Born in Argentina in 1900 to French parents, he moved to France following their accidental death. Already passionate about art and poetry, he went on to study at the Ecole Germain Pilon and later at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris, in the Atelier Cormon. In the 1930s he moved to the Montparnasse district in Paris where he formed friendships with artists and writers such as Pierre-Albert Birot, André Derain, Jean Follain, Marie Laurencin and André Salmon. A realist painter of the French school, he painted and photographed figures, landscapes and still lifes.

The artist was particularly prolific during his five years in captivity in Stalag VII A in Moosburg, Bavaria. Sick and suffering from severe depression, he met the young sculptor Volti who helped him survive. In 1943, Volti returned to France with some of Alfred Gaspart’s drawings. That same year, his studio was bombed, destroying most of his artwork, but Gaspart's was saved and served as a testament to the panful years endured in the camps. In October 1944, under the pseudonym Timour, Alfred Gaspart was awarded first prize at the Concours de la Captivité organised by the YMCA in Geneva. Liberated in 1945, he became a recluse and never showed his work in public again despite persistent pleas from his friends and family and France’s National Federation of Prisoners of War. He continued to work away from the public eye. He died alone in 1993. The work accomplished by the artist is composed of 1,840 pieces (all techniques and sizes combined). The artworks are accompanied by diary entries (293 double-sided pages) that are a glimpse into how Alfred Gaspart lived, thought and suffered during his years in captivity. Correspondence between him and his sister Paule, his muse and his confidant, also provide a window into his life.

Margaretha Geertruida ZELLE was the only daughter of Adam Zelle and Antje van der Meulen. Her father, a rich milliner, lavished her with attention. The little girl, often mistaken for a Eurasian because of her dark skin, showed an early flair for invention and drama. The family "cocoon" was shattered in January 1889 when the Zelle Company went bankrupt. The family moved, Adam Zelle abandoned his children, and the couple separated on the 4th September 1890. The death of Mrs Zelle eight months later dispersed the siblings.

In November 1892, Margaretha began primary teacher training college in Leiden, where she was dismissed for having an affair with the headmaster. She then went to live with an uncle in La Hague. In March 1895 she replied to a classified advert posted by the captain of a royal army warship in the Indies: "Officer recently returned from the Indies seeks affectionate young woman for marriage". The officer, nineteen years her senior, was called Rodolphe MacLeod, alias John. He represented the father figure she had never had. They were married on the 11th July. On the 30th January 1897, whilst living in Amsterdam with one of Rodolphe's sisters, the pair had their first child, Norman John.
At the beginning of May 1897, the family left for Toempong (west of Java), in the Dutch Indies, where officer MacLeod was to take up his posting. The couple had a daughter there; Jeanne Louise nicknamed "Non". The young woman took an interest in Balinese dancing, and adopted the pseudonym of Mata Hari "Eye of the day" (name for the sun in Indonesian). Married life abroad was however proving difficult. Margaretha, intoxicated by the colonies, abandoned her family. The couple separated on grounds of adultery. Their son then died of poisoning. In 1900, after twenty-eight years of service, Rodolphe MacLeod left the army. In March 1902, the MacLeods returned to the Netherlands, and divorced five months later. In spite of the judgement made, Rodolphe refused his monthly visiting rights, and stole the child away from her mother's care.

In 1903, aged 26, the Dutchwoman went to Paris. Finding herself without employment, she returned to the Netherlands for a few months before embarking upon a career as an exotic dancer in the eternal city, in the character of a Javanese princess named "Lady MacLeod". She started working in the drawing room of Madame Kiréesky, then went on to other private drawing rooms, working under her Javanese pseudonym of "Mata Hari", finally finding herself invited by Mr Guimet, owner of a private theatre. Her performance on the evening of the 13th May 1905 as a totally naked Indian princess marked the start of her society life. She performed a variation of a "Hindu dance" in honour of the goddess Shiva, together with other artists. The show was a success and the actors were invited to perform before the great figures of the era: on the 18th August 1905 at the Paris Olympia, in January 1906 in Madrid; in Monte Carlo she played in the Roi de Lahore by Jules Massenet (1842-1912); in Berlin, the Hague, Vienna and Cairo. Her artistic talents were nevertheless fairly limited. Mata Hari was very probably the inventor of a type of choreography much-loved in the cabarets and by those for whom exoticism is synonymous with lasciviousness, and was more renowned for this than for performing Indian dances. Interviewed by journalists, the performer gave way to the actress: she liked to introduce her mother as an Indian princess, raised her father to the status of baron and added "I was born in Java, in the midst of tropical vegetation, and, since my earliest childhood, priests initiated me into the deep significance of these dances which form a real religion." This did not prevent her in 1907 however, from being outshined by other exotic dancers such as Colette, who was herself to be replaced by the Russian ballets soon after. Mata Hari, seeing her fame diminish, ended up moving in society circles, collecting benefactors, always on the lookout for new lovers.

When war was declared, Margaretha Zelle lived in Berlin with a former lover, Alfred Kiepert, a hussar, anxious to perform in the Metropolis. Her language skills made it possible for her to return to the Netherlands then to set up in Paris where, living at the Grand Hotel, she continued to make a living from her looks and charms. At the beginning of 1916, during a trip to Germany (Cologne, Frankfurt), Mata Hari, in debt due to her lavish lifestyle, was contacted by Cramer, a German Consul in The Hague. He offered to settle her debts, to give her 20,000 crowns in exchange for information on France. This is how she came to be agent H 21. Back in Paris in July, she entered into contacts with allied officers, and fell in love with a Russian army captain. When he was wounded, he was sent for treatment in Vittel. Mata Hari then began scheming to get the authorisation to go to his bedside. She entered into a relationship with captain Ladoux, officer of the French counterespionage. In exchange for this favour and a million francs (never paid), he offered her a mission to spy on the Kronprinz, one of her ex-lovers. The Frenchman distrusted her however: he had her followed throughout the whole mission. Her work complete, Mata Hari was then sent to Belgium in August, followed in November by Spain, the centre of the secret war, with no money or detailed instructions. The British secret services, thinking that they were dealing with the spy Klara Benedix, placed her under arrest at the port of Falmouth as she was travelling back to Holland in order to reach Germany, before subjecting her to hard interrogation. Captain Ladoux telegraphed his counterpart, Sir Basil Thomson, in order to clear up the confusion about her identity.

Once freed, Mata Hari returned to Madrid on 11th December 1916 for three weeks. She made contact with the military attaché of the German embassy, Arnold von Kalle, and provided the French services with a list of agents, a procedure written in invisible ink and a the name of a place of arrival in Morocco - this "harvest" of information was in fact to benefit the head of communications, Denvignes, who took credit for the work. In the meantime the British secret services intercepted and deciphered the telegrams sent by the German attaché in Berlin. They had mixed up the identities of agent H 21 and Mata Hari (due to a lack of vigilance on the part of the lieutenant von Kroon), thus supposedly proving that she was a double agent. One of the messages, concerning the accession to the Greek throne of the heir prince Georges mentions that "agent H-21 proved very useful". Another version of events claims that von Kalle, suspicious of Mata Hari, himself prompted the inquiry by sending these radio messages to Berlin in a code that could easily be deciphered by the Allies. Mata Hari returned to her lover in Paris in January 1917, in the hope of a reward and a new mission... She was arrested on 13th February at the hôtel Élysée Palace by Captain Bouchardon, the examining magistrate, "accused of spying and complicit intelligence with the enemy, in the aim of furthering their enterprises".

She was held in the women's prison of Saint-Lazarre. For four months, subjected to fourteen interrogations (from 23rd February to 21st June), Bouchardon ended up by concluding that she was H 21 - she denied having had relations with the head of German intelligence in Madrid, even if she admitted having received money from the German consul Cramer in the context of his society life. Carried away by his overriding chauvinism, Bouchardon did not take the services rendered by the accused into account - indeed, he disbelieved her: "feline, slippery, artificial, without scruples, without pity, she was a born spy", he wrote in his memoirs. The hearing, held in camera, started on the 24th July 1917, in front of the 3rd military council at the High Court in Paris. The Court was presided over by the lieutenant-colonel Somprou and the government commissioner, lieutenant Mornet - who was to declare several years after the hearing: "it was no big deal." Her lawyer, Master Clunet, a former lover, was a reputed expert in international law.

Besides Jules Cambon, Vadim Maslov, and the diplomat Henri de Marguérie who swore never having broached the subject of the military in her presence and guaranteed her integrity, none of her former lovers agreed to stand witness in her favour. The trial, as the interrogation, made no distinction between her society life, judged to be immoral, her suspicious cosmopolitanism, and her intelligence activities. They merely reflected French and Allied public opinion which was calling for guilty verdicts for all the deaths, mutinees and other war crimes. Meanwhile the press, maintaining the idea of an enemy plot in their reports, only served to further fuel the witchhunt for collaborators from both sides. Margueritte Francillard was the first French national shot for spying on the 10th January 1917. Mlle Dufays met the same end in March of the same year. The Mata Hari affair, in part due to the character's ambiguous behaviour, was just one more occasion to strengthen national unity - the British archives even show that she never gave the Germans any crucial information (Léon Schirmann).

At the end of the trial, the court found her guilty of collaboration with the enemy and sentenced her to death by firing squad - other women were also tried and sentenced for spying during the last years of the war: Augustine Josèphe, Susy Depsy, Régina Diano, etc. On the morning of the 15th October 1917, at 6h15, her pardon having been rejected by the President of the Republic Raymond Poincaré, Margaretha Zelle, who had recently converted to Protestantism, was driven by armoured car to the Vincennes firing range where soldiers and onlookers awaited her. Mata Hari refused to have her eyes covered. A cavalry officer delivered eleven bullets, the final one fatal: "her death reasserted the authority of a country bled dry by the bloody war of which the futility was becoming apparent" (J.M. Loubier). Her unclaimed body was donated to the medico-legal institute for research.

Son of François Queuille and Marie Masson de Saint-Félix, Henri was born into a bourgeois family in the provinces.

When his father, a chemist, died in 1895, the Queuilles moved to Tulle where the teenager attended the lycée starting in 1896. The young graduate studied medicine in Paris, where he made friends with Maurice Bedel and Georges Duhamel, before moving back to his home town in 1908. In 1910, he married Margueritte Gratadour de Sarrazin, with whom he had two children – Suzanne and Pierre. He rapidly rose in politics: member of the town council in 1912, mayor and general councillor of the Corrèze department the following year, and member of Parliament in 1914.

During the First World War, his service as a doctor with various ambulances on the Eastern Front earned him the Croix de Guerre 14-18.

