Louis Franchet d'Esperey (25 May 1856-8 July 1942) was a Marshal of France during the Boxer Rebellion and World War I. During the latter conflict, he commanded French troops in France and the Balkans, and he reached the Hungarian capital of Budapest by the war's end.
Biography[]
Louis Franchet d'Esperey was born in Mostaganem, French Algeria on 25 May 1856, and he was commissioned into the French Army and served in French Indochina and in the Boxer Rebellion in China. In 1914, he was made the commanding general of the French 5th Army, and in September halted the German advance in the First Battle of the Marne. Failing to halt the German offensive of March 1918, he was sent to Salonika, from where he launched a campaign against Bulgaria. In the speediest advance of the war, he managed to reach the Hungarian capital of Budapest by the time war ended. He served in North Africa after the war, and on retirement entered politics, but despite his right-wing inclinations he refused to join Marshal Philippe Petain in his establishment of the Vichy regime.