Alphonse Juin, born December 16, 1888 in Bône (now Annaba, Algeria), died January 27, 1967 in Paris, was a French military man, general and Marshal of France.
* Coming from a modest family (son of a gendarme), he graduated major of Saint-Cyr in 1912 in the same promotion as General de Gaulle.
* During the First World War, Alphonse Juin fought in Morocco until 1914, then on the French front at the head of the Moroccan tabors. Seriously injured in Champagne in 1915, he permanently lost the use of his right arm.
* 1938, appointed brigadier general, he receives command of the 15th Motorized Infantry Division on mobilization:covering the retreat to Dunkirk, this unit is surrounded in the Lille pocket and fights with General Molinié's group until running out of ammunition. June is taken prisoner and interned in the fortress of Königstein.
June at the service of Vichy
Released on June 15, 1941, at the request of the Vichy government, in application of the Paris agreements (military collaboration agreements) signed by Darlan with Germany, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces in North Africa.
He then went to Germany, on December 20, 1941, with Minister de Brinon, to meet Marshal Göring, who asked him to welcome Rommel's German-Italian troops to Tunisia, in the event of their withdrawal. Brinon, who accompanied June, maintained that this general would then have responded very favorably to Göring. June, on the contrary, affirms in his memoirs that he would have opposed Göring with his most formal refusal. What is certain is that, in practice, when the German-Italians entered Tunisia on November 9, 1942, June's subordinates were going to hand over this protectorate to them without a single shot, at the same time that they were firing on the allies in Oran and Morocco, which would confirm de Brinon's statements during his trial.
On November 8, 1942, during the Allied landings in North Africa, Alphonse Juin was first arrested by a group of young patriots commanded by the reserve cadet Pauphilet, while 400 poorly armed civilians neutralized his XIX Army Corps in Algiers, and thus allowed the allies to land without opposition, surround the city and obtain its capitulation the same day.
June, recipient of a letter from F. Roosevelt asking him to welcome the Allied troops as friends, rejected this request which was presented by Consul Murphy, sheltering behind the authority of Admiral Darlan, present in Algiers , then, released in the morning by the mobile guard, he organized the reconquest of the city against the resistance fighters. At 5:30 p.m., while the resistance was still holding its main strategic point, the Central Commissariat, and the allies were finally entering the city, June capitulated, but only for Algiers.
On the same November 8, 1942, in Oran and Morocco, June's subordinates, who had not been able to be neutralized as in Algiers, welcomed the Allies there with cannon fire, while they were going to deliver Tunisia to the Germans without resistance. Meanwhile in Algiers, June, Commander-in-Chief and Darlan began by refusing to order a ceasefire in Morocco and the resumption of combat for the troops in Tunisia.
It took 3 days of pressure and threats from American General Clark, for June and Darlan to finally order a ceasefire on November 10 and 11, 1942 (human cost of these 3 days of June and Darlan's stubbornness:1,346 killed French and 479 allies + 1,997 wounded French and 720 allies).
Finally, on November 14, June gave the order to the Tunisian army, withdrawn to the Algerian border, to face the Germans, but its leader, General Barré, will wait until November 18 to resume the fight. The army of Tunisia, reinforced by allied elements, was then going to fight very courageously, but the human cost of the 6 months of war then required to reconquer the Regency which had not been defended was going to be very high.
June at war with Germany
* June, under the authority of Darlan, self-proclaimed High Commissioner of France in Africa and General Giraud (see Vichy regime in liberated Africa (1942-1943)), finally rallied to the Anglo-Americans and received command of the French forces engaged in Tunisia. These, who were eager to fight, contributed, at the cost of heavy losses, to the annihilation of the occupying forces of the Axis and Rommel's Afrika Korps.
* 1943 Appointed by de Gaulle to head the French Expeditionary Force in Italy, which comprises four divisions, Alphonse Juin covered himself with glory by taking the Belvedere of Cassino but this triumph was marred because part of the same Expeditionary Force (the legendary soldiers "goumiers") was responsible for violence and rape on the populations of the countries of Ceccano, Sgurgola, Giuliano, Cassino, Frosinone, near Mount Cassino. Violence that was not only committed against adults, but also against children, old people and, in some cases, animals. These rapes, if they were not always punished as they should have been, were not the result of a deliberate policy on the part of the political or military leaders of the Allies.
The Battle of Monte-Cassin revealed the military genius of Marshal Alphonse Juin who, by launching a light infantry assault to outflank the German position on his flanks, was a total success, unlike American General Clarke who, by attempting a frontal assault on heavy infantry preceded by a catastrophic strategic bombardment sent 1,700 GI's to their useless death.
* 1944 June had the Allies adopt a bold plan of maneuver. In May 1944, with his victory at Garigliano, he opened the road to Rome and Siena to the allies.
* His troops will then participate, but without him, in the landing in Provence, under the orders of General de Tassigny, who, unlike him, had tried to resist, when on November 11, 1942 German troops invaded the free zone.
* 1944 - 1947, Chief of National Defense Staff.
June in the post-war period
* 1947 - 1951, general resident in Morocco, he opposes Sultan Mohammed V ben Youssef and the nationalist party, relying on Thami El Glaoui, pasha of Marrakech. His right arm was then Marcel Vallat (1898-1986).
* 1951 - 1956, commander-in-chief of the Central Europe sector of the Atlantic Organization (whose supreme commander is General Eisenhower).
* July 14, 1952, elevated to the dignity of Marshal of France.
* 1954 - 1955, supports the liberal policy of Mendès France in Tunisia,
* 1955, opposes the independence of Morocco, as well as the abandonment in Algeria.
As a pied-noir and as a soldier, he opposed the policy of self-determination led by de Gaulle, without however supporting the putsch of the generals in 1961. He was therefore excluded from any function from 1962. says that his public dispute with the government meant that no further marshal was promoted during his lifetime.
Awards
* Elected to the French Academy on November 20, 1952, in chair 4, succeeding Jean Tharaud. His official reception under the Dome took place on June 25, 1953.
* Member of the Academy of Colonial Sciences
Decorations
* Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor
* Military Medal
* War Cross 1914-1918