Géraud François Gustave Réveilhac

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Général Réveilhac presents the Médaille militaire to the soldier Derrien, who saved the life of an officer.

Géraud François Gustave Réveilhac (born February 16, 1851 as the son of Robert Réveilhac and Marguerite Redon in Aurillac ; † February 26, 1937 in Savenay ) was general de division of the French army.

Since December 21, 1909 he was Général de brigade and commanded the "119e brigade d'infanterie de réserve" (119th Reserve Infantry Brigade) of the "60e division d'infanterie" (60th Infantry Division) of Général at the outbreak of the First World War de division Joppé .

On September 25, 1914, after the First Battle of the Marne , he was assigned to lead this division . As an officer , he took no account of the lives of his men. On March 10, 1915, during the winter battle in Champagne , the soldiers of an already severely decimated company refused to climb out of their trenches in a militarily hopeless situation and attack a heavily fortified German position in Souain in the Marne department . Réveilhac had then ordered his artillery to open fire on their own positions, but the responsible artillery commander Colonel Bérubéden refused. A week later, on March 16, 1915, four randomly selected corporals (the later so-called Caporaux de Souain ) were sentenced to death in a one-day court martial for insubordination and shot the following day to make an example of them.

On the cemetery of Sartilly a monument stands for one of them, Théophile Maupas. This memorial was erected in 1925, before the executed people were officially rehabilitated on March 3, 1934.

Réveilhac also ordered a militarily senseless attack on the grounds that the statistical loss rate in this case had not yet been reached.

After the end of the war, the current Général de division was awarded the title of Grand Officier of the Légion d'honneur . An amnesty law passed in 1919 , which exempted those responsible for civil executions from any disciplinary responsibility , prevented the death sentences from being subsequently taken. He returned to his homeland and died peacefully in his bed in 1937.

See also

proof

  1. ↑ Published in: Le Pays de France , n ° 27, April 22, 1915.
  2. ^ Acte de naissance de Géraud François Gustave Réveilhac (Mairie d'Aurillac - acte daté du 18 février 1851).
  3. ^ "Annuaire militaire de 1913" , sur web.genealogies.free.fr .
  4. ^ Général de division Maurice Joppé (November 29, 1852 - January 4, 1927).
  5. ↑ a b Roger Monclin, Les damnés de la guerre - Les crimes de la Military Justice (1914-1918) , Mignolet & Storz, Paris, 1934th
  6. ↑ Fischer, Ralf Michael, “A pleasant atmosphere in which to work”. Interactions between appearance and being in the cinematic space of Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (USA 1957), p. 302.
  7. ↑ Pierre Combescot : "Les fusillés de l'aube" L'Express , December 30, 1993, accessed on July 13, 2020.
  8. ↑ Citation étrangère | lang = en | Press: Paris Muckraker , article on Le Crapouillot , Time Magazine , December 2, 1935, on www.time.com .

literature

  • Roger Monclin, Les damnés de la guerre - Les crimes de la justice militaire (1914–1918) , Mignolet & Storz, Paris, 1934
  • Sébastien Japrisot, Un long dimanche de fiançailles , Denoël, 1991 ISBN 2207256499
  • Le Crapouillot , n ° ?, 1915.
personal data
SURNAME Réveilhac, Géraud François Gustave
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French general
DATE OF BIRTH February 16, 1851
PLACE OF BIRTH Aurillac
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 1937
Place of death Savenay