Pétain, Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph

b. 1856; d. 1951

French soldier and statesman, born at Cauchy-la-Tour (Pas-de-Calais). Educated at St Cyr, 1876-78, he became a lieutenant in the Alpine Chasseurs, and later a captain attached to the general staff of the 15th Corps at Marseilles, then to the military governor of Paris. Pétain became instructor at the École Normale de Tir at Châlons, 1902, and assistant instructor at the School of War, 1906. He was not made colonel till 1912, when he was placed at the head of the 33rd Infantry at Arras.

At the opening of the First World War he was made a temporary brigadier-general commanding the 4th Brigade, part of the 1st Army Corps. After being in the retreat from Belgium, 1914, Pétain was placed in command of the 6th Division, which fought at the Marne, and was soon afterwards in command of the 33rd Army Corps, which covered Arras. In 1916 Joffre placed him in command of the army formed to relieve Verdun. Pétain soon fulfilled the promise with which his name was to be associated for the next quarter of a century: 'Ils ne passeront pas!' Before the middle of March the German advance was decisively checked. In April Pétain surrendered this command to Nivelle, and took command of the armies of the centre. In May 1917 he became commander of the armies in the north and north-east. In July 1918, the supreme command of British and French forces being now vested in Foch, Pétain was entrusted with the general attack by all French forces.

Pétain was made a Marshall in November 1918, and became a member of the Academy, 1929; vice-president, Council of War, 1920-30; was on Council of National Defence from 1931, and war minister in Doumergue's government 1934.

After the Spanish Civil War he was French ambassador to Spain. In May 1940 Reynaud called him into his Cabinet as vice-premier, but by this time Pétain had become convinced that German victory was inevitable, and was soon urging immediate French capitulation in order to secure the most favourable terms for France, rather than fight on to total collapse. On 16 June he formed a Cabinet and asked Hitler for an armistice, but it was not until 25 June that he told the French people of its detailed conditions. After this he became 'chief of the French state', abolished the republican constitution, and substituted an authoritarian form of government for that part of France which remained unoccupied until the Allied landings in North Africa towards the end of 1942. His real authority, however, was never complete, Laval and the Germans being the controlling force.

Though by the end of the war Pétain's name was spoken of with detestation by the great majority of Frenchmen, it is clear that between 1940 and 1944 many people in Vichy France believed that he had saved them from a considerably worse fate by his action in treating with the Germans. After 1942 Pétain's position as head of state was more uncertain than ever, all effective authority having passed to Laval and the Germans. He had retired from the active political scene by the end of 1943. When the Allied invasion of Europe began he appealed to Frenchmen to remain quiescent. Under German threats Pétain left Vichy and was taken to Belfort and later to Sigmaringen. In April 1945 he voluntarily returned to France, where he was arrested and interned. On a charge of treason he was tried and sentenced to death, this being commuted to life imprisonment. He was taken to the Isle d'Yeu, off the Vendüan coast, where he died. He protested at his trial that his conduct had been actuated by his desire to serve his country in a way he believed best for it. On sentence he declared: 'The French people will not forget. They know that I defended them as I did at Verdun'.

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