Maurice Gamelin

Maurice Gamelin
General Gamelin c. 1940
31st Chief of the Army Staff
In office 10 February 1931 – 20 May 1940
Preceded by	Maxime Weygand
Succeeded by	Jean de Lattre de Tassigny
Personal details
Born	(1872-09-20)20 September 1872 Paris, France
Died	18 April 1958(1958-04-18) (aged 85) Paris, France
Parents	Zéphyrin Auguste Joseph Gamelin (father) Pauline Adèle Uhrich (mother)
Alma mater	École Spéciale Militaire
Military service
Allegiance	France
Branch/service	French Army
Years of service	1891–1940
Rank	General
Commands	51st Infantry Brigade
Battles/wars	World War I Great Syrian Revolt World War II Battle of France

Maurice Gustave Gamelin (French pronunciation: [mɔʁis ɡystav ɡamlɛ̃]; 20 September 1872^[1] – 18 April 1958^[2]) was a French general. He is remembered for his disastrous command (until 17 May 1940) of the French military during the Battle of France in World War II and his steadfast defence of republican values.

The Commander-in-chief of the French Armed Forces at the start of World War II, Gamelin was viewed as a man with significant intellectual ability. He was respected, even in Germany, for his intelligence and "subtle mind", though he was viewed by some German generals as stiff and predictable. Despite this, and his competent service in World War I, his command of the French armies during the critical days of May 1940 proved to be disastrous. Historian and journalist William L. Shirer presented the view that Gamelin used World War I methods to fight World War II, but with less vigor and slower response.^[3]

Gamelin served with distinction under Joseph Joffre in World War I. He is often credited with being responsible for devising the outline of the French counter-attack in 1914 which led to victory during the First Battle of the Marne. In 1933 Gamelin rose to command the French Army and oversaw a modernisation and mechanisation programme, including the completion of the Maginot Line defences.

Édouard Daladier supported Gamelin throughout his career, owing to Gamelin's refusal to allow politics to play a part in military planning and promotion, and his commitment to the republican model of government; this was not a trivial matter at a time when Communists on the left and Royalists and Fascists on the right were openly advocating regime change in France.

Maurice Gamelin was born in Paris on 20 September 1872.^[4] Gamelin's father, Zéphyrin, fought in the Battle of Solferino in 1859. From an early age Gamelin showed potential as a soldier, growing up in a generation seeking revenge on Germany for the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine at the end of the Franco-Prussian War.

Gamelin volunteered for service on 19 October 1891 before entering the military academy at Saint-Cyr on 31 October.^[4] In 1893, he graduated first in his class.

He began in the French tirailleurs with the 3rd Regiment based in Tunisia. He then joined the topographic brigade. When Gamelin came back to Paris in 1897, he entered the prestigious École Supérieure de Guerre and finished second of his class of about eighty of the best future officers in the French Army. Charles Lanrezac, then second-in-command of the École Supérieure de Guerre, and later a general in the early days of World War I, noted Gamelin as an intelligent, cultivated, and industrious young officer, bound to earn higher functions in the future. Gamelin joined the staff of the 15th Army Corps before commanding a company of the 15th battalion of the Chasseurs Alpins in 1904. He received the applause of his superiors for his diligence at manœuvre.

He published Philosophical Study on the Art of War in 1906, which critics praised, predicting he would become an important military thinker in the near future. He then became an attaché to General Joseph Joffre (a future Marshal of France, as he led the French forces during World War I). This position had been obtained with the help of Ferdinand Foch (also a future Marshal of France, as he led the Allied Forces to victory on the Western Front in 1918). These positions provided Gamelin with a solid knowledge of strategic and tactical warfare.

In 1911, Gamelin was given command of the 11th battalion of the Chasseurs Alpins in Annecy. However, in March 1914 he joined Joffre's general staff (1914–18 called Grand Quartier Général). Early in the war, Gamelin helped draft the plans that led to the victory at the Battle of the Marne. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel and fought in Alsace on the Linge and later on the Somme. He became colonel in April 1916, and with good results on the battlefield was further promoted within eight months to the rank of brigadier general. He commanded the French 11th Infantry Division from April 1917 until the end of the war. In the region of Noyon, he showed sophisticated tactical skills by gaining ground without losing lives needlessly (which had been atypical earlier in the war, see Attaque à outrance).

