Philippe Pétain

Henri Philippe Bénoni Omer Joseph Pétain (French: [filip petɛ̃]; 24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), better known as Marshal Pétain (French: maréchal Pétain, [maʁeʃal petɛ̃]), was a French military officer who commanded the French Army in World War I and later became the head of the collaborationist regime of Vichy France, from 1940 to 1944, during World War II.

Pétain was admitted to the Saint-Cyr Military Academy in 1876 and pursued a career in the military, achieving the rank of colonel by the outbreak of World War I. He led the French Army to victory at the nine-month-long Battle of Verdun, for which he was called "the Lion of Verdun" (French: le lion de Verdun). After the failed Nivelle Offensive and subsequent mutinies, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief and succeeded in restoring control. Pétain remained in command for the rest of the war and emerged as a national hero. During the interwar period, he was head of the peacetime French Army, commanded joint Franco-Spanish operations during the Rif War and served twice as a government minister. During this time he was known as le vieux Maréchal ("the Old Marshal").

On 16 June 1940, with the imminent Fall of France and the government desire for an armistice, Prime Minister Paul Reynaud resigned, recommending to President Albert Lebrun that he appoint Pétain in his place, which he did that day, while the government was at Bordeaux. The government then resolved to sign armistice agreements with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The entire government subsequently moved briefly to Clermont-Ferrand, then to the town of Vichy in central France. A Congress of the French Parliament voted on 10 July to transform the French Third Republic into the French State, better known as Vichy France, an authoritarian puppet regime that was allowed to govern the southeast of France in collaboration with the Axis powers, and Pétain became head of state. Aged 84 at his appointments, he remains the oldest head of government and head of state of France. After Germany and Italy occupied all of France in November 1942, Pétain's government worked closely with the German military administration.

After the war, Pétain was tried and convicted for treason on 15 August 1945. He was originally sentenced to death, but due to his age and World War I service his sentence was commuted to life in prison. He died aged 95 on Île d'Yeu, where he had served five years in prison. His journey from military obscurity, to hero of France during World War I, to collaborationist ruler during World War II, led his successor Charles de Gaulle to declare that Pétain's life was "successively banal, then glorious, then deplorable, but never mediocre".