Background
Maurice was born on 20 September in 1872 in Paris, France.
Maurice was born on 20 September in 1872 in Paris, France.
Maurice graduated from St. Cyr, the French military academy, in 1893.
During World War I, Gamelin served on the staff of General Joseph Joffre and later led the Ninth Division through campaigns in the Argonne and at Verdun that helped to end the war. Between 1919 and 1925 Gamelin headed a French military mission to Brazil, and from 1925 to 1927 he commanded the forces that suppressed the anti-French Druse uprising in Syria. In January 1938, he was appointed chief of staff of national defense; in June 1939, commander in chief of all French forces; and in May 1940, commander in chief of all Allied forces. Following the German breakthrough at Sedan on May 18, 1940, Gamelin was replaced by General Maxime Weygand and soon afterward was arrested by the Vichy government. From 1943 to the end of the war he was interned in Germany. Whether or not strategic errors by Gamelin were responsible for the rapid collapse of French forces in World War II is still debated. Gamelin himself blamed faulty reports from the army's information services in his memoirs, which were published in three volumes under the title Servir (Paris, 1946 - 1947).
