Maxime Weygand

Maxime Weygand (French pronunciation: [vɛɡɑ̃]; 21 January 1867 – 28 January 1965) was a French military commander in World War I and World War II, as well as a high ranking member of the Vichy regime.

Born in Belgium, Weygand was raised in France and educated at the Saint-Cyr military academy in Paris. After graduating in 1887, he went on to become an instructor at the Saumur Cavalry School. During World War I, Weygand served as a staff officer to General (later Marshal) Ferdinand Foch. He then served as an advisor to Poland in the Polish–Soviet War and later High Commissioner of the Levant. In 1931, Weygand was appointed Chief of Staff of the French Army, a position he served until his retirement in 1935 at the age of 68.

In May 1940, Weygand was recalled for active duty and assumed command of the French Army during the German invasion. Following a series of military setbacks, Weygand advised armistice and France subsequently capitulated. He joined Philippe Pétain's Vichy regime as Minister for Defence and served until September 1940, when he was appointed Delegate-General in French North Africa. He was noted for exceptionally harsh implementation of German anti-Semitic policies while in this position. Despite this, Weygand favoured only limited collaboration with Germany and was dismissed from his post in November 1941 on Adolf Hitler's demand. Following the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942, Weygand was arrested by the Germans and imprisoned at Itter Castle in Austria until May 1945. After returning to France, he was held as a collaborator at the Val-de-Grâce but was released in 1946 and cleared of charges in 1948. He died in January 1965 in Paris at the age of 98.

Weygand was born on 21 January 1867, allegedly at 39 Boulevard de Waterloo in Brussels, of unknown parents. The biographer Bernard Destremau gave five possible sets of parents: Leopold II with either the wife of the Austrian diplomat Count Zichy or an anonymous Mexican woman (dismissed as doubtful); Charlotte, wife of then-Archduke Maximilian of Austria, and the Belgian officer Alfred van der Smissen (widely supported); a tutor named David Cohen and a French woman named Thérèse Denimal ("lacks credibility"); Charlotte and a Mexican Colonel Lopez ("difficult to hide"); and Maximilian of Austria and a Mexican dancer called Lupe. The various theories of Mexican extraction, however, require some kind of record forgery; regardless, Weygand's short stature and appearance may suggest a partially-European antecedence with a connection to the Austrian court suggested by the funds provided for his education in youth. In 2003, the French journalist Dominique Paoli claimed to have found evidence that Weygand's father was indeed van der Smissen, but the mother was Melanie Metternich-Zichy, lady-in-waiting to Charlotte (and daughter of Prince Klemens von Metternich, Austrian Chancellor). Paoli further claimed that Weygand had been born in mid-1865, not January 1867 as is generally claimed. This theory is rejected by historians as most accounts place Metternich-Zichy in European circles, not Mexico, at the time Weygand was conceived.

Regardless, throughout his life, Weygand maintained he did not know his true parentage. While an infant he was sent to Marseille to be raised by a widow named Virginie Saget, whom he originally took to be his mother.^{[page needed]} At the age of seven, he was transferred to the household of David Cohen, an Italo-Belgian leather merchant in Marseille, with partner Thérèse Denimal (later de Nimal). Then-called Maxime de Nimal, he attended schools in Cannes and then Asniéres, fees likely paid by the Belgian royal household or government, where his scholastic accomplishment were recognised. He was transferred to a boarding school in Paris and thence to the Lycée Louis-le-Grand where Maxime was baptised Catholic. After a disciplinary issue he was expelled and barred from Parisian schools, ending up at schools in Toulon and then Aix-en-Provence. Returning to Paris some years later, he was rejected from the French Navy and decided to seek admission to the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr. Admitted in the top half of the class, he was denied a full French uniform due to his unclear heritage, but the slight ignored he graduated in the top ten of his class. Highly competent at fencing and horsemanship, he was accepted as a junior cavalry officer at Saumur – connecting him to a network of upper-class officers – but again rejected as a non-citizen. After some payments by David Cohen, Maxime was adopted by an accountant in Arras called Francis-Joseph Weygand. Taking the name Maxime Weygand, he was posted to a French cavalry regiment in October 1888.

He says little about his youth in his memoirs, devoting to it only four pages out of 651. He mentions the gouvernante and the aumônier of his college, who instilled in him a strong Catholic faith. His memoirs essentially begin with his entry into the preparatory class of Saint-Cyr Military School in Paris.^{[citation needed]}

During the Dreyfus affair, Weygand was one of the most anti-Dreyfusard officers of his regiment, supporting the widow of Colonel Hubert-Joseph Henry, who had committed suicide after the discovery of the falsification of the charges against Captain Alfred Dreyfus.

He was promoted to captain in 1896. Weygand chose not to attempt the difficult preparation to the École Supérieure de Guerre (the French staff college) because of his desire, he said, to keep contact with the troops. This did not prevent him from later becoming an instructor at the cavalry school at Saumur. Along with Joseph Joffre and Ferdinand Foch, Weygand attended the Imperial Russian Army manoeuvres in 1910; his account mentions a great deal of pomp and many gala dinners, but also records Russian reluctance to discuss military details. Promoted with unusual rapidity to lieutenant colonel in 1912, he attended in 1913 the Centre des Hautes Etudes Militaires, set up in January 1911 to teach combined arms operations and staff work, despite not having been "breveté" (passed staff college). During his studies, he was noticed for his brilliance in staff work by Joffre and Foch. Weygand attended the last pre-war French grand manoeuvres in 1913 and commented that it had revealed "intolerable insufficiencies" such as two divisions becoming mixed up.