GEN Henri Gouraud, 1867-1946, commander of the French 4th Army in 1918.

Now part of the French 4th Army, the American soldiers of the 369th, 371st, and 372nd Infantry Regiments came under the command of General Gouraud. Gouraud was known as the one-armed “Lion of Africa” & after the 2nd Battle of the Marne, he was also known as “Lion of Champagne.”

As far as French generals go, Gouraud was an outlier. A Brigadier General by the time he was just 32, Gouraud served in the French colonies as a young officer, doing time in the Sudan, Niger, Chad, Algeria, Mauritania, and then Morocco.

The war in 1914 saw him as a division commander in the Argonne, and soon after a corps commander in the Massiges sector in next door Champagne.

Later becoming the youngest French general, the bearded Henri Gouraud was transferred from his Champagne front to lead the 70,000-strong French force that fought at Gallipoli.

There on June 30th, 1915, a Turkish shell came down next to Gouraud and exploded. The explosion threw him over a wall, shredding his right arm and smashing his legs. The right arm would shortly be amputated.

Within five months Gouraud was back in command of his French 4th Army in his Champagne sector. With only a 6-month posting as resident general in Morocco in 1917 breaking it up, from December 1915 on until the end of the war...

Gouraud would command his beloved 4th Army in the Champagne region. This was his battleground.

A dynamic leader--though not without criticism--he led from the front, & after his death in 1946 he would be the rare French general to be buried together with the many soldiers he had left in the Champagne killing fields. He rests with his men at Navarin Farm today.

#premiereguerremondiale #ww1 #ww1history #greatwar #grandeguerra #grandeguerre #firstworldwar #ersteweltkrieg #tourismemeuse #argonne #americanexpeditionaryforce #19141918 #tourismechampagne #armeedeterre

Photo credits: https://alchetron.com/Henri-Gouraud-(general)

@FrenchHist this gent was “une grosse affaire.” (Hope I used the right gender article.)