Jean de Lattre de Tassigny
Marshal of France
Died when: 62 years 343 days (755 months)Star Sign: Aquarius
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Jean Joseph Marie Gabriel de Lattre de Tassigny (2 February 1889 – 11 January 1952) was a French général d'armée during World War II and the First Indochina War.
He was posthumously elevated to the dignity of Marshal of France in 1952.As an officer during World War I, he fought in combat in various battles, including Verdun, and was wounded five times, surviving the war with eight citations, the Legion of Honour and the Military Cross.
During the Interwar period, he took part in the Rif War in Morocco, where he was wounded in action again.
He then served in the Ministry of War and the staff of Conseil supérieur de la guerre, serving under the vice president, Général d'armée Maxime Weygand.
Early in World War II, from May to June 1940, he was the youngest French general.He led his division during the Battle of France, in the battles of Rethel, Champagne-Ardenne, and Loire and until the Armistice of 22 June 1940.
During the Vichy Regime, he remained in the Armistice Army, first in regional command posts, then as commander-in-chief of troops in Tunisia.
After the disembarking of Allied forces in North Africa, on 11 November 1942, the Germans invaded the free zone; de Lattre, Commander of the 16th Military Division at Montpellier, refused the orders not to fight the Germans and was the only active general to order his troops to oppose the invaders.
He was arrested but escaped and defected to Charles de Gaulle's Free France at the end of 1943.From 1943 to 1945 he was one of the senior leaders of the Liberation Army, commanding the forces which landed in the South of France on 15 August 1944, then fought up to the Rivers Rhine and Danube.
He commanded large numbers of American troops when the US XXI Corps was assigned to his First Army during the battle of the Colmar Pocket.
He was also the French representative at the signing of the German Instrument of Surrender in Berlin on 8 May 1945.He became Commander-in-Chief of French Forces in Germany in 1945, then Inspector General and Chief of Staff of the French Army.
In March 1947 he became the vice-president of the Conseil supérieur de la guerre.From 1948 to 1950 he served as Commander-in-chief of the Western Union's ground forces.
In 1951, he was the High Commissioner, commander-in-chief in Indochina and commander-in-chief of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps, winning several battles against the Vi?t Minh.
His only son was killed there, and then illness forced him to return to Paris where he died of cancer in 1952.
He was elevated to the dignity of Marshal of France posthumously in 1952 during his state funeral.
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