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Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain (April 24, 1856 - July 23, 1951), generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain, was a French soldier and leader of Vichy France. He became a French hero because of his military leadership in World War I, yet he was tried and imprisoned for treason in his old age because of his collaboration with the Germans in World War II.
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.
World War I
Pétain was a distinguished veteran of World War I, and in particular the Battle of Verdun. As a result of his brilliant defence at Verdun, he became known as the "saviour of Verdun" and hailed as a French hero. Verdun became a symbol of French determination, inspired by Pétain’s declaration: "ils ne passeront pas!" (They shall not pass!)
Due to his remarkable ability and high prestige, Pétain rose to be Commander-in-Chief of the French army during World War I; it could be argued that because of his successful defensive strategy, France survived the devastation of German invasion, 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.
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.
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 an "independent" government that located 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 the allowance of every power--Constitutive, Legislative, Executive and Judicial--to Marshall Pétain, so as to suspend the constitution of the Third Republic and make Pétain supreme dictator. As Pétain despised the republican form of government, mainly in the shape of the 3rd republic, which he considered to be weak and responsible for France's failure in the war, he took "Head of the State" as his only title, and abolished the positions of president and prime minister. Even though Pétain called his regime L'État français (the French State), it was never a State but only a government of fact, not of law.
As leader of this dictatorial regime, a personality cult was set up and Pétain's image was spread throughout France, portraying him as a father figure to the nation (le Maréchal = "the Marshal"). 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 its new powers to order measures of suspension of republican civil servants and to intern opponents and foreign refugees. He also adopted, as early as October 1940, Hitler-inspired laws against Jewish citizens (largely stronger laws than Mussolini's), and against "Francs-Maçons". 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 dictatorial regime.
Pétain never refused any of the requests, by the Germans and his successive Deputies Pierre Laval and Admiral François Darlan, to side with the Axis Powers. Pétain even took the initiative to "collaborate" with the enemy, in an official radio speech on 30 October 1940. Pétain also never resisted pressure to deport large numbers of French Jews to German death camps, and his police helped German forces to arrest Jews and resistants . 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 resist Allied forces everywhere (in Dakar, Syria, Madagascar, Oran and Morocco), and to receive German forces without any resistance (in Syria, Southern France and Tunisia).
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 September 7, 1944 he and other members of the Vichy cabinet were moved to Sigmaringen and soon after he resigned as leader.
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 August 17, 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.
Bibliography
- Henri Michel, Vichy, année 40, Robert Laffont, Paris, 1967.
- William Langer, Our Vichy gamble, Alfred Knopf, New-York, 1947.
- Jean-Pierre Azéma et François Bedarida,Vichy et les Français, Paris, Fayard, 1996.
- Professeur François-Georges Dreyfus, Histoire de Vichy, Éditions de Fallois, 2004.
- Professeur Yves Maxime Danan, La vie politique à Alger, de 1940 à 1944, L.G.D.J., Paris 1963.
- Général Albert Merglen, Novembre 1942: La grande honte, L'Harmattan, Paris 1993.
Lists of the successive Pétain governments until 1942
Pétain's First Government, 16 June - 12 July 1940
- Philippe Pétain - President of the Council
- Camille Chautemps - Vice President of the Council
- Paul Baudoin - Minister of Foreign Affairs
- Maxime Weygand - Minister of National Defense
- Louis Colson - Minister of War
- Charles Pomaret - Minister of the Interior
- Yves Bouthillier - Minister of Finance and Commerce
- André Février - Minister of Labour
- Charles Frémicourt - Minister of Justice
- François Darlan - Minister of Military and Merchant Marine
- Bertrand Pujo - Minister of Air
- Albert Rivaud - Minister of National Education
- Jean Ybarnegaray - Minister of French Family and Veterans
- Albert Chichery - Minister of Agriculture and Supply
- Albert Rivière - Minister of Colonies
- Ludovic-Oscar Frossard - Minister of Public Works and Transmissions
Changes
- 23 June - Adrien Marquet and Pierre Laval enter the Cabinet as Ministers of State
- 27 June 1940 - Adrien Marquet succeeds Pomaret as Minister of the Interior. André Février succeeds Frossard as Minister of Transmissions. Frossard remains Minister of Public Works. Charles Pomaret succeeds Février as Minister of Labour.
