Great Commanders S.
1 total work
In 1916 the German Army broke through French defences at Verdun and threatened to stream forward into France. The man who retrieved the situation was Henri Philippe Petain, an uncompromising general who coined France's motto for the war: 'Ils ne passeront pas!' ('They shall not pass!'). Twenty-four years later, however, when the Germans threatened once again, it was Marshal Petain that signed the French capitulation. From hero in the First World War to Quisling Prime Minister in the Second, Correlli Barnett's biography describes the life of one of the most important figures in the twentieth century history of Europe.