The French general and statesman Henri Philippe Pétain (1856-1951), a military hero in World War I, headed the collaborationist Vichy regime during World War II. Officially considered a traitor, he is admired by many of his countrymen as a supreme patriot.

Philippe Pétain was born to peasant parents on April 24, 1856, at Cauchy-à-la-Tour. After a private boarding-school education, he entered Saint-Cyr in 1876 and graduated 2 years later. An advocate of defensive rather than offensive strategies, he became an instructor at the École de Guerre in 1888. Nearly 60 years old and without active-duty experience in 1914, Petain had had a far from brilliant career. World War I changed that radically.

Hero of Verdun

Promoted to brigadier general on Aug. 31, 1914, Pétain distinguished himself at the Battle of the Marne (1914) and in June 1915 was named a full general and given command of the 11th Army. When...