Jean de Lattre de Tassigny

Jean Joseph Marie Gabriel de Lattre de Tassigny, GCB, MC (2 February 1889 – 11 January 1952) was a French military hero of World War II and commander in the First Indochina War.

Early life
Born at Mouilleron-en-Pareds (Vendée), in the same village of World War I leader Georges Clemenceau, to an aristocratic family.

Military Career
He graduated from officer school in 1911 (ranked 5th in his class in Saint-Cyr).

World War I
He fought in World War I and was wounded twice. He was made a knight of Legion of Honour in December 1914.

Interwar Period
He specialized in cavalry and was made head of the French War College in 1935. After World War I, he served as an officer in the French headquarters during the Rif War.

He entered General Weygand's headquarters in 1932. Weygand had the choice between de Lattre and de Gaulle and chose de Lattre because of his superior rank and honors. De Lattre then served in the headquarters of an infantry regiment at Metz.

World War II
When war was declared in 1939, he commanded the French 14th Infantry Division until the armistice with the Axis troops. He won a minor battle in Rethel where a German officer said that the French resistance was similar to the Battle of Verdun.

He remained on active duty, commanding Vichy French forces in Tunisia in 1941. He took charge of the 16th Division in 1942, but began organizing an anti-German force, which led to his arrest and a 10-year jail sentence. However, de Lattre was able to escape to Algiers. There he took command of the French Army B. French Army B were one of two armies of the Southern Group of Armies, also known as the Sixth United States Army Group. The Sixth Army Group was set up to organize the invasion of Southern France in Operation Dragoon. The other unit comprising the formation was the US Seventh Army, commanded by Alexander M. Patch. Before that, elements of de Lattre's army took Corsica. De Lattre then landed in Provence, southern France on 16 August 1944, and his troops began marching through France liberating the country as they went. On 25 September 1944 French Army B was redesignated French First Army. The army crossed the Vosges after heavy fighting. De Lattre took Belfort but halted the progress of his army. In doing so, he allowed the Germans to form the Colmar Pocket. During December 1944, the attempts to take Colmar were unsuccessful. De Lattre was able to collapse the pocket in January and February 1945 after the successful defence of Strasbourg, which was defended on the north by American troops and the French 3rd DIA and on the south by the French.

Under General de Gaulle's encouragement those French Resistance members who wished to continue fighting were incorporated into the French First Army by General de Lattre. Once France had been liberated, as part of the Alliance, his army crossed the Rhine and invaded Germany. In Germany, his army, now numbering more than 320,000 soldiers took Karlsruhe, Ulm and Stuttgart before crossing the Danube and arriving in Austria. De Lattre represented France at the German unconditional surrender in Berlin on 8 May 1945.

After World War II
After World War II, he first became chief of staff of the NATO infantry in Europe. He was under the orders of Field Marshal Montgomery, organizing numerous training exercises. He also served as a French military ambassador in South America. Then, he commanded French troops in Indochina during the First Indochina War. He won three major victories at Vinh Yen, Mao khé and Yen Cu Ha and defended successfully the north of the country against the Viet Minh but his only son, Bernard de Lattre de Tassigny, was killed in action during the war at the Battle for Nam Dinh. In 1951, illness forced de Lattre de Tassigny to return to Paris where he later died of cancer; he was posthumously made Maréchal de France. After his return to France, his successors Raoul Salan and Henri Navarre did not enjoy the same level of success as de Lattre did.

State funeral
Jean de Lattre de Tassigny was buried in a state funeral lasting five days, in what LIFE magazine described as the "biggest military funeral France had seen since the death of Marshal Foch in 1929". The Marshal's body was conveyed through the streets of Paris in a series of funeral processions, with the coffin lying in state at four separate locations: his home, the chapel at Les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe and before Notre Dame. Those marching in the funeral processions, following the gun carriage on which the tricolor-covered coffin was carried, included members of the French cabinet, judges, bishops, and Western military leaders. The pallbearers included other Allied generals of World War II, such as Bernard Montgomery and Dwight D. Eisenhower. The route included the Rue de Rivoli and the Champs-Élysées, and the processions went from the Arc de Triomphe to Notre Dame, and then from Notre Dame to Les Invalides. The stage of the journey from the Arc de Triomphe to Notre Dame took place in the evening, and cavalrymen from the Garde Républicaine flanked the coffin on horseback bearing flaming torches. Walking behind the soldiers marching in the funeral processions was the lone figure of the Marshal's widow, Simonne de Lattre de Tassigny, dressed in black and praying as she walked. Thousands of people lined the funeral route, forming crowds standing ten-deep. The pageantry included the tolling of bells, and flags being flown at half-mast. The final stage of the funeral was a journey of 250 miles to the Marshal's birthplace of Mouilleron-en-Pareds in western France. In attendance there was the Marshal's 97-year-old father, Roger de Lattre. Aged and blind, and the last of the de Lattres, he ran his hands over the ceremonial accoutrements on the coffin, which included the posthumously awarded marshal's baton and his son's kepi. Then the coffin was lowered into the ground and the Marshal was laid to rest beside his only son, Bernard, who had been killed fighting under his father's command in Indochina some eight months previously.

Decorations

 * Legion of Honour:
 * Knight - 20 December 1914;
 * Officer - 16 June 1920;
 * Commander - 20 December 1935;
 * Grand Officer - 12 July 1940;
 * Grand Cross - 10 February 1945.


 * Companion of the Liberation (decree 20 November 1944)
 * Médaille Militaire
 * Croix de guerre 1914-1918 (8 citations)
 * Croix de guerre 1939-1945
 * Croix de guerre des Théatres d'Opérations Exterieures (3 citations)
 * Médaille des Evadés
 * Gold Medal of Physical Education
 * Gold Medal of Public Health
 * Military Cross (UK)
 * Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (UK)
 * Distinguished Service Medal (US)
 * Legion of Merit (US)
 * Order of Suvorov, 1st class (USSR)
 * Grand Officer of the Order of Leopold (Belgium)
 * Croix de Guerre (Belgium)
 * Grand Cross of the Order of the White Lion (Czechoslovakia)
 * Czechoslovak War Cross (Czechoslovakia)
 * Grand Cross of the Order of St Olav (Norway)
 * Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau (Netherlands)
 * Commander's Cross of the Virtuti Militari (Poland)
 * Cross of Grunwald, 1st class (Poland)
 * Grand Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog (Denmark)
 * Commander of the Brazilian Order of Merit
 * Grand Cross of the Order of the Liberator General San Martin (Argentina)
 * Order of Military Merit, white (Cuba)
 * Medal of Military Merit (Mexico)
 * Grand Cross of Order of Military Merit (Chile)
 * Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Cambodia
 * Grand Cross of the Order of a Million Elephants and White Parasol (Laos)
 * Sherefian Merit Medal (Morocco)
 * Grand Cross of the Order of Ouissam Alaouite (Morocco)
 * Grand Cross of the Order of Blood (Tunisia)
 * Grand Cross of the Order of the Black Star (Benin)

Memorials
Numerous memorials have been erected to the memory of Jean de Lattre. An annual military service, involving serving soldiers, veteran associations, and ceremonial carriage of the Marshal's baton, takes place at the graves of the de Lattre family in Jean de Lattre's birthplace of Mouilleron-en-Pareds.