Saturday, September 19, 2015

Marshal of France Jean Joseph Marie Gabriel de Lattre de Tassigny, GCB, MC - 25th Anniversary of the Capitulation of Hitler 8.5.1970


Jean Joseph Marie Gabriel de Lattre de Tassigny, GCB, MC (2 February 1889 – 11 January 1952) was a notable French military commander during World War II and the First Indochina War. De Lattre was posthumously promoted to Marshal of France. De Lattre fought in World War I and was wounded twice. He was made a knight of Legion of Honour in December 1914.

De Lattre 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 joined 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.

Once France had been liberated, as part of the Alliance, his army crossed the Rhine and invaded Germany. There the First 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.

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. Jean de Lattre de Tassigny was buried in a state funeral lasting five days, in what LIFE magazine described asthe "biggest military funeral France had seen since the death of Marshal Foch in 1929". 

Thank you Merja.

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