Thiérot, Jean-Louis Castelnau. Le Maréchal Escamoté 1851-1944

General de Castelnau traverses a century of French military and political history. Regarded by his contemporaries as one of the fathers of victory in the First World War, he was the victim of political cabals linked to his reputation as a Catholic right-wing radical. Labelled a "Capuchin in boots" by Clemenceau, he was denied the marshal's baton three times, which public opinion had promised him. In this standard biography, Jean-Louis Thiériot describes a visionary, well-educated leader who resisted an exaggerated offensive and respected the lives of his men. Freshly discharged from Saint-Cyr, Castelnau gained his experience during the debacle of 1870. In the summer of 1914, he won the only French victories before the victory on the Marne at the Trouée de Charmes and at Nancy. After various commands, he was appointed Joffre's deputy at the Grand Headquarters and played an important role in the defence of Verdun. Marked by the war, which took three of his sons from him, he then devoted himself to politics as a member of parliament before founding the "Fédération nationale catholique" in response to the cartels of the left and anti-clericalism. From 1933 onwards, he repeatedly warned the French public against the prevailing pacifism and German rearmament. In 1940, he immediately condemned the armistice and Marshal Pétain's submission to the occupying forces. As an opponent of Vichy and close confidant of the resistance movements, he died without having experienced the longed-for liberation.