From 1919 to 1924, Gamelin was the head of the French military mission in Brazil. He then commanded the French Army in the Levant, now Syria and Lebanon. He was the commander of the 30th Military Region in Nancy from 1919 to 1931, when he was named head of the general staff of the French Army. In 1932 he knew the Reichswehr mobilization plan was to at least treble their force, but lacked intelligence on the armament plan, the militia plan, or the Manstein Plan.^[5] He prepared France's military until the beginning of World War II, although challenged by restricted funding (→ Great Depression in France) and by the political inertia regarding German re-armament and later the Third Reich, which was intensified after the end of the Allied occupation of the Rhineland and its remilitarisation. The foundation stone of France's diplomacy was the alliance system in Eastern Europe, the so-called cordon sanitaire.^[6] The French alliances in Eastern Europe were the defensive alliances signed with Poland in 1921, Czechoslovakia in 1924, Romania in 1926 and Yugoslavia in 1927.^[7] At the time, the alliances were signed, the French occupied the Rhineland, which formed a natural defensive barrier with its hilly countryside and the wide Rhine river; beyond the Rhineland was the wide open North German plain.^[7] With the Rhineland occupied, the French were in a strong position to launch an offensive onto the north German plain. In 1928, the French agreed to end their occupation of the Rhine in June 1930, which was five years earlier than the Treaty of Versailles called for.^[8] Without the "collateral" of the Rhineland, France was less able to enforce the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which the Germans always made clear they did not accept, and in a tacit admission that the Rhineland was going to be remilitarised in the near-future, in 1929 the French decided to build the Maginot line along the Franco-German and Franco-Luxembourg borders.^[8] The defensive stance implied by the construction of the Maginot line contradicted with the promises of an offensive into western Germany should any of France's Eastern European allies be attacked by the Reich.

Following the Rome accords signed by Pierre Laval and Benito Mussolini, Gamelin arrived in Rome in June 1935 to sign a convention with Marshal Pietro Badoglio, the chief of the Italian general staff.^[9] The convention called for an Italian corps of the Regio Esercito to be stationed in the Belfort area in the event of an attack by Germany on France and for a French corps to go to north-eastern Italy to join the Italian forces on the Brenner Pass on the Austrian-Italian border.^[9] Gamelin saw the Rome convention as a possible means for French forces to reach France's allies in Eastern Europe via Italy, and as a way to concentrate forces against Germany by transferring forces from the Franco-Italian border and from the border of French protectorate of Tunisia with the Italian colony of Libya.^[9] The Abyssinia crisis of 1935-1936 shattered Gamelin's hopes for a Franco-Italian alliance as Britain insisted on having the League of Nations impose sanctions on Italy.^[10] Faced with a choice between Italy and Britain, Gamelin advised the government to chose Britain, saying that the help of Italy would be "valuable" to France, but the help of Britain would be "essential".^[10] The French reluctantly joined the sanctions on Italy, which strained Franco-Italian relations through the French delegation in Geneva was able to prevent the League from imposing oil sanctions by threatening a veto.^[10] Badoglio, whom Gamelin was friendly with, sent him a series of telegrams saying he was still committed to an alliance with France and promised that he would resign rather than wage war on France.^[11]

