Pierre Boyer de Latour du Moulin

General Pierre Boyer de Latour du Moulin (1946)

Pierre Georges Jacques Marie Boyer de Latour du Moulin (born June 18, 1896 in Maisons-Laffitte ; † January 31, 1976 in Paris ) was a French officer in the colonial force in French North Africa , most recently with the rank of Général d'armée . He fought in both world wars, was regional commander in the Indochina War and general resident in Tunisia and Morocco .

Life

Career start in North Africa, world wars

During the First World War , he first served in a dragoon regiment before being transferred to the 1st regiment of the Moroccan Tirailleurs ( Tirailleurs marocains ). After the end of the war, he began an officer career, first attending the Saint-Maixent NCO School and finally arriving in Morocco via Algeria . He stayed here for over twenty years, during which he took part in various military ventures aimed at " pacifying " the country. During this time he adapted to Moroccan culture and lived with a Berber woman with whom he had a son. Under General Resident Charles Noguès , he became a member of the colonial government in the late 1930s.

Memorial plaque in the Corsican parish of Barbaggio , where Boyer de Latours Association excelled in battle.

At the beginning of the Second World War he commanded a battalion of the 4th regiment of the Tirailleurs marocains . In the further course of the war he recruited local Goumier units for the Free French armed forces and formed the second group of the Tabors marocains (2nd GTM) led by them. The association took part in the Tunisian campaign (1942/43), the liberation of Corsica ( Opération Vésuve , end of 1943), the conquest of Elba ( Opération Brassard , mid-1944), and the landing in Provence ( Opération Dragoon , August 1944) . As part of the 1st Army , the troops then advanced to the Rhine.

Indochina War

In 1946 Boyer de Latour was promoted to Général de brigade . From 1947 to 1949 he served in the war in Indochina . In February 1948 he replaced Georges Nyo as regional commander of South Vietnam - initially on an interim basis, then permanently - and at the same time as Commissaire de la République for Cochinchina he was also responsible for the local civil administration. He carried out far-reaching “pacification operations” in which the troops of the southern Việt Minh commander Nguyễn Bình were successfully pushed back. To support the French forces, he had the Unités mobiles pour la défense des chrétiens , a militia consisting of Vietnamese Catholics, set up in the province of Bến Tre . His most important achievement is the development of a sophisticated surveillance and defense system along all major traffic and communication routes in southern Vietnam. For this purpose, watchtowers and fortified positions were erected at certain intervals to deny the Việt Minh freedom of movement in the hinterland and to prevent isolated positions from being cut off. This system was initially relatively successful and was therefore extended to the northern areas, but failed from 1950 when the Việt Minh received armor-piercing weapons from China, against which the watchtowers offered no protection.

In September 1949 - at a time when French rule in Indochina seemed largely secure - he was succeeded by General Chanson and left Southeast Asia.

After the catastrophic defeat on Route Coloniale 4 near the Chinese border and the loss of Cao Bằng Province , he was brought back to Indochina on an interim basis in November 1950. He replaced the recalled General Alessandri as Commander of Northern Vietnam and Commissaire de la République for Tonkin . At the same time he also became a military advisor to the newly founded pro-French state of Vietnam and in this position played a key role in the establishment of the Vietnamese National Army. After the arrival of the new Commander-in-Chief Lattre de Tassigny in early 1951, Boyer de Latour, suffering from dysentery , left Indochina; his post was initially taken over by General Salan and then General De Linares .

General Resident in Tunisia and Morocco

Boyer de Latour returned to Morocco in February 1951 and became Deputy General Resident under Alphonse Juin for a few months . Afterwards he was military commander of the French occupation zone in Austria for about two years .

In 1954 Boyer de Latour was first military commander on Juin's recommendation and then in November of the same year (last) general resident in Tunisia . In this position he negotiated the autonomy of the country on behalf of the Mendès France government . In August 1955 he resigned to become general resident in Morocco. However, he only held this office until November. Both Tunisia and Morocco finally gained independence in March 1956 - against Boyer de Latour's will.

In 1956 Boyer de Latour - meanwhile in action in Algeria - was promoted to Général d'armée , but retired in the same year after the publication of his critical work Vérités sur l'Afrique du Nord . During the final phase of the war in Algeria , he sympathized with the Organization de l'armée secrète and operational vigorously lobbying against the threat of Algerian independence.

Next life

In the following years he wrote other works, such as De l'Indochine à l'Algérie: le martyre de l'armée française (1962), Le drame français (1963), Demain, la France (1965) and Cette année à Jérusalem: heur et malheur d'Israël (1968).

In 1967 he ran as a candidate in the parliamentary elections in the 17th arrondissement of Paris , but could not win a seat.

General Boyer de Latour du Moulin was holder of the Médaille militaire , the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor and the Croix de guerre with 24 ribbons. He died in Paris on January 31, 1976 at the age of 79.

literature

• Robert Cornevin (ed.), Xavier Yacono: Hommes et destins: Dictionnaire biographique d'outre-mer , Volume IV ( Afrique, Asie, Antilles ), Éditions Académie des sciences d'outre-mer, Paris 1981, pp. 126–129 ( Full text available )
• Christopher E. Goscha : Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945–1954) - An International and Interdisciplinary Approach , NIAS Press, Copenhagen, 2011, p. 73 (entry BOYER DE LA TOUR DU MOULIN )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Charles R. Shrader: A War of Logistics: Parachutes and Porters in Indochina, 1945-1954 , University Press of Kentucky, Lexington 2015, pp. 253/254, 420