FROM 1944 TO 2024, SHARING THE SPIRIT OF DEFENCE
He himself foresaw this, and even wrote about it in his "Notes de guerre": today, General de Monsabert is somewhat forgotten, unlike other figures of the Liberation, such as Marshals Leclerc, Juin and De Lattre de Tassigny, whose names are now found on countless roads throughout the country.
However, the liberator of Marseille had just as many eminent officer qualities as the other three (who were his leaders or his subordinates in the case of Leclerc): a brilliant soldier and an exceptional leader of men, he was also able to navigate the complex relations between these generals, who were sometimes volatile, his own troops (largely from North Africa), those of the Resistance and the American army. Eight decades later, his exploits and those of his soldiers are part of the defence culture that the IHEDN is dedicated to promoting.
SOLDIER BY TRADE AND FAMILY TRADITION
In Éric Blanchot's documentary "Ils étaient la France" (2004), devoted to the last Algerian riflemen and their role in the Provence landings and the Liberation of France, one figure stood out: General Joseph de Goislard de Monsabert. Many people regretted that his aura had been overshadowed by that of De Lattre.
A soldier by trade and family tradition, a "colonial" from his graduation from Saint-Cyr, in the "Morocco" class (1907), and a connoisseur of North Africa, Monsabert embodied the framework of the African army, which became the First French Army. As the recent study by historian Claire Miot has shown, this army, although demobilised after the armistice of June 1940, nonetheless maintained a military potential that was reactivated by the Allied landings in North Africa (November 1942), followed by American operational and military aid.
Once the tensions between the army's leader, Henri Giraud, and Charles de Gaulle had been overcome, the army got into marching order. In the autumn of 1943, it prepared to fight two battles that would prove to be fundamental and deadly, but which, alongside the epic of the 2e Leclerc's DB, restored the image of France's military potential: the Italian campaign, in which these troops played a decisive spearheading role, then the Provence landings (15 August 1944), whose strategic importance, technical difficulty and fierceness of the fighting are often underestimated by comparison with the initial Normandy landings.
LOVED BY HIS TROOPS FOR HIS SIMPLICITY AND VIRTUOSITY IN BATTLE
This was an injustice. Firstly, because like all amphibious operations, it was a delicate and risky operation, which the Germans met with strong resistance in Marseille and Toulon. Secondly, because this landing had major tactical effects, with the news of it facilitating the uprising in Paris, for example.
In this army led by De Lattre de Tassigny, and animated by triumphant figures of the Free French such as Generals Edgard de Larminat and Diego Brosset, the figure of Monsabert, less immediately flamboyant and later in the commitment, nevertheless stands out. A "gentleman from Gascony", loved by his troops for his simplicity and good-naturedness as well as for his operational virtuosity, Monsabert was not driven by the almost tragic flame of the absolute runners of the Free French. On the other hand, he was a remarkable operational leader, loved by his men, particularly the 3e Algerian Infantry Division (DIA), which he led from the Tunisian campaign to Stuttgart, where he witnessed the end of the fighting.
Finally, he was a man who never separated his military commitment from his Christian faith, celebrating the liberation of Marseille at Notre-Dame de la Garde: "It was the Virgin who did everything". His ability to get the best out of the absolutely decisive Algerian and Moroccan troops in Toulon and Marseille made him an essential and little-known player in the Liberation, about which his "Notes de guerre" provide a first-rate account.
They also shed light on the art of command, and on the bond with his troops that he does not hesitate to describe as "family", deeply touched that a Moroccan goumi called him "my father". "The leader's action is almost elusive, I mean the action that is sometimes the most effective", he writes.
THE DILEMMA OF THE JUNE 1940 ARMISTICE
Born in September 1887 in Libourne (Gironde), Joseph de Goislard de Monsabert, like De Gaulle (three years his junior), belonged to a generation brought up on the idea of a war of revenge. But unlike the future President of the Republic, he came from a family with a military tradition: his path to Saint-Cyr, which he entered in 1907, was a natural one.
Another notable difference with De Gaulle was that Monsabert chose a posting in the Empire, in Morocco. This was a classic choice for this generation (as it would be for Juin, De Gaulle's valedictorian two years later): the pay was better, the progression through the ranks faster, and the imagination of this generation of French servicemen was marked by combat in Africa or Asia.
