French soldier, born in Brussels, Belgium. He trained at St Cyr and became an instructor. As chief-of-staff to Foch (191423), he rendered admirable service, but as chief-of-staff of the French army (19315) he was handicapped by his lack of experience as a field commander. In 1940 his employment of an outmoded linear defence to hold a penetration in depth completed the rout of the French army. A prisoner of the Germans, and later of the French provisional government, he was allowed to retire into obscurity.
Maxime Weygand (January 21, 1867 - January 28, 1965) was a French military commander in both World War I and World War II.
Early years
Weygand was born in Brussels. Weygand refused to confirm or deny these rumours. He was educated in Marseille by the Cohen de Léon family.
In his bulky memoirs he says practically nothing of his youth, devoting to it only 4 pages out of 651. Cohen de Léon became his tutor.)
He was admitted to the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, under the name of "Maxime de Nimal", as a foreign cadet (Belgian). Cohen de Léon, François-Joseph Weygand, from whom he thus received both surname and, most importantly, French nationality...becoming an instructor at Saumur.
At the time of the Dreyfus affair, he was one of the most antidreyfusard officers of his regiment, supporting the widow of Colonel Henry, who had committed suicide after the discovery of the falsification of the charges against Captain Dreyfus.
Once promoted to Captain, Weygand chose not to attempt the difficult preparation to the Advanced War College ('Haute Ecole de Guerre') because of his desire, he said, to keep contact with the troops.
Weygand during World War I
Weygand passed the war of 1914-18 as a Staff Officer. In 1918 he served on the armistice negotiations, and it was Weygand who read out the armistice conditions to the Germans at Compiègne, in the famous railway carriage.
Inter-war period
Weygand in Poland
After the war his career continued well despite the retirement of Ferdinand Foch. Weygand was briefly sent as an advisor to Poland in 1920 during the Polish-Soviet War, trying without much success to aid Józef Piłsudski. Subsequently, for many years, the myth that the timely arrival of Allied forces saved Poland was begun, a myth in which Weygand occupies the central role.
Weygand travelled to Warsaw in the expectation of assuming command of the Polish army, yet he met with a very disappointing reception. Weygand had no divisions to offer. It offended his dignity as a "representant de la France" and he threatened to leave. at Paris on the 28th he was cheered by crowds lining the platform of the Gare de l'Est, kissed on both cheeks by the Premier Alexandre Millerand and presented with the grand-croix de la légion d'honneur. He could not understand what had happened and has admitted in his memoirs that "the victory was Polish, the plan was Polish, the army was Polish". He was the first uncomprehending victim, as well as the chief beneficiary, of a legend already in circulation that he, Weygand, was the victor of Warsaw.
Weygand in France and the Middle East
Weygand was elected a member of the Académie française (seat #35) in 1931. Weygand was recalled to active service by Edouard Daladier in August 1939 to head the French forces in the Middle East.
Weygand in World War II
Weygand was recalled to active service by Edouard Daladier in August 1939 to head the French forces in the Middle East, where although France had been at war only with Germany, he had prepared his troops for a takeover by force against Soviet oil fields.
By May 1940 the military disaster in France was such that the Supreme Commander, Maurice Gamelin, was dismissed, and Weygand recalled to replace him. Weygand arrived on May 17 and started by cancelling the side counter-offensive ordered by Gamelin, to cut off the enemy armoured columns which had punched through the French front. Weygand then oversaw the creation of the Weygand line, an early application of the Hedgehog tactic; Like the vast majority of French staff officers and antidreyfusards, Weygand was a monarchist who despised the Third Republic, commonly called by them la gueuse—"the beggar-woman".
Under the Vichy Regime
In June, he was appointed to the Bordeaux-Vichy cabinet as Minister for National Defence for three months (June to September 1940), and then Delegate-General to the North African colonies. There, he locked up, with the complicity of Admiral Abrial, adversaries of the Vichy regime (Gaullists, Freemasons, communists, etc.), the foreign volunteers of Légion Etrangère, foreign refugees without employment (but legally admitted into France), etc. Hardy, Weygand instituted, on his own authority, by a mere "note de service n°343QJ" of 30 september 1941, a school "numerus clausus" (quota,) driving out from the colleges and from the primary schools most of the Jewish pupils, including small children aged 5 to 11. Weygand did that without any decree of Marshall Philippe Pétain's, "by analogy," he said, "to the law about Higher Education".
Weygand acquired a reputation as an opponent of collaboration when he protested, in Vichy, against the Protocols of Paris of 28 May 1941 signed by Admiral Darlan, agreements which granted bases
to the Axis in Aleppo (Syria), Bizerte and Dakar and envisaged a military collaboration with Axis forces in the event of Allied response.
The Weygand General Delegation (4th Office) collaborated with Germany by delivering to Rommel's Africa Korps 1200 French trucks and other French army vehicles (Dankworth contract of 1941), as well as heavy artillery pieces accompanied with 1000 shells per gun.
Weygand was apparently favourable to collaboration with Germany, but with discretion. Nevertheless, since Adolf Hitler wanted full collaboration, he put pressure on the Vichy government to obtain the dismissal and recall of Weygand in November 1941. One year later, in November 1942, following the Allied invasion of North Africa, Weygand was arrested.
Last years
After returning to France, he was held as a collaborator at the Val-de-Grâce but was released in May 1946 and cleared in 1948.
Besides a Member of the French Academy, Maxime Weygand was an officer of the Legion of Honour.
Polish period
Edgar Vincent d'Abernon, The Eighteenth Decisive Battle of the World: Warsaw, 1920, Hyperion Press, 1977, ISBN 0-88355-429-1. Piotr Wandycz, General Weygand and the Battle of Warsaw, Journal of Central European Affairs, 1960 Norman Davies, White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919-20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7.Second world war
Henri Michel, Vichy, année 40, Robert Laffont, Paris, 1967. Yves Maxime Danan, La vie politique à Alger de 1940 à 1944, Librairie générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, Paris, 1963.|
Preceded by: Joseph Joffre |
Seat 35 Académie française 1931–1965 |
Succeeded by: Louis Leprince-Ringuet |
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