Word: soldier
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...head of what, by almost unanimous acclaim, is today the world's finest military machine, one which he did much to create. His responsibilities are not only national but international. Supreme Commander of all French armed forces, a title not held by any soldier of France since Napoleon I, he is also slated to become commander-in-chief of the armies of France, Great Britain and their allies in the event of war with the Axis...
Philosopher. Both ancestry and environment made Maurice Gamelin a soldier. He was born in 1872 (the year after the Franco-Prussian War) in Paris at No. 262 Boulevard St. Germain, just across from the War Ministry, in whose shadow he played war games as a child. His mother even painted a charming picture of him at the age of 20 months, beating a toy drum (see cut, p. 20). On his father's side he was descended from at least five generals, one of whom served under Louis XVI. His father, Zephirin Auguste Joseph Gamelin, became Controller General...
...shrewd disposition of fire power constantly enhanced the offensive quality of his command. His many citations praised his "highest qualities of method and of inspection" and his ability to carry his objectives "in the course of a general offensive at the cost of minimum losses." The French soldier did not like him less for that and the present French Army does not forget this quality in its Commander-in-Chief. "Very much all there," was the way one British general characterized Gamelin in the War years. He appears, during the entire War, to have made no major error in judgment...
...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...
...appeal to your customary fairness to publish these few words as a refutation to what is, I am sure, an outrageous and lying calumny against the memory of a dead soldier. While entertain the utmost abhorrence for his political activities, I am sure that he is innocent of such abominable charges...