1 bis). Modern infantry rifles and machine guns were not manufactured, with the sole exception of a light machine-rifle, the Mle 1924. The French heavy machine gun was still the Hotchkiss M1914, obsolete when compared to the new automatic weapons of German infantry. A modern infantry rifle was adopted in 1936 but very few of these MAS-36 rifles had been issued to the troops by 1940. A well-tested French semiautomatic rifle, the MAS 1938–39, was ready for adoption but it never reached the production stage until after World War II as the MAS 49. French artillery had not been modernised since 1918. The result of all these failings is that the French Army had to face the invading enemy in 1940 with the dated weaponry of 1918. Pétain had been made Minister of War in 1934, but could not reverse 15 years of inactivity and constant cutbacks. French aviation entered the War in 1939 without even the prototype of a bomber aeroplane capable of reaching Berlin and coming back. French industrial efforts in fighter aircraft were dispersed among several firms ( Dewoitine, Morane-Saulnier and Marcel Bloch), each with its own models.

Battle of France

Return to government

In March 1939, Pétain was appointed French ambassador to the newly recognized Nationalist government of Spain. Pétain had taught the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco "many years ago at France's war college" and was sent to Spain "in the hope he would win his former pupil away from Italian and German influence." When World War II began in September, Daladier offered Pétain a position in his government, which Pétain turned down. However, after Germany invaded France, Pétain joined the new government of Paul Reynaud on 18 May 1940 as Deputy Prime Minister. Reynaud hoped that the hero of Verdun might instill a renewed spirit of resistance and patriotism in the French Army. Reportedly Franco advised Pétain against leaving his diplomatic post in Madrid, to return to a collapsing France as a "sacrifice".

By 26 May, the Allied lines had been shattered, and British forces had begun evacuating at Dunkirk. French commander-in-chief Maxime Weygand expressed his fury at British retreats and the unfulfilled promise of British fighter aircraft. He and Pétain regarded the military situation as hopeless. Colonel de Villelume subsequently stated before a parliamentary commission of inquiry in 1951 that Reynaud, as Premier of France, said to Pétain on that day that they must seek an armistice. Weygand said that he was in favor of saving the French army and that he "wished to avoid internal troubles and above all anarchy". Churchill's man in Paris, Edward Spears, urged the French not to sign an armistice, saying that if French ports were occupied by Germany, the United Kingdom would have to bomb them. Spears reported that Pétain did not respond immediately but stood there "perfectly erect, with no sign of panic or emotion. He did not disguise the fact that he considered the situation catastrophic. I could not detect any sign in him of broken morale, of that mental wringing of hands and incipient hysteria noticeable in others." Pétain later remarked to Reynaud about this statement: "your ally now threatens us."

On 5 June, following the fall of Dunkirk, there was a Cabinet reshuffle. Reynaud brought into his War Cabinet as Undersecretary for War the newly promoted Brigadier-General de Gaulle, whose 4th Armoured Division had launched one of the few French counterattacks the previous month. Pétain was displeased at de Gaulle's appointment. By 8 June, Paris was threatened, and the government was preparing to depart, although Pétain was opposed to such a move. During a cabinet meeting that day, Reynaud argued that before asking for an armistice, France would have to get the United Kingdom permission to be relieved from their accord of March 1940 not to sign a separate cease-fire. Pétain replied that "the interests of France come before those of the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom got us into this position, let us now try to get out of it." .

Fall of France

On 10 June, the government left Paris for Tours. Weygand, the Commander-in-Chief, now declared that "the fighting had become meaningless". He, Minister of Finance Paul Baudouin, and several other members of the government were already set on an armistice. On 11 June, Churchill flew to the Château du Muguet, at Briare, near Orléans

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