When the Front populaire won the 1936 elections, Gamelin insisted upon a "correct" response to the election, saying that the Army was apolitical and was to respect the will of the voters, a policy that required considerable courage to enforce in the view of the right-wing views of much of the officer corps.^[12] The new premier, Léon Blum, had spoken of his wish to push military spending down to the lowest possible point, and the prospect of Blum becoming premier was greeted with a barely veiled dismay in the officer corps.^[13] Gamelin was very strict in applying his policy that officers were not to express their opinions of the new government.^[14] Gamelin's policy of keeping the military out of politics was especially appreciated by the politicians in Paris as his predecessor, Maxime Weygand, a fiery right-wing Catholic had spoken on matters well outside of his purview.^[15] For an example, Weygand had suggested that France was being "rotted out" because too many schoolteachers were Socialists, and argued that the military should take charge of the education system to provide a "proper patriotic education" for the youth of France.^[15] By contrast Gamelin stated he as a soldier that he had no opinion about the education system. At his first meeting with Blum on 10 June 1936 at the Hôtel Matignon, Gamelin expressed his willingness to serve the new government while also arguing for greater defense spending.^[16] In private, Gamelin disliked Blum whom he called a "bogus or sham intellectual" while Blum said of Gamelin that he was "intelligent, but limited.^[14] Despite expectations, Gamelin had an excellent working relationship with Édouard Daladier who served as the Defense minister under Blum.^[17] Gamelin submitted to Daladier a four year plan for military modernisation that was budgeted at 9 billion francs, which Daladier rejected it out of hand as too far low and added an extra 5 billion francs.^[17] In what was described as a highly "emotional" interview with Blum, Daladier was able to impress upon the premier the need to accept greater defense spending despite what he had promised during the election, and to accept the 14 billion franc plan.^[17]

The Remilitarisation of the Rhineland on 7 March 1936 allowed Germany to fortify the Franco-German border, which put an end to any realistic hope of a French offensive into western Germany as the Germans started to build what they called the West Wall and what was known in the English-speaking world as the Siegfried line.^[18] The remilitarisation of the Rhineland led to Gamelin to place increasingly emphasis on maintaining the French alliances in Eastern Europe as he argued that France could not mount an offensive while Germany could, thus requiring allies in Eastern Europe to distract the Reich.^[19] Gamelin argued that Germany's population outnumbered the population of France, but if France's eastern allies were included, the Allies would have a numerical superiority, leading him to argue that France needed a tighter alliance with Poland and must rebuild relations with Italy.^[20] For the same reason, Gamelin argued that on strategical grounds that France needed Italy as an ally, and argued that the ill will caused by the Abyssinia crisis should not be an issue in future Franco-Italian relations.^[20] A major issue for France was that Germany's population was three times as larger, making France very dependent upon soldiers recruited in the Maghreb region to even the odds.^[21] In the First World War, 172,000 Algerians had fought for France, and a similar number was expected to be raised for another world war. To move troops from the Maghreb in turn require command of the western Mediterranean Sea, which could be challenged by the Regia Marina of Fascist Italy, whose foreign policy was becoming increasingly pro-German and anti-French.^[21] Admiral François Darlan advocated a naval construction programe designed to make the French Mediterranean Fleet the dominant fleet in that sea in order to end any possibility of the Regia Marina cutting the sea-lanes to Algeria.^[22] Gamelin was opposed to Darlan's plans, arguing that it was better to seek a diplomatic rapprochement with Italy designed to win make Italy into a French ally rather than engage in a costly naval arms races with the Italians, which he noted would take away francs from the French Army.^[23] Daladier and Blum ignored Gamelin's advice and embraced Darlan's plans for a stronger Mediterranean fleet.^[23]

The Maginot line covered France's borders with Germany and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, but did not cover the Franco-Belgian border as Belgium was a French ally when the construction on the line started in 1930.^[24] The French general staff had always planned to move forces into Belgium in the event of war as it was widely expected that Germany would try to outflank the Maginot line by invading Belgium, as had the Reich had tried to outflank a series of forts in eastern France by invading Belgium in 1914.^[25] Gamelin had continued this tradition by planning for a "forward defense" in Belgium in the event of war.^[26] On 14 October 1936, King Leopold III declared his country's neutrality and renounced the alliance with France.^[27] The end of the Franco-Belgian alliance was the end of Franco-Belgian staff talks, which complicated Gamelin's efforts to plan for the expected German offensive into Belgium.^[28] The Popular Front government had just approved of a major programme to modernise the French Army by committing 14 billion francs, and Gamelin did not wish to antagonise Blum by asking for billions of more francs to extend the Maginot line along the Franco-Belgian border as he knew that Blum in his heart deeply disliked military spending.^[29]