A moderate member of the Radical Party, he entered the government of Alexandre Millerand in July 1920 as Undersecretary for Agriculture. Recognised by his peers, he held many ministerial portfolios (Agriculture, Health, Post, Public Works, Supplies), being appointed minister nineteen times between 1920 and 1940. He was the main driving force behind French agricultural policy between the wars (creation of rural engineering, creation and organisation of agricultural education, technical development of the countryside, etc.); he notably presided over the Fédération Nationale de la Mutualité et de la Coopération Agricole (National Federation of Reciprocity and Agricultural Cooperation).

He nationalised the railways and created the SNCF (French National Railway Company), and headed the Office National des Mutilés, Combattants, Victimes de Guerre et Pupilles de la Nation (1937). In 1939 he published Le Drame agricole: un aspect de la crise économique.

A staunch supporter of the Republic who worked with the Socialists, he became close with Edouard Herriot, but refused to vote to hand over full powers to Maréchal Philippe Pétain on 10 July 1940. He was then removed from his functions as mayor of Neuvic. His son Pierre’s membership in the Resistance made his contacts with Free France easier. Hettier de Boislambert convinced him to leave for the United Kingdom.

He reached London in April-May 1943, along with Astier de la Vigerie, Daniel Mayer and Jean-Pierre Levy, despite his distrust of de Gaulle. In May, he sent out a call to the French peasantry over the BBC, and was then appointed President of the landing commission in charge of developing the measures to be taken upon the Liberation of France. Two months later, the Vichy government issued a decree stripping Henri Queuille of his French nationality and his mandate as Senator. In August, he left for Algiers, where de Gaulle, bringing together the political parties, brought him into the Comité Français de Libération Nationale (CFLN - French Committee of National Liberation) in November 1943. Queuille asked to be relieved of his functions in September 1944, when the government moved to Paris, to return to his political career. He was elected mayor in October 1945, then member of Parliament in the legislative elections of 1946.

The war memoirs written by this recipient of the Médaille de la Résistance were published in Journal 1939/1945.

Loyal to Edouard Herriot, he headed the government of the 4^th Republic between July 1948 and June 1954. He was President of the Council (Premier) three times, curbing social unrest, the rise of Gaullism and government instability, applying a policy people called “immobilism”; he did not hesitate when it came to using force (October-November 1948) and postponing elections. But this policy enabled the Republic to survive.

His foreign policy activities led to the signature of a Franco-Vietnamese agreement in March 1949, practically recognising the colony’s independence, made France a member of the Atlantic Alliance and implemented the Marshall Plan the following month.

Defeated in the legislative elections of 1958, Henri Queuille returned to life in local politics. He transformed his town into a leisure resort, set up an agricultural high school and a technical school. Pursuing work on his memoirs that he had started in 1944, he gathered archives, documents, eye-witness accounts and objects from the Second World War and the Resistance, thus comprising the main collection of the Museum that bears his name.

From the citation for the Concours Général au Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur

Louis Auguste was born in 1859 into a modest Catholic family in Metz, to Jean Louis (a gas-board employee) and Cornélie Joseph. The defeat of 1871 forced the Adrian family into exile, firstly in Saint-Omer, then Bourges and finally Tours (5 rue Sully). A brilliant scholarship pupil at the lycée Descartes, he passed the Ecole Polytechnique entrance exam in 1878. Attending the school inn 1880, he chose Engineering and took a year at the Applied Engineering School at Fontainebleau before being commissioned as a lieutenant with the 3rd Arras Regiment. Here is his physical description from the École Polytechnique former students' register: "Light brown hair - Ordinary forehead - Average nose - Blue eyes Average mouth - Rounded chin - Oval face - Height 170cm"

While a Captain in1885, he joined the General Staff in Cherbourg to work on the building programme for new barracks in the Manche area as well as the coastal defences. Garrison life took him to Saumur, Rennes and Granville, where in 1889 he married Marguerite Pigeon. In 1885 he organised and took part in the sending of the expeditionary corps to Madagascar. There he co-ordinated logistics: improving the road network, building bridges and camps. Exhausted by the climate and his service, he was repatriated in 1895, before being awarded the Croix de Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, aged 36, for acts of war.

Reformer of the Supply Corps

Adrian was seconded to the General Staff of the Paris right bank, then took the preparatory course for admission to the Supply Corps. In March 1898, whilst a quarter-master 3rd class, he oversaw the stores at Valenciennes as section head. He wrote articles for the Supply Corps review, on research and on the use of resources in the North and published an instruction manual for deputy stores officers. In 1900, he was appointed to the first supply depot in Paris as part of the Relief Service. The following year, he verified the accounts of the troop corps at the second stores in Vincennes, and taught trainee Supply Corps officers. Now 2nd class, he returned to Arras in July 1904. Appointed deputy director of supplies at the War Ministry, Adrian was then put in charge of tracking down fraud and corruption among army suppliers. To combat this, he put forward a new Supplies guide, which led to an improvement in living conditions for servicemen. This work earned him promotion to first class in December 1908, as well as his registration, on 20th July 1911, for consideration for the rank of Officier de la Légion d'Honneur for "outstanding service on the return to State control of Military Bed Suppliers" - he received his decoration on 31st December 1912. Accepted for early retirement at his request in 1913, he moved to the family home at Genêts (in the Manche département) before using his expert knowledge to assist cattle-rearers in Orinoco (Venezuela) with the production and conservation of beef. For this, he developed prefabricated huts that could be dismantled.

The "Head of Section for Improvisation"

Recalled at his request in 1914, he was drafted as an auxiliary civil servant to the Supplies Department in Beauce and Touraine. As deputy to the Supply Corps Director at the Ministry of War he was responsible for clothing and equipment, facing severe shortages. Responsible from September 1914 for recovering textiles from Lille, he managed to keep over 4,000 tonnes of sheets, fabric and wool from falling into German hands and organised the reprocessing of fabrics. After completing this mission, he planned the replacement of uniforms, reorganising textile production, and requisitioning uniforms from the fire and postal services. Fully aware of everyday events at the front, he took the initiative in supplying soldiers with sheepskin capes to ward off the rigours of winter. In 1915, he put forward a design for trench boots and his system of huts - proven in Venezuela - went on to replace the conical military tents. In August 1915, the construction of huts was transferred from Engineering to the Supply Corps. Adrian, anticipating the winter campaign, decentralised hut production and brought in contributions from more than two hundred businesses in order to manufacture 50 units per day.

The quartermaster and his helmet

The name Adrian will always be associated with the helmet worn by the Poilu. Trench warfare was fought using shrapnel shells. Three quarters of the wounded suffered head injuries of which 88% were fatal. Soldiers thus had to be issued with a light, protective helmet. Adrian thus developed a 0.5mm thick metal skull cap, to be fitted inside the képi to protect the skull from splinters of stone, bullets, etc. But this model, of which over 700,000 were made and distributed at the end of the winter of 1915, was judged to be insufficiently effective, despite protecting against 60% of shrapnel. On 21st February 1915, the Ministry of War, on the recommendation of General Joffre, decided to adopt a steel helmet for the infantry. Less than a month later, the "Dragon's Helmet" design put forward by military artist Georges Scott was chosen, but its overly complex manufacturing method delayed production, to the benefit of Adrian's prototype. To increase ballistic protection, Adrian looked a helmet based on a new concept that combined ease of production with effectiveness. In April 1915, the helmet comprising 700g of sheet steel was presented and accepted. 1,600,000 were ordered on 5th June 1915. Over 7 million were made in the first year alone. The helmet was so successful with the military that western armies ordered it en masse (Italy, Belgium, Serbia, Romania, Holland and Russia). In October 1915, Adrian was promoted to Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur, in recognition of all his work.

An inventor at the service of soldiers In the Autumn of 1915, Adrian designed an abdominal protector against barbed wire and bayonets, and fitted back-pack straps with a stop to spread the load better and reduce wear from the belts. The quartermaster was also one of the men behind the Taxis de la Marne. Joffre and Gallieni would take up his idea of using automobiles to transport troops rapidly to the front.

Back to active service, the "saviour of Paris", the Grand Officier de la Légion d'Honneur In April 1916, a law on Supply Corps recruitment meant that quartermasters that took early retirement in peacetime and who had given outstanding service in wartime could be recalled. Thus appointed by the Decree of 17th May 1916, Adrian aroused resentment and jealousy. Among other things, the inquiry report accused him of illegal market dealings and of having patented his military inventions. At the end of 1916, Adrian's service was terminated and the construction of huts reverted to Engineers. In February 1917, Adrian was seconded to the testing, research and technical experimentation department of Under-Secretary for Inventions. Here he continued his work on protective armour, shrapnel goggles, the armoured turret for aircrew seats and the use of solar power. A second report stressed the importance of his service record and justified his actions given the exceptional circumstances. Appointed quartermaster on 26th June 1917, he was called upon by the Président du Conseil, Clemenceau, to lead the General Inspectorate of Quarters for the Government's Under-Secretary of State. The quartermaster controlled the army's supply services and, from April 1918, handled the department for Evacuees, Refugees, and Repatriated Deportees. His popularity increased still further when he used triangulation, based on shell impacts on Paris, to locate "Big Bertha" in the forest at Compiègne. The quartermaster was placed on the reserve list in 1918 by the Commission for Corps Rejuvenation. But the counter-enquiry led by Abrami, under-secretary of State, overturned the Commission's decision in December 1918, and reinstated the quartermaster to his duties as Inspector General in 1919. Louis Auguste Adrian was promoted to the rank of Grand Officier de la Légion d'Honneur on 16th June 1920. Unwell, he retired to his Normandy residence at Genêts and died in Val-de-Grâce hospital in August 1933.

King of Sardinia then of Italy (Turin, 14 March 1820 - Rome, 9 January 1878)

Victor Emmanuel's life mirrors developments in the Italian Peninsula through most of the 19th century. He was the son of Charles Albert and of Queen Theresa, the daughter of the Grand Duke Ferdinand of Tuscany. Italy's two most prominent families, in other words, bequeathed him their combined influence. His marriage to Maria Adelaide of Austria bears witness to the weight that the Hapsburgs of Vienna had had since the days of Charles Quint. This alliance served him well when his father abdicated in his favour on 23 March 1849, while the war with Austria was raging. Victor Emmanuel was constrained to sign the Treaty of Milan on 6 August 1849, but remained true to his father's promises and to the dynasty's plans to build a unified and free Italian state. He preserved the Piedmont's constitutional status (the Proclamation of Moncalieri) in defiance of Austria's demands - even if doing so entailed consenting to Imperial troops occupying part of that region. He championed freedom, and was nicknamed the re galatuomo (gentleman king). He chose his advisors wisely. He appointed one of them, the Count of Cavour, Prime Minister in 1852.

