Word: gamelin
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...France's No. 1 Soldier, Gamelin has continued the Maginot Line to the sea, mechanized the Army to a point below Germany's but at which he thinks it can be most effective, extended the conscript period from a year, to 18 months, to two years-this over the bitter opposition of most French politicians. He has confidence in the Army he has built. During the Munich crisis he believed the French Army was ready to fight, and General Gamelin quietly went to London to tell the statesmen so. He got about the same attention that...
...plans are not war plans once they have been made public, and General Gamelin's are not exceptions. Nobody but the French high command knows what the French Army intends to do if & when it comes in conflict with the Axis. Best semiprofessional guess suggests it would try to knock the spots off Italy's northern industrial area by air, call up all its 5,000,000 reserves, sit tight behind its Maginot Line and see what happened. A hint in favor of the last course comes from a remark General Gamelin made when asked if the French...
Benevolent Formality. Maurice Gamelin is generally characterized as colorless. That, however, is the way the French have learned to like their generals best. Napoleons I and III had plenty of color but they did not pay off at the finish. In 1889 colorful General Boulanger came close to seizing the country. The colorful military cliques of the century's turn-on one' side the Catholics and reactionaries; on the other the Radical Socialists and Freemasons-gave France its Dreyfus case. Nowadays no French soldier votes and on the subject of politics the Army is known as la grande...
Except in summer, when the Generalissimo is often away weeks at a time on tours of inspection of French military establishments, Gamelin works at his office all day receiving visitors, holding staff consultations, reading reports, laying out plans, until about...
...General Gamelin is very easily approached, his voice is quiet and he is always calm. ("It's no use getting angry at things, it's a matter of indifference to them.") His well-trained memory is still prodigious. He is said not only to know every road near any French frontier, but also to know by name and sight every French officer down through the rank of colonel. He is not chummy with his staff, but treats them with what they call "benevolent formality...