Louis Franchet d'Espèrey

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Académie française
In office
27 July 1934 – 8 July 1942
Preceded byHubert Lyautey
Succeeded byRobert d'Harcourt
Personal details
Born(1856-05-25)25 May 1856
French State
NationalityFrench
Alma materÉcole Spéciale Militaire
Signature
Military service
AllegianceFrance Third Republic
Branch/serviceFrench Army
Years of service1873 – 1925
RankDivision general[a]
Commands
Battles/wars

Louis Félix Marie François Franchet d'Espèrey

Macedonian campaign
, which caused the collapse of the Southern Front and contributed to the armistice.

Early years

Franchet d'Espèrey was born in

I Corps
in 1913.

First World War

1914

Corps commander

In 1914, Franchet d'Espèrey did well as a

Fifth Army was attacked again, this time also on the flanks, by Bulow’s German Second Army to the north and Hausen’s German Third Army against Franchet to the right.[2]

At the Battle of Guise on 29 August, the day was won by a successful attack by his I Corps in the north: leading his men on horseback, he is said to have called out "how do you like this advance, Mr Staff College Professor?" to Colonel Philippe Pétain, who was commanding an infantry brigade.[3] At that battle, he was ordered to rally III Corps on his left and X Corps on his right.[4]

Army commander

On the eve of the

Fifth Army. When asked by Joffre whether he was willing to accept the command he replied equivocally "the same as another". He added that the higher a man is promoted the more staff he gets. Despite being a naturally kind man, he affected a tyrannical demeanour to galvanise his officers. Edward Spears, then a lieutenant liaising between the BEF and the Fifth Army, wrote that he physically resembled a howitzer shell and of the "galvanic effect" that he had on his staff on taking command. He ordered that any man not doing his duty was to be shot, including staff officers. When General de Mas Latrie protested at an order, Franchet d'Esperey took the telephone from the staff officer Hély d'Oissel and told Latrie "Marchez ou crevez." ("March or die.") before putting the phone down on him. He would break up roadblocks by firing his revolver out of the window of his car. President Raymond Poincaré noted that Franchet d'Esperey was "a stranger to depression".[5][6][7]

His predecessor,

Sixth Army reached a certain position on the Ourcq at a certain time ("if not the British will not march"). If not, he would retreat a little further, south of the Grand Morin with the Sixth and the BEF l, striking Alexander von Kluck's 1st Army in flank. That was to become the basis for Instruction Générale No 6, the Allied plan of attack at the Marne.[9][10]

When asked by Franchet d'Espèrey to be ready to attack on 6 September,

Second Army. Fifth Army eventually saw the replacement of three out of five corps commanders and seven out of thirteen division commanders, and a similar proportion of brigade commanders.[11]

1916–1917

By March 1916, Franchet d'Espérey was in command of the

Battle of Chemin des Dames
in May 1918.

1918 victory in Salonika

Removed from the

Salonika on the Macedonian front.[12]

Between 15 and 29 September 1918, Franchet d'Espèrey, in command of a large army of

successful offensive in Macedonia that ended by taking Bulgaria out of the war.[13] General Franchet d'Espèrey followed up the victory by overrunning much of the Balkans and by the war's end, his troops had penetrated well into Hungary. That collapse of the Southern Front was one of several developments that effectively triggered the November 1918 Armistice.[14]

Later life

Although it is often stated in history books that on 8 February 1919, Franchet d'Espèrey entered Istanbul on a white horse, emulating Mehmed II's entrance in 1453 after the Fall of Constantinople and thus signifying that Ottoman sovereignty over the imperial city was over, this has recently been shown to be a myth.[15][16]

After World War I ended, Franchet d'Espèrey directed operations against the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. He was made a

Field-Marshal
) by the Yugoslavian monarchy on 29 January 1921.

In 1924 Franchet d'Espèrey was appointed inspector-general of France's North African troops, who had made up a substantial portion of the French forces serving under him on the Macedonian Front. He subsequently became interested in the strategic potential of the "grand axis" north-south route across the Sahara.

