Activities and affiliations

Military command France state institutions 1735–1820 ○ Died at Paris in

General who commanded the French at Valmy, Marshal of the Empire

At Valmy on 20 September 1792 Kellermann joined Dumouriez with the Army of the Centre at Dumouriez's request and placed his artillery on the western slopes. He steadied infantry shaken by an exploding ammunition cart and rallied them with the cry 'Vive la Nation'; the Prussians withdrew.

French soldier born in Strasbourg on 28 May 1735. His family, of Saxon origin, had settled in Strasbourg and was ennobled in his grandfather's generation. He entered the royal army in 1750 (or 1752), fought in the Seven Years' War, and became a brigadier in 1788, making him the only Marshal of the Empire to reach general rank under the old regime. Favourable to the Revolution of 1789, he commanded the Army of the Centre at Valmy on 20 September 1792 and drove back the Prussians, earning the name 'the victor of Valmy'. Arrested in November 1793 on suspicion of disloyalty, he spent 13 months in prison during the Terror and was released and reinstated after Robespierre's fall. Marshal in 1804 and Duke of Valmy in 1808, he voted in the Senate for Napoleon's abdication in 1814 and became a peer under Louis XVIII. He died in Paris in 1820.

Military command France state institutions 1739–1823 ○ Died in Britain in exile

French Revolutionary general and statesman who defected to Austria in 1793

He saved the Revolution at Valmy and Jemappes in 1792, but after defeat at Neerwinden on 18 March 1793 he tried to march on Paris and handed the Convention's envoys over to Austria before crossing to the Austrian side. That defection buried the Girondins.

A general and politician of the French Revolutionary Wars. An officer of the royal army in the Seven Years' War, he later commanded the port of Cherbourg. After the Revolution he joined the Jacobin Club, and with Girondin backing he became foreign minister in March 1792, pushed for the declaration of war on Austria and briefly served as war minister. After a conflict with Louis XVI he resigned, then took command of the Army of the North and, with Kellermann, defeated the Prussians at Valmy (20 September 1792) and won at Jemappes (6 November 1792). Beaten at Neerwinden on 18 March 1793, he attempted to march on Paris, dissolve the Convention and restore the 1791 constitution and constitutional monarchy; lacking the army's support he went over to the Austrian side. He died in Britain after years of exile, and his name is inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

Military command France state institutions 1753–1823 → Exiled after the Restoration

The mathematician who organized the army of the Revolution

As the Committee of Public Safety member in charge of personnel and troop movements from 1793, he created fourteen armies and contributed to Jourdan's victory at Wattignies in autumn 1793. Mass conscription raised the army from roughly 645,000 in mid-1793 to about 1.5 million by September 1794.

French mathematician, military officer and politician, born at Nolay in Burgundy in 1753 and dead at Magdeburg in 1823. Elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1791 and to the National Convention in September 1792, from 1793 he handled personnel and troop movements on the Committee of Public Safety, directing conscription and organization and steering France's military successes of 1793–94, for which he was called the 'Organizer of Victory'. Known as an honest administrator and a convinced republican, he broke with Robespierre and helped bring about his overthrow on 9 Thermidor in 1794, and was one of the five initial directors of the Directory. Ousted in the Coup of 18 Fructidor in 1797, he went into exile; Napoleon made him Minister of War in 1800, but he opposed the imperial coronation and withdrew from public life. Exiled by the Second Bourbon Restoration, he died in exile.

Government and administration France state institutions 1755–1794 ✕ Executed

Committee of Public Safety member allied with Robespierre

A lawyer elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1791 and the National Convention in 1792, he joined the Committee of Public Safety in 1793. Working with Robespierre and Saint-Just, he drafted the Law of 22 Prairial, which stripped defendants of counsel and sharply increased executions.

A lawyer and deputy in the Legislative Assembly and National Convention, Couthon joined the Mountain. On the Committee of Public Safety he worked closely with Robespierre and Saint-Just and played a central role in the Law of 22 Prairial, which sharply restricted defendants’ rights. Arrested on 9 Thermidor, he was executed with Robespierre.

Military command France state institutions 1758–1817 ○ Died of tuberculosis in Paris

French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars commander, Marshal of the Empire

At the Second Battle of Zurich in 1799 he led the Army of Helvetia to defeat Korsakov's Austro-Russian force, and in 1800 he held Genoa for about sixty days, tying down Austrian troops so Bonaparte could win at Marengo.

