French military personnel of World War I

Georges Carpentier (French pronunciation: [ʒɔʁʒ kaʁ.pɑ̃ˈtje]; 12 January 1894 – 28 October 1975) was a French boxer, actor and World War I pilot.
A precocious pugilist, Carpentier fought in numerous categories. He fought mainly as a light heavyweight and heavyweight in a career lasting from 1908 to 1926. A French professional champion on several occasions, he became the European heavyweight champion before the First World War. A sergeant aviator during the Great War, he was wounded before returning to civilian life. He then discovered rugby union, playing as a winger.
On his return to the ring in 1919, "le grand Georges" ("the great Georges" in English) he was celebrated as a symbol of a sporting powerhouse France, via performances in Great Britain and the United States of America. His knockout victory over Battling Levinsky on 12 October 1920 in Jersey City in the United States earned him the title of world champion. A defeat by Jack Dempsey the following year nevertheless strengthened his legend and brought him worldwide fame. This defeat marked the decline of his career, punctuated by the controversial loss of his titles to Battling Siki.
Nicknamed the "Orchid Man", he stood 5 feet 11+1⁄2 inches (182 cm) and his fighting weight ranged from 147 to 175 pounds (67 to 79 kg).Later notable performances included a defeat by Gene Tunney. Carpentier ended his career in 1926, but remained a leading figure in French boxing. Appointed ambassador for French sport abroad after the Second World War, in which he took part in the French Air Force, Carpentier died of a heart attack in 1975. A decade after his death, the Parisian Sports Arena in the 13th arrondissement of Paris was renamed Halle Georges-Carpentier after him. Along with Marcel Cerdan, he remains one of France's best boxers.

André Maurois (French: [mɔʁwa]; born Émile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog; 26 July 1885 – 9 October 1967) was a French author.

Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches (27 May 1894 – 1 July 1961), better known by the pen name Louis-Ferdinand Céline ( say-LEEN, French: [lwi fɛʁdinɑ̃ selin] ), was a French novelist, polemicist, and physician. His first novel Journey to the End of the Night (1932) won the Prix Renaudot but divided critics due to the author's pessimistic depiction of the human condition and his writing style based on working-class speech. In subsequent novels such as Death on the Installment Plan (1936), Guignol's Band (1944) and Castle to Castle (1957) Céline further developed an innovative and distinctive literary style. Maurice Nadeau wrote: "What Joyce did for the English language...what the surrealists attempted to do for the French language, Céline achieved effortlessly and on a vast scale."From 1937 Céline wrote a series of antisemitic polemical works in which he advocated a military alliance with Nazi Germany. He continued to publicly espouse antisemitic views during the German occupation of France, and after the Allied landing in Normandy in 1944, he fled to Germany and then Denmark where he lived in exile. He was convicted of collaboration by a French court in 1951 but was pardoned by a military tribunal soon after. He returned to France where he resumed his careers as a doctor and author. Céline is widely considered to be one of the greatest French novelists of the 20th century but remains a controversial figure in France due to his antisemitism and activities during the Second World War.

Édouard Daladier (French: [edwaʁ daladje]; 18 June 1884 – 10 October 1970) was a French Radical-Socialist (centre-left) politician, and the Prime Minister of France who signed the Munich Agreement before the outbreak of World War II.
Daladier was born in Carpentras and began his political career before World War I. During the war, he fought on the Western Front and was decorated for his service. After the war, he became a leading figure in the Radical Party and Prime Minister in 1933 and 1934. Daladier was Minister of Defence from 1936 to 1940 and Prime Minister again in 1938. As head of government, he expanded the French welfare state in 1939.
Along with Neville Chamberlain, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, Daladier signed the Munich Agreement in 1938, which gave Nazi Germany control over the Sudetenland. After Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany. During the Phoney War, France's failure to aid Finland against the Soviet Union's invasion during the Winter War led to Daladier's resignation on 21 March 1940 and his replacement by Paul Reynaud. Daladier remained Minister of Defence until 19 May, when Reynaud took over the portfolio personally after the French defeat at Sedan.
After the Fall of France, Daladier was tried for treason by the Vichy government during the Riom Trial and imprisoned first in Fort du Portalet, then in Buchenwald concentration camp, and finally in Itter Castle. After the Battle of Castle Itter, Daladier resumed his political career as a member of the French Chamber of Deputies from 1946 to 1958. He died in Paris in 1970.

