Philippe Pétain

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Philippe Pétain
Philippe Pétain

Marshal Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain (24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain, was a French soldier and Head of State of Vichy France, from 1940 to 1944. Because of his military leadership in World War I, he was viewed as a hero in France, but his actions during World War II resulted in his being convicted and sentenced to death for treason, which was commuted to life imprisonment by Charles de Gaulle. In modern France, he is generally considered a traitor, and pétainisme is a derogatory term for certain reactionary policies.

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Early life

Born in Cauchy-à-la-Tour (in the Pas-de-Calais département, in the north of France) in 1856. He joined the French Army in 1876 and attended the St Cyr Military Academy and the École Supérieure de Guerre (army war college) in Paris.

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World War I

Pétain was a distinguished veteran of World War I and was hailed as a French hero.

He was commanding the French Forces at the start of the Battle of Verdun. The famous quote

"ils ne passeront pas!" (They shall not pass!)

is often attributed to him, though it is actually from Robert Nivelle, who was one of his chief assistants at that time.

Due to his remarkable ability and high prestige, Pétain rose to be Commander-in-Chief of the French army during World War I after the failed Nivelle Offensive and the subsequent mutiny in the French army; it could be argued that because of his successful defensive strategy, France survived its worst crisis during the war, thus led to the Allied victory in World War I.

Moreover, it was his advocacy of a defensive strategy that led, in large part, to the construction of the Maginot Line.

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Between the wars

Pétain emerged from the war as a national hero. He was encouraged to go into politics, and although he had little interest in running for an elected position in 1934 he was appointed to the French cabinet as Minister of War. The following year he was promoted to Secretary of State.

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World War II and Vichy France

In the spring of 1940 France was invaded by Nazi Germany. Marshall Pétain was then appointed as Prime Minister of France and granted extraordinary powers. The constitutionality of these actions was later challenged by de Gaulle's regime, but at the time Pétain was widely accepted as France's saviour. On June 22 he signed an armistice with Germany that gave the Nazis control over the north and west of the country, including Paris, but left the rest under a separate regime, with its capital in the resort town of Vichy.

Again the Chamber of Deputies and Senate, constituted in "Assemblée nationale", had an emergency meeting, and voted to cede all government power--Constitutive, Legislative, Executive and Judicial--to Marshall Pétain, suspending the constitution of the Third Republic and making Pétain a dictator. Conservative factions within his government used the opportunity as an occasion to launch an ambitious program known as the "National Revolution" in which much of the former Third Republic's secular traditions were overturned in favor of the promotion of a more traditionalist, Catholic society.

Pétain immediately used his new powers to order measures including the dismissal of republican civil servants and the imprisonment of his opponents and foreign refugees. He organized a "Legion Française des Combattants", where he included "Friends of Legion" and "Cadets of Legion" having never fought, but politically attached to serve his regime.

Pétain did not resist requests by the Germans, more than his successive Deputies Pierre Laval and Admiral François Darlan, to side militarily with the Axis Powers. Pétain even took the initiative to "collaborate" with the enemy, in an official radio Pétain created also a collaborationnist armed militia, under the command of Joseph Darnand, SS colonel, who repressed French resistance "maquis", besides German forces, and admitted Darnand in his government as Secrétaire d'Etat au Maintien de l'Ordre. He provided the Axis forces with large supplies of manufactured goods and foodstuffs, and he also ordered Vichy troops in France's colonial empire to fight against Allied forces everywhere (in Dakar, Syria, Madagascar, Oran and Morocco), as well as to receive German forces without any resistance (in Syria, Tunisia and Southern France).

On 11 November 1942 Germany invaded the unoccupied zone in response to the Allied Operation Torch landings in North Africa. Although Vichy France nominally remained in existence, Pétain became nothing more than a figurehead, as the Nazis abandoned the pretense of an "independent" Vichy government. On 7 September 1944 he and other members of the Vichy cabinet were moved to Sigmaringen and soon after he resigned as leader.

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Post-war trial

In April 1945 he was returned to France, where he was tried for collaboration (or treason), convicted and sentenced to death by firing squad in July-August 1945. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by Charles de Gaulle on 17 August 1945, on the grounds of his old age. He died in prison on Île d'Yeu, an island off the coast of Brittany, in 1951.

Nowadays, in France, the word pétainisme suggests an authoritarian and reactionary ideology, a nostalgy of a rural, agricultural, traditionalist, Catholic society. Petain himself is generally regarded in the same manner as Vidkun Quisling is in Norway, or Benedict Arnold is in the United States.

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Lists of the successive Pétain governments until 1942

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Pétain's First Government, 16 June - 12 July 1940

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Pétain's Second Government, 12 July - 6 September 1940

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Pétain's Third Government, 6 September 1940 - 25 February 1941

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Pétain's Fourth Ministry, 25 February - 12 August 1941

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Pétain's Fifth Government, 12 August 1941 - 18 April 1942


Preceded by:
Paul Reynaud		 Prime Minister of France
1940–1942		 Succeeded by:
Pierre Laval
Preceded by:
Albert Lebrun
(President)		 Head of State
1940–1944		 Succeeded by:
Charles de Gaulle
(Chairman of the Provisional Government)
Preceded by:
Albert Lebrun and Justí Guitart i Vilardebó		 Co-Prince of Andorra
1940-1944
with Justí Guitart i Vilardebó (1940) and Ramon Iglesias i Navarri (1942-1944)		 Succeeded by:
Charles de Gaulle and Ramon Iglesias i Navarri
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See also


Preceded by:
Ferdinand Foch		 Seat 18
Académie française
1929-1951		 Succeeded by:
André François-Poncet

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_P%C3%A9tain"
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