France's hero of Verdun became the head of its collaborationist regime
Philippe Pétain was hailed as the Lion of Verdun in 1916 and restored a mutinous French army in 1917. Twenty-three years later he led Vichy France, the authoritarian regime that collaborated with Nazi Germany. Charles de Gaulle, who once served under him, judged that life ordinary at first, glorious in the middle and deplorable at the end, yet never mediocre.
Pétain was born on 24 April 1856 in the northern village of Cauchy-à-la-Tour, the only son among five children of a farmer. His father had once worked in Paris for the photography pioneer Louis Daguerre. His mother died when he was 18 months old, and relatives raised him. A strong pupil at a Catholic boarding school in Saint-Omer, he entered the Saint-Cyr military academy in 1876 and spent years with the chasseurs, France's elite light infantry.
His career moved slowly because he rejected the army's creed of the headlong infantry charge, insisting that firepower kills. He became a captain in 1890, became a tactics instructor at the army's staff college, the École Supérieure de Guerre, and was only a colonel in 1914; a young lieutenant called Charles de Gaulle served in his regiment at Arras from 1911. War accelerated everything. Within months he rose from brigade to corps command, and in 1915 took over the Second Army.
At Verdun, from February 1916, Pétain rotated divisions out after about two weeks instead of leaving them at the front for months, and organised a continuous stream of lorries along the supply road known as the Voie Sacrée. After General Nivelle's failed Chemin des Dames offensive in April 1917 triggered mutinies involving nearly half of the infantry divisions on the Western Front, Pétain became commander-in-chief and rebuilt morale by talking to the troops. He ended the war a national hero, later led Franco-Spanish operations in the Rif War and served twice as a minister.
On 16 June 1940, as France was collapsing, Paul Reynaud resigned and President Albert Lebrun named Pétain prime minister at Bordeaux. His government sought armistices with Germany and Italy, moved to the spa town of Vichy, and on 10 July Parliament voted to replace the Third Republic with the authoritarian French State, a puppet regime. After liberation he was convicted of treason on 15 August 1945. His death sentence was commuted because of his age and First World War record, and he died on the Île d'Yeu in 1951, aged 95.
Source: Philippe Pétain