His foreign-policy agenda involved cementing Italy's identity and its presence in the concert of nations. Sending General La Marmora to Crimea in 1855 earned Italy a seat in the Congress of Paris. The July 1858 interview at Plombières between the Count of Cavour and Napoleon III, and the ensuing January 1859 military agreement, earned him an ally in his ongoing conflict with Vienna and ushered in a new dynasty (Clotilde married Napoleon III's first cousin, prince Jerome). Victor Emmanuel excelled in Palestro (one of the 1859 war battles), won the battle of Solferino, entered Milan as a liberator and went on to unify Italy's armed forces in spite of Napoleon's defection (he had signed an armistice with Austria in Villafranca by then). Sardinian troops annexed Parma, Modena and the Romagnas in 1860. In exchange, Victor Emmanuel agreed to hand over Nice and Savoy to France in the 24 March 1860 Treaty of Turin.

The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies fell to Garibaldi's "Thousand" expedition, which the Piedmont government secretly endorsed. Italy was unified from a military standpoint, and the Italian Senate acknowledged Victor Emmanuel as that country's king by 129 votes for and 2 against shortly thereafter.

He thus became Italy's constitutional king on 14 March 1861. His policy was one of moderation: he cooled the ardour of Garibaldi's partisans, moved to ease tension with the Holy See, and backed Cavour's work on the economic and diplomatic front. Napoleon III's mediation at the October 1865 Biarritz Interview allowed him to form an alliance with Bismarck's Prussia in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War. He then incorporated Venetia as a result of the Prague and Vienna treaties. The defeat of France - a difficult ally - in 1870 opened up an opportunity to occupy Rome that year, and to enter it on 2 July 1871. He spent his last years on the throne consolidating Italy and - especially - cementing the territory. That led him to conduct an "offensive" border occupation and control policy. Hostility to France's Third Republic materialised in the Alps, with the fortification of Tende in response to the Séré de Rivières system.

François-Joseph was brought to power in Olmütz on the 2nd December 1848 following the revolutionary uprising of 1848, succeeding his uncle Ferdinand the Ist. He was the eldest son of the archduke François-Charles and princess Sophie of Bavaria. He married Elisabeth of Bavaria in 1854. The victories of his chancellor, prince Schwartzenburg and general Radetzki was to re-establish Austrian domination over the Hungarians and Italians (1849). Allied by Russia, he was to impose an authoritarian military regime, hostile to national minorities, however he was to lose this support in 1855 because of his hesitation during the Crimean War. The emperor was overthrown in 1859 by the troops of Victor-Emmanuel and Napoleon III (during the battles of Solferino and Magenta). He was forced to give up Lombardy as part of the Zurich treaty (10th November 1859). The rivalry with Prussia over the domination of the dukedoms of Schleswig and Holstein, seized from Denmark in 1864), gave the latter a reason to declare war in 1866. Defeated at Sadowa on the 3rd July 1866, he made peace with Prussia (Prague treaty, the 23rd August 1866), thus relinquishing his rights in Northern Germany to the victor and renouncing all involvement in the unification of Germany - the government of Vienna having crushed the "Little Germany" movement inspired by Prussia. He was also forced to give up Venetia to Italy, via France (treaty of Vienna, 3rd October 1866), who were allied to Prussia following the secret meeting between Napoleon III with Bismarck in Biarritz (October 1865).

To quell nationalist movements in his empire, he passed a statute in 1867 which effectively transformed Austria into a dualist, essentially federalist monarchy (Austro-Hungarian). The territories of the former Austrian empire were separated into two parts either side of the Leithasont to make up Cisleithania around Austria and Transleithania around Hungary. Cisleithania was made up of Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Gabissia, Slovenia, Istria, and the territories along the Dalmatian coast. Universal suffrage was granted to men. Eastern Transleithania was formed of Hungary, Croatia, the territories around Temesvar, and Trans-sylvania. There was no male right to vote here, fact which gave the other people under the domination of Budapest an advantage. The emperor was still torn between an authoritarian rule (inspired by Germany), and the federalist politics of Ministers Taaffe and Badeni. François-Joseph accepted this situation of interior political deadlock.

The policy of rapprochement with Prussia led by Andrassy resulted in a rallying towards Bismarck's politics: in 1873 the alliance of the three emperors (Germany, Russia, Austria), who were to become the Dual Alliance in 1879 (Germany and Austria), and finally the Triple Alliance in 1883 when Italy joined - this is even spoken of in terms of "diplomatic subordination of Germany", from 1892-1893 onwards. Austria occupied (in 1878) and annexed (1908) Bosnia-Herzegovina in order to limit the Russian influence in the Balkans which since leaving the alliance had led to Pan-Slav politics, intensifying and thus becoming involved itself in the affairs of the Dual Monarchy. The annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina resulted in an international crisis. The problem with Bosnia appeared to be linked to that of Serbia and the situation of the southern Slavs under the domination of Budapest, who tended to be turned more towards Belgrade. Torn therefore between Pan-Slav and a dominant Pan-German politics, François-Joseph failed in his attempt to embody the middle way in central-eastern Europe. His long reign of 68 years saw him endure the execution of his brother Maximilian in Mexico in 1867, the suicide of his son Rodolphe in Mayerling in 1889, the assassination of his wife in by an anarchist in Geneva in 1898 and that of his nephew and presumed heir, François-Joseph, on the 28th June 1914 in Sarajevo, the event which triggered the first world war. The dual monarchy was thus relatively stable politically when it entered the war. His sovereign succeeded in imposing a certain dynastic sense of loyalty on most of his subjects and also among the army and other institutions. Austro-Hungary had suffered far heavier losses due to the war and its million victims than the antimonarchist movements by the time its founder passed away.

Jean-Marie Degoutte enlisted on the 7th March 1887 in the 31st artillery regiment and got into Saint-Cyr in October 1988 with the class of "Great Triumph". He graduated 9th out of 435. Having chosen to join the "Zouaves", he served in Tunisia for four years. A key player in the French colonial venture He asked to take part in the Madagascar expedition in 1895. To get around the refusal of his superiors, he requested three months' leave and joined a Jesuit mission on board a civilian ocean liner. As he was already there when the French expeditionary corps landed, he offered his services to General Dechesnes, who put him under arrest for thirty days. Young officer Degoutte owed his salvation to Colonel Bailloud, the Head of the expedition, who convinced his superiors of the usefulness of his experience and Madagascan language skills. He returned to Tunisia in March 1896 for three years. In 1899 he was admitted to the Upper War Academy, from which he graduated. In 1900, Baillaud included him in the China expeditionary corps. He was cited twice on the corps' order of merit. Returning to North Africa, he became the ordnance officer to the Major General of the Algiers division in January 1905, and then, the following year, to the Major General of the 20th corps.

At the end of 1906, he returned to the Zoaves as Head of Battalion, before joining the headquarters of the Algiers division three years later. From February 1911 to December 1912 he took part in the operations in western Morocco as Head of the Expedition.
On his return to France and promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, he took a course at the Centre for Higher Military Studies. As second in command and then chief of staff of the 4th corps between February and March 1914, he distinguished himself in battle and was appointed Colonel on the 1st November the same year, before becoming an Officer of the Légion d'Honneur on the 10th April 1915. He was appointed Chief of Staff following the attacks of September 1915 in the Champagne region and made Brigade General on the 25th March 1916. In August he took command of the Moroccan troops. The corps distinguished itself in the Somme, in Champagne and at Verdun, feats that earned him two citations and the cravat of Commander of the Légion d'Honneur. As Division General in September 1917, he ran the 21st corps of General Maistre's 6th army. He took part in the Malmaison offensive, which resulted in the fall of the Chemin des Dames, earning him another citation on the Order of the Army. On the 10th June 1918, leading the 6th army, he halted the German advance on the Marne and on the 15th July 1918 he embarked with General Mangin on the attack that marked the start of the French campaign. He liberated Château-Thierry, holding back the Germans on the Marne and the Ourcq and at La Vesle. In September he was designated Major General to the Belgian King. He then led the offensive of Flanders, capturing the Passchendaele crest and taking back the south of Belgium with Belgian, British and French troops. Once the war was over and promoted to Great Officer of the Légion d'Honneur, he was given the responsibility of writing the clauses of the Treaty of Versailles under Foch's supervision.
He was appointed commander of the army of the Rhine in October 1919 and in January 1920 he became a member of the Upper War Council. In 1923 he carried out the occupation of the Ruhr until its complete evacuation in 1925. His qualities helped him reach the rank of Great Cross of the Légion d'Honneur in 1923. He received the military medal in 1928. Remaining active, he influenced the strategic options for the defence of the country at the Upper War Council. The establishment of the line of defence of the Alps occupied his final years.

O ihr, die ihr so viel wisst,

Wisst ihr, wie die Augen vor Hunger leuchten und der Durst sie verblassen lässt

O ihr, die ihr so viel wisst,

Wisst ihr, wie es ist, seine Mutter sterben zu sehen und keine Tränen zu haben

O ihr, die ihr so viel wisst,

Wisst ihr, wie sehr man am Morgen sterben möchte, und am Abend nur noch Angst hat

O ihr, die ihr so viel wisst,

Wisst ihr, dass ein Tag länger dauert als ein Jahr und eine Minute länger als ein ganzes Leben

O ihr, die ihr so viel wisst,

Wisst ihr, wie die Beine keinen Schmerz mehr empfinden, die Augen und Nerven immer schwerer werden und unsere Herzen schwerer sind als Stahl

Wisst ihr, dass die Pflastersteine nicht weinen, dass es keine Worte gibt für dieses Grauen, keine Worte für diese Angst

Wisst ihr, dass das Leiden und der Horror keine Grenzen kennen

Wisst ihr das

Ihr, die ihr alles wisst

Charlotte Delbo, aus Keiner von uns wird zurückkehren, Verlag Gonthier, 1965

Charlotte Delbo wird am 10. August 1913 in Vigneux-sur-Seine, in Seine-et-Oise, als Tochter von Charles Delbo, Maschinenbauer, und Erménie Morero geboren. Sie ist die älteste von vier Kindern.

Nach abgeschlossenem Abitur studiert sie Philosophie an der Sorbonne und schließt sich den jungen Kommunisten an. Dort lernt sie Georges Dudach kennen, den sie dann am 17. März 1936 heiratet. 1937 unterbricht sie ihr Studium und wird 1939 die Sekretärin des Comedian und Regisseurs Louis Jouvet. Im Mai 1941 begleitet sie die Truppe von Jouvet auf deren Tournee durch Südamerika. Ihr Ehemann bleibt in Frankreich und schließt sich dem kommunistischen Widerstand an.

