Philippe Pétain Quotes

Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain , Marshal Pétain and The Old Marshal , was a French general officer who attained the position of Marshal of France at the end of World War I, during which he became known as 'The Lion of Verdun', and in World War II served as the Chief of State of Vichy France from 1940 to 1944. Pétain, who was 84 years old in 1940, ranks as France's oldest head of state. Today he is widely regarded as a Nazi collaborator, the French equivalent of his contemporary Vidkun Quisling of Norway.During World War I Pétain led the French Army to victory at the nine month long Battle of Verdun. After the failed Nivelle Offensive and subsequent mutinies he was appointed Commander-in-Chief and succeeded in repairing the army's confidence. Pétain remained in command throughout the war and emerged as a national hero. During the interwar period he was head of the peacetime French Army, commanded joint Franco-Spanish operations during the Rif War and served twice as a government Minister.

With the imminent Fall of France in June 1940 in World War II, Pétain was appointed Prime Minister of France by President Lebrun at Bordeaux, and the Cabinet resolved to make peace with Germany. The entire government subsequently moved briefly to Clermont-Ferrand, then to the spa town of Vichy in central France. His government voted to transform the discredited French Third Republic into the French State, an authoritarian regime aligned with Germany.

After the war, Pétain was tried and convicted for treason. He was originally sentenced to death, but due to his age and World War I service his sentence was commuted to life in prison and he died in 1951.

✵ 24. April 1856 – 23. July 1951

Philippe Pétain: 4 quotes 5 likes

Famous Philippe Pétain Quotes

“La terre, elle, ne ment pas [The earth, it does not lie].”

Philippe Pétain

Speech (25 June 1940), quoted in Philippe Pétain, Discours aux Français, 17 juin 1940-20 août 1944 (Paris: Albin Michel, 1989), p. 66.

“The only wealth you possess is your labour…France will become again what she should never have ceased to be—an essentially agricultural nation. Like the giant of mythology, she will recover all her strength by contact with the soil.”

Philippe Pétain

Speech (August 1940), quoted in Pavlos Giannelia, 'France Returns to the Soil', Land and Freedom, Vol. XLI, No. 1, January-February 1941, p. 23 and Eugen Weber, 'France', in Hans Rogger and Eugen Weber (eds.), The European Right: A Historical Profile (University of California Press, 1966), p. 113.

“Neither Germany nor Italy have doubts. Our crisis is not a material crisis. We have lost faith in our destiny…We are like mariners without a pilot.”

Philippe Pétain

Statement (April 1936), quoted in Anthony Adamthwaite, Grandeur and Misery: France's Bid for Power in Europe 1914-1940 (London: Arnold, 1995), p. 182.

“My country has been beaten and they are calling me back to make peace and sign an armistice…This is the work of 30 years of Marxism. They're calling me back to take charge of the nation.”

Philippe Pétain

Remarks to Francisco Franco in Madrid, Spain (c. 17 May 1940) after French Prime Minister Reynaud called Pétain back to France to raise morale against the German offensive, quoted in Howard J. Langer, World War II: An Encyclopedia of Quotations (Routledge, 2013), p. 157.