Noël de Castelnau
Noël Édouard Marie Joseph, Viscount de Curières de Castelnau (born October 24, 1851 Saint-Affrique in the Aveyron department , † March 19, 1944 in Montastruc-la-Conseillère in the Haute-Garonne department ) was a French Général d'armée in the First World War .
Together with Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre and other influential generals such as Lanrezac and Mangin , he was a leading exponent of the "offensive thinking" that dominated French warfare until General Robert Nivelle was dismissed in May 1917.
Life
Castelnau joined the French army during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 . Before and during World War I, he was Chief of the General Staff in the High Command under General Joffre from 1911 to 1914 and for a second time in 1915/16 .
Before the outbreak of World War I, Castelnau was involved in the development of Plan XVII , a document defining the strategic war objectives in a war with the German Reich . Plan XVII aimed that the French army lost the 1871 area of Alsace and Lorraine in an offensive thrust without regard to losses in men and material ( offensive à outrance ) of Germany must recapture.
Although under his command the French 2nd Army was badly defeated during the invasion of Lorraine in the battle between Mörchingen and Saarburg (August 19-22, 1914), he was able to restore his reputation in the battles that followed. His troops were able to repel all attacks by the German 6th Army in the Battle of the Trouée de Charmes (August 25) and successfully push back the German troops in counterattacks on the Grand Couronné (September 4 - 13). Castelnau was appointed Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor on September 18 because of these successes .
He insisted on a flank attack in the final phase of the First Battle of the Aisne (September 25-29, 1914). The 2nd Army of Castelnau was moved from the Nancy area to the northwest to the Avre in order to attack the protruding right flank of the German 1st Army near Noyon . Castelnau ordered a frontal attack on the German positions, which had been reinforced on September 25 with fresh forces from the Reims area . The French attack immediately met with fierce resistance, followed by counter-attacks. Forced to order the withdrawal of his troops to the area west of Noyon, Castelnau decided against further attacks. The decision was to be sought further north, following the newly established 10th Army under the command of General Maud'huy at Arras .
He continued to advocate the offensive as commander of the Central Army Group through 1915. On September 25, 1915, the autumn battle in the Champagne began on his section of the front, with a number of troops and several days of barrage , which resulted in horrific losses for little gain in land.
On December 11, 1915, he was finally replaced by General Langle de Cary and his second appointment as Chief of Staff in the French High Command came about. From there Castelnau organized the defense of Verdun in 1916 and recommended the appointment of General Pétain as commander of the French troops in the Verdun area. Castelnau was familiar with Pétain's rigid stance against retreating from this fortified space.
Castelnau lost the post of chief of staff and left active service when General Joffre was replaced by the daring General Robert Nivelle in December 1916 . With the rise of General Ferdinand Foch , who had served as corps commander under him in Lorraine in 1914, Castelnau was called back into active service in the spring of 1918. He was given command of the Eastern Army Group in Lorraine.
In 1919 Castelnau became a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts .
Castelnau was a member of the National Assembly from November 16, 1919 to May 31, 1924 ( constituency Aveyron ) . for the National Bloc and active as a leader in several Catholic-nationalist associations. In 1924 he founded the Fédération nationale catholique ("National Catholic Federation") in response to the Cartel des gauches ("Coalition of the Left"), to which the Parti radical and the French section of the Workers' International had merged.
Castelnau died in 1944 at the Château de Lasserre in Montastruc-la-Conseillère . He was buried in the family crypt in Montastruc on March 21st.
Web links
- Noël de Castelnau in the online version of the Reich Chancellery Edition Files. Weimar Republic
- Biography on firstworldwar.com
Individual evidence
- ↑ www2.assemblee-nationale.fr
- ↑ Gerd Krumeich in Gerhard Hirschfeld, Gerd Krumeich, Irina Renz (ed.): Encyclopedia First World War , Paderborn, 2nd edition 2014, p. 408.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Castelnau, Noël de |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Curières de Castelnau, Noël Marie Joseph Édouard Vicomte de |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French general in World War I. |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 24, 1851 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Saint-Affrique in the Aveyron department |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 19, 1944 |
| Place of death | Montastruc-la-Conseillère in the Haute-Garonne department |