Philippe Pétain

French statesman and military leader in WW I, the Premier of the Vichy government during WW II and collaborator with the Nazis, using the slogan "Work, Family and Country."

A graduate of the St. Cyr military academy in 1878 and Ecole de guerre, comporting himself well as a colonel in WW I he was promoted to brigadier at Arras in 1915. At Verdun in late February 1916, Petain was made a commander in chief in late April 1917 and a marshal of France under Foch in 1918. In late summer of 1918 he led the successful push of the Germans back to Ardennes. He successfully commanded the French-Spanish campaign against Riff forces in Morocco in 1926 and became Minister of War in 1934.

A handsome, affable man, he liked action and adventure and was capable of hard work and deep concentration. Sent to Spain as an ambassador in 1939, he was loved by the Spanish people but as France started to collapse with the German onslaught of 1940, he returned to Paris, succeeding Reynaud as premier and arranging the capitulation to the Nazis.

He became chief of state in the Vichy government on 11 July 1940. Involved with active collaboration with Germany, he sentenced Charles de Gaulle to death for disciplinary reasons to keep other officers from deserting to the Free French. He sent laborers to Germany, sometimes bluffed the Germans, persecuted the resistance and shamed France with his bumbling contradictions. Fleeing to Switzerland after the liberation of France, Petain was brought back and tried for treason in 1945. Convicted and sentenced to death, his sentence was commuted to life by De Gaulle two days later with incarceration on Ile d'Yeu.

Petain died on the Ile d'Yeu, France on 23 July 1951.