Maurice Gamelin

Maurice Gustave Gamelin (French pronunciation: [mɔʁis ɡystav ɡamlɛ̃]; 20 September 1872 – 18 April 1958) was a French general who served as head of the French Army from 1935 and as Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies in France from the outbreak of the Second World War to his dismissal during the Battle of France in May 1940. The strategic choices Gamelin made ultimately left France vulnerable to a lightning offensive through the Ardennes and have been extensively criticised by historians.

Gamelin distinguished himself in the First World War. As an advisor to Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre, he played an active role in planning the First Battle of the Marne in 1914. Later, as commander of a division in 1918, he successfully contributed to the halting of the initial push of the German spring offensive despite being vastly outnumbered. Between 1919 and 1924, Gamelin headed the French military mission to Brazil. In September 1925, he was placed in command of French troops in the Levant and led the pacification of the Great Syrian Revolt.

In 1931, Gamelin assumed the position of Chief of the Army Staff, later succeeding General Maxime Weygand as Vice-President of the Conseil supérieur de la guerre (head of the army) in 1935. A staunch republican, Gamelin ensured that the army stayed out of politics following the election of the Popular Front in 1936 and developed a close working relationship with Édouard Daladier. Gamelin's responses to the geopolitical crises of the interwar period, up until the 1939 Danzig crisis, were marked by caution and served to dissuade French politicians from military intervention.

Gamelin's war strategy envisioned a long war (guerre de longue durée) in which Germany would be weakened by an Allied blockade while Britain and France built up their forces, eventually creating the conditions for a decisive offensive. During the Phoney War, Gamelin opted for the Dyle plan, which extended the planned forward defence into Belgium. He amended the plan in March 1940 to commit more forces to the forward defence, depleting the northern strategic reserve, which played directly into the hands of the German invasion plan. Gamelin was dismissed from command in the midst of the subsequent rapid French collapse on 19 May, just nine days into the battle.

Disgraced after the defeat, Gamelin was imprisoned by the Vichy regime and tried at the Riom Trial in 1942, where he refused to answer the charges against him. In March 1943, he was arrested by the Germans and taken to Tyrol where he was held alongside other French VIP prisoners. He and the other French VIPs were freed after the Battle of Castle Itter in May 1945. After the war, Gamelin lived a life of solitude until his death in 1958.