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General Gamelin is a world authority on Napoleon's movements. It is his quiet boast that he can recite every Army order Napoleon issued — and to whom. But, although he is quite aware that the Po route may some day be his own, the Italian maneuvers were not his chief interest last week. Since he took charge of her armies, France has acquired a possible new border to defend or cross, the border between France and Spain. Having vainly urged Léon Blum to pitch in with the Loyalists and lick Francisco Franco in 1936, General Gamelin was now doing the next best thing. He was inspecting the 250,000 interned Loyalist troops quartered in French concentration camps. If Generalissimo Franco should squeeze an attacked France from the south, Generalissimo Gamelin would undoubtedly arm his 250,000 Loyalist guests and turn them loose on their former enemies. Like most of his countrymen, Maurice Gamelin hopes this may never be necessary. But the terse little (5 ft. 4 in.) general has a terse little motto: "Optimism is a luxury."
Philosopher. Both ancestry and environment made Maurice Gamelin a soldier. He was born in 1872 (the year after the Franco-Prussian War) in Paris at No. 262 Boulevard St. Germain, just across from the War Ministry, in whose shadow he played war games as a child. His mother even painted a charming picture of him at the age of 20 months, beating a toy drum (see cut, p. 20). On his father's side he was descended from at least five generals, one of whom served under Louis XVI. His father, Zephirin Auguste Joseph Gamelin, became Controller General of the French Army after he had been gravely wounded at Solferino, during Napoleon Ill's fight against the Austrians.
Maurice first went to the Collège Stanislas, a strict and scholarly Catholic school with considerable social standing and a military flavor. One of his teachers was Mgr. Henri Marie Alfred Baudrillart, now Cardinal Baudrillart, who still remains one of General Gamelin's best friends. At Stanislas, methodical Maurice further disciplined his mind by memorizing ten lines of prose at night (because it was harder than poetry) and reading a book of philosophy a week. After Stanislas he entered St. Cyr, French West Point, where in 1893 he finished first in a class of 449.
There followed three years of service with the 3rd Regiment of the Tirailleurs Algériens, because he wanted to see some rough service, and three years with the Army's Geographical Service, because he liked to paint landscapes in water color, survey and map. In 1899 he was admitted to the War College, where he studied tactics under Lieut. Colonel, later Marshal Foch, who particularly noticed his qualities. He graduated in 1902 with the commendation of "très bien."
During the next four years he had various field commands and in 1906 he became orderly officer to General Joffre, then commander of the 6th Infantry Division in Paris. In 1912, when Joffre was promoted to the Supreme War Council, Gamelin was chosen as Joffre's chef de cabinet, or military secretary. During this time the French General Staff was discussing (but only discussing) the possibility of a German violation of Belgian neutrality to attack France. Gamelin made a study of it and wrote out a defense of such an attack. That was the germ of Joffre's Instruction No. 2.