Jean de Lattre de Tassigny

Jean Joseph Marie Gabriel de Lattre de Tassigny (2 February 1889 – 11 January 1952) was a French général d'armée during World War II and the First Indochina War. He was posthumously elevated to the dignity of Marshal of France in 1952.

As an officer during World War I, he fought in various battles, including at Verdun, and was wounded five times, surviving the war with eight citations, the Legion of Honour, and the Military Cross. During the Interwar period, he took part in the Rif War in Morocco, where he was again wounded in action. He went on to serve in the Ministry of War and the staff of Conseil supérieur de la guerre under the vice president Général d'armée Maxime Weygand.

Early in World War II, from May to June 1940, he was the youngest French general. He led the 14th Infantry Division during the Battle of France in the battles of Rethel, Champagne-Ardenne, and Loire, until the Armistice of 22 June 1940. During the Vichy Regime he remained in the Armistice Army, first in regional command posts then as commander-in-chief of troops in Tunisia. After the Allied invasion of French North Africa in November 1942 the Germans invaded the unoccupied portion of France; de Lattre, Commander of the 16th Military Division at Montpellier, refused the orders not to fight the Germans and was the only active general to order his troops to oppose the invaders. He was arrested but escaped and defected to Charles de Gaulle's Free French Forces at the end of 1943. From 1943 to 1945 he was one of the senior leaders of the Liberation Army, commanding the forces that landed in the South of France on 15 August 1944, then fought up to the Rivers Rhine and Danube. He commanded large numbers of American troops when the US XXI Corps was assigned to his First Army during the battle of the Colmar Pocket. He was also the French representative at the signing of the German Instrument of Surrender in Berlin on 8 May 1945.

He became Commander-in-Chief of French Forces in Germany in 1945, then Inspector General and Chief of Staff of the French Army. In March 1947 he became the vice-president of the Conseil supérieur de la guerre. From 1948 to 1950 he served as Commander-in-chief of the Western Union's ground forces. In 1951 he was the High Commissioner, commander-in-chief in Indochina and commander-in-chief of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps, winning several battles against the Việt Minh. His only son was killed there, and then illness forced him to return to Paris where he died of cancer in 1952. He was elevated to the dignity of Marshal of France posthumously in 1952 during his state funeral.

Early life

Jean Joseph Marie Gabriel de Lattre de Tassigny was born on 2 February 1889 in Mouilleron-en-Pareds, Vendée, in the same village as World War I leader Georges Clemenceau. He was the son of Roger de Lattre de Tassigny and Anne-Marie Louise Henault, the daughter of the mayor of Mouilleron. Her grandfather had been his predecessor, assuming the office in 1817. In turn, Roger de Lattre succeeded his father-in-law as mayor in 1911, and still held the office forty years later. An ancestor had added the suffix "de Tassigny" to the family name in 1740, after the family property of Tassigny near Guise. He had an older sister, Anne-Marie, who later became the Comtesse de Marcé.

From 1898 to 1904 de Lattre attended the College of Saint-Joseph in Poitiers, where his father had gone. He then decided that he would join the Navy, and to prepare he went to the College de Vaugirard, where Henri de Gaulle was a teacher. He passed the written examinations for the Navy but missed the oral examination owing to illness. He then went to the at Lycée privé Sainte-Geneviève in Versailles to prepare for the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr, where he won a place in 1908. Before he entered, his father sent him to Brighton in England to improve his English. As was the custom in the French Army, he also served in the ranks for four months, in his case, with the at Provins, south east of Paris. He was a cadet at Saint-Cyr from 1909 to 1911 (Mauritanie promotion). One instructor expressed the hope that de Lattre was not related to the one who had raised the white flag of Henri, Count of Chambord over Saint-Cyr in 1873. This was his uncle, and henceforth de Lattre refused to have anything to do with the instructor. He ultimately graduated 201st out of 210 in his class, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant on 1 October 1910. He then went on to the Saumur Cavalry School.

First World War

De Lattre was assigned to the , which was stationed at Toul and Pont-à-Mousson near the frontier with Germany and still wore red riding breeches and a helmet with a plume. He was promoted to lieutenant on 1 October 1912. )

De Lattre commanded a battalion of the 4th Infantry Regiment, which was stationed at Auxerre, and prepared for the entrance examination for the École de guerre, coached by Captain Augustin Guillaume, an officer he had met while serving in Morocco. He managed to pass the examinations, and entered the École de guerre as the senior officer of his year. One of the staff exercises involved command of an invading force tasked with capturing Cherbourg from the sea. After graduation in 1928, he was assigned to the at Coulommiers as a battalion commander.

In 1931, de Lattre was assigned to the 4th Bureau of the Ministry of War, responsible for logistics. He was promoted to on 24 March 1932. On 20 June, he joined the staff of the Conseil supérieur de la guerre, serving under the vice president, Général d'armée Maxime Weygand. French forces burned crops in areas of Việt Minh activity. His last words before losing consciousness on 9 January were: "Where is Bernard?" He died on 11 January.

De Lattre was posthumously elevated to the dignity of Marshal of France by the President of France, Vincent Auriol, on the day of his funeral procession, 15 January 1952 at Notre-Dame de Paris, Les Invalides in presence of de Gaulle, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Montgomery. He was buried in a state funeral lasting five days, in what Life magazine described as the "biggest military funeral France had seen since the death of Marshal Foch in 1929". His body was moved through the streets of Paris in a series of funeral processions, with the coffin lying in state at four separate locations: his home, the chapel at Les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe and before Notre-Dame. Those marching in the funeral procession included members of the French cabinet, judges, bishops and Western military leaders. The route included the Rue de Rivoli and the Champs-Élysées. 4 April 1916 26 June 1926 24 March 1932 24 June 1935

Brigade general Division general Corps general Army general Marshal of France

20 March 1939 26 June 1941 Posthumous

Honours and decorations De Lattre was awarded the following awards and decorations:

Name Date Source

Grand Cross of the National Order of the Legion of Honour

Grand Officer of the National Order of the Legion of Honour

Commander of the National Order of the Legion of Honour

Officer of the National Order of the Legion of Honour

Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honour

Companion of the National Order of Liberation

Name Date Source

Military medal

War Cross 1939–1945 – Eight palms

Name Country Source

Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath United Kingdom

Cross of Grunwald – 1st class Poland

Grand Cross of the Order of the Liberator General San Martín Argentina

Publications Histoire de la Première Armée française Rhin et Danube. Plon, Paris 1949 Ne pas subir. Writings between 1914 and 1952, Plon, Paris 1984 Reconquérir : 1944–1945. Texts gathered and presented by Jean-Luc Barré, Plon, Paris 1985 La Ferveur et le sacrifice : Indochine 1951. Texts gathered and presented by Jean-Luc Barré, Plon, Paris 1987

Footnotes