Maurice Gustave Gamelin (Paris, September 20, 1872 - Paris, April 18, 1958), was a French general officer. He commanded the French Army during the Phoney War of 1939-1940 and saw his strategy defeated by the Germans during the breakthrough at Sedan. During the Vichy regime, Gamelin was arrested and interned in Germany.
Youth
Maurice Gamelin was born on September 20, 1872 in Paris 7th, where he lived his childhood at no. 262 Boulevard Saint-Germain, opposite the Ministry of War. His father Zéphyrin, Comptroller General of the Armed Forces, distinguished himself in the service of Napoleon III and was wounded at the Battle of Solferino in 1859. His maternal family – the Uhrichs – are of Alsatian origin. At a very young age, he showed an interest in military matters but, as he was also recognized as having a certain talent for the arts, his parents preferred to encourage him in this direction first. He attended the Stanislas college in rue du Montparnasse, then, a brilliant student now determined to embark on a military career, he joined Saint-Cyr on October 31, 18912 and graduated as valedictorian in 1893.
Beginning of military career
It was in North Africa that he began his career as an officer, first in the 3rd regiment of Algerian riflemen, then in the topographical brigade of Tunisia, where he was able to use his gifts for drawing and observation. . Returning to France in 1897, he prepared for the entrance examination to the École Supérieure de Guerre. Eighth in the entrance exam, he came out second. Fine mind, cultivated, hardworking and gifted for the study of military tactics, he was noticed by the future General Lanrezac, then second in command of the school. He then continued as a trainee at the staff of the 15th corps a career that already promised to be brilliant. Passed in 1904 from staff service to the troops (as company commander in the 15th battalion of chasseurs), he was still as efficient as ever and was admired by his superiors. In 1906, he published his Philosophical Study on the Art of War, which immediately placed him among the best military thinkers of his time.
The year 1906 marked the turning point in Gamelin's life. That year, in fact, he was appointed orderly officer of General Joffre who then commanded the 6th Infantry Division. This appointment owes much to the intermediary of Lieutenant-Colonel Foch, who was then a professor at the École de Guerre and who had had the opportunity to appreciate the high qualities of his former student. From then on, the career of the young patented captain merges with that of Joffre. In 1908, he followed him to the staff of the 2nd army corps, then in 1910 to the Superior Council of War. He was appointed battalion commander in 1911 and had to temporarily separate from his commander to take command of the 11th Chasseurs Battalion in Annecy. But this separation was short-lived since, on March 23, 1914, Joffre recalled him to his service at the General Staff.
First World War
Gamelin was still Joffre's devoted collaborator when the First World War began. In this position, he demonstrated first-rate zeal and efficiency, especially during the Battle of the Marne where he wrote the instructions that would lead to victory. It was also at this time that he realized the close intertwining of politics and the military for the conduct of operations. On November 1, 1914, he was appointed lieutenant-colonel and left the General Headquarters (G.Q.G.) to take command of the 2nd demi-brigade of chasseurs à pied. With her, he fought in Alsace (on the Linge in particular) then in the Somme. Appointed colonel in April 1916, he continued his rise and constantly won the admiration of his superiors:under fire, as in a staff office, Gamelin definitely seemed like a very high-calibre officer. On December 8, 1916, he was appointed brigadier general on a temporary basis:he only remained colonel for eight months. After a brief return to G.Q.G., he became chief of staff of General Joseph Alfred Micheler's reserve army group. On May 11, 1917, he received his last command of the war, that of the 9th Infantry Division, which he held until the armistice. Anxious to save the lives of his men, he nevertheless showed great tactical skill, as evidenced by his fights in the region of Noyon, at critical times in the spring of 1918.
Between the wars
From 1919 to 1924, General Gamelin led the French military mission in Brazil. Then he was appointed commander of the French troops in the Levant (1924-1929). In this position, he completed the pacification of the territory. Returning to France, he took command of the 20th military region in Nancy.
Supported throughout his career by Édouard Daladier, he succeeded General Weygand in 1931 as Chief of the General Staff. He is in charge of the general headquarters of the French land forces. From 1935, he combined this function with that of Inspector General of the Army. Before him, only Joffre had had so much power. He then became the first holder of the post of Chief of National Defense Staff, with a mission of coordination between the three armies (land, air, sea), following the decree of January 21, 1938.