Im September 1941 erfährt Charlotte in Buenos-Aires von der Hinrichtung ihres Freundes Jacques Woog, verurteilt wegen „kommunistischer Propaganda“. Voller Wut und bereit für den Widerstand, kehrt sie nach Frankreich zurück. In Paris tritt das Ehepaar dem Widerstand bei. Charlotte schreibt die Mitteilungen von Radio London und Radio Moskau mit und arbeitet für die von Jacques Decour gegründete französische Zeitschrift Les Lettres.

Am 2. März 1942 werden Charlotte und ihr Mann von fünf französischen Polizisten des Sonderkommandos verhaftet. Sie wird ins Gefängnis von Santé gebracht, wo sie am 23. Mai von der Hinrichtung Georges am Mont Valérien erfährt. Am 17. August wird sie in die Festung von Romainville verlegt, wo sie auf zahlreiche andere Frauen trifft, insbesondere Kommunistinnen. Eine Woche später wird sie nach Fresnes verlegt.

Sie ist eine von 230 Frauen, die Compiègne am 24. Januar 1943 in Richtung Auschwitz verlassen. Als diese Frauen am 27. Januar in Auschwitz ankommen, singen sie die Marseillaise. Die zunächst dem Block 14 der Frauen von Birkenau zugewiesenen Frauen, werden dann isoliert von den anderen zu schweren Arbeiten gezwungen, insbesondere in den Sümpfen. Viele von ihnen starben an Typhus. Am 3. August waren nur noch 57 von ihnen am Leben. Auch sie kommen unter Quarantäne. Am 7. Januar 1944 wird Charlotte Delbo mit sieben anderen Deportierten ins Lager Ravensbrück verlegt. Sie kommt nach Furstenberg, ein Arbeitskommando des Hauptlagers.

Die meisten der Überlebenden des Konvois wurden im Sommer 1944 nach Ravensbrück deportiert. Dank des Roten Kreuzes gelang es ihr mit anderen Frauen, das Lager am 23. April 1945 in Richtung Schweden zu verlassen und im Juni 1945 nach Frankreich zurückzukehren. Von den 230 Frauen des Transports vom 24. Januar 1943 haben 49 überlebt.

Nachdem sie in der Schweiz Fuß gefasst hatte, verfasste sie mit dem Buch „Keiner von uns wird zurückkehren“ ihr erstes literarisches Werk über die Deportation und die Transporte von Frankreich in Richtung Auschwitz. Das Buch wird erst im Jahr 1965 vom Gonthier Verlag veröffentlicht.

Nach Kriegsende arbeitet sie bei der UNO und dann im Französischen Zentrum für Wissenschaft. Sie stirbt im März 1985. Zuvor hatte sie zahlreiche Werke verfasst: Berichte über ihre Erfahrungen in den Konzentrationslagern und den Transport am 24. Januar (1965), Une connaissance inutile (1970), Mesure de nos jours (1971, Minuit-Verlag) und Qui rapportera ses paroles (1974, Verlag P.J. Oswald).

Georges Dudach:
_Zum Zum Gedächtnis der erschossenen Männer von Mont-Valérien 1939−1945

Name: Dudach. Familienname. Vornamen: Georges Paul. Geburtsdatum 18.09.1914. Geburtsort: Saint Maur des Fossés. Département des Geburtsorts: Seine. Geburtsland: Frankreich. Beruf: Journalist. Wohnort: Paris 16. Département Wohnort: Seine. Land des Wohnsitzes: Frankreich. Ort der Inhaftierung. Anklage: Geiselnahme. Prozessdatum. Ort der Hinrichtung: Mont Valérien. Datum der Hinrichtung: 23.05.1942.

"Beyond the specious turning point called death, how do we catch up with the soul that was never entirely with us, that has slipped through our fingers like a foolhardy, dreamy shadow on the terrible road where it fled from us? "Perhaps I am not a completely real being."

This statement by Benjamin Constant deeply moved Alain-Fournier the day he read it; suddenly he applied it to himself and, I recall, solemnly asked us to remember it whenever we would have to explain something about him in his absence. I clearly saw what was in his mind : "Everything I do is missing something to be serious, obvious, unquestionable. But also, the plane I move on is not exactly the same as yours; it allows me to go where you see an abyss: perhaps there is not the same discontinuity between this world and the other for me as there is for you."

Excerpt from Jacques Rivière's foreword to Miracles (1924), a posthumous collection of prose and poems by Alain-Fournier.

Henri-Alban Fournier was born in La Chapelle-d'Angillon, in the Cher, on 3 October 1886. His father, a schoolteacher, was appointed to the primary school in Epineuil-le-Fleuriel in 1891 and Henri was his pupil until 1898, when he enrolled in the Lycée Voltaire in Paris. In 1901, Fournier, who dreamed of becoming a sailor, pursued his studies at the high school in Brest with the aim of entering the Naval Academy. But he soon dropped the plan and enrolled in the high school in Bourges at the end of 1902, graduating six months later.

In September 1903, he enrolled in the Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux to prepare for the competitive entrance examination of the École Normale Supérieure teacher's training college. That is where he met Jacques Rivière, who became his best friend (their correspondence, which is among the most beautiful in French literature, was published between 1926 and 1928) and his brother-in-law when Rivière married Isabelle Fournier, Henri-Alban's younger sister, in 1909. In 1906, Fournier failed the École Normale Supérieure entrance exam. In 1907 he tried one last year of preparatory courses at the Lycée Louis Le Grand but failed the test again.

A decisive event in Fournier's romantic and literary life occurred during this period. As he was leaving the Grand Palais on 1 June 1905, the 19-year-old spotted a very pretty young woman and followed her from a distance to her home on boulevard Saint Germain. He returned on 11 June, accosted her in the street, and whispered, "You are beautiful." Yvonne de Quiévrecourt did not respond to his advances and walked towards Saint-Germain des Près church, where she attended mass. After the service, the two young people had a long conversation at the end of which Yvonne told him that she was engaged and that her destiny was already laid out before her. Yvonne de Quiévrecourt married in 1907 and became Yvonne de Galais in Le Grand Meaulnes.

Fournier did his military service the next year. He graduated from the officers' school in Laval before being assigned to the 88th Infantry Regiment in Mirande, in the Gers, with the rank of second lieutenant. Haunted by Yvonne's memory, he took his first steps in literature, writing a few poems and essays, which Rivière had published posthumously under the title Miracles (1924). In April 1910, after Fournier had completed his military service, he started working at Paris-Journal, writing a "literary column" on a regular basis. At the same time, he began an affair with Jeanne Bruneau, a milliner on rue Chanoinesse whom he had met in Bourges, which lasted until April 1912. She was probably the basis for the character of Valentine in Le Grand Meaulnes.

This is the period when Fournier, who was living on rue Cassini, started writing an autobiographical novel, Le Grand Meaulnes. In 1912, he left Paris-Journal to enter, thanks to Charles Péguy, the service of Claude Casimir-Perier, a politician and the son of a former French president. The young man started a stormy affair with his employer's wife, the actress Pauline Benda, who went by the stage name of Madame Simone.

In February 1913, Fournier spoke for the last time with his first love, Yvonne de Quiévrecourt (whose married name was Vaugrigneuse), now a mother of two. From July to November 1913, La Nouvelle Revue française published Le Grand Meaulnes, which he had finished early that year. Later in 1913, Émile-Paul published it in book form. That is when the writer decided to go by the name of Alain-Fournier. Le Grand Meaulnes was nominated for the prestigious Goncourt Prize, but Marc Elder won it by a very narrow margin for his book Peuple de la Mer (People of the Sea). In early 1914, Alain-Fournier starting writing a play, La Maison dans la forêt (The House in the Forest), and another novel, Colombe Blanchet, both of which remained unfinished. The reason is that he was mobilised as soon as war broke out in August 1914. He joined the front as a lieutenant with the 288th reserve infantry regiment of Mirande. After fighting just a few weeks, on 22 September Alain-Fournier was killed in action south of Verdun. Reported missing with 20 of his comrades-in-arms, his body was found in 1991 in a mass grave where German soldiers had buried him. In 1992, the remains of the 21 men from the 288th infantry regiment exhumed from Saint-Rémy Wood, including those of Alain-Fournier, received a proper burial. Henri-Alban Fournier's final resting place is now Saint-Remy-la-Calonne National Cemetery in the Meuse.

"I do receive your letters, my dear little Isabelle. Some have even reached me in the middle of fighting. I am very healthy. I hope to see Jacques soon. I am now assigned to the general staff on horseback. I have great confidence in the outcome of the war. Pray God for all of us. And you have confidence, too. I tenderly squeeze you and your Jacqueline in my arms for a long time. Your brother, Henri"

Louis Hubert Gonzalve Lyautey was born in Nancy on the 17th November 1854, achieved the Baccaleaureat in July 1872, entered Saint-Cyr and 1873 before attending army training school 1876. Made a lieutenant in December 1877, he was posted to the 20th light cavalry regiment at Rambouillet before being transferred on request to Châteaudun. Trained in cavalry, in the 2nd regiment of hussars, he joined his regiment in Sézanne in August 1880, which left two months later for Algeria. Posted to Orléansville followed by Algiers, he developed a passion for Arab civilisation, learning the language and familiarising himself with colonial matters, administration and French and Algerian politics. He preferred a solution of autonomy and protectorate to the policy of total assimilation to France and direct administration, believing that France's action could only be accepted and respected by itself respecting the civilisations and cultures it sought to manage, and that this must be achieved by working in association with the local elites.

After a few months spent in Teniet-el-Haad, outpost of southern Algeria, captain Lyautey was moved to the 4th light cavalry regiment in Bruyères, in the Vosges, in 1882. In October of the following year he became aide-de-camp for general Hotte, general inspector of cavalry, whom he followed in his postings to Commercy then to Tours. On the 19th November 1887, he took command of the 1st squadron of the 4th light cavalry regiment of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. In this position, he set about improving the living conditions of his men, both materially as well as culturally, and to train them, putting his reformist principles into practice with regard to the officer's social role. He was given the opportunity to publish his innovative theories in an article which was to have a major impact, entitled ?On the social role of the officer in universal military service?, published in the Revue des Deux Mondes (Two Worlds Review) on the 15th March 1891.

Transferred to the 12e regiment of hussars at Gray, then made Chief of Staff of the 7th cavalry division at Meaux in 1893, Lyautey was appointed major in Indochina en 1894. First as Colonel Gallieni's Chief of Staff, then as major of the Chinese border military zone (Lang Son territory), he took part in the expeditions to upper Tonkin against the Chinese pirates pillaging the region. By Gallieni's side, and convinced that the populations must be shown the French army's strength to prevent them gaining the upper hand, he set up the necessary infrastructure for improving the region: reconstruction of villages, road building, rebuilding and development of cultures and business. Second-in-command, before being promoted to Chief of Staff of the occupation forces, he was subsequently appointed to director of the military bureau of Armand Rousseau, governor general of Indochina. Improving his knowledge of Indochina's political, administrative and financial issues, he continued his action throughout the territory. In March 1897, he returned to Gallieni, appointed a few months previously as the governor general of Madagascar. Gallieni assigned him the task of pacifying the northwest and the west of the island followed by organising the south. The occupation of the territories was combined with large-scale infrastructure work designed to improve the economic and commercial growth of the country.

