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See Also in
Notorious Lives

François Darlan

Joseph Darnand

Jacques Doriot

Francisco Franco

Pierre Laval

Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives

Philippe Pétain

by Martha A. Sherwood

Premier of Vichy France (1940-1944)

Major offense: Treason

Active: 1940-1944

Locale: France

Sentence: Death and national degradation; commuted to life imprisonment

Early Life

Henri-Philippe Pétain (ahn-ree fih-leep pay-ta) was born to peasants in northern France. He chose the military as one of the few opportunities available for social advancement, attending Saint-Cyr Military Academy and the prestigious École Supérieur de Guerre in Paris, where he taught upon graduation in 1888. At the outbreak of World War I, he had never seen combat.

Military Career

During the next four years, he proved himself a very able field commander whose leadership was characterized by careful planning, meticulous attention to detail, emphasis on defensive actions, and respect for the rank and file. Pétain had no use for élan, preferring prudence to fighting spirit. Under his command, the French won the crucial Battle of Verdun (1916). The French high command then appointed Pétain as the commander of all French armies in May, 1917, in order to contain a crisis of demoralization and mutiny within the ranks. Pétain’s swift application of military justice toward the mutineers is seen by some historians as a foretaste of his authoritarian rule in Vichy France; others consider that the dangers of the situation fully merited the measures taken. At the end of World War I, Field Marshal Pétain emerged an unequivocal hero, applauded by the French public and respected by soldiers of all ranks.

For the next twenty years, Pétain played a minor role in public life. In 1926, he and General Francisco Franco from Spain successfully quelled a tribal uprising in Morocco. Later he served briefly as minister of war, and in 1939 he was appointed ambassador to Spain. He supported building the Maginot Line, a line of concrete fortifications and other defenses built along the French borders with Italy and Germany; it later failed utterly to protect France from a German invasion.

Pétain found much that was attractive in Italian and Spanish fascism. He loathed communism, believed that the French nation was falling prey to moral decay, had great faith in the ability of conservative Roman Catholicism to bring about moral and spiritual renewal, and was accustomed to a military style of leadership.

Vichy France

In 1940, Nazi Germany invaded France. Faced with this crisis, the premier recalled the eighty-three-year-old Pétain from Spain and asked him to assume leadership. Pétain agreed, succumbing, as one author put it, to the flattering fallacy that he was indispensable. In early July, 1940, the National Assembly suspended the Constitution of the Third Republic, handing Pétain virtual dictatorial powers. He in turn concluded a peace treaty that left the northern half of France, including Paris, under direct German occupation, while establishing a French fascist-style puppet government in the south.

Any opprobrium attached to Pétain’s premiership derives from his actions between July of 1940 and November of 1942, when Nazi Germany responded to the Allied offensives in North Africa by occupying Vichy France in earnest and Pierre Laval became effective head of state. About the same time, Pétain began showing signs of senility. By the end of the war, the mental impairment was obvious.

Pétain hoped that collaboration with the Nazis would result in a moral and economic revival in France. He reversed half a century of official separation of church and state by reintroducing Catholic doctrine into the public schools. To combat the declining birth rate, considered a symptom of moral decay, he discouraged divorce and restricted women’s roles outside the home. Press and radio were heavily censored. All of this was a step backward socially but did not constitute treason. Vichy France provided provisions and economic support to Germany’s fighting machine; however, the only French troops involved on the Axis side were those garrisoned in colonies.

Pétain instituted a fascist domestic militia to combat the French Resistance movement. Its brutal tactics created lingering resentment. He acquiesced in, and perhaps initially approved of, repressive measures toward Jews, who were banned from most professions and had their property placed under gentile overseers, a move amounting to confiscation. Possibly these actions saved the lives of Jews who were French citizens, 75 percent of whom survived the war. Recent refugees from Germany, of whom there were many, did not fare as well.

Legal Action and Outcome

In November of 1944, the Nazis evacuated Pétain to Germany in anticipation of the advancing Allied armies. He returned voluntarily to France at the end of the war. After a lengthy trial in July-August, 1945, at which much contradictory evidence was presented, the court convicted him of treason and sentenced him to death by firing squad. French president Charles de Gaulle commuted the sentence to life imprisonment, citing his advanced age and perhaps mindful that French public opinion was nearly equally divided concerning his guilt. His codefendant Laval was executed. Pétain was transferred to the military prison at Île d’Yeu in Normandy, where he died of old age in 1951. There his remains lie, despite repeated attempts by admirers of his earlier military career to transfer them to Verdun.

Impact

Had Philippe Pétain remained in Spain in 1940, he would best be remembered as an able general. His later career defies simple categorization. If, as he firmly believed, resistance to the Germans was doomed to failure, then his willingness to surrender early and collaborate saved the civilian population of France from carnage such as that which occurred in Poland and Russia. It can be argued, however, that collaboration with Nazi Germany was unacceptable under any circumstances. France’s early acquiescence may have prolonged the war in Europe, but even that argument is debatable. Probably the best assessment is that of a tragic figure who allowed himself to be maneuvered into a situation that posterity justly condemns but was innocent of malevolent intent.

Further Reading

1 

Crane, Richard Francis. “La Croix and the Swastika: The Ambiguity of Catholic Responses to the Fall of France.” Catholic Historical Review 90, no. 1 (2004): 45-66. Evaluates Pétain’s pro-Catholic policies as recounted through the eyes of a liberal Catholic newspaper.

2 

Curtis, Michael. Verdict on Vichy: Power and Prejudice in the Vichy France Regime. New York: Arcade, 2002. Considers that the prejudice and reactionary policies of Vichy France were a product of domestic rather than external forces.

3 

Lottman, Herbert R. Pétain: Hero or Traitor? The Untold Story. New York: Morrow, 1985. Explores the continuing controversies in France regarding Pétain’s place in French history.

4 

Weisberg, Richard H. Vichy Law and the Holocaust in France. New York: New York University Press, 1996. Explores the role of economic factors and domestic French anti-Semitism in Vichy France.

Citation Types

MLA 9th
Sherwood, Martha A. "Philippe Pétain." Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives, edited by Carl L. Bankston III, Salem Press, 2007. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLN_1465.
APA 7th
Sherwood, M. A. (2007). Philippe Pétain. In C. L. Bankston III (Ed.), Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Sherwood, Martha A. "Philippe Pétain." Edited by Carl L. Bankston III. Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2007. Accessed September 17, 2026. online.salempress.com.