What about Pétain?

So, reading mostly from French sources it appears like Pétain is somewhat incompetent, and not great, even before the whole debacle of the French capitulation.

However, it may be a reinterpretation post-facto due to his difficult relationship with de Gaulle and his establishment of a fascist dictatorship.

So, up to him replacing Reynaud, how good was he? Was he actually competent? Were his views on warfare outdated?

I am curious to see how he's percieved abroad, especially by the many WWII scholars lurking around here.

Of note: I don't particularly want to discuss after he becomes head of state, really more interested in what happens before that
 

Archibald

Banned
It all started with Verdun in 1916. Coming after the 1916-Gamelin (General Nivelle, one hell of a massive idiot) it seems Pétain somewhat saved the day and this gave him a crapton of prestige afterwards.

He was known as "le vainqueur de Verdun" and that meant a lot of prestige. (For the record, it was the same Pétain that had mutin soldiers shot to make an example.)

When France faced a peril worse than Verdun in May-June 1940 Reynaud, like much of France, just recalled "Le Vainqueur de Verdun" to the rescue. The rest is history...
 
Were his views on warfare outdated?
On the contrary, Petain was a forward thinker in a largely backwards and imbecilic officer corps (prior to the Great War, anyway). When the prevailing theory was that French armies should attack, attack, always attack, regardless of their strength or that of their enemies, Col. Petain was a lone voice arguing that ratio of firepower should dictate whether one took the offensive. The French High Command seriously believed that the machine gun was a toy; the Director-General of Infantry said "This weapon will change absolutely nothing," and they only made a few, basically as a PR stunt. Petain urged them to reconsider, and included a section on machine guns in an infantry manual he had been tasked with. It was removed.

Petain may not have been Napoleon reborn, but his grasp of the basic, changing realities of warfare prior to 1914 put him head and shoulders above his peers.
 
... The French High Command seriously believed that the machine gun was a toy; the Director-General of Infantry said "This weapon will change absolutely nothing," and they only made a few, basically as a PR stunt. Petain urged them to reconsider, and included a section on machine guns in an infantry manual he had been tasked with. It was removed....

One minor quibble here. Pre 1915 the French issued MG at the same ratio as the Germans & British, two per 1000 man battalion. Main difference was the French MG was a air cooled clip fed weapon with a much lower sustained fire rate than the water cooled belt fed models the Germans & Brits had.

A few other minor points. the Germans initially had their MG as part of the light field artillery. That led to broad and through training of the crews. However the company and battalion leaders were undertrained in how to use the weapons. That led to uneven results in the opening weeks or months of the war. The Brits were a little better in their tactical use. Like the Germans the French company commanders had little idea of how to take advantage of the MG, and the battalion commander often did not make it available to them. So trained MG crews often sat relatively idle in the first battles of August & September. By October most surviving infantry leaders had changed their opinion & were insisting more MG & MG training were needed. The older crocs at the regiment, brigade, or division HW were slower to come around, but by early 1915 there was the start of a explosion of numbers of automatic weapons in the infantry battalion.
 
Pétain was not a fascist. He was, like the vast majority of the french officer corps especially those who were regulars before WWI, right wing, Catholic (in the observant sense), anti-Dreyfusard, and so forth. He saw it was his duty to run France post-armistice and preserve as much as possible for the postwar period. Having said that, because of his politics and ideology he had no problems with the use of the French police in the unoccupied zone to round up Jews to be handed over to the Nazis. Until the Germans occupied Vichy, the police and the milice were pretty vigorous in tracking down and arresting resistance operatives (communist, Gaullist, did not matter).

There was always tension between Pétain and other members of the Vichy government who were overtly fascist and pushing for greater cooperation between Vichy and the Germans. French politics, in and out of the military, during the 1930's was particularly convoluted, even for France. IMO Pétain represented a very mainstream conservative/right wing viewpoint in France which had the support of a significant part of the population.
 
Petain was in his eighties when he took over the government of France. If he was a little confused at times we must remember it is normal for men his age. Beyond that critiquing leaders is like shooting Tuna fish in a barrel. Human events are impossibly complex & mistake are certain. Everyone makes them.

Petains core error in thinking came in June 1940. Like everyone else he thought the war effectively over & negotiations for a peace treaty would ensue. The assumption after the Armistice was signed & a dialoge started with the German government, was that formal negotiations would start in the autum, a treaty written & signed NLT late winter. & France able to look forward to a firm date for the departure of the German armies within the year. Like everyone else Petain was dumfounded when there was no move from the German government to start negotiations. A inquiry sent early autum got a informal reply that amounted to 'I have not given the matter any thought'.

Petains last and best chance for redemption came in November 1942. he could have sacrificed himself & Metropolitan France by violating the core Armistice clauses & given Darlan & the other colonial governors clear orders to go over to the Allies. The occupation would have been harsher, but avoiding a six months campaign in Tunisia ends the war a few months sooner and saves hundreds of thousands of lives. Instead he choked on the opportunity, dithering in a attempt to have it both ways. In three days of battle the French killed 312 Allied soldiers, lost their independence, while the Germans seized two major ports and airfield complexes in Tunisia without having to wound a single Allied soldier or suffering a single casualty from the French.

Paxtons 'Vichy France' & Jacksons 'The Dark Years' have a lot of analysis & details about Petain in the last major responsibility of his life.
 
Having said that, because of his politics and ideology he had no problems with the use of the French police in the unoccupied zone to round up Jews to be handed over to the Nazis.

In particular, the original texts of the Vichy decrees about the Jews were found a couple of years ago, with notes by Pétain's hand that considerably hardened the text compared to the typed version. This ran contrary to the old “Pétain was the shield, De Gaulle the sword” myth.
 
Thanks for all the answers, this is very interesting.

I know he was on the right, I believe that was relatively standard for the officer corps, and the main problem for the parliament to creating a standing army (fear of it turning into a Pretorian Guard were massive) but there seems to be quite a blurry zone between pro-German fascism, Nationalist Fascism/Authoritarism (like Maurras) and just being very conservative. Problem being most of those were anti-semitic to some degree anyway

So for most of you, Pétain would just be very conservative?
 

Archibald

Banned
I use to think that after the armistice Petain saw himself as a french Franco, in the sense that Spain remained out of WWII and neutral.
As a French ambassador in Spain Petain had known General Franco since France and Spain fought together in the Rift (Maroccan) war in the mid-20's.
Petain tried to do the same with Vichy France - neutrality. It was, however, a hopeless move. The nazis intended to drag Vichy France in the direction of the Axis. Unlike Spain, France was committed to WWII whatever happened.
 
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