Pétain's Second Government, 12 July - 6 September 1940
- Philippe Pétain - Head of State and President of the Council
- Pierre Laval - Vice President of the Council
- Paul Baudoin - Minister of Foreign Affairs
- Maxime Weygand - Minister of National Defense
- Louis Colson - Minister of War
- Adrien Marquet - Minister of the Interior
- Yves Bouthillier - Minister of Finance
- René Belin - Minister of Industrial Production and Labour
- Raphaël Alibert - Minister of Justice
- François Darlan - Minister of Marine
- Bertrand Pujo - Minister of Aviation
- Émile Miraud - Minister of Public Instruction
- Pierre Caziot - Minister of Agriculture and Supply
- Henry Lémery - Minister of Colonies
- Jean Ybarnegaray - Minister of Youth and Family
- François Piétri - Minister of Communication
Pétain's Third Government, 6 September 1940 - 25 February 1941
- Philippe Pétain - Head of State and President of the Council
- Pierre Laval - Vice President of the Council
- Paul Baudoin - Minister of Foreign Affairs
- Charles Huntziger - Minister of National Defense
- Marcel Peyrouton - Minister of the Interior
- Yves Bouthillier - Minister of Finance
- René Belin - Minister of Industrial Production and Labour
- Raphaël Alibert - Minister of Justice
- François Darlan - Minister of Marine
- Jean Bergeret - Minister of Aviation
- Georges Ripert - Minister of Public Instruction and Youth
- Pierre Caziot - Minister of Agriculture and Supply
- Charles Platon - Minister of Colonies
- Jean Berthelot - Minister of Communication
Changes
- 28 October 1940 - Pierre Laval succeeds Baudoin as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
- 13 December 1940 - Pierre Laval loses his positions. Pierre Étienne Flandin succeeds Laval as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Jacques Chevalier succeeds Ripert as Minister of Public Instruction and Youth. Paul Baudoin becomes Minister of Information
- 2 January 1941 - Paul Baudoin ceases to be Minister of Information, and the office is abolished.
- 27 January 1941 - Joseph Barthélemy succeeds Alibert as Minister of Justice.
- 10 February 1941 - François Darlan succeeds Flandin as Minister of Foreign Affairs
Pétain's Fourth Ministry, 25 February - 12 August 1941
- Philippe Pétain - Head of State and President of the Council
- François Darlan - Vice President of the Council, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of the Interior, and Minister of Marine
- Charles Huntziger - Minister of National Defense
- Yves Bouthillier - Minister of Finance and National Economy
- Pierre Pucheu - Minister of Industrial Production
- René Belin - Minister of Labour
- Joseph Barthélemy - Minister of Justice
- Jean Bergeret - Minister of Aviation
- Jérôme Carcopino - Minister of National Education and Youth
- Pierre Caziot - Minister of Agriculture
- Jean-Louis Achard - Minister of Supply
- Charles Platon - Minister of Colonies
- Jacques Chevalier - Minister of Family and Health
- Jean Berthelot - Minister of Communication
- Henri Moysset - Minister of Information
Changes
- 18 July 1941 - Pierre Pucheu succeeds Darlan as Minister of the Interior. Darlan retains his other posts. François Lehideux succeeds Pucheu as Minister of Industrial Production.
Pétain's Fifth Government, 12 August 1941 - 18 April 1942
- Philippe Pétain - Head of State and President of the Council
- François Darlan - Vice President of the Council, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of National Defense, and Minister of Marine
- Pierre Pucheu - Minister of the Interior
- Yves Bouthillier - Minister of Finance and National Economy
- François Lehideux - Minister of Industrial Production
- René Belin - Minister of Labour
- Joseph Barthélemy - Minister of Justice
- Jean Bergeret - Minister of Aviation
- Jérôme Carcopino - Minister of National Education and Youth
- Pierre Caziot - Minister of Agriculture
- Paul Charbin - Minister of Supply
- Charles Platon - Minister of Colonies
- Serge Huard - Minister of Family and Health
- Jean Berthelot - Minister of Communication
- Paul Marion - Minister of Information and Propaganda
- Henri Moysset - Minister of State
- Lucien Romier - Minister of State
| 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 See also
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