Despite the end of the Franco-Belgian alliance, Gamelin was still committed to a "forward defense" in Belgium as the best way to defend France.^[29] Daladier personally favored extending the Maginot line along the Belgian border to create a "fortress France", but the cost of doing so was daunting, namely 15 billion francs on top of the 7 billion francs that had already been spent building the Maginot line.^[30] The water-logged, low-lying lands between Cassel and Dunkerque would have been extremely expensive to extend the Maginot line into and likewise the same was true of the heavily industrialised area around Lille.^[31] Because of the nature of the land on the Franco-Belgian border, it would have been more expensive to extend the Maginot line along the Franco-Belgian than it was to build it along the Franco-German border despite the greater length of the Franco-German frontiers.^[31] Besides for the cost, Gamelin argued it would be cheaper and better to spend the money on modern tanks and artillery for a "forward defense" in Belgium.^[32] In his plans for a "forward defense", Gamelin expected the main German blow to come on the flat, open plains of Belgium and saw the Ardennes forest as an area of secondary importance.^[33] In 1937, Gamelin wrote the "experience of past wars" showed "the Ardennes has never favored [military] operations".^[34] The French defenses along the Meuse river area consisted of a series of blockhouses spread out over the countryside, and Gamelin assigned only second-class divisions to defend the Ardennes area.^[34]

In the winter of 1938–1939, Gamelin came into increasing conflict with the Foreign Minister, Georges Bonnet, who wanted to renounce the alliance with Poland.^[35] Gamelin insisted that the alliance with Poland brought France strategical benefits and contra Bonnet urged Daladier to "restructure" the Polish alliance to move Poland closer to France.^[36] Led by the Secretary-General at the Quai d'Orsay, Alexis St. Leger, a number of French diplomats in direct defiance of Bonnet wanted to create an alliance designed to deter Germany from war that would consist of France, Great Britain, Poland, the Soviet Union, Romania, Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey.^[36] Daladier privately thought that the German claim to the Free City of Danzig (modern Gdańsk) was a strong one, and the only reason why he backed the Polish position that there be no change in the status of the Free City was his desire to "restructure" the Franco-Polish alliance to bring it into part of a broader alliance system.^[37] The Polish Foreign Minister, Colonel Józef Beck, was a man whom French decision-makers greatly disliked and distrusted, as Beck had the reputation of an opportunist who drove very hard bargains.^[37] Gamelin did not intend to launch an offensive into western Germany should the Reich invade Poland, but he encouraged Daladier's line of standing by Poland during the Danzig crisis against Bonnet as he maintained that France needed the Polish alliance.^[38]

The same demographic weaknesses that made France dependent upon Algerian soldiers also made France dependent upon help from the United Kingdom in order to face the Wehrmacht on more even terms. Gamelin was very strongly opposed to the British limited liability doctrine, which governed British rearmament. The limited liability doctrine gave first priority in terms of defense funding to the Royal Air Force (RAF), second to the Royal Navy and third to the British Army. Gamelin stated that the British offer in late 1938 to send to France 2 British Army divisions along with 10 squadrons of RAF fighters was totally inadequate and would force the French Army to do the vast bulk of the fighting in a conflict with the Reich.^[39] Gamelin wrote to Daladier on 3 December 1938 that main issue was : "whether France wishes to remain a great power, indeed whether or not she wants to succumb sooner or later to the Nazi yoke."^[39] Gamelin predicated that another war with Germany was inevitable and he planned to wage an "extended war of attrition on which will hinge the whole world's fate".^[39] To win against the Reich, Gamelin argued that he needed Britain to make what the British called the "continental commitment" (i.e. sent a large expeditionary force to France)."^[40] The introduction of peacetime conscription in the United Kingdom along with a doubling in the size of the Territorial Army (the British reserves) in April 1939 offered up the prospect of the United Kingdom sending 33 divisions to France.^[41] The War Secretary, Leslie Hore-Belisha, tended to equate quantity with quality, and failed to understand that the long years of neglect caused by the limited liability doctrine left the British Army short of equipment and trainers for the proposed 33 division force.^[41] In his talks with Lord Gort, the chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) in the spring and summer of 1939, Gamelin was far more concerned about what help the British Army could offer France in 1939 instead of waiting for 1941 when the "big Belisha army" was expected to be ready to be sent to France.^[40] Gamelin pressed Gort to send to France all of the forces in the United Kingdom, namely 5 divisions of British regulars plus four divisions from the Territorial Army.^[40] In his talks with Gamelin, Gort was acutely embarrassed by the relatively small number of British Army divisions to be committed against Germany as compared to the French Army, and as a result Gort was deferential to Gamelin whose forces under his command vastly outnumberd his own.^[42]