Promoted to colonel in 1900, he returned to France in 1902 to take command of the 14th regiment of hussars at Alençon before being called to the South-Oran region in 1903 by Charles Jonnart, governor general of Algeria. Appointed as brigadier general, he took command of the Aïn Sefra subdivision in October then of the Oran division at the end of the 1906. Eventually appointed major general in 1907, the following year he became the government's high commissioner for the occupied zone in the Oudjda region of Morocco. He began his task by supervising the redevelopment of the border zone between Algeria and Morocco, the seat of constant unrest, by setting up new frontier posts designed both to secure the region, regularly threatened by incursions from tribes hostile to the French presence as well as to open up the route into Morocco. He set up a line of frontier posts stretching from the south of Béchar, renamed Colomb, occupied in October 1903, leading to the north at Berguent, in the oasis of Ras el Aïn, in June 1904. He dedicated the months that followed to strengthening and extending the operation towards the west. As much a diplomat as a military man, Lyautey also improved and increased contacts at the same time with the various local chiefs in order to bring them around to accepting French policy. After the pacification of the border region between Algeria and Morocco, he returned to France in 1910 to take command of the 10th army corps of Rennes.

In March 1912, the convention of Fès established the French protectorate over Morocco, whilst the north of the country remained under Spanish influence. Lyautey became its resident general commissioner on the 28th of the following April. The protectorate was not unanimously accepted in Morocco however. There were many opponents to the treaty and to the sultan who signed it. The situation continued to deteriorate yet further. Arriving in Casablanca in mid-May, Lyautey went directly to Fès, which was besieged by the Berber chiefs' troops. It was to be the beginning of a difficult campaign. The country was in total chaos, and administratively and economically, the protectorate had to be entirely built from scratch. At the end of the violent battles, peace was finally returned to Fès and its region. During the summer, a new sultan was named. Lyautey was called upon to re-establish this new sovereign's religious and political authority to the whole country. Peacemaking in the region was slowly but surely achieved. In May 1914, Taza, strategic town for entry to Algeria, was occupied. The plains and coastal towns were now under French control. At the same time as these military operations were being carried out, he undertook large scale economic and social modernisation work in order to promote growth in the country. Important administrative, legal and economic reforms took place. Administrative frameworks were set up, ports, agriculture research and mining were all developed, towns and roads were modernised and schools and hospitals and dispensaries were created and built, and fixed or mobile sanitation stations... the task was enormous.

During the First World War, he briefly became War minister from December 1916 to March 1917, in the Briand cabinet before returning to Morocco. Despite weakened manpower, he managed not only to maintain a French presence but also to increase his influence throughout the whole conflict. On his return and for eight more years of working tirelessly, intense political and economic activity led by him contributed to the country's growth. The crowning achievement of his career came in 1921, when he was awarded the title of Marshal of France. In the Rif, however, the situation was beginning to cause concern. The uprising led by Abd el-Krim against the Spanish was advancing, threatening French Morocco. In spring 1925, Abd el-Krim attacked, threatening the Taza and Fès sectors. Lyautey, who had seen his forces gradually reduced in numbers over the recent years, immediately organised a defensive barrier whilst waiting for reinforcements. Opposed to the French governments' handling of operations, and subsequently denied by them, he returned for good to France in October and retired to Thorey, in Lorraine. From 1927 to 1931, he undertook a last mission, the organisation of the international colonial exhibition of Vincennes.

Marshal Lyautey passed away on the 27th July 1934. Initially buried in Rabat, his body was exhumed and repatriated to France in 1961 to be buried in the Invalides cemetery. Hubert Lyautey was awarded the Grand-Cross of the Legion of Honour and was also decorated for outstanding gallantry in the field, of the colonial medal of Tonkin and Morocco, holder of the medal of Morocco for campaigns in Casablanca, Oudjda and Haut-Guir, as well as numerous foreign decorations. Elected to the Academy Française on the 31st October 1912, he was also the author of several studies and books, including "The social role of the officer in universal military service", published in La Revue des Deux Mondes (The Two Worlds Review), 1891, The colonial role of the army, 1900, In Southern Madagascar, military penetration, political and economic situation, 1903, Letters from Tonkin Madagascar: 1894-1899, 1920, Words of action: 1900-1926, 1927, Letters from youth: 1883-1893, 1931.

Raymond, Nicolas, Landry Poincaré, was born into an old family from the Lorraine on the 20th August 1860 in Bar-le-Duc. Following his secondary education in Bar-le-Duc and then in Paris, with a degree in law as well as in the arts, he was enrolled as a lawyer at the Paris bar in 1880. He received his doctorate in law and became a legal columnist at the Voltaire, a radical daily newspaper edited by Jules Laffitte. In 1886, at the age of 26, he made his debut in politics as the head of the cabinet of Jules Develle, the Minister of Agriculture. He was elected General Councillor of the Meuse and then, the following year, MP for the same département. Specialising in financial matters, he was the reporting officer of the 1890 budget and in 1893 accepted the portfolio for Public Instruction and the Arts in Prime Minister Dupuy's cabinet. In 1894, he became Minister of Finance before taking on the portfolio for Public Instruction and the Arts again for a short period, along with running the Department of Religion in Ribot's cabinet in 1895. After the fall of the latter, he declined Jules Méline's offer of Finance Minister in the new government. Whilst establishing a rapidly well-known legal practice, he continued to carry out his parliamentary duties and became vice president of the Chamber.

He was Senator of the Meuse from 1903 to 1913 and in 1906 he accepted the portfolio for Finance in Sarrien's cabinet. He was elected to the French Academy in 1909. In January 1912, as President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs following the Agadir Affair, which set Germany and France against Morocco, he was in favour of restoring executive power against the Assembly and of a liberal yet strong state and set out to solve the problems of overseas policy. On the 30th March he signed the treaty of the protectorate with the Sultan of Morocco. In addition, he sought to strengthen the bonds between France and Great Britain and Russia. To this end, an agreement to provide naval assistance was negotiated with Great Britain and in August he went to Russia to revive the alliance. A "Secular Republican" and man of order, he was elected President of the Republic on the 17th January 1913. Faced with the prospect of war, he got the three year military service law voted through in August and, on the overseas front, strengthened alliances by making a second trip to Russia in July 1914. Once war was declared his vital task was to win the conflict. For that he had to muster up all his forces and unite all the faithful, both from the left and the right, in a word, make the "Sacred Union ". The government would be headed in turn by Viviani, Briand, Ribot and Painlevé, but before weapons could prove successful. Military and political problems multiplied: defeat for the French on the Chemin des Dames, mutinies on the front, the reawakening of social tensions and the end of the Sacred Union. Keeping his personal feelings to himself, Poincaré called upon his political enemy, Clemenceau, who became President of the Council on the 16th November 1917. In 1918 came the victory and the return of the Alsace-Lorraine to France.
At the end of his 7-year term of office he again became Senator of the Meuse and was Chairman of the Reparations Committee between February and May 1920, before being appointed Council President and Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1922. He was in favour of the integral execution of the Treaty of Versailles and, despite Allied reticence, he sent General Degoutte's troops to occupy the Ruhr on the 11th January 1923, as the Germans were late with their reparations payment. The result of the legislative elections, giving a majority to the "Cartel of the left", forced him to hand in his resignation in June 1924. He was recalled on the 23rd July 1926 to try to right a catastrophic financial situation, immediately restoring confidence and managing to stabilise the Franc. Absorbed by monetary problems, he left the domain of foreign affairs to Briand who chose a different policy, that of seeking a compromise with Germany. Due to illness, Poincaré resigned in July 1929 and concentrated on writing his Memoirs, Au service de la France (Serving France) (1926-1933). He died on the 15th October 1934. Following a state funeral held in Paris, he was buried in Nubécourt.

Aristide Briand was born in Nantes on 28 March 1862, into a family of café owners whose ancestors worked the land. After studying law, he was admitted to the bar in Saint-Nazaire before moving to Paris where he worked for La Lanterne, the populist anti-clerical newspaper founded by Eugène Mayer. Alongside Jean Jaurès, he struggled to maintain unity between the opposing currents within the French socialist movement. After being elected as a parliamentary representative in 1902, he went on to hold many political posts. He was a brilliant speaker and was chosen as rapporteur of the bill for the separation of the Church and the State, which was passed in 1905. In 1906, he was entrusted with his first ministerial portfolio in charge of public instruction and worship. He succeeded Georges Clemenceau as Prime Minister in 1909, and one of his many noteworthy successes was to pass the bill for workers' and farmers' pensions (April 1910).

