Jean de Lattre de Tassigny (2 February 1889-11 January 1952) was a General d'Armee of France during World War II and the First Indochina War.
Biography[]
Jean de Lattre de Tassigny was born in Mouilleron-en-Pareds, France in 1889, and he served in the French Army during World War I. He was wounded five times, including at the Battle of Verdun, and he was wounded while serving in Morocco during the Interwar period. Early in World War II, he was the youngest French general, leading his division in the Battle of France. He became a commander for the Vichy government in Tunisia, but he was arrested in 1942 for pro-Allies sympathies. He escaped in 1943 and became commander of the French 1st Army in Algeria, with which he landed in southern France in 1944 and advanced into Austria in 1945. On 8 May 1945, he was the French representative when Nazi Germany's surrender was signed. In 1948, he took charge of the Western European Union forces, and from 1950 was commander-in-chief of the French forces in French Indochina. He died in Paris in 1952, and he was posthumously promoted to Marshal of France.