Raymond Abescat (10 September 1891 in Paris – 25 August 2001 in Rueil-Malmaison) was one of the last surviving veterans of World War I in France, its oldest living man and its oldest living veteran when he died aged 109 years, 349 days.
Jean-Philippe Douin (8 April 1940 – 19 January 2016) was a French Air Force general. He was the Chief of Staff of the French Air Force from 1994 to 1995 and Chief of the Defence Staff from 1995 to 1998. There was some controversy surrounding his appointment since, as a Conscript between 1958 and 1959, he had served in a French Marine Light Cavalry/Light Armored Reconnaissance Regiment (Régiment d'infanterie-chars de marine) in Algeria that was accused of committing war crimes during the Algerian War; later, as a young Air Force Lieutenant and Dassault Mirage III fighter pilot in 1961, his unit had taken part in the Algiers Putsch under the command of Air Vice Marashal Jouhaud. For most of his flying career, Douin piloted the Dassault Mirage III and the Dassault Mirage 5, commanding a squadron, wing and fighter group, before becoming the French Air Attache to Pakistan and Chile. After entering the General Ranks he served variously as a doctrinal specialist in the Air Force Staff & Training Command, the chief of Aerial Intelligence for a Fighter Division, and Commander of a Fighter Division.
Pierre Hugues Victoire Merle (26 August 1766 – 5 December 1830) was a French general during the First French Empire of Napoleon. He joined the French army as a private in 1781 but after the French Revolution, the pace of promotion quickened. He was appointed a general officer in 1794 for distinguishing himself during the War of the Pyrenees. After leading a brigade at Austerlitz in December 1805, he was promoted again. His division was in the first wave of the 1808 invasion of Spain, which precipitated the Peninsular War. In Spain, he led his division at Medina de Rioseco, Corunna, First and Second Porto, Bussaco, Sabugal, and Fuentes de Oñoro. After being sent home from Spain, Merle was assigned to lead a division in the French invasion of Russia. He led his troops at First and Second Polotsk. He embraced the Bourbon cause in 1814, retired from the army in 1816, and died at Marseilles in 1830. Merle is one of the names inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe on Column 35.
Jean-Baptiste Juvénal Corbineau (1 August 1776, Marchiennes – 18 December 1848, Paris) was a French cavalry general of the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. His two brothers Claude and Hercule also fought in both these wars and together the three men were known as "les trois Horaces" (the three Horatii).
Christian Marie Ferdinand de la Croix de Castries (11 August 1902 – 29 July 1991) was the French commander at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
Fernand Gambiez (27 February 1903 – 29 March 1989) was a French Army general and military historian who fought in World War II, the First Indochina War and the Algerian War. During the Algerian War, Gambiez was commander-in-chief of the French Army in Algeria.
Gambiez was born in Lille, graduated from Saint Cyr in 1925. He served with the Foreign Legion in Morocco before studying at the Superior War School in 1935. He was a captain in command of a company during the Battle of France. He trained and commanded a Choc battalion in 1943, taking part in the fighting to liberate Corsica in 1944. Gambiez served as chief of staff to the French commander-in-chief Henri Navarre during the First Indochina War, including the Battle of Dien Bien Phu where one of his sons died.
He was promoted to Général de corps d'armée in 1958, commander of the Oran Corps in 1959, Inspector General of the Infantry in 1960 and finally commander-in-chief of the French Army in Algeria in 1961. He was arrested by the rebellious generals during the Algiers putsch in April 1961.
He was the director of the French military history commission from 1969 to 1989. He was also elected member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques in 1974.
Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot (24 February 1817 – 16 August 1882) was a French general. Ducrot served in the Crimean War, Algeria, the Italian campaign of 1859, and as a division commander in the Franco-Prussian War.
At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, Ducrot was tasked with overseeing the deployment of French forces due to his familiarity with the terrain near Wissembourg. His unsupported division was surprised and defeated by a large force of Prussians and Bavarians at the Battle of Wissembourg. At the Battle of Sedan on 1 September 1870, he succeeded to command of the French army when Marshal MacMahon was wounded early in the morning. By that time, it was obvious that a disastrous defeat was inevitable. Ducrot summed up the situation with the famous remark: « Nous sommes dans un pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerdés. » ("We are in a chamber pot, and we're going to be shit on.")
Ducrot ordered the army to withdraw, but then General de Wimpffen presented a commission authorizing him to succeed MacMahon. Wimpffen overruled Ducrot, and ordered a counterattack that failed completely. Emperor Napoleon III, present on the battlefield, then surrendered the army to the Prussians.
With de Wimpffen having insisted on command, Ducrot refused to accept responsibility for signing the articles of surrender and was imprisoned by the Prussians. He soon escaped, and took part in the Siege of Paris. Ducrot commanded the most important French attack against the Prussian besiegers (the Battle of Villiers, 29 November–3 December 1870). After the defeat of this attack, Ducrot urged the French government to make peace. Cyclist Maarten Ducrot is his great-grandson.