Tassigny, Jean Joseph Marie de Lattre de

Born Feb. 2, 1889, in Mouilleron-en-Pareds, Vendée Department; died Jan. 11, 1952, in Paris. Marshal of France (1952, posthumously).

Tassigny graduated from the St. Cyr Military College in 1911 and served in the cavalry. He fought in World War I (1914-18). Between 1921 and 1926 he served in the infantry in Morocco and participated in the war against the Rif Republic. He graduated from the Academy of the General Staff in 1935. Early in World War II, Tassigny was chief of staff of the Fifth Army in 1939–40 and commander of the 14th Infantry Division in 1940. After the capitulation of France, Tassigny commanded troops in Tunisia and then an infantry division in the unoccupied zone of France. In November 1942 he was arrested by the Vichy government for resistance to the fascist German occupation and sentenced to ten years in prison, but he escaped to North Africa and joined Fighting France; he was appointed commander in chief of its troops in September 1943. In June 1944 he took over the command of the French First Army, which landed in southern France in August 1944 and then fought its way through southern Germany. On May 8, 1945, Tassigny signed on behalf of France the document containing fascist Germany’s capitulation in Berlin. He was an inspector general and a member of the Supreme Military Council after the war. Tassigny was appointed commander in chief of the ground forces of the Western bloc in 1948 and high commissioner and commander in chief of the French troops in Indochina in December 1950. He is the author of the book History of the French First Army (1949).