He joined a trans-Saharan expedition led by

Colomb-Béchar on 15 November 1924 in three six-wheel Renaults. Other members were the journalist Henri de Kérillis, commandant Ihler, the brothers Georges Estienne and René Estienne, three Renault mechanics and three legionnaires.[17]
The expedition reached
Savé in Dahomey on 3 December 1924 after a journey of 3,600 kilometres (2,200 mi).[18]
The expedition leaders took the train south, and reached Porto-Novo on the Atlantic on 14 December 1924.[19]

Franchet d'Espèrey represented France at the

Académie française
on 15 November 1934.

He died in Albi on 8 July 1942 and is interred at Les Invalides.

Assessment

He had drive and great energy and his victories against Bulgaria and the remnants of the German and Austro-Hungarian Armies were independent of the situation on the Western Front, demonstrated by the fact that they came before the main assault on the Hindenburg Line and against a still-capable army that offered strong resistance to the British and the Greeks in the Battle of Doiran.

As a consequence of his generalship, Bulgaria signed an armistice on 29 September, thus becoming the first

Central Power to do so. In terms of politics, he was a nationalist ultra-royalist whose loyalty to France outweighed his loyalty to the Bourbons
.

Several French cities and towns have boulevards and roads named after him such as in Dijon, Reims, Saint-Étienne, Versailles and Lorient. The Belgian city of Dinant has an Avenue Franchet d'Esperey. A boulevard in Belgrade, Serbia, is named after him. In Greece, Salonika has a street named after him.

British troops anglicised his name to "Desperate Frankie."

Honours and decorations

See also

References

  1. ^ Terraine 1960, pp. 87–88.
  2. ^ Terraine 1960, p. 97.
  3. ^ Terraine 1960, pp. 158–160.
  4. ^ Tuchman 1962, p369
  5. ^ Tuchman 1962, p369, 405-6
  6. ^ Terraine 1960, pp. 181–3, 186-787-88.
  7. ^ a b Holmes 2004, p. 237.
  8. Japan was on the Allied side in World War One
    , but it did not send troops to the Western Front.
  9. ^ Tuchman 1962, pp. 411, 413
  10. ^ Terraine 1960, pp. 186–7.
  11. ^ Tuchman 1962, pp. 413-6
  12. ^ Lazarski 2008, p. 119.
  13. ^ Sondhaus 2011, p. 416.
  14. ISBN 0-09-180178-8
    .
  15. ^ Edhem Eldem: ′De quelle couleur était le cheval blanc de Franchet d'Espèrey? Petite enquête sur la vérité historique.′ In: Véronique Schiltz (ed.): De Samarcande à Istanbul: étapes orientales. Hommages à Pierre Chuvin, II, Paris, CNRS Éditions, 2015, 285-301 (in French).
  16. ^ Edhem Eldem: 'Tarihte gerçek konusunda küçük bir araştırma: İstanbul'un beyaz atlı fatihi.' In: Toplumsal Tarih, No. 261, Eylül 2015, 22-33.
  17. ^ Mondet 2011, p. 287.
  18. ^ Mondet 2011, p. 288.
  19. ^ Bourgin 2011, p. 318.
  20. ^ Acović, Dragomir (2012). Slava i čast: Odlikovanja među Srbima, Srbi među odlikovanjima. Belgrade: Službeni Glasnik. p. 142.
  21. ^ "Journal de Monaco" (PDF) (in French). Retrieved 11 September 2023.

Notes

  1. ^ Marshal of France is a dignity and not a rank.
  2. ^ French pronunciation: [lwi feliks maʁi fʁɑ̃swa fʁɑ̃ʃɛ dɛpɛʁɛ]; Serbo-Croatian pronunciation: [frǎnʃe deperê(ː)]

General references

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Louis Franchet d'Espérey.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Louis_Franchet_d%27Espèrey&oldid=1206227215"