Henri Giraud
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Henri Honore Giraud (January 18, 1879 – March 13, 1949) was a French general who fought in the First World War and escaped from German captivity during the Second World War.
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[edit] Early life
Henri Giraud was born in Paris, France, of Alsatian descent. He graduated from the Saint-Cyr Military Academy in 1900 and joined the French Army, serving in North Africa until he was transferred back to France 1914 when the First World War broke out, when he commanded Zouave troops. He was captured in the Battle of Guise in August 1914 when he was seriously wounded but escaped two months later and returned to France via the Netherlands.
Afterwards Giraud served with French troops in Constantinople under General Franchet d'Esperey. In 1933 he was transferred to Morocco to fight against Rifkabul rebels. He was awarded the Légion d'Honneur after the capture of Abd-el-Krim and later became the military commander of Metz.
[edit] Capture and escape
When the Second World War began, Giraud was a member of the Superior War Council, and disagreed with Charles de Gaulle about the tactics of using armoured troops. He became the commander of the 7th army group when it was sent to the Netherlands in May 10, 1940 and was able to delay German troops at Breda on May 13. Subsequently, the depleted 7th army was merged with the 9th. When he was trying to block a German attack through the Ardennes, German troops captured him at Wassigny on May 19. He was taken to Königstein Castle near Dresden which was used as a high-security POW prison.
Giraud planned his escape carefully over two years. He learned German and memorized a map of the surrounding area. On April 17, 1942 he lowered himself down the cliff of the mountain fortress. He had shaved off his moustache, and, wearing a Tyrolean hat, traveled to Schandau to meet his SOE contact. Through various ruses he reached the Swiss border and eventually slipped into Vichy France.
[edit] Cooperation with Allies
Giraud's escape was soon known all over France. Heinrich Himmler ordered the Gestapo to assassinate him, and Pierre Laval tried to persuade him to return to Germany. Giraud supported Pétain and the Vichy government but refused to cooperate with the Germans. Consequently he agreed upon an Allied landing in North Africa, but asked to be the Commander of such an operation. Eventually Giraud travelled to Algeria, and on November 7, 1942, the British submarine Seraph took him to meet Dwight Eisenhower in Gibraltar. Eisenhower, giving him the code name King-Pin, asked him to command French troops in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia after Operation Torch, but Giraud was very disappointed not to command the whole operation. He refused to leave immediately to Algiers, where the French resistance was waiting for him, but rather stayed in Gibraltar until the 9th of November.
The French resistance, pursuant to agreements secretly made in Cherchell on October 23, 1942 with General Mark W. Clark of the combined Allied command, acted without him. The Putsch of November 8, 1942 was accomplished by 400 badly armed men who overnight neutralized coastal artillery and Vichyist army units, took over the majority of the strategic points of Algiers, and arrested most of the Vichy military and civilian leaders, including General Alphonse Juin, chief commander in North Africa, as well as Admiral François Darlan. Allied forces occupied Algiers and compelled Juin and Darlan to order a ceasefire. Ships that refused to join the Free French were scuttled. Germany, seeing these actions as betrayal, proceeded to occupy Southern France.
In turn Allied General Eisenhower supported Darlan's self-nomination as military governor of French North and West Africa, a move that enraged Charles de Gaulle, who refused to recognize his status. Giraud arrived on the evening of the 9th of November in Algiers, and on the 10th, he agreed to submit himself to Darlan as the French African army commander. Darlan maintained Nazi-inspired exclusion laws and deported people to Vichyist concentration camps.
That situation, qualified by Roosevelt as "military expediencies", could not be accepted by the French resistance. Consequently, during the afternoon of December 24, 1942, a 22-year-old French patriot, Ferdinand Bonnier de la Chapelle, entered Darlan's headquarters in Algiers and shot him twice. Although de la Chapelle had been a member of the resistance group led by Henri d'Astier, it is believed he was acting as an individual.
[edit] Free French leader
After Admiral Darlan's assassination, Giraud became his de facto successor with Allied support. He upset the Americans when he ordered that many French resistance leaders who had helped Eisenhower's troops be arrested, without any protest by Roosevelt's representative, Robert Murphy. Giraud took part in the Casablanca conference, with Roosevelt, Churchill and de Gaulle, in January 1943. Later, after very difficult negotiations, Giraud agreed to suppress Petain Hitlerian laws, and to liberate Vichy prisoners of the awful South Algerian concentration camps. Henri Giraud and Charles de Gaulle then became co-presidents of the Comité français de la Libération Nationale and Free French Forces. However, De Gaulle consolidated his political position at Giraud's expense because he was more up to date with the political situation. Giraud also lost influence when he refused to reveal his plans for the invasion of Corsica until the last minute.
On September 13, Giraud led the landings at Corsica arming Corsica's Communist-oriented Front National resistance group. This drew more criticism from de Gaulle, and he lost the co-presidency in November 1943.
When the Allies found out that Giraud was maintaining his own intelligence network, the French committee forced him from his post as a commander-in-chief of the French forces. He refused to accept a post of Inspector General of the Army and chose to retire. On August 28, 1944 he survived an assassination attempt in Algeria.
[edit] Postwar life
On June 2, 1946 he was elected to the French Constituent Assembly as a representative of the Republican Party of Liberty and helped to create the constitution of the Fourth Republic. He remained a member of the War Council and received a medal for his escape. He published two books, Mes Evasions (My Escapes, 1946) and Un seul but, la victoire: Alger 1942-1944 (Only one goal, victory: Algiers 1942–1944, 1949) about his experiences.