Much of the French guerre de longue durée ("war of the long duration") was based on the assumption that France would have a strong Eastern European ally, preferably the Soviet Union, to divert German forces east.^[43] After the German-Soviet non-aggression pact on 23 August 1939 shattered that assumption, and Gamelin fell back to an alternative eastern strategy of reviving the Salonika front.^[44] Gamelin gave orders for the Armée du Levant based in Syria to prepare to embark from Beirut to Thessaloniki on 25 August 1939 to open up an alternative eastern front in the Balkans.^[45] At the outbreak of the war in September 1939, Gamelin was considered one of the best commanding generals in Europe, and was respected even among the Wehrmacht.

When war was declared in 1939, Gamelin was France's commander in chief, with his headquarters at the Château de Vincennes, a facility completely devoid of telephonic or any other electronic links to his commanders in the field: a massive oversight in the face of the Wehrmacht's subsequent swift and flexible ‘Blitzkrieg’ tactics. France saw little action during the Phoney War, apart from a few French divisions crossing the German border in the Saar Offensive, who advanced a mere 8 km (5.0 mi). They stopped even before reaching Germany's unfinished Siegfried Line. According to General Siegfried Westphal, a German staff officer on the Western Front, if France had attacked in September 1939 German forces could not have held out for more than one or two weeks. Gamelin ordered his troops back behind the Maginot Line, but only after telling France's ally, Poland, that France had broken the Siegfried Line and that help was on its way ^{[citation needed]}. Before the war, he had expected the Polish Army to hold out against Germany for six months. Gamelin's long-term strategy was to wait until France had fully rearmed and for the British and French armies to build up their forces, even though this would mean waiting until 1941 ^{[citation needed]}. He prohibited any bombing of the industrial areas of the Ruhr, in case the Germans retaliated. A major problem for Gamelin was the weakness of the Armée de l'air, most of whose fighter aircraft was known to be obsolete, which left France very exposed to Luftwaffe bombing attacks.^[46] Compounding the issue was that the Royal Air Force was known to have much technologically sophisticated fighters capable of taking on the Luftwaffe, but the British assumed that that the United Kingdom alone would be the object of a Luftwaffe strategical bombing offensive.^[47] In the fall of 1939, the RAF committed four squadrons of fighters and four squadrons of bombers to France, which remained under the direct control of the Air Ministry in London as even Lord Gort, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force had no say in the management of the RAF forces in France.^[48] The French mobilisation had called up many essential workers, which disrupted vital French industries in the first weeks of the campaign.

Gamelin was initially keen to open up a second front in the Balkans, and made extensive preparations to move the Armée du Levant to Greece in the first weeks of September 1939.^[45] However, at a meeting at the Supreme Allied Council on 22 September 1939, the French plan for a revived Salonika front met with fierce opposition from the British.^[45] Italy had unexpectedly declared neutrality instead of entering the war on the Axis side as widely assumed, and the British ministers at the Supreme Allied Council led by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain argued an expedition to the Balkans (an area that Italy had designs upon) might lead to Italy entering the war after all.^[45] Gamelin also reserved himself on the new Salonika front for much the same reason, that he still had hopes of keeping Italy neutral.^[49] However, Maxime Weygand, the commander of the Armée du Levant for reasons that had much to do with his ego as strategy, insisted on pressing for a new Salonika front in the winter of 1939–1940, saying that he could land 4 or 5 divisions in Greece, which become the nucleus of a force of 15 divisions.^[50] Weygand won over Daladier to his viewpoint, and in November 1939 Daladier ordered Charles Corbin, the French ambassador in London, to start pressing for a landing in Thessaloniki.^[51] Gamelin was strongly opposed to the Daladier-Weygand plan for an expedition to the Balkans, which he called an unlimited commitment that would take divisions from the Western Front.^[51] Daladier, who very wanted to execute Weygand's plans for a new Salonika front, complained in December 1939 that Gamelin's advice "resembled sand running through your fingers".^[52]