On the eve of World War 1, while supporting the lengthening of military service, Aristide Briand urged the world's political leaders to seek peaceful solutions to their differences. However, when war was declared, he entered the "sacred union" mixed party government as Justice Minister and Vice-President of the Council, and gave his support to the command during the Battle of the Marne. He played an important role as head of the government and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1915 to 1917, notably organising the Salonika expedition and coordinating military and economic operations with the Allies. The four years of war had bled Europe dry. The former belligerents, who had borrowed heavily to keep up supplies to their troops, were economically devastated by the end of the conflict. In France, the richest and most industrialised regions had been extremely hard hit. With almost one and a half million dead and more than a million seriously wounded, a large section of the population had been wiped out. War pensions and the costs of reconstruction were a drain on the treasury. The peace treaty, signed with Germany on 28 June 1919 in Versailles, stipulated that Germany must pay reparations for the damage caused by the war. The thorny question of settling these reparations was to become one of the main issues presiding over Franco-German relations for a decade or so and the source of much contention between the Allies themselves.
In the aftermath of the war, Aristide Briand was a partisan of the strict application of the Treaty of Versailles and firmly believed that Germany should be forced to pay reparations for the war. He would nevertheless abandon this stance in favour of a more peaceful approach in the framework of the League of Nations, and from then on he concentrated his efforts on improving relations with Germany. At the Cannes conference in January 1922, he was open to the proposal of alleviating German debt in return for a guarantee of French borders. His position was severly criticised by Alexandre Millerand, president of the Republic, and he was forced to resign. As the French representative of the League of Nations in 1924, he continued to advocate a policy of conciliation, conscious that Franco-German relations could only be improved by making certain concessions. He expressed his views thus: "I believe that peace within our nation, political and social peace, is the ultimate wish of the entire country... The desire for peace, in a country such as France, which has suffered so much from the war and, since the armistice, has been subjected to a series of challenges and provocations that would justify impatience, is proof of patience". Once again Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1925, Aristide Briand pursued his policy of reconciliation with Germany, seeing it as the only way to establish lasting peace in Europe. He struck up a dialogue with his German counterpart, Gustav Stresemann, who was also a partisan of the policy of conciliation. At the Locarno conference, which brought together the representatives of Germany, Belgium, Italy, France and Great Britain, he signed the treaty with Germany to guarantee the borders of France and Belgium and established a pact for mutual assistance on 16 October 1925. After Locarno, he supported Germany's application to join the League of Nations, which would be accepted the following year. In December 1926 he and his German counterpart, Gustav Stresemann, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
For some, the Locarno agreements and the admission of Germany into the League of Nations marked the beginning of a new era announcing the end of Franco-German antagonism, but for Aristide Briand it was only the first step on the road to peace. The absence of the United States from the League of Nations weakened the influence of the organisation. In 1927, he embarked on a mission to coax the United States out of its isolationist position. By calling out "to the American nation", he gained the support of its powerful pacifist organizations. On 27 August 1928, the Briand-Kellogg Pact, so named after the US Secretary of State with whom Briand had negotiated the pact, "outlawed" war: "Article 1: All signatory states solemnly declare in the name of their respective peoples that they condemn the reliance on war in order to resolve international differences and renounce the use of war as an instrument of national policy in their mutual relations. Article 2: All signatory states recognise that the settlement or resolution of any differences or conflicts that may arise between them, regardless of the nature or origin of these differences or conflicts, should be sought through peaceful means only." Despite being approved by fifty-seven countries, including Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union, this pact had only a moral value since it did not define the sanctions that would apply to any country that failed to respect its dispositions. Moreover, the United States, which was enjoying a period of economic prosperity at the time, was reticent about getting involved in an eventual European conflict.
Aristide Briand then decided to embark upon a new and resolutely European policy. In September 1929, during a speech in Geneva, he took up an idea previously put forward by Count Coudenhove-Kalergi, the Austrian diplomat who had founded the Pan-Europa movement, and suggested the creation of a regional union, a "European Federation" whose competence would extend mainly to economic matters and would not encroach upon national sovereignty. This proposal met with great success and the delegates of the twenty-seven European states commissioned him to produce a memorandum on the subject. This memorandum was presented to them in May 1930. In it Aristide Briand took his project a step further. Falling within the framework of the League of Nations, this institution would be composed of a European Union Conference, a representative body bringing together representatives of all the European government members of the League of Nations, a permanent Political Committee, an executive body, which would be presided over in turn by the different member states, and a Secretariat. One of the main aims would be "the creation of common market to raise the level of well-being to a maximum amongst all the peoples of the European community".
The memorandum did not receive the same welcome as his initial words at the League of Nations. In France and around the world, Aristide Briand's vision met with increasing resistance. The greatest obstacle was the persistence of nationalism. While the principle of cooperation was not questioned, the idea of a full political and economic European union was far from popular. It was the political aspect of the project, especially the mention of "federal links", that awakened suspicion. A commission was created to study the proposal on 23 September 1930 and Aristide Briand was elected to preside over it. Although the commission was charged with studying the practicalities of a possible collaboration at the heart of Europe, it would not come up with any results. Throughout his diplomatic career Aristide Briand, known as the "pilgrim of peace" never ceased to look for opportunities to establish peace in Europe. Sadly, his project for a united Europe was unable to resist the economic crisis and the rise of dictatorships that would ensue. Aristide Briand died on 7 March 1932.

Wilhelm Keitel joins the army in 1901 and holds several posts during the First World War, serving primarily as an officer in the General Staff. After Germany falls in 1918, he pursues his military career at the heart of the new German army, the Reichswehr, as it was authorized by the Treaty of Versailles.

When Adolf Hitler came into power in 1933 and started rebuilding the armed forces, Wilhelm Keitel's career began to rapidly progress. He was named a brigadier in 1934 and the following year became chief of the War Cabinet and the director of the Wehrmachtsamt, in charge of the coordination of the armed forces. In 1938, Wilhelm Keitel became chief of the newly-created Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW - Armed Forces High Command). On 22 June 1940, he signed the Franco-German armistice at Rethondes. This zealous executor of Adolf Hitler's orders was named chief of the OKW -- the Armed Forces High Command -- in 1938, and during the war authorized all Hitler's military decisions as well as the terror tactics he employed in countries taken by the Germans, most notably the execution of hostages and NN (Night and Fog) prisoners. He was promoted to Marshal in July 1940. Despite several attempts on the part of the leading circles of the army and the General Staff to shake up the top of the military hierarchy, he kept his positions until the end of the Second World War. On 9 May 1945, he signed the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht on the orders of Grand Admiral Doentiz. In 1946, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg condemned him to death for Crimes against Peace, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity.

Adolphe Félix Eboué was born on 26th December 1884 at Cayenne (in Guiana), fourth in a black family of 5 children. His father - originally a gold-washer - ran a grocery from 1898 onwards with his wife. In 1901 he received a limited scholarship to continue his education in Bordeaux. Achieving his baccalaureat in 1905, he attended the colonial school in Paris from where he graduated in 1908. Very quickly he became attracted to black Africa and its civilisations from which he derived his Creole status. He thus became interested in the administration of the African colonies, and in 1909 he was appointed Chief Administrator in Oubangui-Chari (now the Central African Republic) where western influence was not yet complete. He remained in the post until 1933, frequently returning to Guiana to spend his leave. There he married Eugénie Tell in 1921. In Black Africa, Félix Eboué developed his own brand of colonial policy, attempting to reconcile modernisation of material life, whilst maintaining African culture. This explained his support for the production of new crops such as cotton and the development of road and rail infrastructure. At the same time he fought to preserve food crops, learned local languages and extended his research into traditions...

A supporter of the association - and not assimilation - of colonised peoples, he frequently clashed with his superiors who were unimpressed with his membership, in 1928, of the Ligue des droits de l'homme (Human Rights League). In fact, Félix Eboué wanted to strike the delicate balance of being both a strict colonial administrator and an uncompromising humanitarian. In 1934, he moved to French Sudan (now Mali). With the support of the black élites, he strove to develop the banks of the Sudan and encouraged the nomadic peoples to adopt a sedentary lifestyle cultivating the land. In between times, in 1932 and 1933, he was Secretary-General of Martinique, where he sought to develop the island and improve conditions for the worst off and reduce antagonism between White, Mixed Race and Black peoples.

Recalled from Sudan, he was given responsibility in 1936, for applying the policy of the Front Populaire in Guadeloupe. Finding this divided island in crisis, he opened negotiations and introduced a plan to provide credit-assistance, professional training, the building of housing, and to clean up public finances. On 4th January 1939, he was appointed Governor of Chad, a new and newly-pacified colony. Aware of the country's strategic importance, with the Italian threat in the region becoming clearer, he began major infrastructural development. On 6th June 1940, news of the defeat of the French army and the armistice reached Fort-Lamy. General de Gaulle's appeal several days later was also heard. In Brazzaville, after initial hesitation, Boisson, the Governor-General of French Equatorial Africa, pledged allegiance to Marshall Pétain. On 29th June, Eboué, who viewed the armistice as depriving his motherland of the values that he had always defended, cabled his determination not to implement its terms. Although its geographical isolation put it in a difficult position, Chad remained in a state of war. On 16th July, a telegram from General de Gaulle gave him the support of the leader of Free France, whose emissaries arrived on 24th August. On 26th, a proclamation declared Chad's alliance with Free France. Cameroon and Congo followed its example: Eboué had given the signal for African dissidence, providing outstanding support to the cause of the France that was still fighting.

Relieved of his post and condemned to death in absentia by the Vichy Government, Félix Eboué was appointed Governor-General of French Equatorial Africa on 13th November by General de Gaulle, and the seat of the Council for the Defence of the Empire. Chad became the base for French people re-entering the fighting: it was from here that Leclerc launched his legendary raid on Koufra in March 1942, and the F.F.L. (Free French Forces) attacked the Italians at Fezzan, then in Tripolitania. At the same time as providing supplies to these troops, organising a wartime economy and rebuilding trade, Eboué sought to bring civil peace to French Equatorial Africa, easing the tensions raised in 1940 between Gaullists and supporters of Pétain. At the same time, he was convinced that French rule could not be maintained in Black Africa in the long term without a profound reform of colonial policy.

This was the tone of his circular of 8th November 1941, promoting the observance of customary law, the association of African Councils of Administration, training for native top civil servants, the extension of contracts of employment, etc. In July 1942, General de Gaulle signed three decrees in a similar vein. On 30th January 1944, the leader of Free France opened a conference on the future of French African Territories in Brazzaville. Tackling topics dear to Eboué, such as native involvement in administration and the redistribution of regions according to ethnic affiliations, the conference's recommendations left him unsatisfied as they rejected any long-term autonomy, instead suggesting elected representation of the African Territories. Tired, Eboué took some leave and left in 1944 with his family - who joined him from France in 1942 - in Egypt. He used this opportunity to work on diplomatic relations between Egypt and the provisional government of the French Republic. On 17th May 1944, he died after suffering a pulmonary embolism. On 19th May 1949, Félix Eboué's ashes were transferred to the Panthéon in Paris. At the ceremony, Gaston Monnerville, President of the Senate, recalled that "it was a message of humanity that guided Félix Eboué, and all those of us who fought in the Resistance overseas, at a time when brutish fanaticism threatened to extinguish the light of the spirit, and where freedom was at risk of falling like France." Félix Eboué's memory is today honoured through several monuments and commemorative plaques. Furthermore, in Paris, a Metro station is named after him and Daumesnil.

Heureux ceux qui sont morts pour la terre charnelle,

Mais pourvu que ce soit pour une juste guerre.

Heureux ceux qui sont morts pour quatre coins de terre.

Heureux ceux qui sont morts d'une mort solennelle »

Charles PEGUY, Prière pour nous autres charnels

Charles Péguy is born on January 7th 1873 in Orléans in the bosom of family of modest conditions. His father, who was a carpenter dies the same year of his birth and he is raised by his mother, who works as a upholsterer. Very good pupil, Charles Péguy, will benefit of an university grant, which will give him the chance to do brilliant studies after the elementary school. After having accomplished his military service in the 131st I.R. in 1892 he enters the University preparing him for senior posts in teaching, where he will be taught of prestigious professors as the medievalist Joseph Bédier, the writer Romain Rolland or the philosopher Henri Bergson, this last professor will have a great influence on his intellectual maturity. In 1896 he will get his bachelor degree in arts. After failing the competitive examination in philosophy for the posts in the teaching, he will leave the institution in 1897. He will give up any religious practice and commit himself in the conviction of the dreyfusic cause, after having met Bernard Lazare. In 1897, Peguy collaborates for the "Revue Blanche" and completes his fist work, "Jeanne d'Arc" in June. The next year he will write "Marcel, premier dialogue de la cité harmonieuse."