Commander of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He was born Andrea Massena on 6 May 1758 in Nice, then the County of Nice in the Kingdom of Sardinia. He began as an enlisted soldier in the royal Italian regiment, reached the highest rank open to a commoner in 1784, and became a brigade general in August 1793 and a general of division on 20 December 1793. On 19 May 1804 he became one of the first eighteen Marshals of the Empire created by Napoleon, and he was made Duke of Rivoli in 1808 and Prince of Essling in 1809, though some sources record January 1810. He died of tuberculosis in Paris on 4 April 1817, aged 58.

Political and party leadership French revolutionary movement 1760–1829

Politician who moved from the revolutionary triumvirate to the Feuillants

He joined the Third Estate in 1789 but, through the triumvirate and the Feuillants, sought to stabilise the Revolution behind a constitutional monarchy; when the monarchy fell in 1792 he emigrated.

An aristocratic officer and veteran of the American War of Independence, Lameth joined the Third Estate in 1789 and supported the abolition of privilege. He formed the “triumvirate” with Barnave and Duport before becoming a Feuillant defender of constitutional monarchy. After exile and return, he served as a prefect under Napoleon and later as a liberal deputy.

Military command France state institutions 1761–1804 Found dead in prison; suicide or murder disputed

French Revolutionary Wars general, royalist conspirator

In February 1794 he took command of the Army of the North and fought at Fleurus; crossing the frozen rivers in the winter of December 1794–January 1795, he entered Utrecht and Amsterdam, while French hussars captured the Dutch fleet over the ice.

French general of the Revolutionary Wars. In the Flanders campaign he overran the Austrian Netherlands and the Dutch Republic, then fought on the Rhine front; he later adopted Royalist positions, was deported to Cayenne after the Coup of 18 Fructidor (1797), escaped to exile in London and served on Korsakov's staff in 1799. He returned to France, was arrested in the royalist conspiracy against Napoleon, and was found dead in prison in April 1804.

Military command France state institutions 1762–1833

General of the Revolutionary Wars, victor of Fleurus and framer of the 1798 conscription law

His defining revolutionary moment was the decisive victory over the First Coalition at Fleurus in 1794. In 1798, in the Council of Five Hundred, he proposed with fellow deputy Pierre Delbrel the Jourdan Law, conscripting single and childless men aged 20 to 25.

A French soldier who served in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars and became a Marshal of the Empire in 1804. Born at Limoges in 1762, son of the surgeon Roch Jourdan, he fought in the American War of Independence, then in the revolutionary wars led the Army of the North to victory at Wattignies in October 1793 and broke the siege of Maubeuge. He went on to command the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse and won a decisive victory over the First Coalition at Fleurus in 1794. A Jacobin politician under the Directory, he sat in the Council of Five Hundred (1797–1799) and framed the conscription law of 1798, the Jourdan Law. Defeated at Vitoria in 1813, he supported the July Revolution of 1830 and served as governor of the Hôtel des Invalides until his death.

Military command France state institutions 1763–1813 ✕ Mortally wounded at Dresden

French Revolutionary general, victor of Hohenlinden

On 3 December 1800 he led the Army of the Rhine to a decisive victory over an Austrian-Bavarian force at Hohenlinden. The allies' disastrous retreat forced an armistice and led to the Treaty of Lunéville, effectively ending the War of the Second Coalition.

A general produced by the French Revolution, he campaigned on the Rhine and in Italy and won a decisive victory at Hohenlinden in 1800, breaking the Second Coalition. He later became Napoleon's leading rival and was banished; returning to Europe in 1813 as an adviser to the coalition, he was mortally wounded at Dresden.

Military command France state institutions 1767–1823 ○ Died in New Orleans in

French revolutionary general, commander of the 1798 Irish expedition

On 22 August 1798 he landed at Killala and on 27 August defeated British forces under Lord Lake at Castlebar. The Connacht republic was proclaimed on 31 August, and on 8 September he was defeated and taken prisoner at Ballinamuck.

