Customer Reviews

Petain: How the Hero of France Became a Convicted Traitor and Changed the Course of History

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I really enjoyed this insightful biography about one of the most interesting of Frances anti/heros - because although he saved France in the First World War his actions in the Second World War have branded him as a traitor in many eyes. Certainly France has turned out some controversial leaders - Napoleon, de Gaulle, and of course Petain.

The son of a peasant, the hero of the First world war, the traitor to the French in the second, and died at the age of 95 in captivity. Petain is a controversial figure in history. Certainly his right-wing attitudes and alliances were perhaps more a product of his age than anything else, and in this biography Charles Williams offers an excellent examination of his life and achievements. (INterestingly Williams has also done a biography on de Gaulle.)

Petain was already 58 when the first world war began and already feeling like he had done his dash - in fact the best and worst of his life was to come. His organisation of the French army defence was superb and his ability to organise them enormous. The controversy of the western front and the laying of guilt of the generals is dealt with well by Williams, a comparison of Haig's role and his attitude vs that of Petain. It makes interesting comparison.

It seems astonishing that the same man who saved France in the first war should so casually give it away to Hitler and the Germans in the second. Yet not only was he prepared to do so, he also allowed some of the worst of the Nazi laws to be enacted in France - the rounding of the jews, forced labour and more. Yet Williams clearly shows that this was not at variance with what we know of Petain and in fact the 1920's and 30's see him clearly moving in this direction. Better anything but communist - a staunch hatred of parliament, and authoritarianism above independence .

Petain was a complex man and his background contributed to this. He was very much a man out of his time - he clearly reflected a man of the 19th century, an unacceptable condition for the times. Williams is astute in his analysis and even in his praise and condemnation.

Petain died in captivity in 1951 at the age of 95 - his life had been a brief flash of a real glory and a finale which had forever branded him a traitor from the country who had once worshipped him. I would highly recommend this book, it is a bit weighty but it is thoughtful and analytical. It both personalises Petain but also puts him into perspective to an age and its morals, and to the politics. I found I was much more sympatheitc to Petain even if I didn't agree with his actions. The logic of their progress was complex but more understandable in Williams examination.

Highly readable.

In 1914, at the age of 58, two years from retirement, Petain was a Colonel, with a dull and undistinguished career. But, when the Germans were stopped at the Marne, the French Army was in need of defensive specialists; Petain, who was lauded as the "Victor of Verdun", and later became a Marshal of FRANCE rose to the top of his countries military. Along with Foch (the Victor of the Marne) he was considered one of the 'Saviors of FRANCE' (you can almost hear the Marsaillaise in the background).

He was at the pinacle of his career right after the War and could do no wrong. There is a quote from DeGaulle saying, "it would have been better had he died in 1925". From then on, he couldn't do right, he flirted with the proto-facists in Spain, and worked with the right wing fanatics in France. He was one of the most famous of the backers for what became the "Maginot Line"; in fact he inspected it the week before the German invasion.

But after the French Army fell back behind the German onslaught it seems that every decision he made was the wrong one. He was 'requested' to lead the country in asking for an 'armistice' so as to protect the country from major destruction; and ended up running the government beginning in April 1940.

Under the Armistice, he became the titular head of government of 'unoccupied France' based in Vichy. He then spent the next four years fighting a rear-guard battle with the Germans, Colloborationists, Fascists and Resistance. He said he just wanted to protect France and his 'children' from the Nazis. Unfortunately this didn't include the 100,000 Jews who were sent off the the ovens, nor the french workers who were sent to Germany to work as 'volunteers'. In the end he was tried as a traitor, stripped of all his honors, and died under house area at the age of 95.

Williams spends a lot of time trying to explain Petain, and why he thinks he did what he did. The man was never a politician and may have been to ready to trust anyone who declared himself a patriot. He also was too enamored by the actions of Franco and the early successes of Mussolini. Most of what he did after 1940 (when he was 84) could be written off as the failing of his mental capacities due to the onset of senility.

I think that a lot of what happened at the end was due to a man who had outlived his era (he was 15 when Napoleon III surrendered at Sedan) and didn't fully grasp how the world had changed.

After reading this book, I certainly know more about the sex life of Henri-Philippe Petain then I ever expected I would. But then when an author is writing about a man who sleeps with every woman he can, including the widows of the officers that died under his command, it is a hard subject to avoid. Petain was a hero to all of France after World War I and a traitor after World War II. We can easily think of many men who died too young, John Kennedy, Will Rogers, Buddy Holly. DeGaulle suggested that Petain died too old.