Henri Philippe Bénoni Omer Joseph Pétain (24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), commonly known as Philippe Pétain (, French: [filip petɛ̃]) or Marshal Pétain (French: Maréchal Pétain), was a general who commanded the French Army in World War I and became the head of the collaborationist regime of Vichy France, from 1940 to 1944, during World War II.
Pétain was admitted to the Saint-Cyr Military Academy in 1873 and pursued a career in the military, achieving the rank of colonel by the outbreak of World War I. He led the French Army to victory at the nine-month-long Battle of Verdun, for which he was called "the Lion of Verdun" (French: le lion de Verdun). After the failed Nivelle Offensive and subsequent mutinies, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief and succeeded in restoring control. Pétain remained in command for the rest of the war and emerged as a national hero. During the interwar period he was head of the peacetime French Army, commanded joint Franco-Spanish operations during the Rif War and served twice as a government minister. During this time he was known as le vieux Maréchal ("the Old Marshal").
On 17 June 1940, with the imminent Fall of France and the government desire for an armistice, Prime Minister Paul Reynaud resigned, recommending to President Albert Lebrun that he appoint Pétain in his place, which he did that day, while the government was at Bordeaux. The government then resolved to sign armistice agreements with Germany and Italy. The entire government subsequently moved briefly to Clermont-Ferrand, then to the town of Vichy in central France. It voted to transform the French Third Republic into the French State, better known as Vichy France, an authoritarian puppet regime that was allowed to govern the southeast of France and which collaborated with the Axis powers. After Germany and Italy occupied all of France in November 1942, Pétain's government worked closely with the Nazi German military administration.
After the war, Pétain was tried and convicted for treason. He was originally sentenced to death, but due to his age and World War I service his sentence was commuted to life in prison. His journey from military obscurity, to hero of France during World War I, to collaborationist ruler during World War II, led his successor Charles de Gaulle to declare that Pétain's life was "successively banal, then glorious, then deplorable, but never mediocre".
Pétain, who was 84 years old when he became Prime Minister and later Chief of State, remains both the oldest person to become the head of government and the oldest person to become the head of state of France.

Louis Beydts was a French composer, music critic and theatre director, born 29 June 1895 in Bordeaux and died on 15 August 1953 at Caudéran in Gironde.

Léon Ernest Moreaux (10 March 1852 in Féron – 11 November 1921 in Rennes) was a French sports shooter and Olympian who competed in pistol and rifle shooting in the late 19th century and early 20th century.Having taken up the sport of shooting earlier in the 19th century, at the age of 38 he prepared himself for competition in the 1900 Olympic Games, which were held in Paris in his home country. He participated in shooting at the 1900 Summer Olympics and won the silver medal in the 25 metre firearm and in the Military Revolver Teams 50m for France and won another silver medal. He also competed in a number of other shooting competitions including the Free Rifle standing and kneeling competitions, where he finished 17th place in each, and in the Free Rifle (prone) competition where he narrowly missed the bronze medal, finishing fourth. He also competed in the Free Pistol event where he finished in 7th place, and in the trap shooting competition where he finished 16th place out of 31.
1906 was Moreaux's most successful year in sport shooting. In shooting at the 1906 Intercalated Games he entered in ten different categories, winning a total of five Olympic medals including his first gold medals. He won two gold medals in the 20m duelling pistol and in the 200 metre army rifle, a silver medal in the 25 metres firearm, and two bronze medals in the Free Rifle Free Position and the Free Rifle Team. Moreaux competed in the Military Rifle event and finished fourth, in the Military revolver event and finished fifth, and in the Duelling Pistol (au commandment), finishing in sixth place. He also competed in the Military revolver (gras) event but finished in 16th place and in the Free Pistol (50m) event, finishing in 19th position.
Moreaux entered the 1908 Olympic Games at the age of 46 and competed in the Free Team Rifle competition for France, but narrowly missed bronze, finishing in fourth position. At this point in his career, only four years away from age 50, he only competed in two other events – in the Free Pistol, finishing 17th, and in the Free Rifle Combined event, where he finished in 39th place.
After the 1908 Olympics, Moreaux retired from professional competition. He won 8 Olympic medals during his shooting career, second to only Switzerland's Konrad Stäheli (9) among his contemporaries and still among the top ten in Olympic shooting history.

Hubert Jean Daniel Lefèbvre (28 November 1878 in Paris – 26 September 1937 in Labaroche) was a French rugby union player who competed in the 1900 Summer Olympics. He was a member of the French rugby union team, which won the gold medal. Lefèbvre played forward.Lefèbvre played club rugby with Racing Club de France from 1895 to 1902 and was a member of the 1900 and 1902 French championship teams. In the 1902 final, a 6–0 victory, he scored the final try just before the half.Lefèbvre was educated at the Lycée Charlemagne and Centrale Graduate School in engineering. He served in World War I, rising to the rank of captain.

Robert Antral (Châlons-en-Champagne July 13, 1895 – Paris June 7, 1939) was a French painter and printmaker, mainly of etchings. He won the Prix Blumenthal in 1926 and the Croix de Guerre for his bravery in World War I.

Henry de La Falaise, Marquis de La Coudraye (born James Henri Le Bailly de la Falaise; February 11, 1898 – April 10, 1972), was a French nobleman, translator, film director, film producer, sometime actor, and war hero who was best known for his high-profile marriages to two leading Hollywood actresses.