Present at the head of the 9e company of Moroccan Zouaves, Monsabert was appointed captain in 1915, then battalion commander at the end of a conflict that earned him seven commendations. Peace brought him back to North Africa: colonel in 1937, in 1939 he headed the South Tunisian grouping in Blida.
For many officers in the African Army, the armistice of June 1940 posed a dilemma: when De Gaulle called for the role of the Empire in the continuation of the struggle, loyalty to Vichy prevailed for the most part, following the example of General Charles Noguès, Commander-in-Chief of the French forces in North Africa, who remained deaf to calls from London.
MONSABERT "NEVER ACCEPTED DEFEAT
However, these armies had little experience of confrontation, and remained alien to the "complex" nourished by the troops driven in and dismembered on the north-eastern front of France.
Monsabert regretted that troops had not been sent en masse to North Africa: "The air force and navy would have been fully deployed. And what a tremendous impression we would have made on our native Africans! What cohesion with us against an enemy that would have become the most hated enemy imaginable!
But he counters this with a feeling of powerlessness: "I am briefly ashamed to feel that I have disappointed many simple, honest hearts. Alas, what could I have done? Not even shed unnecessary blood! The Allied landings in North Africa in November 1942 put an end to what he called the "inter-war period".
Protected by General Maxime Weygand, the Vichy government's delegate general for North Africa, who promoted him to general in 1941 and appointed him to Blida, Monsabert confessed that he had "never accepted defeat": "The regiments in my brigade will do me justice that I always told them that war was coming, not peace.
ALGERIAN INFANTRYMEN AFTER MOROCCAN ZOUAVES AND TUNISIAN RIFLEMEN
A close follower of Giraud (whom he felt had "kept the French army that was going to fight and liberate France"), he took part in the Tunisian campaign, before taking command of the third Algerian infantry division in March 1943.
After a summer of preparation, during which he remained loyal to Giraud in his duel with De Gaulle, he took off on 13 December 1943 for Naples and the "great adventure".
His vision was a mixture of optimism and circumspection: "This French army, reformed, armed, equipped, trained, is worth twenty times the huge allied armies, which certainly appreciate it, but would not accept it as an ally placed on an equal footing. So we have to go slowly, make our nest in the battle, show ourselves little by little, impose ourselves, make ourselves known, before returning to France, to be the masters there one day".
The engagement of the First French Army in Italy was a military renaissance. It owed much to American armaments and operational concepts, but also to a resolutely offensive strategy that had been forgotten in 1940. "What pleases me is this forward thrust," Juin told Monsabert.
"MY MEN ARE AT THE END OF THEIR TETHER
The fierce fighting on the Gustave Line (a set of fortifications cutting across the Italian peninsula at its narrowest point), symbolised by the capture of the Belvedere ridge, involved the heroism and hardiness of Algerian riflemen and Moroccan goumiers, and the sacrifice of Tunisian riflemen (more than half of the 4e Régiment de tirailleurs tunisiens (Tunisian riflemen regiment) gave their lives in ten days of fighting, from 25 January to 4 February 1944).
Monsabert made no secret of it: "My men are at the end of their tether, and I can see their physical and nervous fatigue. My attack orders are acts of will. You have to close your heart to the complaints of sub-orders, to the reports of losses. You have to see only the goal: to take control of the last quarter of an hour.
The bridgehead established in the Cairo massif conditioned the American advance north of Mont Cassin. Monsabert could exult: "Victory is an act of faith! Nothing without risks", quoting Juin's congratulations: "You are winning the battle all by yourself". And he acknowledges the grace that carried his men into battle: "France is here [...] I told them so. With a thank you, a simple thank you.
A FORM OF MISTRUST TOWARDS DE GAULLE
The ascent of the Italian front continued, bitterly. On 5 March, Monsabert received a visit from De Gaulle: "You are soldiers, I'm talking to soldiers. I have to manoeuvre. The game is tough. First we have to save the French army. Monsabert replied: "It's the best map of France.
De Gaulle, who was already head of state rather than head of the military, accepting the "refugees from the Third Republic", always harboured a certain mistrust of Monsabert. He counterbalanced this by his constant, obsessive concern to maintain French "unity", which had been lacking in 1940, and which for him was the key to renewal, with the army as the crucible.