If Petain had died in 1920 he would be remembered as one of the greatest heroes of France, having saved the French army at Verdun in 1916, ended the mutiny of 1917, and stopped the German spring offensive of 1918. Already in his sixties when the war ended (he had been prepared to retire when the war started), Petain lived for 33 more years giving him time to become attracted to the idea of a dictatorship. He was fascinated by Francisco Franco and believed that the only thing that could save France was a single person in power, with himself as that person, of course. When France fell in 1940, Petain signed the Armistice to end the fighting and took up the dictatorship of Vichy France. While there, he let the Jews be deported, let the Nazis take French citizens as slave labor, he fought to stop the Resistance, and created a secret police to control his citizens.

Which leads to my major complaint with the book, that it is much too sympathetic to Petain. The author frequently falls back on Petain's age as being a factor or that Petain thought that he was needed to rescue France from the occupation. The one word that the author fails to use that describes Petain best is narcissist. No one could have possibly had a higher opinion of Petain than Petain. His mistakes were the faults of others. His triumphs were all his alone. Only he could save France. Resigning in the face of Nazi atrocities would destroy France. At the same time he was easily swayed by the last argument he heard on an issue. So it wasn't his policies that mattered to him since he really had none that he held intensely.

I have other complaints as well. The book could have used some maps. Describing the pitch and flow of battles running across the French countryside without having a good idea of where this river or this town is located makes it hard to follow the story. The pictures included were insufficient as they are almost exclusively of Petain. The author describes a picture of Nini (Petain's wife), but does not include the picture. The many people moving in and out of the story could have used brief biographies. It is hard to keep track of a person mentioned on one page who disappears for thirty pages but then is an important part of the continuing story. The final chapters of Petain's trial for treason and his imprisonment are simply too long. I really didn't need to know that at 90, Petain was having issues with incontinence. More detail about why the French government felt unable to move Petain to a military hospital would have been more helpful than gossip about Petain's final days.

Overall, the book is a readable biography of Petain. It certainly isn't a great book and had too many failings to make me truly enjoy it. I know more about Petain than when I started the book but I still feel that Petain himself is in the mist.

A well documented and scholarly researched look into the life of a controversial figure from both world wars. Here is portrayed a man who was caught inbetween the Allies and the Germans after the fall of France in 1940. Instead of choosing either side outright, he opted to save French civilization by adopting a conciliatory stance toward Germany while at the same time playing a semi-secret role against Germany by not severing contacts with the British and Americans. The work also details the strange official relationship between unoccupied (Vichy) France and the United States that existed even into the invasion of North Africa by the Americans. It's hard to put this book down.

I thoroughly enjoyed this biography of Petain. I was expecting it to be focused primarily on the Vichy years. However, covers Petain's entire life and career.

The treatment of his leadership at Verdun gave me a better insight into the French perspective on WWI. I have mostly been brought up reading about the British and American experience. For France the war was a brutal meat grinder as they threw men against the German onslaught etc.

This serves as an excellent backdrop for the subsequent sympathetic treatment of Petain in WWII and the Vichy government. Throughout Petain is presented as a man trying to save what he could of his beloved France.

The author demonstrates how Petain did not quickly realize the nature of the Nazi overlords. Many of his compromises were a matter of footdragging, delay and playing for time.

The book did not go into great detail about the policies and programs of the government relating to the Jews. The author did give some insight into Petain's dealings with the resistance. In short they were mostly communists and he didn't like them.

Based on the title I expected the book to be more of an expose of the underbelly of Vichy France. It was no such thing. It was a well drawn portrait of a man twice caught on the cresting waves of history. Succeeding brilliantly the first time and failing the second time.

This is a fine book, and, frankly, its brevity is a major strength. I really did not want to read a whole lot more about Marshall Petain than a few hundred pages. Williams has crafted a concise and workmanlike account of the man who rose to the height of France's status structure after World War I but who would soon fall to its nadir within twenty-five-years. Petain was, in equal turn, both a traitor and a hero. One could even argue that he spectacularly succeeded at both roles. The malicious nature of Vichy France is not something which anyone can deny, but we see here that Petain was oblivious to a good many things during the course of his collaboration with the Nazis. The Marshall does not seem to be an evil person but one whose vanity and pride allowed evil to use and exploit him. Regardless of what he may have wanted Vichy France to be, it became a cesspool of deportations, murder, and oppression. Petain's is a tragic story, but it teaches us that from evil no good can flow. He outlived his greatness and now is remembered chiefly for his flaws and his mistakes.

I wasnt very informed regarding Petain and his problems after WW II, that's why i picked up this book and i am glad i did.The author does a very good job in describing Petain,his early childhood and his start as a soldier for France.It is very impressive Petain's rise as a soldier and officer in the French Army.The author does a very good job in describing how petain became the "Victor of Verdun".Overall is a very good book.The only flaw in the book is that the author sometimes "slows down" the narrative especially those years in WWII giving us just too many details while then fast forwards from WW II to Petain's trial.But again a good book to get an overview of France during the war.Concerning Petain altough the book tries to give the reader the reasons why Petain acted they he did, it is dificult to understand his actions and i can see why he was guilty.Maybe he meant well but his way of doing things were far from correct.