Paris-born Maurice-Gustave Gamelin graduated from Saint-Cyr, the French military academy, in 1893 and, at the outbreak of World War I, in August 1914, served as a staff officer, operations section, under French commander in chief Joseph Joffre. He remained a highly placed staff officer throughout most of the war but was given field command of a division before it ended.

After the armistice, Gamelin was appointed to head a military mission to Brazil, serving there from 1919 to 1925, when he was appointed chief of staff to General Maurice Sarrail, who commanded all French forces in the Levant. In 1926, Gamelin succeeded Sarrail, serving in the Levant through 1930. He was elevated to army chief of staff in 1931 and vice president of the Supreme War Council as well as army inspector general in 1935. In 1938, Gamelin was named chief of staff for national defense, effectively becoming the commander of all French forces.

As chief, Gamelin directed the French mobilization at the outbreak of World War II, in September 1939, and he was in command during the Battle of France, which began on May 10, 1940. Gamelin was neither better nor worse than most of the rest of the senior French command, which, unfortunately for France, meant that he was a mediocrity, dedicated to the status quo. He had done nothing to streamline and rationalize the complex, cumbersome, and counterproductive command structure of the French Army. He had done nothing to address deficiencies of training and the even graver deficiencies of morale. He had denigrated the value and the role of air power. He had done little to address shortages of adequate antiaircraft and antitank weapons. With the rest of the French high command, he had blindly assumed that a second world war would, of necessity, be a repetition of the first--fought as static combat from trenches--and he therefore operated only according to a defensive plan, which proved disastrously inadequate to stem the German invasion Blitzkrieg.

During the opening moves of the invasion, Gamelin blundered into the German trap, sending mobile forces into Belgium to meet the expected advance there. Instead, the main panzer thrust came through the Ardennes, which Gamelin (and others) had considered impassable. Stunned, Gamelin dithered in response and was dismissed by Premier Paul Reynaud, who replaced him with the more aggressive, albeit superannuated, Maxime Weygand on May 19. . .

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