{"id":16393,"date":"2016-06-18T03:30:24","date_gmt":"2016-06-18T08:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=16393"},"modified":"2016-06-18T03:30:24","modified_gmt":"2016-06-18T08:30:24","slug":"world-war-ii-history-these-men-were-french-heroes-until-they-werent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2016\/06\/18\/world-war-ii-history-these-men-were-french-heroes-until-they-werent\/","title":{"rendered":"World War II History: These Men Were French Heroes Until They Were’nt"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"petain2_1565174c\"<\/p>\n

In a book about the French Revolution he was ghostwriting during the 1920s, Charles de Gaulle opined that some of the country\u2019s generals had been stripped \u201cof prestige, often of life, sometimes of honor.\u201d As described in Julian Jackson\u2019s De Gaulle,<\/strong> Marshal Philippe P\u00e9tain<\/em> \u2014 the champion of Verdun \u2014 suggested the young captain move the part about life to the end of the sentence. Refusing to bow to the experienced soldier\u2019s advice, an uppity\u00a0de Gaulle<\/a> declared, \u201cIt is an ascending gradation: prestige, life, honor.\u201d<\/p>\n

De Gaulle once held P\u00e9tain in high regard \u2014 some say his son, Philippe, had been named after the famed mar\u00e9chal<\/em>. But this editorial quibble foreshadowed their future, as both men went on to rule France, be sentenced to death and trade labels of \u201cvillain\u201d and \u201chero.\u201d And P\u00e9tain would be stripped of his honor, but spared his life, by his former charge.<\/p>\n

Colonel P\u00e9tain, as he was known in 1914, had never seen any action and was preparing to retire at the age of 58. But retirement wasn\u2019t in the cards thanks to World War I, during which this cautious military man built a reputation as a great field commander who would not attack \u201cuntil he had an overwhelming superiority,\u201d says Robert Paxton, a Columbia University professor emeritus and specialist in Vichy history. Known for vowing to hold Verdun at all costs \u2014 famously saying, \u201cIls ne passeront pas<\/em>\u201d (\u201cThey will not pass\u201d) \u2014 he was awarded the marshal\u2019s baton in 1918. He also developed a taste for leadership and accolades: One of his next roles was mobilizing French troops against the 1925 Rif rebellion in Morocco, a victory that earned him a series of political appointments in the 1930s.<\/p>\n

\u00a0When German tanks started rolling toward France again, de Gaulle was neither well-known nor well-liked. Compared with the cautious P\u00e9tain, de Gaulle had always been Bolshie and, like stereotypical millennials<\/a> today, the young nationalist told his bosses just what he thought; he was, according to Paxton, \u201cready to take risks\u201d on the battlefield. The future first president of the French Republic favored mechanized warfare and the use of specialized armored divisions in combat, rather than sticking with French doctrine, which dictated that tanks support infantry maneuvers. His efforts to repel German forces \u2014 including the use of tanks at Montcornet in one of France\u2019s few successes at holding off Hitler\u2019s troops \u2014 got him promoted to brigadier general and, later, undersecretary of state for defense and war. De Gaulle\u2019s objective was winning at any cost, a position that would once more pit him against his former boss.<\/div>\n

\u201cBetter to be a Nazi province\u201d was the message from P\u00e9tain to French Premier Paul Reynaud, Ian Crofton writes in Traitors & Turncoats<\/em>, noting that the latter fancied joining efforts with Britain to combat Hitler, despite heavy French losses. Leadership squabbles led to Reynaud being out, P\u00e9tain being in and negotiations for peace initiated with Germany, to the chagrin of de Gaulle and Reynaud. P\u00e9tain signed an armistice on June 22, 1940, and once again he was hailed a hero for saving the nation from more bloodshed.<\/p>\n

P\u00e9tain\u2019s government moved to Vichy, where it controlled roughly 40 percent of France<\/a>, with the rest left to German occupation. De Gaulle, meanwhile, moved to Britain, where he drummed up support for Free French Forces, starting with a Winston Churchill\u2013approved BBC radio address to his countrymen. In response, Vichy sentenced de Gaulle to death for treason \u2014 a high-ranking military leader with an equally high ranking atop France\u2019s hit list.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cP\u00e9tain was sure the war was over,\u201d Paxton says, while \u201cde Gaulle was sure it was not over.\u201d One was hailed a hero, the other a traitor, but all of that was about to change. Vichy became a collaborative hellhole known for deporting French Jews, and de Gaulle went on to rally support in Africa, raise troops and help lead the liberation of his country. \u201c[De Gaulle\u2019s] bet was right,\u201d Paxton says.<\/div>\n

With France liberated in September 1944, Vichy\u2019s elite were summoned to Germany, but P\u00e9tain returned home to face charges of treason at a trial in the summer of 1945. His defense? \u201cIf I could no longer be your sword, I wanted to be your shield.\u201d Still beloved by many, P\u00e9tain was stripped of his military rank and sentenced to execution by firing squad. De Gaulle commuted the 89-year-old\u2019s sentence, freeing the old man to live out his final days on the \u00cele d\u2019Yeu.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe marshal is a great man who died in 1925. Trouble is, he didn\u2019t know it,\u201d de Gaulle said of his former mentor\u2019s fall from grace. And indeed, as the younger man prospered from his good fortune and sound bet during World War II, he watched France\u2019s once-great hero be stripped of his prestige and honor, but not quite his life.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read the Original Article at Ozy<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a book about the French Revolution he was ghostwriting during the 1920s, Charles de Gaulle opined that some of the country\u2019s generals had been stripped \u201cof prestige, often of life, sometimes of honor.\u201d As described in Julian Jackson\u2019s De Gaulle, Marshal Philippe P\u00e9tain \u2014 the champion of Verdun \u2014 suggested the young captain move…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[5525,1286,1898,1899],"tags":[12318,12319,12320,12321,4296,12322],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16393"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}