Maurice Gamelin (1872-1958) was the French Chief of the Army Staff from 1931 until 1940. While there is a surplus of blame that can be laid on the corpses and reputations of battalions of French and British officials, journalists, and many if not most of their citizens, Gamelin is a prime example of how a man of goodwill can by his incompetence and lack of moral fortitude cause the deaths of millions. History has not been as severe on his performance as head of the French Army as he deserves. The Wikipedia biography of him is a litany of omissions.
Gamelin is the classic example of a person who excels at every level of his profession except the very top. As a student, junior officer, and general in charge of important commands he performed in an exemplary fashion. But when he became the leader of the French Army he failed in every possible way.
The only good things you could say about his performance were that he was loyal to the government he served and after the country fell to the Nazis he did not collaborate with the fascist Vichy regime that emerged following its surrender.
The Third Republic which was created after defeat by the Germans in 1870 was by the last decade of its history enfeebled and enmeshed in a country that was corrupt in its institutions, especially the press, and overwhelmed by the catastrophic memory of World War I. The country had lost its moral spine and was rent by political divisions that cared little for the well being of the nation. Monarchists, socialists, communists (under the sway of Stalin), radical republicans, conservative Catholics, pacifists who would endure any humiliation or outrage to keep the peace, and fascists who verged on the border of treason all combined to create a sick country unable to meet its responsibilities or even to act in its best interests. There was no sense of national identity that could have kept the country together in a time of ever increasing peril.
The war of 1914 to 1918 had so demoralized the French that they were willing to do almost anything to avoid a repeat. The Germans, on the other hand, were out for revenge and followed a bloodthirsty dictator who was increasingly entrenched by a series of successes brought about by the failure of the two main democracies of Europe. Only the complete defeat and collapse of his country could pry it loose from the Nazi war criminals’ control.
Gamelin’s failures were prolonged and numerous. He failed to keep the army up to modern standards, but that was just a minor failing compared to his big miscues. In every crisis, he wildly overestimated the capacity of his enemy while minimizing those of his own forces. He persisted in these errors even when his intelligence service brought him correct information about the condition and location of German forces. The result of his errors was French paralysis when action was required.
Consider a few episodes where through vigorous and prompt action he could have brought down Hitler and Nazism and changed the course of history. Episodes where his poor analysis and failure to act had disastrous consequences. The first was the German reoccupation of the Rhineland.
According to the Treaty of Versailles, the Rhineland was a demilitarized zone. Hitler against the advice of his Generals decided to ignore the treaty and sent troops into the zone. Gamelin told his civilian superiors that the Germans had an overwhelming force against which the French were helpless. In fact, the Germans had little more than a few marching bands at their disposal. The British refused to act, so the French about to have a national election followed Gamelin’s advice and did nothing. Not for the last time, German officers were ready to depose Hitler had the French and British resisted their incursion into the Rhineland. Gamelin was not alone in his reluctance to oppose the German move into the demilitarized zone, but had he vigorously opposed it he could have reversed it.
In 1938 after France and the UK had done nothing in response to Hitler adding Austria to the German Reich, Gamelin argued that the French Army was not able to do anything to block Hitler’s demand that Czechoslovakia cede the Sudetenland to Germany. People of German ethnicity primarily populated this extreme northwestern part of Czechoslovakia. The French put great pressure on the Czechs to accede to Hitler’s territorial demands which they eventually did. In reality, the Czech armed forces outnumbered those of the Germans and if left to their own devices they likely could have repulsed the Germans had they invaded and had not the British and French pressured the Czechs to surrender. Of course, it wasn’t long before Germany seized control of the rest of the country.
Next on Hitler’s list was Poland. This was too much even for the spaghetti-spined British and French. They threatened to declare war if Hitler did not withdraw the forces he had sent into Poland on September 1, 1939. The French Foreign Office under the insipid direction of George Bonnet tried to prevent a declaration of war by giving Germany anything it wanted.
The French Army tried to delay the declaration of war until all the women and children in Paris had been withdrawn from the city. They feared Paris would be bombed though the entire German airforce was in Poland. In the event, the city was never bombed during the entire six years of the war. They even asked the British for bombers when what was needed if Germany were to bomb Paris was fighters.
The French Army never took advantage of the unprotected border with Germany left relatively undefended by the German concentration of its forces in Poland. They mounted a desultory offensive which they abandoned after a few days.
When Poland asked for more help from the French in the west Gamelin falsely told them that he was devoting all his resources against the Germans when in reality he was doing nothing. He was either lying or woefully uninformed about the performance of the army he commanded. When the Germans finally invaded France the French resistance collapsed and Gamelin was finally sacked – about four years too late. Gamelin’s understanding of tank warfare was staggeringly ignorant. The German’s use of these machines was revolutionary. Gamelin was replaced by Maxime Weygand whom he had replaced a decade earlier. By then it was too late for the French whose disgraceful performance still lingers.
It’s obvious that many people whose understanding of the Nazi threat was beyond stupidity were responsible for its rise, early success, and the disastrous effect on the entire population of Europe. Gamelin was just one of many in positions of authority who could have stopped the Nazi dictator. He is an example of how a man of goodwill who lacks the vision and energy necessary for the successful performance of his job can as a result of his incompetence cause unparalleled catastrophe.
Gamelin is the classic case of the man alluded to in the saying misattributed to Jefferson – “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Gamelin’s distinguishing characteristic was doing nothing. That is how he should be remembered. He was the perfect example of how a man of good intentions, virtue, and ineptitude can cause untold misery and death.