Born in 1767 at Saint-Nabord in the Vosges, he volunteered in 1792, rose quickly, and became a général de brigade in 1794. In 1798 he commanded the expedition to Ireland, landing at Killala on 22 August and defeating British forces at Castlebar on 27 August; he took part in the proclamation of the Connacht republic on 31 August, but surrendered at Ballinamuck on 8 September and returned home in a prisoner exchange. He later served in the Saint-Domingue expedition, moved to the United States in 1813, aided US forces at New Orleans in 1815, and taught French in his last years; he died at New Orleans in 1823.

Military command France state institutions 1768–1800 ✕ Killed at Marengo

French Revolutionary Wars general killed at Marengo

Returning to Europe in March 1800, he arrived at Marengo on 14 June as the Austrians were victorious along the line and led his three regiments against the enemy centre, yet was killed by a musket ball at the moment of victory.

A general of the French Revolutionary Wars. Born in 1768 at Ayat-sur-Sioule in Auvergne, he was educated at the Effiat military school and served in the royal army. In 1792, when most of his family emigrated, he refused and joined the Army of the Rhine, becoming provisional brigadier general on the merits of the combat at Lauterbourg. He served with the Army of the Rhine and in the 1795–1796 campaigns, covering Moreau's retreat, and was provisional commander-in-chief of the Army of England. In Egypt his division bore the Mamluk attack at the Battle of the Pyramids, and his Upper Egypt campaign won him the name 'Just Sultan' among the local population. Returning to Italy in 1800, he led the counterattack at Marengo with Boudet's division and was killed at the moment of victory. He is counted among the greatest generals of the Revolutionary Wars.

Government and administration France state institutions 1769–1821

A conqueror who rose from revolutionary general to emperor

In the coup of 9–10 November 1799 (18 Brumaire), he conspired with Talleyrand and Sieyès and used troops with fixed bayonets to disperse the Council of Five Hundred and overturn the Directory, then took effective power as First Consul.

Born into an Italian-descended Corsican family, he was commissioned in the French royal artillery in 1785, supported the Revolution of 1789, and rose through his victories over royalists at Toulon in 1793 and Vendémiaire in 1795. The Italian campaign of 1796 made him a national hero, and in November 1799 the Brumaire coup overthrew the Directory and made him First Consul; in 1804 he became emperor of the First Empire. He won at Austerlitz in 1805 but was ruined by the Russian campaign of 1812 and Leipzig in 1813, was exiled to Elba in 1814, and after the Hundred Days lost at Waterloo and died on Saint Helena in 1821. His reforms such as the Napoleonic Code and public education endure, while the plunder of occupied lands, suppression of the press and deportation or imprisonment of critics, and the restoration of slavery in the colonies make him a contested figure.

Military command France state institutions 1770–1802 ○ Died of yellow fever

French Revolutionary Wars general and commander of the Guadeloupe expedition

Commander of the Guadeloupe expedition Napoleon sent in 1801–1802; he suppressed Delgrès's resistance but died of yellow fever at Basse-Terre on 3 September 1802, and the insurgency continued until 1804.

Born in Metz in 1770, he joined his father's Conti Dragoon Regiment as a cadet at five. A supporter of the Revolution, he rose from second lieutenant in 1791 to captain in 1793 and chef d'escadron in 1794, and Kléber made him a brigade general in 1796. He served under Hoche in the Army of Sambre and Meuse and distinguished himself at Neuwied. In 1800 he commanded a division in Moreau's Army of the Rhine, leading the flank envelopment at Hohenlinden on 3 December that decided the victory. After the army was dissolved in 1801 he became inspector-general of cavalry of the Batavian Republic. In 1801–1802 Napoleon named him commander of the Guadeloupe expedition; he suppressed Delgrès's resistance and enforced the forcible reinstatement of slavery. He died of yellow fever at Basse-Terre on 3 September 1802.

Military command France state institutions 1856–1951 ○ Treason conviction · life imprisonment

A marshal whose Verdun prestige ended in Vichy collaboration

On 17 June 1940, Pétain broadcast that France must cease fighting.

Philippe Pétain was a French general who became a national hero through his command at Verdun and his effort to restore the army’s morale after the 1917 mutinies. In 1940 he opposed continuing the war against Germany and sought an armistice; after parliament granted him constituent powers, he became head of the French State at Vichy and replaced the republic with an authoritarian regime. His government collaborated with Nazi Germany and enacted antisemitic laws, binding French state institutions to the occupation order. After liberation, the High Court condemned him to death for treason and intelligence with the enemy, but Charles de Gaulle commuted the sentence to life imprisonment.

