ALLIED LEADERS (26): General Petain

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 49, 31 May 1940, Page 2

ALLIED LEADERS (26): General Petain

who has become M. Reynaud’s right hand man as vice-premier of France, will be remembered as the soldier who commanded the heroic defences of Verdun during the last war. By his personal courage and his initiative he organised such defences that the onslaughts of the German armies were opposed for months. Verdun is one of the imperishable stories of the last war. All the might of the German Crown Prince’s armies could not batter their way through the line, General Pétain, who is a marshal of France, was commanding a brigade of infantry when the last war broke out. By 1917 he was General in Chief of his country’s army in the field. Until recently he was French Ambassador in Madrid. The vice-Premier began his military career at the famous military school of St. Cyr, which he left in 1878 with the rank of lieutenant. After a course at the Ecole de Guerre he became captain of an Alpine regiment, then, after a period on the staffs of the 15th Army Corps and the Military Governor of Paris. he was appointed first to the staff of the Army School at Chalons and then to the staff of the Ecole de Guerre. When the last war broke out he was appointed to command Charleroi. As the war developed he was given an infantry division in the Battle of the Marne and (; ENERAL PHILIPPE PETAIN,

then command of the 33rd Army Corps, with which, he stormed Carency. In June, 1915, he took over command of the 2nd Army and from February to May he was the hero of Verdun. From there he was given command of a group of armies and in May, 1917, he took over complete command in the field. General Petain was Secretary of War for France in 1934.