The case against la guerre de longue durée strategy was weakened in January 1940 by the reports from the Deuxième Bureau that the Wehrmacht had mustered 200 divisions compared to the 100 Anglo-French divisions stationed behind the Maginot line.^[53] Gamelin was forced to abandon plans to raise an additional 13 divisions owing to manpower shortages as he could not conscript so many men without crippling French war industry.^[53] At the same time, the effectiveness of the Anglo-French blockade of Germany was undercut by German-Soviet trade as the Soviet Union was self-sufficient in almost all of the natural resources needed to sustain a modern industrial economy, and by importing raw materials from the Soviet Union, the Reich was essentially blockade-proof.^[54] Admiral Darlan in particular started to press for France to take action, saying la guerre de longue durée strategy was not working.^[54] In the corridors of power, Darlan argued that France should under the pretext of aiding Finland in the Winter War cut Germany off from its supply of high-grade Swedish iron ore.^[55] Gamelin provided an opening about asking for a study from Darlan about how best to aid Finland, and instead received a memo saying that France needed to strike before Germany signed another economic agreement with the Soviet Union by cutting Germany from the Swedish iron ore.^[55] Darlan called for a joint Army-Navy expedition to seize the Petsamo province of Finland recently occupied by the Red Army even though it would almost mean war with the Soviet Union out of the hope of provoking German response, which would allow French forces to occupy northern Sweden, and hence deprive the Reich of its most important source of iron, which was the crucial element needed to manufacture steel.^[56] Gamelin was opposed to Darlan's Scandinavian expedition, arguing that the best place for French manpower was in the defense of France, but by this point Daladier was clearly annoyed by what he perceived as Gamelin's passive stance of waiting behind the Maginot line.^[57] Over Gamelin's protests, Daladier accepted the Scandinavian expedition championed by Darlan.^[57] In January 1940, Daladier ordered Gamelin and Darlan to start preparing for three possible operations against the Soviet Union to be executed simultaneously, namely a naval campaign against Soviet tankers in the Black Sea, sponsoring an anti-Soviet revolt in the Caucasus where 90% of Soviet oil was produced; and the "Baku project" of bombing the Soviet oil fields in Baku and in the Caspian Sea.^[58] After being initially opposed to the "Baku project" of bombing the oil fields of Soviet Azerbaijan, Gamelin around to supporting it in March 1940.^[59]

Gamelin's vision for France's defence was based upon a static defence along the Franco-German border, which was reinforced by the Maginot Line. However, the Line did not extend along the Belgian frontier. During the winter of 1939–40, which was one of the coldest of the 20th century, work on the extension of the Line along the Belgian frontier was slow and not of the same quality as the original defences. Gamelin, along with many other members of the French High Command, saw the Ardennes as impenetrable and chose to defend it with only ten reserve divisions and few fortifications. Much of the French army was posted further northwest along the Belgian frontier. According to General Hasso von Manteuffel, a German Panzer commander, France had more and better tanks than Germany, but chose to disperse them.

Gamelin's had never assumed a purely defensive strategy relying on the Maginot Line as popularly depicted, and he always favored a forward defense in Belgium. French strategists predicted a German drive across northern Belgium, as in 1914. Gamelin favoured an aggressive advance northward to meet the attacking German forces in Belgium and the Netherlands, as far removed from French territory as possible. This strategy, known as the Dyle Plan, fitted with Belgian defensive plans and also with British objectives. Gamelin committed much of the motorised forces of the French Army and the entire British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to this strategy. Such a strategy also meant that most of the French Army would leave its one-year-old prepared defensive positions in northern France to be committed to joining battle on an unknown Belgian defensive line.

