Word: verdun
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...crinkly-eyed little man who used to be known as the socialite Mayor of Versailles. Gaston Henry-Haye was a moderately successful businessman when he entered politics in 1928 by running for Deputy from Versailles. Behind him was the record of an officer who had spent 18 days before Verdun, coming down from the lines with just five other members of his company. In 1935 he became a Senator and the same year was elected Mayor of Versailles. As a Mayor he got to know such eminent U. S. citizens as John D. Rockefeller Jr. (who restored much of Versailles...
...French Ambassador has two busy aides in his press attaché, Captain Charles Emmanuel Brousse, bomber-squadron commander in World War I, and his longtime friend and assistant military attaché, one-eyed Lieut. Colonel Georges Bertrand-Vigne, another soldier of Verdun and Narvik. In addition he numbers among his good friends the elegant Mrs. Williams, ageless Lady Mendl, Count René de Chambrun (Pierre Laval's son-in-law, who quit the U. S. for France after Laval's fall), Jeweler Pierre Carder (longtime paterfamilias of the French colony in Manhattan), onetime U. S. Ambassador to France...
...February 1916, in the second year of World War I, the German Army launched its attack on the fortress of Verdun. Although forced to yield ground, 59-year-old General Henri Philippe Pétain held Verdun and the German drive collapsed. Last week Germany found Marshal Pétain, now 84, the same stubborn tactician...
There were vast differences between Verdun of 1916 and Vichy of 1941. Behind Verdun was an Allied Army of hundreds of thousands; behind Vichy is an ill-supplied North African Army and a badly damaged French Fleet. The France of 1916 could draw on the resources of the British Empire; the France of 1941 is, officially, not even friends with Great Britain. France of 1916 was fighting for dominance of Europe; 1941 France is fighting for its life as a nation...
...personification of patriarchical strength of character. The Church, both Catholic and Protestant, supports him for his endorsement of religion. And last week Chief of State Henri Philippe Pétain felt strong enough to stand against the Germans again as he had done 25 years ago at Verdun...