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| Gen. Maxime Weygand the first from right seated, in 1918, during the signing of the armistice treaty with Germany |
Origins
He was raised in Marseilles by the Cohen family of Leon. In his voluminous Memoirs (Volume I is called the Ideal Life), he hardly says a word of his youth (four pages out of 651), except that his governess and the chaplain of his high school Have breathed a strong Catholic faith. His memories, therefore, began practically only when he entered the preparatory class at Saint-Cyr in Paris, as if he did not speak of the Jewish family who had welcomed him and secured his education, no doubt because of his anti-Semitism, Particularly during the Second World War.
Military Beginnings
At the time of the Dreyfus affair, he signalized himself as one of the most anti-Dreyfusard officers of his regiment, subscribing in favor of Colonel Henry's widow, who was committing suicide when his falsification of the slip, which was supposed to overwhelm Dreyfus, was revealed.
Once Captain, Weygand recoiled before the preparation of the School of War, according to him by his desire to remain in contact with the troop. This taste for the troop did not, however, prevent him from entering, shortly afterwards, as an instructor at the school of cavalry at Saumur.
First World War
Poland
In 1920 Weygand ordered the large French reinforcements sent to Poland, under the modest name of "French Military Mission," and came to the aid of the routed Poles. After attacking Russia, which they believed defenseless because of the civil war, they had been defeated and were about to be defeated by the Soviet cavalry of Boudienny and Thukhachevsky .
Thus the French intervention allowed the Poles to benefit from a victory which they had not won, and they took advantage of it to annex very substantial Russian territories well beyond the frontier fixed for Poland by the Treaty of Versailles (Curzon line). The Poles were going to pay dearly for their annexation of Russian territories, since it was to recover them that Stalin was going to ally with Hitler in 1940.
According to some Polish allegations, the Battle of Warsaw was fought and won by themselves, before the French mission could send back and write its report. It is certain that Weygand, who had never commanded fire, unlike many Polish officers, ex-combatants of the Austrian and German armies, was particularly ill-placed to give orders and even councils. Besides, the Polish officers welcomed his pretensions to command, and spoke ostensibly Polish in his presence. Moreover, it seems that he was able to advise only folds and defenses to men who, after having largely withdrawn from themselves, had no choice but the offensive.
This Polish version of the French intervention was nonetheless inaccurate, in that, although Weygand may have been ineffective, the many French officers of his "mission", who Framed and instructed a large part of the Polish forces, and put in a little order. Not to mention the "Polish" aviation, many of which were French pilots. So if it seems quite possible that Weygand's central role was only a myth, appreciable material help from France (which the Poles had judged to be insufficient), was, on the other hand, a A decisive factor in the success of the counter-offensive of a Polish army, dislocated before the arrival of the "Mission".
Weygand returned shocked by Poland's disdain for the cause of the Entente. Poland, resuscitated by the Allies, was led by a majority of Polish officers who had served in the German camp in 1914-18 and were proud to have fought in Prussian or Austrian uniforms. If in the Allied camp, in fact, had fought a few Polish regiments, it was not the same in the German camp, where twenty Polish divisions had served.
In peacetimeWeygand was elected in 1931 at the Académie française (seat 35). He also served as High Commissioner in Syria, then as Inspector-General of the Army in 1931, before retiring in 1935.
But he did not remain indifferent to the military thing and in 1938 he owed him a particularly reassuring article certifying that the French army was the best.
Second World War
Funny war
Weygand was recalled to active service by President Edouard Daladier in August 1939 to lead the French forces in the Middle East, where, although France had not been at war with Germany, it was a coup against the Soviet oil companies that Weygand prepared his troops.
In May 1940 the military situation in France was so compromised that the Supreme Commander, General Maurice Gamelin, was dismissed. Weygand was then recalled to replace him. He arrived on the 17th of May and began by canceling the lateral counter-offensive ordered by Gamelin to cut off the enemy tanks from their rear which had rashly pierced the French front. Weygand, wishing to give himself time for reflection, began by canceling the counter-attack. Thus two days passed, before finally adopting the solution of his predecessor. This was another failure, for during the 48 hours lost, the German troops had massively engulfed themselves in the gap, behind the chariots, and had consolidated it.
Weygand, after a vain attempt to delay the advance of the enemy, pronounced himself for the conclusion of an armistice. Part of the military tactics of the "Hedgehog", which Professor Weygand then professed, but not then put into practice by him, to resist blitzkrieg, would have influenced the doctrinal discussions on anti-blitzkrieg strategies later on.
Vichy Regime
In June, he was appointed to the government of Bordeaux and then to that of Vichy, Minister of National Defense for three months (June to September 1940), and then Delegate General in French Africa. There he convinced the young officers, tempted by the dissent of the justness of the armistice, by letting them hope for a subsequent resumption of the struggle. He applied very harshly the racist laws of Vichy, especially those excluding Jewish students from the university. In addition, in the company of Rector Georges Hardy, he set up a school "numerus clausus" on his own by a simple memorandum No. 343QJ of 30 September 1941, chasing nearly all Jewish children from public institutions Including the tiny ones of primary schools, with the complicity of Rector Hardy, "by analogy with the legislation of higher education". He enclosed with the complicity of Admiral Abrial the opponents of the regime, the foreign volunteers of the Foreign Legion, foreign refugees without a contract of employment (but regularly entered France) in the concentration camps of the south of France, Algeria and Morocco. The 4th Bureau of its General Delegation had 1200 French trucks and other French army vehicles (Dankworth contract in 1941) delivered to the Afrika Korps de Rommel, along with a number of heavy artillery pieces accompanied Of 1000 shells per piece.
Weygand protested in Vichy against the Paris protocols of May 28, 1941 signed by Darlan, which attributed to the Enemy bases at Aleppo, Syria, Bizerte and Dakar, and provided for military collaboration with the Axis, In the event of an allied response. Hitler exerted pressure on the Vichy government to obtain the recall and dismissal of Weygand in November 1941. A year later, in November 1942, after the Allied invasion of North Africa, the Germans placed Weygand in Residence in Germany. He remained there until, in May 1945, he fell into the hands of the Americans. He was first sent to France as a collaborator in Val-de-Grâce, then finally freed in May 1946 and released in 1948.
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