Maxime Weygand
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Maxime Weygand (January 21, 1867 - January 28, 1965) was a French military commander in both World War I and World War II.
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Early Years
Weygand was born in Brussels, Belgium. Some sources say that he was the illegitimate son of Empress Carlota of Mexico. Weygand refused to either confirm or deny this rumour, which gives rise to think that it was inaccurate. He was educated in Marseille by the Cohen de Léon family. However, in his bulky memoires he says practically nothing of his youth, devoting thereto only 4 pages out of 651. He mentions the gouvernante and the aumonier of his college, who instilled in him a strong Catholic faith. His memoires essentially begin with his entry into the preparatory class of Saint-Cyr Military School in Paris, as if he had wished to erase his debt to the Jewish family that had accommodated him, and ensured his education.
Indeed, he expressed extreme antisemitism, especially during the Second World War.
He was accepted into the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, under the name of "Maxime de Nimal", as a foreign cadet (Belgian). Successfully graduating in 1887, he was first posted to a cavalry regiment. He was then adopted by an accountant of Mr. Cohen de Léon, Mr. Weygand, from whom he took his surname. He became a naturalized French citizen and became an instructor at Saumur.
At the time of the Dreyfus affair, he was one of the most antidreyfusard officers of his regiment, while supporting the widow of Colonel Henry, who committed suicide after the discovery of the falsification of the charges against Captain Dreyfus.
Once promoted to Captain, Weygand chose not to attempt the difficult preparation of the High School of War, because of his desire, he said, to keep contact with the troops. This did not prevent him from later becoming an instructor at the aristocratic School of Cavalry of Saumur.
Weygand During World War I
Weygand passed the war of 1914-18 as a Staff Officer. At the outbreak, he satisfied his taste for contact with the troops while spending 26 days with the 5ème Hussards. On the 28th of August, he became a Lieutenant-Colonel on the staff of Ferdinand Foch. He was promoted to Brigadier General in 1916 and Major General in 1918, serving in the Supreme War Council from 1917. He remained on Foch's staff when Foch was appointed Supreme Allied Commander. In 1918 he served on the armistice negotiations, and it was Weygand who read out the armistice conditions to the Germans at Compiegne, in the famous railway carriage.
Inter-war period
Weygand in Poland
After the war his career continued well despite the retirement of Foch. Weygand was briefly sent as an advisor to Poland in 1920 during the Polish-Soviet War, trying without much success to aid Józef Piłsudski. The mission also included French diplomat Jean Jules Jusserand and the British diplomat Lord Edgar Vincent D'Abernon. It achieved little; indeed, the crucial Battle of Warsaw was fought and won by the Poles before the mission could return and make its report. Subsequently, for many years, the myth that the timely arrival of Allied forces saved Poland was begun, a myth in which Weygand occupies the central role.
Weygand travelled to Warsaw in the expectation of assuming command of the Polish army, yet he met with a very disappointing reception. His first meeting with Piłsudski on 24 July started on the wrong foot, as he had no answer to Piłsudski's opening question, "How many divisions do you bring?" Weygand had no divisions to offer. On 27 July, he was installed as adviser to the Polish Chief of Staff, Rozwadowski, but their cooperation was poor. He was surrounded by officers who regarded him as an interloper and who deliberately spoke in Polish, depriving him not only of a part in their discussions but even of the news from the front. His suggestions for the organization of Poland's defence were systematically rejected. At the end of July he proposed that the Poles hold the line of the Western Bug; a week later he proposed a purely defensive posture along the Vistula. Neither plan was accepted. One of his few contributions was to insist that a system of written staff orders should replace the existing haphazard system of orders passed by word of mouth. He was of special assistance to General Władysław Sikorski, to whom he expounded the advantages of the River Wkra. But on the whole he was quite out of his element, a man trained to give orders yet placed among people without the inclination to obey, a proponent of defence in the company of enthusiasts for the attack. On 18 August, when he met Piłsudski again he was told nothing of the great victory, but was "regaled instead with a Jewish tale". It offended his dignity as a "representant de la France" and he threatened to leave. Indeed there was nothing to do but leave. The battle was won; armistice negotiations were beginning; the crisis had passed. He urged D'Abernon and Jusserand to pack their bags and make as decent an exit as possible. He was depressed by his failure and dismayed by Poland's disregard for the Entente. On the station at Warsaw on 25 August he was consoled by the award of the medal, the Virtuti Militari; at Cracow on the 26th he was dined by the mayor and corporation; at Paris on the 28th he was cheered by crowds lining the platform of the Gare de l'Est, kissed on both cheeks by the Premier Alexandre Millerand and presented with the Grand Order of the Legion of Honour. He could not understand what had happened and has admitted in his memoirs that "the victory was Polish, the plan was Polish, the army was Polish". He was the first uncomprehending victim, as well as the chief beneficiary, of a legend already in circulation that he, Weygand, was the victor of Warsaw. This legend persisted for more than forty years even in academic circles.