Gamelin thus played a decisive role in preparing France for the conflict to come. It impregnates with its conceptions - however vague or obsolete they may be - the armament, organization and training of the army.
Knight of the Legion of Honor since 1913, he was named Grand Cross of the Order on July 8, 1932.
World War II
Defeat
The generalissimo of the French Armed Forces during the Second World War was one of the most intellectual generals of his time. He was respected, even in Germany, for his intelligence and subtlety. Despite this finesse and his brilliant record of service during the First World War, his command of the French armies until the Battle of France in May 1940 was a disaster.
Gamelin supported a strategic defensive plan of waiting for the German attack, keeping a continuous front from Switzerland to the North Sea, behind the Maginot Line along the German border, then with second-rate divisions behind the obstacle nature of the Ardennes, finally thanks to mobile troops as far as the sea. Anticipating the aggression of Belgium and the Netherlands, he perfected a maneuver consisting in advancing in Belgium as far as the Dyle in order to both shorten the front line and rally the Belgian troops.
He imposed the “Breda variant”, consisting of placing General Giraud’s 7th army at the far north of the front, to “reach out to the Dutch”. This maneuver was executed early in the campaign, moving the best French units and their air support well away from the place of the real German attack.
After the breakthrough of Sedan, the chairman of the board Paul Reynaud sacked Gamelin, on May 17, 1940, to replace him with Weygand.
Among Gamelin's many errors, characterizing his incompetence, we can cite:
A weak ability to lead people, organize, and a general lack of charisma. His subordinates, it is said, had nicknamed him "Baudelaire", because it was said that his whole doctrine was summed up in the verse:"I hate the movement which displaces the lines".
Conceptions obsolete from the employment of aviation, tanks, motorized elements, artillery, fortifications. He ignored modern developments and learned little from the speed of the Polish campaign, remaining attached to the experience of the 1914-1918 conflict, and arguing that "Poland is not France". . If he adhered to this conservative doctrine, it must be observed that the government and most of the officers of the time also subscribed to it.
The poor organization of the highest level of the army , characterized by a dilution of responsibilities on a crucial front; in Belgium, it was unclear who commanded the inter-allied coalition:was it General Billotte, commander of the 1st Army Group, General Georges, commander of the North-East front, or the generalissimo himself? The dispatch of a liaison officer to the King of the Belgians, Leopold III, on May 10, could only be too late to allow effective coordination between Belgians and allies. However, in his memoir Servir published in 1946, he emphasizes that he had wanted to prevent the events of the 1940 campaign from unfolding fatally by maintaining secret relations with King Leopold III, Commander-in-Chief of the Belgian army, which had revealed to him the German plan for an offensive through the Ardennes known to the Belgian counterintelligence services.
A command favoring contacts with Parisian politicians - from its headquarters in Vincennes - rather than proximity to the front. This point was further exacerbated by Gamelin's reluctance to use radio to convey his instructions, preferring landline telephone or couriers. The French decision-making process was thus slower than that of the Germans. With regard to the choice to remain in Vincennes, it is explained by the law of 1938 on the direction of the war. The responsibility for the direction of the war rests with the government. It is written in full and it is this law that applies from September 2, 1939.
A vision of the theater of operations which made him regard the Ardennes sector as impenetrable (despite the warnings he admitted having received from Belgium), to the great displeasure of General Corap, commanding the 9th French army in this sector, who ceased pointing out in vain the insufficiency in men and material on this front and its de facto permeability; likewise the maintenance of large forces behind the Maginot Line, which was excessively greedy in personnel when this line should have allowed a great saving in troops.
He could have illustrated the famous words of Clemenceau:"War is too delicate a thing to be entrusted to a soldier".
Naturally in his memoirs Gamelin tries to "redeem himself", emphasizing for example that he was preparing a counter-attack the very day of his replacement by Weygand but of course forgetting his many mistakes.
In fact, Paul Reynaud also had political reasons to replace him. The main reason why he wanted to replace him was that Gamelin was supported by Édouard Daladier. However, a muted hostility opposed Daladier to Reynaud. This antagonism between these two characters is characteristic of the end of the Third Republic. Daladier was kept in the Reynaud cabinet because without him the radicals would not have supported the government. Even with the support of the government, Reynaud had only been elected by a single majority vote; he would have liked to take the portfolio of war and national defense, but Daladier wanted to keep it and that was the price of his participation.
