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.
Career Timeline
- 1900Graduated from Saint-Cyr, second lieutenant in the colonial infantry
- 1918Operations chief, Allied Army of the Orient, planner of the Vardar offensive
- 1924–1928Commander of French occupation troops in the Tianjin concession
- 1934–1938Commander-in-chief of French forces in the Levant
- 1939–1940Commander of the Second Army at Sedan
- 1940Commander of Fourth Army Group; chairman of France’s 22 June armistice delegation
- 1940–1941Vichy Minister of War and commander-in-chief of the Armistice Army