Weygand in the peace
Weygand was elected a member of the Académie française (seat #35) in 1931. He also served as high commissioner in Syria and as Inspector-General of the army from 1931 before retiring in 1935. Weygand was recalled to active service by Edouard Daladier in August 1939 to head the French forces in the Middle East.
Weygand in World War II
The short but efficient contribution of Weygand to the French military disaster
Weygand was recalled to active service by Edouard Daladier in August 1939 to head the French forces in the Middle East, where although France had been at war only with Germany, he had prepared his troops for a takeover by force against Soviet oil fields.
By May 1940 the military disaster in France was such that the Supreme Commander, Maurice Gamelin, was dismissed, and Weygand recalled to replace him. Weygand arrived on May 17 and started by cancelling the side counter-offensive ordered by Gamelin, to cut off the enemy armoured columns which had punched through the French front. Thus he lost 2 crucial days before finally adopting the solution however obvious of his predecessor. But it was by then a failed manouvre, because during the 48 lost hours, the German infantry had caught up behind their tanks in the breakthrough and had consolidated their gains. Weygand then oversaw the creation of the Weygand line, an early application of the Hedgehog tactic; however, by this point the situation was untenable. After further vain attempts to contain the enemy advance he then favoured an armistice with Germany.
Weygand under the Vichy Regime
In June, he was appointed in the Bordeaux-Vichy cabinet, where he was made Minister for National Defence for three months (June to September 1940), and then Delegate-General to the North African colonies.
There:
- He convinced the young officers, tempted by dissidence, of the accuracy of the armistice, in letting them hope for a later resumption of the combat.
- He deported opponents to terrible southern Algeria and Morocco concentration camps: There, he locked up with the complicity of Admiral Abrial, the adversaries of Vichy regim (Gaullists, Francs Maçons, communists, etc.), the foreign volunteers of Légion Etrangère, the foreign refugees without any contract of employment (but regularly entered in France), etc..
- He applied very harshly the Vichy "racist" laws against Jews (see Vichy France). But moreover, with the complicity of the Recteur (University chancellor) G. Hardy, Weygand instituted on his own authority by a mere "note de service n°343QJ" du 30 septembre 1941, a school "numerus clausus" driving out from the colleges and from the primary schools most of the Jewish pupils, and even the little children from 5 to 11 years old). Weygand did that without any law of Marshall Philippe Pétain, "by analogy," Weygand said, "with the law about Higher Education".
Weygand has acquired a reputation, as an opponent of collaboration, when he protested in Vichy against the Protocols of Paris of 28 May 1941, signed by Admiral Darlan, agreements which alloted bases to the Axis in Alep (Syria), Bizerte and Dakar, and envisaged a military collaboration with Axis forces in the event of Allied response.
The Weygand General Delegation (4th Office) collaborated with Germany, while making delivery to the Africa Korps of Rommel 1200 French trucks and other vehicles of the French army (Dankworth contract of 1941), as well as a certain number of pieces of heavy artillery, accompanied with 1000 shells per gun.
Weygand was apparently favourable to "collaboration" with Germany, but with discretion. Additionally, when he opposed German bases in Africa, he did not intend to be neutral or to help the allied camp: Rather, he only sought to prevent the French from losing prestige with the natives.
Nevertheless, since Hitler wanted full collaboration, he put pressure on the Vichy government to obtain the dismissal and recall of Weygand in November 1941. One year later, in November 1942, following the Allied invasion of North Africa, Weygand was arrested. He remained imprisoned until May 1945, when he fell to the hands of the Americans.
Last years
After returning to France, he was held as a collaborator at the Val-de-Grâce but finally was released in May 1946 and cleared in 1948.
References
Polish Period
- Edgar Vincent d'Abernon, The Eighteenth Decisive Battle of the World: Warsaw, 1920, Hyperion Press, 1977, ISBN 0883554291.
- Piotr Wandycz, General Weygand and the Battle of Warsaw, Journal of Central European Affairs, 1960
- Norman Davies, White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919-20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0712606947.
Second world war
- Henri Michel, Vichy, année 40, Robert Laffont, Paris, 1967.
- William Langer, Our Vichy gamble, Alfred Knopf, New York 1947.
- Professeur Yves Maxime Danan, La vie politique à Alger de 1940 à 1944, Librairie générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, Paris, 1963.
- Général Albert Merglen, Novembre 1942: La grande honte, L'Harmattan, Paris 1993.
| Preceded by: Joseph Joffre |
Seat 35 Académie française |
Succeeded by: Louis Leprince-Ringuet |