Yet the battle continued, relentlessly, in the face of an enemy that was gradually breaking down. In contact with his riflemen, Monsabert maintained a dynamic, a toughness under fire of which he modestly admitted: "People like to acknowledge the morale, the tonus of my division. Perhaps my work lies much more in training, nurturing and developing this soul than in the more or less shrewd way in which I use it.
Between his entry into Rome (5 June) and Siena (3 July), he was made a Companion of the Liberation on 29 June by General de Gaulle.
THE PROVENCE LANDINGS, A "FURIA FRANCESE
The Provence landings were undoubtedly more important than the Normandy landings for the French armies. While Leclerc and the 2e DB are at work from 1er August at Utah Beach, almost 230,000 French soldiers took part in Operation Dragoon from the 15th onwards on the Mediterranean coast. For Monsabert and his division, it was goodbye to Juin, in Sienne, and the transition to the command of De Lattre de Tassigny, whose more changeable personality sometimes disconcerted him.
It was in the Bay of Gaète, near Naples, that his troops regenerated and prepared for the "heavy machine of landing". When the landings took place on 15 August, "we were all one, a great force united towards France". After the landing ("France, the third Algerian infantry division is bringing back victorious flags!"), Monsabert, disconcerted for a while by the lack of immediate German resistance, launched an assault on Marseille, where the Forces françaises de l'intérieur (FFI) had risen up and called for reinforcements.
In a confused and dangerous context, with rivalries between the FFI and "shootings that we didn't understand at all", direct negotiations with the German general, Schaeffer, at Fort Saint-Jean, came to nothing: it was only on 28 August, after fierce fighting and a constant concern to safeguard the urban heritage (Notre-Dame de la Garde), that Monsabert received the German capitulation: "Basically, we agreed in advance, and I gave them a fair share to save Marseille and make my division available for tomorrow's pursuit".
THE FRENCH AND AMERICAN ARMIES, "TWO DOGS TIED BY THE TAIL".
And he recalls the day of 29 August, "crushing with glory": "The quays of the Vieux-Port flanked by troops, riflemen and goumiers cut off by noubas and, blocking the exit from the Canebière onto the Quai des Belges, all my flags! A moment of communion with his men followed, "their grateful smiles, my great victories, because I was loved and followed".
The ensuing ascent was triumphant from a military point of view: Privas, Saint-Étienne on 3 September, Lyon on 4 September. It was also politically complex, with the sometimes conflicting links with the FFI fuelling the feeling that the African Army was being sidelined, and interoperability with American troops making Monsabert feel like "two dogs tied by the tail". Appointed Governor of Strasbourg, Monsabert struggled to retain his command long enough to "drive the enemy back to the Rhine": he had General Leclerc under his command, playing a complex role as an intermediary between him and De Lattre.
His words during the harsh winter campaign of 1944-1945 were for his riflemen, "wounded three times and killed the fourth", and for the "military family" he formed with them: "Forming a family with those who serve and are led to their deaths! That's the secret of command.
"I WILL END MY DAYS MOCKED OR FORGOTTEN".
The last battles beyond the Rhine (which the French army crossed on 31 March "for the first time in 150 years") were marked by tensions with the American general staff over the occupation of Stuttgart, by a kind of melancholy and embarrassment at the sight of the German collapse, and by the fear that the unity from which the French revival had come would be dispersed.
The men "are thrilled to be entering Germany, but I sense that they have little or no hatred. They hate their victors, they have no grudge against the vanquished". Finally, the announcement of the surrender on 7 May was greeted with "subtle idleness": "Something that falls flat. The joy and enthusiasm will be in the rear, no doubt in Paris, and above all - and this is the only thought that pleases us - among those who are waiting for us. Yes, they will make it happen.
Bidding farewell to his military career in 1946, Joseph de Monsabert briefly served as a member of parliament for his Basses-Pyrénées (now Pyrénées-Atlantiques) constituency for the RPF, a group founded around De Gaulle, and kept alive the memory of the 3rd World War.e Algerian Infantry Division, until his death in 1981.
In September 1944, at the time of the liberation of Lyon, he noted: "France will undoubtedly save itself [...]. But I will end my days mocked or forgotten, in the depths of the country. What does it matter, if France lives again, and if I have done my duty?
