Paul Prosper Henrys

General Paul Prosper Henrys

Paul Prosper Henrys (born March 13, 1862 in Neufchâteau , † November 6, 1943 in Paris ) was a French Général de division .

Life

Henrys was born in 1862 in the Vosges mountains to the lawyer François Nicolas Henrys and his wife Caroline de Baudel.

Early military career

After attending secondary school in Nancy , he entered the Saint-Cyr Military School on October 27, 1882 , from which he graduated two years later. He then went to the cavalry school in Saumur and was made a lieutenant on August 31, 1885 . On December 6, 1885, he joined the 1st Cuirassier Regiment in Lunéville . Henrys was also a passionate rider in his private life, with his horse "Congallus" he took part in several tournaments, including events in Jolivet, Nancy and Auxonne . On October 7, 1887, he was posted to Algeria and initially stationed in Mascara . Assigned to the 6th Regiment of the Chasseurs d'Afrique in Saida until September 1891 , he was promoted to Capitaine after moving to the 5th Chasseurs Regiment in 1894 . From 1893 to 1895 he attended the Paris École supérieure de guerre and then served in various posts on the General Staff . At the end of 1897 he joined the 2nd regiment of the Chasseurs d'Afrique. On July 12, 1906, he was appointed an officer of the Legion of Honor . On September 28, 1912 he took command of the French cavalry in Morocco under General Lyautey . On December 10, 1912 he was promoted to commander of the Legion of Honor and on July 4, 1913 to the Général de brigade .

In the first World War

In May 1914 he was given command of the French troops in the Zaian area, and on November 14, 1914 he was promoted to division general. In July 1916 he was replaced by Colonel Poeymirau (1869-1924) to find use on the Western Front. On July 27, 1916 he became the commander of the 59th Reserve Division, which was used as fortress troops around Nancy, Chambrettes, Verdun and Fort Troyon . On April 27, 1916, he was appointed Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor . On May 20, 1917 he took command of the XVII. Corps with which he was deployed on the Aisne , in Champagne , off Saint-Mihiel and near Verdun. In December 1917 he received the command of the Armée française d'Orient deployed on the Salonika Front in the border area with Albania , where he was initially under the command of General Guillaumat . On June 17, 1918, General Franchet d'Espérey became the new Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces in Macedonia. Five French, one Italian and one Greek divisions were subordinate to the Henrys. He organized successful operations in Albania in July and August 1918. During the crucial Vardar Offensive in September 1918 his troops between the 14th and 29th of September 1918 reached on the side of the Serbian army operational breakthrough in the Vardar valley . In the Skopje area , his troops forced 75,000 Bulgarian soldiers to surrender. Bulgaria applied for an armistice on September 29, 1918. On December 28, 1918, General Henrys received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor . Because of the ambiguities at the Dardanelles , Henrys commanded the Balkan troops until May 1919.

After the war

Henrys (center) with the Polish generals Piłsudski and Skierski , 1920

On April 1, 1919, Henrys was appointed head of the French military mission in Poland, a position he held until September 30, 1920 during the Polish-Soviet War . From June 28, 1922 to March 13, 1924 he commanded the XXXIII in Germany. Corps during the French occupation in the Rhineland . On March 13, 1924, he said goodbye and retired. He retired to Paris, where he lived on rue de Suffren, where he began an intensive activity in the service of the veterans. During this time he repeatedly took part in official memorial events in Neufchâteau , Épinal and Domrémy . He died on November 6, 1943 in the hospital of Val-de-Grâce in Paris, and on November 11 he was buried in the Dome of the Invalides .

literature

• Spencer C. Tucker (Ed.): The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection. ABC-Clio, 2014, ISBN 978-1-85109-965-8 , pp. 751 f.

Web links

Commons : Paul Henrys  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files