Despite reports of the build-up of German forces, and even knowing the date of the planned German attack, Gamelin did nothing until May 1940, stating that he would "await events". Then, when the Germans attacked, Gamelin insisted on moving 40 of his best divisions, including the BEF, northwards to conform to the Dyle Plan.

In the first few days of the Battle of Belgium, many Allied aircraft were attacked while still on the ground. The rest of the air support was concentrated on the French advance, rather than attacking the exposed 150 km (93 mi) column supplying the German advance. Quickly, the French and the British became fearful of being outflanked and they withdrew from the defensive lines drawn up across Belgium. They did not pull back fast enough to prevent them being outflanked by the German Panzer divisions.

The German wing that attacked further south was able to cross the River Meuse faster than anticipated, aided by heavy Luftwaffe aerial bombardment. Although almost all the crossings over the Meuse were destroyed by the French, one weir 60 km (37 mi) north of Sedan had been left intact and was only lightly defended. It was thus quickly captured and exploited by the Germans. Meanwhile, French guns were ordered to limit their firing in case they ran out of ammunition. German Colonel-General Heinz Guderian disregarded his orders, and attacked aggressively on this front. In response, Gamelin withdrew forces in this area so that they could defend Paris, thinking this was the Germans' objective, rather than the coast.

Believing that he had been betrayed rather than blaming his own strategy, Gamelin then sacked 20 of his front line commanders^{[citation needed]}.

Further north, the German forces led by Major-General Erwin Rommel kept advancing quickly as well, also against orders. General Guderian's 19th Panzer Corps south of Rommel reached the English Channel to the west of the Allied forces and attacked up the coast, enveloping the French and British forces that had been sent into Belgium. The French and English forces had retreated south but were cut off from escape by the German encirclement. In moving from France to Belgium and then back to France, a substantial amount of the Allied armour was lost due to German air attacks and mechanical failure. The French and British could no longer launch a counterattack spearheaded by tanks and thus break out of the encirclement. The speed of this advance, German air supremacy, and the inability of the British and French to counter-attack undermined the overall Allied position to such a degree that Britain abandoned the conflict on the continent. 338,226 men (including 120,000 French soldiers) withdrew across the English Channel during the Dunkirk evacuation. A second British Expeditionary Force, due to land in Normandy in mid-June, was cancelled.

The Dutch surrendered within five days of being attacked, the Belgians in 18 days ("campagne des 18 jours"), and the French were left with only a rump of their former army to defend their nation. Gamelin was removed from his post on 18 May 1940 by Paul Reynaud, who had replaced Édouard Daladier as Prime Minister in March. The 67-year-old Gamelin was replaced by the 73-year-old Maxime Weygand, who crucially delayed planned counter-attacks before eventually launching them.

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Gamelin was both preceded and succeeded as Général d'armée by Maxime Weygand. The Vichy regime tried Gamelin for treason along with other important political and military figures of the Third Republic (Édouard Daladier, Guy La Chambre, Léon Blum, and Robert Jacomet) in the Riom Trial. Gamelin refused to answer the charges against him, instead maintaining silence, and the entire proceeding collapsed. Imprisoned by the Vichy regime in Fort du Portalet in the Pyrenees, he was later deported by the Germans to the Itter Castle in North Tyrol with a few other French high officials. He was freed from the castle after the Battle for Castle Itter. After the war, he published his memoirs, titled Servir (meaning "to serve").

Gamelin died in Paris in April 1958 at the age of 85.

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• Alexander, Martin S. (1991). "Maurice Gamelin and the defeat of France, 1939–40". In Bond, Brian (ed.). Fallen Stars. Eleven Studies of Twentieth Century Military Disaster. London: Brassey's. ISBN 0-08-040717-X.
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• "Le général Gamelin succède au général Weygand comme généralissime tout en restant chef d'état-major général" (PDF). L'Ouest-Eclair (in French). 19 January 1935. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 July 2011.
• Tissier, Pierre (1942). The Riom Trial. London: G. G. Harrap.

• Service records of General Gamelin
• Newspaper clippings about Maurice Gamelin in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
• Generals of World War II