Olivier Mazel

Olivier Charles Armand Adrien Mazel (* 16th September 1858 in Rennes , † 10. March 1940 ) was a French General de division in the First World War .

Life

At the age of 18, Mazel entered the Saint-Cyr Military School in October 1876 , which he graduated after two years. He then attended the École d'application de la cavalerie in Saumur for a year and then came as a sous-lieutenant to the 10 ^e régiment de hussards , to which he belonged for three years and with whom he temporarily served in Africa. Until 1885 he then served in the 1 ^er régiment de hussards , with whom he was briefly in Tunisia. and then until 1891 at the 19th ^e régiment de chasseurs à cheval . He was next assigned to the staff of the 18th Army Corps, where he served until the end of 1895. This was followed by two years of service as squadron chief in the 31st ^e régiment de dragons .

In 1898 Mazel was on the staff of the 20th Army Corps, then until 1900 on the staff of the 3rd Cavalry Division. After brief service in several cavalry regiments, most recently as Lieutenant-Colonel , he joined the staff of the 17th Army Corps in 1902, to which he belonged until 1905. From August 1905 he commanded the École d'application de la cavalerie for five years, with a brief interruption in 1908 at the head of the 24 ^e régiment de dragons , and was promoted in this position to the général de brigade . This was followed by assignments as commander of the 6 ^e brigade de dragons , the 2 ^e brigade de chasseurs , the 77e brigade d'infanterie , the cavalry brigade of the 8th Army Corps and the 14 ^e brigade de dragons until the beginning of the First World War.

In this he initially commanded the 14th Dragoons Brigade, which was part of the 8th Cavalry Division. With this Mazel took part in the border battles of 1914 in Alsace . At the end of August 1914, he temporarily took the lead in the 66th Infantry Division. At the beginning of October he took over the 1st Cavalry Division , which was deployed in the First Battle of Flanders , combined with the promotion to the General de Division . He held this post until February 1915, when he became the commanding general of the 38th Army Corps. With this he worked in the Reims area for a little over a year .

At the end of March 1916 Mazel temporarily took over the leadership of the 1st Army for a few days before he was given command of the 5th Army , which held the front on the Aisne . With his 16 divisions in five army corps, he took part in the battle of the Aisne from mid-April 1917 , which brought only minimal gains in terrain with horrific losses. Mazel himself had previously spoken out against an offensive in the Chemin des Dames area . He was nevertheless blamed for the failure of the offensive along with Robert Nivelle and Charles Mangin and was recalled from his post on May 22nd.

After several months of enforced inactivity, Mazel was placed at the head of the 4e région militaire ( Le Mans ) in January 1918 and remained in this post until May 1919. In 1920 he retired.

Awards

Mazel had been Commander of the Legion of Honor since July 1915 . He had been a Chevalier since 1898 and was made an officer in 1911 . He was also holder of the Croix de Guerre 1914-1918 and several foreign medals.

Web links

• Dossier on the website of the French Ministry of Culture
• Mazel, Olivier on crdp-strasbourg.fr