[2] Tuchman described him as “an exuberant, energetic, almost violent man, with … bright peasant’s eyes behind spectacles and a loud voice”.

[4] Messimy entered the military academy of Saint-Cyr at the age of eighteen and after graduation began a career as a line officer.

[5] He was promoted to captain at the age of twenty-five and at twenty-seven attained his Brevet d'état-major (qualified as a staff officer), opening up the promise of an excellent military career.

He was the fourth new War Minister that year, and within a few days of his appointment the German gunboat Panther arrived at Agadir, sparking the Second Moroccan Crisis.

[14] Until 1911 the vice-president of the Conseil Supérieur de Guerre (a body of senior generals, chaired by the President of the Republic) was commander-in-chief designate in the event of war but had no planning staff, whilst the Army Chief of Staff reported to the War Minister and dealt solely with administrative matters.

Alexandre Millerand abolished the former post (in his 1912–13 tenure), helping to create the situation where Joffre acquired enormous power in his hands during the early years of the First World War.

[17] Messimy was suspicious of Joffre's choice of the clericalist right-winger General de Castelnau as his chief of staff.

He advocated that the manpower of the French Army should be enhanced with large contingents of black Africans, a view which he shared with General Charles Mangin.

[22] After visiting the Balkans and seeing the advantage held by Bulgarians in their inconspicuous uniforms, Messimy also proposed replacing the red kepi and pantalon rouge (red trousers) worn by the French Army since 1830 by a grey-blue or grey-green uniform (the British Army had recently switched from scarlet to khaki and the Germans from blue to field-grey).

Messimy, who had been tipped off an hour earlier by a banking friend in Amsterdam, told the cabinet it was “une forme hypocrite de la mobilisation”.

Messimy was left fretting at the “green baize routine” by which each minister was permitted to speak in turn at cabinet meetings.

[26] The next morning (1 August), after the German ultimatum to Russia, the cabinet agreed that the mobilisation order could be issued but Messimy was required to keep it in his pocket till 3.30pm.

Public posters appeared at 4pm, but that evening Messimy had to order the Army, in the president's name, to keep out of the 10 km zone, on pain of court martial.

In the fraught atmosphere of the Crisis he was challenged to a duel on 2 August by Navy Minister Armand Gauthier, who had forgotten to send torpedo boats into the English Channel but now wanted to redeem his reputation by using the French Navy to attack the German warships Goeben and Breslau, currently in the Mediterranean, before Germany and France were actually at war.

[30] Messimy called in General Hirschauer of the engineers on 13 August and ordered him to have the Paris defences ready in 3 weeks, as a precaution.

He shook Gallieni's hand effusively and kissed him when he agreed, promising him three active corps to avoid “the fate of Liège and Namur”, asking him to return later when he hoped to have cabinet authority to appoint him.

[34] Messimy fully supported Joffre in his purge of unsuccessful generals, even suggesting that, as in 1793, some of them simply ought to be executed.

[35] Messimy then learned from General Ebener, GQG's representative at the War Office, that Joffre had ordered 61st and 62nd Reserve Divisions up from Paris to the Amiens sector (where they would form part of a new Sixth Army under Michel Maunoury).

They wished to avoid a repetition of 1870 when War Minister Palikao had taken charge of strategy, sending Marshal MacMahon on his disastrous mission to be encircled and forced to surrender at Sedan.

However Messimy found a clause entitling the civil power to protect “the vital interests of the country” and so, between 2am and 6am he drafted an order to Joffre demanding that he release three corps for the defence of Paris, which he telegraphed and also sent by hand at 11am on 25 August accompanied by a friendly letter.

[37] On 25 August Messimy complained to Joffre that German cavalry were running amok in Belgium and that “Sordet, who has had very little fighting, is asleep.

The lead battalions took the first objectives – a makeshift trench along the track from Ferme de l’Hopital to Cléry and some observation posts on the ridge behind, in one rush.

As a result of this and other successful French attacks, the Germans pulled back to their Third Position across the southern sector of the Somme front.

[52] In early April 1917 Messimy warned Prime Minister Ribot, correctly, that most of the senior generals in Micheler’s Reserve Army Group thought Nivelle’s planned offensive would cause high casualties but would not succeed.

[55] During the war he received eight citations and ended with the rank of général de brigade à titre definitif.