In 1898 Charles Péguy will marry with Charlotte Baudouin, sister of his best friend, who died little time before. The couple lives in 7, rue de l'Estrapade in Paris and will have four children : Marcel in 1898, Germaine in 1901, Pierre in 1903 and Charles-Pierre in 1915. Marcel Baudouin oriented him towards socialistic ideals. Vharles Péguy will be involved in political actions, at the side of Jean Jaurès, Lucien Herr and Charles Andler. Furthermore he collaborates in the creation of the "Revue Socialiste" (Socialistic Revue). With George Bellais he will also invest in a bookshop, which will quickly become a meeting point of the resistance to the Marxian socialism, preached by Jules Guesde and Jean Jaurès will try to influence the parliamentary left. In January 1900, Charles Péguy founds the "Cahier de la Quinzaine" an independent publishing house, which publishes every month it's own literary review. Installed in 8, rue de la Sorbonne he will personally take the leadership. It will publish 229 parts between the January 5th and July 1914, which will give Péguy the chance to publish his works,as well as those of his friends such as André Suarès, Anatole France, Georges Sorel or Julien Benda. Péguy also writes topical essays about the separation between the church and the government, the crises of the teaching sector.

In 1905, the incident of Tanger reveals to him the German threat and the "universal evil". Péguy will protest against pacifism and internationalism of the left. Thus in October he will publish "Notre Patrie" (Our Fatherland), a polemic and patriotic work. During the following years the writer also denounces the scientism of the "intellectual party", in other words he criticises his former university professors. In 1908 he will come back to his religious convictions. He will confide this to his friend Joseph Lotte. From 1912 to 1914 Charles Péguy will leave for several pilgrimages in Notre-Dame de Chartres. The writer at present castigates the official socialism, to which he blames its demagogy and its anticlerical sectarianism, after the separation of the church from the government. The writer will write mystical, philosophic essays such as "Clio, Dialogue de l'Histoire et de l'Âme païenne" , published between 1909 and 1912, or "Victor-Marie, comte Hugo" in 1910. His personal and timeless style is expressed in various oratorical poems of insistent rhythms : "Le Mystère de la charité de Jeanne d'Arc", in 1910 ; "Le Porche du Mystère de la deuxième Vertu", one year after; "Le Mystère des et La Tapisserie de sainte Geneviève et de Jeanne d'Arc" in 1912 ; "La Tapisserie de Notre-Dame", en 1913. In his last works Péguy re-discusses the the confrontation between mysticism and politics and the interior life of the citizens, of whom he already talked at the beginning of his work. Finally with "Eve", written in 1913, this vast symphonic poem of some 3000 quatrains, the patriotic writer again celebrates the dead of "the carnal world", the world of the ancestors.

On August 2nd 1914, the general mobilization, forces Péguy to interrupt his essay about M. Descartes et the Cartesian philosophy, a speech for the defence ofBergson. On August 4th he takes the command of the reservists unit in Colommiers and reaches Lorraine. After a short campaign in Metz his 276th I.R. moves backwards to Aisne, where the French army retreats. On September 5th 1914 in Villeroy, close to Meaux, at the time of the Marne battle, General Péguy's unit will be confronted with the enemy, who is trying to reach Paris. Here the officer will be shoot in the middle of his forehead. His body is buried among his other companions in the cemetery of Chaucoin-Neufmontiers.

Heureux les grands vainqueurs.

Paix aux hommes de guerre.

Qu'ils soient ensevelis dans un dernier silence.

Que Dieu mette avec eux la juste balance

Un peu de ce terreau d'ordure et de poussière.

Que Dieu mette avec eux dans le juste plateau

Ce qu'ils ont tant aimé, quelques grammes de terre.

Un peu de cette vigne, un peu de ce coteau,

Un peu de ce ravin sauvage et solitaire.

Mère voici vos fils qui se sont tant battus.

Vous les voyez couchés parmi les nations.

Que Dieu ménage un peu ces êtres débattus,

Ces coeurs pleins de tristesse et d'hésitations.

Et voici le gibier traqué dans les battues,

Les aigles abattus et les lièvres levés.

Que Dieu ménage ces coeurs tant éprouvés

Ces torses déviés, ces nuques rebattues.

Que Dieu ménage un peu de ces êtres combattus,

Qu'il rappelle sa grâce et sa miséricorde.

Qu'il considère un peu de ce sac et cette corde

Et ces poignets liés et ces reins courbatus.

Mère voici vos fils qui se sont tant battus.

Qu'ils ne soient pas pesés comme Dieu pèse un ange.

Que Dieu mette avec eux un peu de cette fange

Qu'ils étaient en principe et sont redevenus."

Extrait de l'œuvre poétique Eve, publiée dans le Quatorzième cahier de la quinzième série, le 28 décembre 1913.

Anna Bétoulinksy was born in Saint Petersburg on 30 October, at the time of the very 1917 Revolution in which her father was shot to death. She left Russia for France at the beginning of the 1920's. As a refugee living in the Russian community of Menton with her mother, her elder sister and their loyal nanny, she endured some difficult, but happy years. At the age of 13 she was given a guitar. She never parted with this gift, which was to completely change the course of her life. "This was when I discovered the magic of sounds influenced by Charles Trénet." In 1934, she returned to Paris and began an artistic career under the pseudonym Anna Marly - she chose the surname out of the phone book. She began working as a dancer at the Ballets russes, and toured Europe with the company before joining the Ballets Wronska as their principal dancer.

But Anna didn't forget about her music. After some time spent working on her voice in the Paris conseratory, she began putting on her own shows in 1935. With her guitar and her own repertory, she performed at Shéhérazade, the Parisian cabaret club for gilded youth, then at the théâtre des Variétés in Brussels, and the Savoy Club in La Hague. During her stay in Holland, she met her future husband, the Baron van Doorn. The same year, Anna had a major professional success when she became the youngest ever member of SACEM (Société des Auteurs Compositeurs et des Editeurs de Musique). On 13th June 1940, Paris was declared an open city. Anna and her husband left the capital and went into exile. After travelling through Spain and Portugal, they settled in London in 1941, where Anna volunteered at the cafeteria for the Forces Françaises Libres (the Free French). She sang in the café sometimes. Soon she separated from her husband and became a projectionist, before getting involved in the théâtre "aux Armées" and singing on the BBC programme "Les Français parlent aux Français".

Anna Marly's most famous songs, including "Le Chant des partisans", date from this time. One day, towards the end of 1942, after having read an account of the Battle of Smolensk in the British papers, her Russian spirit was riled. One word came to her mind: "partisans". "I'm so confused, I pick up my guitar and play a rhythmic melody, and these Russian verses come pouring out from my heart: We will go there where the crow does not fly/And where the beast cannot go. No amount of strength and nobody/will make us turn back." Originally entitled, "La Marche des Partisans," this song was performed in Russian by its author until Joseph Kessel heard it for the first time and cried, "That's what France needs!" then wrote a French version with his nephew, Maurice Druon. After a whistled version was made the theme song of the BBC's "Honneur et Patrie," and then a way to recognize comrades in the maquis, "Le Chant des Partisans" (or "Guerilla Song," in English) quickly became the unofficial hymn of the Resistance.

She wrote "La Complainte du partisan" (The Partisan's Lament) at around the same time. "I was thinking about occupied France, and I began to play a sad, sad melody, without words." Emmanuel d'Astier de la Vigerie, the chief of the Libération-Sud movement, wrote the words to this song. Later, Joan Baez and Leonard Cohen recorded it. When she returned to France in 1945, Anna Marly was famous. Yet she moved to South America, where she became the ambassador of French chanson. In 1947 in Brazil she met her second husband, a Russian by the name of Yuri Smiernow. She continued to travel extensively, and crossed Africa accompanied by her guitar. These days, she lives in the US, where she writes stories and poems interwoven with memories. She hopes that her current work, like her recently published memoirs (Anna Marly, Troubadour de la Résistance. Tallandier-Historia), will serve as a testament to younger generations and all those who did not experience these tormented times in history, so that they, in turn, might carry and pass on the flame of memory.

Anna Marly, about whom General de Gaulle wrote "she made her talent into a weapon for France" and who was nicknamed the "Troubadour de la Résistance," wrote more than 300 songs, amongst them "Une chanson à trois temps," for Edith Piaf. Some of them have become part of our national heritage, a fact proven by the compulsory teaching of the "Chant des partisans" alongside the "Marseillaise" and the "Chant du départ" in schools during the 1960's. Written in the context of the war, Anna Marly's songs bear living witness to the history of France: for this reason, she was awarded the ordre national du Mérite in 1965 and the ordre national de la Légion d'honneur in 1985. She took part in an homage to Jean Moulin in 2000, on the 40th anniversary of 18th June 1960. During the ceremony, she sang the Chant des partisans with the French army choir. Anna Marly died in Alaska on 17th February 2006, at the age of 88.

Edmond Charles Octave Michelet was born in the 19th arrondissement of Paris on the 8th October 1899. As soon as he was 18 he enlisted voluntarily for the duration of the war. Appointed to the 126th infantry regiment of Brive, he discovered Corrèze where he married. He campaigned for the ACJF (Young French Catholic Action movement) of which he became president in Béarn and then in Corrèze. In 1932, he developed the Social Teams created by Robert Garric in 1919, whose aim was to facilitate the professional, intellectual and moral advancement of all its underprivileged members. Faced with the rise in Nazism, he created the Duguet Circle, a think tank that organised, amongst other things, a series of conferences called: "the dangers threatening our civilisation". As a father, he was not called up in 1939, but organised the national charity for helping the many refugees.

He made his first act of resistance in June 1940 by distributing, along with some friends in Brive, a tract quoting a text by Péguy: "the one who does not surrender to reason against the one who surrenders". In 1942, he became regional manager and then took over in charge of region 5 of the MUR (United Resistance Movement). On the 25th February 1943, Michelet was arrested by the German police for his acts of resistance acts. Imprisoned secretly at first for 6 months in Fresnes, he was deported to Dachau on the 15th September 1943. On the liberation of the camp on the 29th April 1945, he represented France on the international committee and dealt with the repatriation of all the French and the Spanish internees. He returned to France on the 27th May 1945.

