Fernand Gambiez

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Fernand Gambiez, 1961

Fernand Charles Louis Gambiez (born February 27, 1903 in Lille , † March 29, 1989 in Saint-Mandé ) was a French officer ( Général d'armée ) and military historian .

Life

Gambiez was born in 1903 as the son of an officer and his wife in Lille in northern France. He visited u. a. the traditional Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris' Latin Quarter . He then joined the French army and was trained as an officer at the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr from 1923 to 1925 . In 1925 he was promoted to sub-lieutenant and in 1927 to lieutenant . Gambiez was then u. a. Used for several years in French Morocco with the French Foreign Legion . In 1935 he graduated from the École supérieure de guerre .

During the western campaign of the German Wehrmacht from May to June 1940, he served his army as a company commander . He then worked in the armistice commission, but at the same time participated in the camouflage of French military equipment. After the Armistice of Compiègne he was still used as an officer, now under the Vichy regime .

When the Allies landed in French North Africa in November 1942 , German troops also occupied southern France and Gambiez fled for several months over the Pyrenees and Spanish territory. a. in the internment camp Miranda de Ebro near Burgos - to North Africa . There he wanted to join General Henri Giraud .

Gambiez now fought on the side of the Free French (see La Liberation ). a. participated in the landing on Corsica in September 1943 and in the liberation of Elba in June 1944 . Gambiez, promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1944, fought on the European mainland on the Rhine as well as near Belfort , Masevaux and Colmar . Most recently, as a colonel from 1945, he advanced into "affiliated" Austria .

After the end of the Second World War , he was first used in the General Inspectorate of the Army and then headed the École des cadres in Saint-Maixent in western France from 1946 to 1948 . In 1948/49 he became commander of the 37th Infantry Regiment in Saarland .

From 1949 Gambiez served (with interruptions) in French Indochina , where he was first commander in the Tonkin Delta (northern Vietnam), then chief of the staff of the land forces in Tonkin and until 1952 division commander there. He then became a special advisor in the office of the French Defense Minister . In 1952 he was promoted to Général de brigade . In 1952/53 he graduated from the Institut des hautes études de défense nationale (IHEDN) in Paris. At the end of the Indochina War he was chief of staff of General Henri Navarre , later Paul Ély , commander in chief of French troops in Indochina .

In 1955 he took command of the 11th Infantry Division and Northern Tunisia. In 1956 he was promoted to Général de division . In 1957 he worked in the General Inspectorate of the Infantry. From 1957 he was cross-section and supreme commander of the French troops in Tunisia . In 1958 he was promoted to the Général de corps d'armée . During the Algerian War in 1959, he took command of the corps in Oran, Algeria . In 1960 he became Inspector General of the Infantry and Général d'armée . In February 1961 he was appointed as the successor to General Jean Crépin as Commander in Chief of the French armed forces in Algeria. During the coup in Algiers (1961), Gambiez was arrested in April 1961 by members of the 1st régiment étranger de parachutistes until the order of rebelling officers was suppressed (against Charles de Gaulle ) .

Gambiez ended his military career as director of IHEDN in Paris and retired from active service in 1965. Furthermore he was u. a. conseiller d'État and member of the Conseil supérieur de la guerre . From 1969 to 1989 he headed the Commission française d'histoire militaire , at the same time he was Vice-President from 1969 to 1973 and President of the Commission Internationale d'Histoire Militaire (CIHM) from 1973 to 1975 . Thereafter Gambiez was appointed honorary president of the CIHM. He also became a member of the learned society Académie des sciences morales et politiques in 1974 .

Gambiez was married and had six children. His son Alain fell with the rank of Sous-lieutenant in the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ (1954).

Fonts (selection)

  • The Sword of Damocles: indirect warfare (with M. Suire, 1967)

literature

  • André Corvisier : Gambiez, Fernand . In: André Corvisier, John Childs (Ed.): A Dictionary of Military History and the Art of War . Revised and expanded English edition, Blackwell, Oxford 1994, ISBN 0-631-16848-6 , p. 293.
  • Antoine Hébrard (Ed.): Who's Who in France - Qui est qui en France . Editions jacques lafitte, Paris 1988, ISBN 2-85784-023-3 , p. 707.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jean-Christophe Sauvage: L'IHEDN ou la rencontre des hauts fonctionnaires, des militaires et des personnalités du secteur économique et social . In: Forcade Olivier, Duhamel Éric, Vial Philippe (eds.): Militaires en République (1870–1962). Les officiers, le pouvoir et la vie publique en France . Publications de la Sorbonne, Paris 1999, ISBN 2-85944-362-2 , p. 576.
  2. ^ Martin Evans : Algeria. France's Undeclared War (= Making of the Modern World ). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-280350-4 , p. 294.
  3. ^ Jacques Dalloz : Dictionnaire de la Guerre d'Indochine . Armand Colin, Paris 2006, ISBN 2-200-26925-0 , p. 109.
  4. ^ Martin Windrow : The Last Valley. Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam . Da Capo Press, Cambridge 2006, ISBN 0-306-81443-9 , p. 438.
personal data
SURNAME Gambiez, Fernand
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gambiez, Fernand Charles Louis (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French general and military historian
DATE OF BIRTH February 27, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Lille
DATE OF DEATH March 29, 1989
Place of death Saint-Mandé