Military command France state institutions 1867–1965 ○ Natural causes

From Foch's brilliant staff officer to a general of defeat and accommodation

On 12 June 1940, Weygand advised the French government to capitulate.

Maxime Weygand was a French general who served as Ferdinand Foch's key staff officer in the First World War, coordinating Allied operations and reading the armistice terms to the German delegation in 1918. Between the wars he carried French military influence in Poland and the Levant, then became commander-in-chief of the French armies in May 1940 and, after the German breakthrough, judged that continued fighting in metropolitan France was no longer feasible and advised an armistice. He joined the Vichy government and later directed French North Africa, choosing limited accommodation with Germany while enforcing antisemitic measures harshly. Detained after the war on treason charges and cleared in 1948, he later defended Marshal Pétain's memory.

Government and administration France state institutions 1871–1950 ○ Natural causes

Last president of the Third Republic, who signed the 1940 transfer of power

After Paul Reynaud's cabinet fell on 16 June 1940, he appointed Philippe Pétain to head the government; Pétain requested an armistice the next day. He signed the Constitutional Law on 10 July, and Pétain became head of state the day after.

A French centre-right republican politician trained as a mining engineer, he entered the Chamber of Deputies in 1900 at 29 for Meurthe-et-Moselle and presided that department's general council for 26 years from 1906. He was Minister for the Colonies in 1911–1914, briefly Minister of War in 1913 and Minister for the Blockade and Liberated Regions in 1917–1919, entered the Senate in 1920 and became its president in 1931. Elected last president of the Third Republic in 1932 after Paul Doumer's assassination, he was re-elected in 1939 but had little executive room under Third Republic practice. On 16 June 1940 he appointed Pétain to head the government; on 10 July he signed the Constitutional Law carried 569 to 80, and on 11 July Pétain became head of state. He never resigned and was seized by German forces in 1943. He died in Paris on 6 March 1950, aged 78.

Government and administration France state institutions 1872–1950 ○ Heart disease

France's first Socialist prime minister, who left behind paid holidays and the 40-hour week

'I rarely left my desk while in power; but whenever I went out and crossed the Paris suburbs and saw the roads covered with processions of jalopies, motorcycles and tandems, with working-class couples in matching pullovers, I had the feeling that, despite everything, I had brought a kind of clearing, a break in the clouds, into difficult and obscure lives', statement at the Riom trial, March 1942

A literary critic drawn into politics by the Dreyfus affair, he kept the Socialist SFIO's 'old house' standing at the 1920 Congress of Tours when the majority left to found the Communist Party. As prime minister of the 1936 Popular Front government he brokered the Matignon Agreements and enacted two weeks of paid holidays and the 40-hour week, becoming France's first Socialist and first Jewish head of government and a target of the far right. One of the eighty parliamentarians who voted against full powers for Pétain in 1940, he turned Vichy's Riom trial into a platform for defending the Popular Front, survived internment near Buchenwald, and briefly headed a caretaker government in late 1946.

Military command France state institutions 1872–1958 ○ Natural causes

A commander-in-chief caught between defensive doctrine and forward deployment

On 16 May 1940, when Churchill asked him 'Where are the strategic reserves?', Gamelin answered: 'There is none.'

Maurice Gamelin was a French general who rose through the high command on the strength of his First World War staff experience and his reputation as a republican military coordinator. Expecting a long war against Germany, he built strategy around the Maginot Line, yet he limited the Saar Offensive and committed the main Allied movement toward the Dyle and the Belgian frontier when Germany invaded in 1940. After the German breakthrough at Sedan in May 1940, he was dismissed, later detained by Vichy and Germany, and became a central figure in the contested assignment of responsibility for France's defeat.