General de Gaulle did not appreciate it either (War Memoirs, The Call 1940-1942, p. 27-28, Plon editions). Yet it was Gamelin who entrusted him with the command of the 4th Armored Division at the end of April 1940 and proposed him to the minister for temporary promotion to the rank of general.
During his captivity in Germany he reconciled with Reynaud, who confessed to having been deceived by Pétain and Weygand. It should be noted that, during the Daladier-Reynaud political negotiations, Pétain was ambassador to Spain, remaining there until he was recalled to Paris by Reynaud who needed him as a surety, while Weygand was far away, in the Levant. But he will be recalled on May 17 to replace Gamelin, while Reynaud brought Pétain into the government as vice-president of the council.
From the start of his government, on March 22, Reynaud was surrounded by "warmongers" and "pacifists", and in his very close entourage the "pacifists" had a prominent place, in particular his muse the Countess Hélène des Portes.
As for General de Gaulle, Reynaud would have liked to have him in his cabinet from March 22, but Daladier opposed it; he will not be under-secretary of state for war until the reshuffle of May-June 40, when Daladier will have left the government.
Trial and imprisonment
After the defeat, he was arrested on September 6, 1940, then charged at the Riom trial, alongside Léon Blum, Édouard Daladier and Paul Reynaud. If he kept silent with dignity in the presence of his accusers, it was quite different for his co-defendants, the trial was prematurely adjourned. [ref. desired] He was imprisoned by the Vichy regime at Fort Portalet in the Pyrenees with Léon Blum and Édouard Daladier. During the occupation of the free zone by the Germans in November 1942, he was interned in Germany near the Buchenwald concentration camp where he was housed in a reserved and heated barracks, with Léon Blum and Léon Jouhaux. These three personalities will be quickly transferred to the castle of Itter in Austria, where they will be joined by Paul Reynaud and Jean Borotra then later by General Weygand and Colonel de La Rocque. The Americans liberated them on May 5, 1945.
Post-war
Back in France, Gamelin chooses to pose as a victim, although he is only asked a few accounts. He published his memoirs, under the title Servir, memoirs essentially devoted to justifying his conduct of the war during the French campaign in 1939-1940. Churchill evokes him thus in his own memoirs:“He was a man who loved his country, full of good intentions and who knew his trade. »
Death and funeral
Died in Val-de-Grâce (Paris 5th) on April 18, 1958, he was buried in the cemetery of Passy (Paris 16th) in the greatest simplicity. Indeed, the government refused a vigil by his comrades in arms and mass at Saint-Louis-des-Invalides. No guard of honor will be provided around the casket, only the honors usually given to a holder of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor.
His wife died in 1964.
Writings
Philosophical study on the art of war, Chapelot, Paris, 1906. 107 p.
Three stages of the pre-war period, Les Œuvres libre, Paris, no 13, 1921
Instruction on the organization and operation of medical aviation in wartime, Imprimerie Nationale, 1932, 9 p.
Serve, vol. 1, The French Armies of 1940, Plon, Paris, 1946, 380 p.
Serve, vol. 2, The Prologue of the drama, 1930-August 1939, Plon, Paris, 1946, 479 p.
Serve, vol. 3, War, September 1939-May 19, 1940, Plon, Paris, 1946, 537 p.
Maneuver and victory of the Marne, Bernard Grasset, 1954.
About the disease
According to some historians (but not the majority), Gamelin suffered from syphilis. Among this minority, a certain number claim that this disease would have had a negative impact on his lucidity (see neurosyphilis) (which would seem quite surprising for a man who lived to be 86 years old with all his lucidity and who wrote his memoirs -even).
Controversy
The historian Gérard Chauvy explicitly deals with the case of General Gamelin and uses the term neurosyphilis, the origin of which dates back to before 1930. He cites “malaria, also called malariatherapy”. He speaks of a “terrible illness”, which would explain an intellectual deficiency. He also speaks of the "effects of generalized arteriosclerosis". In 1958, he died of general paralysis, “the final phase of neurospyphilis”.
Chauvy's assertions are based, in particular, on two documents, one of which is from the Defense Historical Service and the other deals with "These patients who govern us".