With the imminent Fall of France in June 1940 in World War II, Pétain was appointed President of the Ministerial Council by President Lebrun at Bordeaux, and the Cabinet resolved to sign armistice agreements with Germany and Italy. Still, the handshake he offered to Hitler caused much uproar in London, and probably influenced Britain's decision to lend the Free French naval support for their operations at Gabon. Some argue[who?] In 1928 Pétain had supported the creation of an independent air force removed from the control of the army, and on 9 February 1931, following his retirement as Vice-Chairman of the Supreme War Council, he was appointed Inspector-General of Air Defence. Women were said to find his piercing blue eyes especially attractive. A new Cabinet with Pétain as head of government was formed, with Henry du Moulin de Labarthète as the Cabinet Secretary. [40], That afternoon the British Government offered joint nationality for Frenchmen and Britons in a Franco-British Union. The French heavy machine gun was still the Hotchkiss M1914, a capable weapon but decidedly obsolete compared to the new automatic weapons of German infantry. Charles de Gaulle. France, Battle of; Vichy France Occupation of France, 1940–44. In the postwar years, Petain was promoted to Field Marshal, remaining active in military affairs. Philippe Pétain (1856–1951) was a French Field Marshal, World War One hero and convicted Nazi collaborator. He and Pétain regarded the military situation as hopeless. Reynaud and five ministers thought these proposals acceptable. Pétain however remained popular and engaged in a series of visits around France as late as 1944, when he arrived in Paris on 28 April in what Nazi propaganda newsreels described as a "historic" moment for the city. Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain (born 24 April 1856 ), generally known as Philippe Pétain is an French general officer who attained the position of Marshal of France at the end of World War I, during which he became known as The Lion of Verdun, in his participation in the Coup of 25 May 1925 and in the Regime of Marshals as Minister of National Defense. The jury sentenced him to death by a one-vote majority. Von Renthe-Fink renewed his request twice on the 18th, then returned on the 19th, at 11:30, accompanied by General von Neubroon, who told him that he had "formal orders from Berlin". Pétain ended the war regarded \"without a doubt, the most accomplished defensive tactician of any army\" and \"one of France's greatest military heroes\" and was made a Marshal of France at Metz by President Raymond Poincaré on 8 December 1918. At the same time, the draft constitutional proposals were tabled. Philippe Pétain, in full Henri-Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain, (born April 24, 1856, Cauchy-à-la-Tour, France—died July 23, 1951, Île d’Yeu), French general who was a national hero for his victory at the Battle of Verdun in World War I but was discredited as chief of state of the French government at Vichy in World War II. With the German army occupying two-thirds of the country, Pétain believed he could repair the ruin caused by the invasion and obtain the release of the numerous prisoners of war only by cooperating with the Germans. [42], Lebrun reluctantly accepted Reynaud’s resignation as Prime Minister on 16 June, and felt he had little choice but to appoint Pétain in his place. Pétain in Politics. After leading his corps in the spring 1915 Artois Offensive, in July 1915 he was given command of the Second Army, which he led in the Champagne Offensive that autumn. Churchill returned to France on the 13th for another conference at Tours. In the event, only 26 deputies and 1 senator headed for Africa, amongst them those with Jewish backgrounds, Georges Mandel, Pierre Mendès France, and the former Popular Front Education Minister, Jean Zay. [57] that while Pétain supported the massive use of tanks he saw them mostly as infantry support, leading to the fragmentation of the French tank force into many types of unequal value spread out between mechanised cavalry (such as the SOMUA S35) and infantry support (mostly the Renault R35 tanks and the Char B1 bis). [69], In February 1973, Pétain's coffin housing his remains was stolen from the Île d'Yeu cemetery by extremists, who demanded that President Georges Pompidou consent to its re-interment at Douaumont cemetery among the war dead of the Verdun battle. After Allied landings in November 1942 in North Africa, Pétain secretly ordered Admiral Darlan, then in Algeria, to merge the French forces in Africa with those of the Allies. On 3 March 1949, a meeting of the Council of Ministers (many of them "self-proclaimed heroes of the Resistance" in the words of biographer Charles Williams) had a fierce argument about a medical report recommending that he be moved to Val-de-Grâce (a military hospital in Paris), a measure to which Prime Minister Henri Queuille had previously been sympathetic. He was subsequently decorated, at Toledo, by King Alfonso XIII with the Spanish Medalla Militar. Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Pétain (24 April 1856[1] – 23 July 1951), generally known as Philippe Pétain (/peɪˈtæ̃/, French: [filip petɛ̃]), Marshal Pétain (Maréchal Pétain) and sometimes, The Old Marshal (Le Vieux Maréchal), was a French general officer who attained the position of Marshal of France at the end of World War I, during which he became known as The Lion of Verdun (Le Lion de Verdun). He died in 1951. He criticised the reservist system in France, and her lack of adequate air power and armour. [36] By 8 June, Paris was threatened, and the government was preparing to depart, although Pétain was opposed to such a move. In the southern part of France, left free by the armistice agreement, he set up a paternalistic regime the motto of which was “Work, Family, and Fatherland.” Reactionary by temperament and education, he allowed his government to promulgate a law dissolving the Masonic lodges and excluding Jews from certain professions. Born April 24, 1856 at Cauchy-à-la-Tour, France, Philippe Pétain was the son of a farmer. Dressed in the uniform of a Marshal of France, Pétain remained silent through most of the proceedings after an initial statement that denied the right of the High Court, as constituted, to try him. Later in the year, Pétain was stripped of his right of direct appeal to the French government and requested to report to Foch, who increasingly assumed the co-ordination and ultimately the command of the Allied offensives. 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