Security, intelligence and policing France state institutions 1878–1940 ✕ Killed when aircraft was shot down

The Paris prefect of police, hard on the left and indulgent to the leagues, whose dismissal lit the fuse of 6 February

'Then I shall be in the street', on the telephone with Daladier as he was removed, 3 February 1934. The right-wing press read it as notice that he would take to the streets; Chiappe said he had meant only that he would be out of a job

A Corsican from Ajaccio who rose through the police administration and served as prefect of police of Paris from 1927 to 1934. He had a standing reputation for severity toward left-wing demonstrations and indulgence toward the street actions of the far-right leagues, and was popular with the right-wing press and the veterans' associations. When Prime Minister Édouard Daladier removed him on 3 February 1934, the right read it as the republic striking down its own policeman, and three days later the Place de la Concorde erupted. He remained a central figure of Paris right-wing politics after his dismissal, and died in 1940 when the aircraft carrying him to take up the Vichy post of high commissioner in the Levant was shot down over the Mediterranean.

Military command France state institutions 1878–1960 ○ Natural causes

A French general whose 1940 command exposed the tension between mountain-war expertise and an old command system

On Christmas night 1914, wounded, he led his company in holding the Tête des Faux summit against a numerically superior German attack, earning two citations.

Robert Touchon was a French general who built his reputation through mountain warfare and infantry instruction, rising on the strength of First World War combat and Alpine commands. After the German breakthrough in May 1940, he commanded the Sixth Army, hastily placing forces moved from the Maginot Line along the Aisne and committing Charles de Gaulle’s 4th Armoured Division at Montcornet. The armoured force lacked full integration and coordinated support, while his army could only hold parts of the front before retreating. Retired after the armistice, Touchon later served on Vichy’s National Council and the Lyon section of its State Court, leaving a record that joins military authority to collaboration with an authoritarian regime.

Government and administration France state institutions 1878–1966 ○ Natural causes

A republican statesman who urged resistance in the face of defeat

In June 1940, he argued that France should continue the war from North Africa.

Paul Reynaud was a French republican statesman and lawyer whose independent positions ranged across economics, colonial policy, and defence. Facing Nazi Germany, he pressed for wartime financial mobilisation and modern warfare built around tanks and air power. When France collapsed in 1940, he sought to preserve the alliance with Britain and continue the war from North Africa, but resigned as premier after the armistice camp prevailed and was subsequently detained by Vichy and Germany. After liberation he returned to parliament and remained a prominent defender of parliamentary government.

Military command France state institutions 1879–1945 ✕ Executed

A tank-war innovator who became the Secret Army's first commander

On 9 June 1943, the Secret Army commander Vidal was arrested at Paris's La Muette station.

Charles Delestraint was a French general shaped by captivity in the First World War and by command of armoured units, whose advocacy of tanks reflected a changing theory of modern war. After France's defeat and the armistice, he chose resistance and, selected by Charles de Gaulle, became the first commander of the Secret Army, bringing several movements' military structures together. Working with Jean Moulin, he helped extend the organisation across occupied France, but his arrest on 9 June 1943 created the succession crisis behind the Caluire meeting. Deported to Natzweiler-Struthof and Dachau, he was killed shortly before liberation and posthumously made a Companion of the Liberation.

Military command France state institutions 1880–1941 ○ Killed in crash

A general who embodied the military case for defeat and armistice

On 22 June 1940, he signed the armistice for France in the Compiègne forest.

Charles Huntziger was a French Army general who built his career in the colonial infantry, on the Balkan front in the First World War, and in overseas commands and negotiations between the wars. Commanding the Second Army at Sedan in 1940, he failed to stop the German breakthrough, and his decisions remained part of the dispute over responsibility for France’s defeat. He judged that the capacity to continue fighting was nearing its limit and chaired Pétain’s delegation that signed the 22 June armistice. As Vichy’s Minister of War, he then helped reorganize the military of the collaborationist state until his death in a plane crash in 1941.

Military command France state institutions 1880–1948 ○ Died in a climbing accident

Logistics, armor and the 1939 Moscow mission

In Moscow in August 1939 he negotiated a military accord with the USSR, but his own delegation's written powers were limited, the British head had none, and the talks stalled on Red Army transit through Poland.

French army general Aimé Doumenc organized motor transport in the First World War and later drafted a design for an autonomous armored division. In August 1939 he headed France's military delegation in Moscow, negotiating a military accord with the USSR on limited written powers; the talks stalled on Red Army transit through Poland and were suspended as the German-Soviet pact was concluded. In 1940 he served in the high command through the collapse in the Ardennes, and afterwards was Commissioner-General for National Reconstruction and wrote military history.