In July 1945, he was appointed a member of the provisional consultative Assembly by the MLN (Movement of National Liberation). On the 21st October 1945, he was elected representative for Corrèze at the first constituent Assembly in the ranks of the MRP (Popular Republican Movement). In November 1945 he became the Minister for the Armed Forces in De Gaulle's government. In June 1946, he was elected representative for the second constituent Assembly and in November 1946, he was elected representative in the first legislative assembly. Beaten in the legislative elections of 17th June 1951 in Corrèze, he was elected councillor of the Republic in May 1952 and became vice-president of the 1958 High Assembly. In 1954, he headed the French delegation at the UN. In June 1958, Michelet became the minister for Ex-servicemen. He joined the Constitutional Council in February 1962. On the 12th March 1967, he was elected MP for the first Constituency of Finistère: Quimper. A month later, Edmond Michelet returned to government as minister in charge of the Civil Service.

After May 1968, he was minister without portfolio. Following the elections of the 23rd and 30th June 1968, with the formation of Couve de Murville's government, he found himself back in his seat as the representative to the Assembly for Finistère. He left it on the 22nd June 1969 to take care of Cultural Affairs in the Chaban-Delmas government, where he succeeded André Malraux. He occupied this position until his death in Marcillac near Brive on the 9th October 1970. Edmond Michelet received the 1959 Resistance literary prize and the Franco-Belgian literary Grand prix for Liberty in 1960 for his book of memoirs, "Rue de la liberté". He was president of the Amicable Society for Former members of Dachau, which he was able to keep going despite the cold war, and the founding president of the France-Algeria Association in 1963.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born on 29 June 1900 in Lyon, and received a classical education in a series of religious schools. Would he best be described as an aviator-poet, or perhaps as a writer-pilot? The life of one of the most legendary men and women who "died for France" during the World War 2 was short but exceptionally full. The writer and the poet On the eve of his first flying experience, the young Antoine, aged twelve at the time, presented one of his teachers with a poem about areonautical exploits, the first sign of the unusual duality of his destiny. Throughout his childhood, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote short texts, mostly in verse. In 1926, the author definitively adopted prose and his first story "L'aviateur" ("The Aviator") was published in a magazine. He went on to write "Courrier sud" ("Southern Mail") in 1929 in Morocco, the first of a series of five novels that would secure the legend of Saint-Ex, even before his tragic disappearance. In 1931, "Vol de nuit" ("Night Flight") won the 'Prix

Femina' (a French literary prize awarded by an exclusively female panel), which foreshadowed the resounding success of "Terre des hommes" ("Wind, Sand and Stars"), published in 1938. During his period in exile in the United States, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry published his last two literary works: "Pilote de Guerre" ("Flight to Arras") in 1942, and "Le Petit Prince" ("The Little Prince") in 1943. In 1948, the unfinished "Citadelle" ("The Wisdom of the Sands"), which he wrote in the months before his disappearance, was posthumously published. Many more of his letters and writings would be published later, including essays, correspondence, and press articles. As well as his literary genius, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was also a visionary in the world of cinema, turning out several film scripts in his lifetime.

The inventor and technician

From a very young age, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry showed extraordinary ingenuity, and spent much of his time experimenting with technical innovations with the help of his brothers and sisters. Consequently, from 1934 to 1940, his scientific curiosity and his piloting skills led him to register a series of patents with France's National Institute of Industrial Property, all relating to his inventions in the field of aviation. These discoveries were dedicated to creating materials that would improve piloting performance, or to developing procedures for more accurate navigation in the air. Two of these patents proposed a new system for safely 'blind' landing planes (i.e. in extremely poor or no visibility), accompanied by plans for the necessary mechanisms and equipment. Like the other innovations registered by Saint-Ex, these ideas were never followed up.

The pioneer of civil aviation

Called up for military service in 1921, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was assigned to the 2nd Regiment of Chasseurs in Strasbourg, where he obtained his pilot's licence. In 1926, this qualification gained him a place as mechanic and subsequently as an air mail pilot for the commercial postal airline Aéropostale owned by Pierre Latécoère . Saint-Exupéry was appointed director of the Cap Juby airfield in Morocco, and was responsible for securing this section of the Toulouse-Dakar route. In 1929, he joined Mermoz and Guillaumet in Buenos Aires, and became director and pilot of Aeroposta Argentina, a subsidiary of Aéropostale. His task was to create the flight route to Patagonia. The Aéropostale story came to an end in 1933 when the various civil airlines were grouped together under the name Air France. After a spell working as test pilot and surviving several serious accidents, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry joined the external relations department of the new company, and took part in a series of conferences on the subject of aviation from 1934.

The intrepid military pilot

Mobilized in September 1939, Reserve Captain Saint-Exupéry was assigned on his request to the reconnaissance group 2/33 based in Orconte in the Haute-Marne, and took part in missions over Germany and Belgium, then over occupied nothern France. In March 1943, he was called up a second time and he rejoined the group 2/33, then based in Morocco. Despite his age, he persuaded the military authorities to allow him to fly and found himself in the line of fire once again.

Neither Vichy supporter nor Gaullist

After the armistice in 1940, Saint-Exupéry wanted no part in the national Vichy 'revolution' and left for the United States, where he kept his distance from the rest of the French community in exile. The now greatly-respected author could not find his place in a Manichean universe split between supporters of General de Gaulle and those who preferred to collaborate with the enemy. Both sides tried vainly to secure his support, but Saint-Exupéry refused to commit to either, preferring to extol the need for national reconciliation in a country divided by defeat and occupation. A man of letters who refused to remain silent in defeat, in 1943 he published his "Lettre à un otage" ("Letter to a Hostage") addressed to his friend Léon Werth who had remained in France, and urging the French to unite in the fight for the respect of human rights .

The mysterious disappearance

Finally, he decided to act and joined the Free France resistance movement in 1943. On the morning of 31 July 1944, he took off from Borgo in Corsica at the controls of his P-38 Lightning fighter plane as part of a reconnaissance mission in preparation for the Allied landing in Provence. He would never return. On 7 April 2004, some sixty years after his disappearance, France-Presse released news of a discovery made by the French Underwater Archaeological Department in Marseille. A diver had deciphered four figures on the left wing of the wreckage of a plane resting 70m deep on the seabed off the coast of Marseille. These four figures correspond to the civil manufacturing number of Saint-Exupéry's Lockheed P-38 Lightning. Sixty years underwater means that we will never be able to identify the exact reasons behind the disappearance of the 'father of the Little Prince'. The mythical poet of aviation has definitively entered into legend. As someone who, in both his writings and actions, rose above life's chance happenings in his search for what is essential, many see him as one of the brightest stars of the 20th century.

Resistant, deported to Buchenwald in 1943 and several times Minister under General de Gaulle, Pierre Sudreau tells the story of his extraordinary encounter with the legendary pilot in "Au-delà de toutes les frontières"

The sacrifice of Jean Maridor

Jean Maridor was born in Le Havre in 1920.

A son of shopkeepers, he became fascinated by aviation from a very early age after visiting an air show. A gifted and applied student, he joined the school for training air force NCOs in Istres when he left high school. At the same time he obtained his private pilot’s licence at the age of 17.

Admitted into Istres in 1939, he followed the squad of trainee pilots during the winter months of 1939 to 1940. On 24 June, he and five classmates, travelling with a group of Polish airmen, boarded a boat leaving Saint-Jean-de-Luz for England. Following further training at the air base in Odiham, Jean Maridor was appointed to the rank of sergeant in the Royal Air Force on 1 October 1940.

Enlisted to Winston Churchill’s squadron, in 1941 he intensified the attacks against German ships in the Channel and the North Sea, interspersed by attacks against German fighters.

Promoted to the rank of sub-lieutenant then lieutenant in 1942, he was made captain in 1943 and received, after being awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Croix de la Liberation (the Liberation Cross).

In 1944, he specialised in chasing V-1s, long-range flying bombs that were fired at England.

On 3 August 1944, Captain Jean Maridor chased after a V-1 that was heading towards a hospital. Firing at very close range, Jean Maridor sacrificed his life to prevent the bomb striking its target.

René Mouchotte qualified as a military pilot in 1937 and was mobilised in September 1939. He joined the Avord fighter training school as a trainee instructor, then in May 1940, with his friend Guérin, he was sent to the fighter training centre at Oran. On 30th June, against direct orders, Mouchotte and eight of his comrades flew to Gibraltar in two aircraft and arrived in Liverpool on 13th July 1940, in time to watch the first 14th July review presided over by General de Gaulle, in London. After training at Old Sarum, near Salisbury, at the School of Army Cooperation, he joined 6 Operational Training Unit at Sutton Bridge, for training as a Hawker Hurricane fighter pilot. At the beginning of October, he left with 615 squadron for Northolt, in the western suburbs of London.

On 11th October, René Mouchotte, carried out his first operational sortie and spotted the French coast. On 15th December 1940, 615 squadron returned to its base at Kenley, south of London. On 4th March, René Mouchotte was awarded temporary command of a Flight. On 26th August he shot down a Junkers 88. On 10th November 1941, René Mouchotte joined Turnhouse RAF base, where first fighter group n° 2 "île de France" (340 squadron) was undergoing training. When Flying Officer Philippe de Scitivaux took command of the Group in February 1942, René Mouchotte replaced him as head of A Flight "Paris". He was promoted to Captain on 15th March 1942. General de Gaulle awarded him the Croix de la Libération, on 14th July 1942 and on 1st September he received the Distinguished Flying Cross. He was given the command of 65 squadron, then went on to lead Fighter Group n° 1 "Alsace" which, following a tour of duty in the Middle East, was posted back to Great Britain as 341 squadron of the RAF. On 17th March 1943, 341 was considered fit to serve with 11 Group, where there was a great deal of enemy activity and returned to base at Biggin Hill. On 15th May 1943, the Biggin Hill wing, with 998 victories in the air, took off for a protection mission. "Alsace" was flying with 611 squadron, commanded by Squadron-Leader Charles. The wing was attacked over the Pas-de-Calais by a large formation of Fw 190's. Charles shot one down, bringing the wing's score to 999, before Mouchotte brought up the 1,000th kill. Commandant René Mouchotte's will read as follows: "If fate only allows me a short career as Commandant, I will thank heaven that I was able to give my life for the Liberation of France. Tell my mother that I was always happy and grateful that I had the opportunity to serve God, my Country and those I love and that, whatever happens, I will always be by her side." The last lines of his flight log said: "Sorties continue at a terrible rate. My record is 140. My fatigue is merciless and I can feel my nerves breaking. I have an unbearable need for rest. I haven't taken a week's leave in over two years. Always on alert to fly. I am worn out, but tomorrow ...I will be off until 26th August. He would never come back, shot down over Belgium. He amassed 1,748 flying hours including 408 on 382 war sorties. He "Died for France" on a mission in September 1943.