Maxime Weygand - Weygand During World War I

Weygand During World War I

Weygand passed the war of 1914-18 as a Staff Officer. At the outbreak, he satisfied his taste for contact with the troops while spending 26 days with the 5ème Hussards. On 28 August, he became a Lieutenant-Colonel on the staff of General Ferdinand Foch. He was promoted to Brigadier General in 1916.

Clemenceau wanted to have Foch (French Army Chief of Staff) as French Military Representative on the Supreme War Council (formally established 7 November 1917), to increase French control over the Western Front, but was persuaded to appoint Weygand as a more independent general instead. However, Clemenceau only agreed to set up an Allied General Reserve if Foch rather than Weygand were earmarked to command it. The Reserve was shelved for the time being at a SWC Meeting in London (14-15 March) as the national commanders in chief, Petain and Haig, were reluctant to release divisions.

Weygand was promoted Général de Division (equivalent to the Anglophone rank of Major General) in 1918. He remained on Foch's staff when his patron was appointed Supreme Allied Commander in the spring of 1918, and was Foch's right-hand man throughout his victory at the Second Marne (for which Foch was promoted Marshal of France) in the late summer and until the end of the war.

In 1918 Weygand served on the armistice negotiations, and it was Weygand who read out the armistice conditions to the Germans at Compiègne, in the twice infamous railway carriage. He can be spotted in photographs of the armistice delegates, and also standing behind Foch's shoulder at Pétain's investiture as Marshal of France at the end of 1918.