The worst commander on the Allied side – by leaps and bounds – is largely forgotten. Unlike Monty, he accomplished nothing positive during the war and lost everything in action.
He was a key leader in monitoring German rearmament. He -with others- turned a blind eye to the obvious violations of Versailles regarding weapons and training a force three times that permitted-even before Hitler took power.
At age 68, he was Chief of the French Army, largely because his record was considered “spotless”. He had spent World War 1 in field assignments, rising to a division command. Spending 5 years as a liaison in Brazil, he returned to oversee the Military District around Nancy for 7 years, and became the Chief of Staff in 1931. He had no real experience with mobile forces, and was most comfortable in trench warfare and (as a district chief) the Maginot fortress systems. He expected and planned to fight as he did in World War 1.
Even though French mechanized formations and tanks were at least as good (and sometimes better equipped- according to the Germans!) as German ones, Gamelin dispersed them “to support the infantry”, rather than be ready to fight penetrations or launch attacks en masse.
He was in charge during the “Phoney War”, when having started a breakthrough into Germany in September 1939, promising the Poles he would take the pressure off them (at a time when virtually nothing was present to stop him from capturing most of the Ruhr, Rhineland, and Western Germany, possibly ending the war and leading to Hitler’s overthrow!), he abruptly withdrew.
He disallowed bombing of German weapons factories well within range of the Armee de la Air, relatively undefended while the Luftwaffe pounded Poland.
He set in motion the Allied defense of France, from a chateau that had no telephones, no radios, no telegraphs or teletypes. His orders and reports were all carried by motorcyclists.
He ignored Foch’s advice that the Ardennes are impenetrable “if properly defended”, moving most of the French Army into Belgium, making the German attack easier… while….
Having received reports of the German forces being marshaled against Belgium, the Netherlands, and even opposing the Maginot Line and the Ardennes – including the date of the attacks planned- his response was to do nothing and “await events”.
He ignored his own Air Force reports of a traffic jam entering the Ardennes. He ignored reports of traffic jams “in” the Ardennes. He denied requests to bomb the traffic jam in the Ardennes.
When German units were within range of the Maginot Line artillery, they were ordered to stop (to “save ammunition”).
Once the attacks broke out of the Ardennes, the most mobile divisions able to respond were almost all too far north to assist. The French Air Force had virtually no aircraft up or ready to defend their airfields, and most were caught in the ground and destroyed.
Gamelin’s motorcycle couriers did issue orders to the field commanders, usually in time to find that the planned counterattack positions and new defense lines had already been captured by the Germans before the couriers arrived. Gamelin than called for a withdrawal to defend Paris, leaving many troops exposed to encirclement along the coast in places like Ostend and, famously, Dunkirk.
He then fired 20 commanders, apparently randomly, assuming he had been betrayed rather than just having been incompetent.
He was eventually relieved and replaced by Maxime Weygand (aged 73) who was recalled from Syria and who was easily considered “out of touch” with events, delaying counterattack opportunities while Geman forces regrouped during and after Dunkirk.
This is the man who could have ended World War 2 in October 1939 – and who instead lost France in 1940. The man who could have stopped the Holocaust before it started.
There is no other Allied commander who threw away such opportunities and lost so great a battle.
And most people have no idea he existed.