Word: gamelin
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Died. General Maurice Gamelin, 85, commander of combined Anglo-French forces in France at the outbreak of World War II; in Paris. Removed from his command after the German breakthrough and blamed for the army's ignominious showing, Gamelin was tried by the Vichy puppets for inefficiency, later interned by the Germans at Buchenwald, lived out the days of peace in quiet retirement near Paris...
...Germans also threatened a breakthrough and 6,000 reinforcements were rushed in hastily commandeered Paris taxicabs to the Marne, where they helped to stem the Boche tide? Dutourd says simply: in 1940 "the generals were stupid and the men did not want to be killed." From Commander in Chief Gamelin down, with the honorable exception of De Gaulle ("one great soul"), the generals were "doddering numskulls." "cockroaches," "poltroons." They "had the instruments of victory in their hands. What nobody realized was this: they were longing to change their profession. They did not like war . . . Their real inclination was for quieter...
When it comes to putting Frenchmen into the tumbrels of political recrimination, none are more skillful than other Frenchmen. In The Gravediggers of France, in 1944, French Journalist Pertinax (André Géraud) called Paul Reynaud the third gravedigger (after Gamelin and Daladier and before Pétain and Laval). Reynaud now makes an eloquent case for the proposition that, if he helped dig the grave, it was really his political enemies who committed the murder and provided the corpse...