Zeller was one of the four generals (the others being Raoul Salan, Edmond Jouhaud, and Maurice Challe) who organized the Algiers putsch of 1961.

[1] Born on 1 January 1898 in Besançon in eastern France, Zeller had entered the preparatory class at Collège Stanislas de Paris to prepare for the École polytechnique entrance exam when World War I broke out in 1914.

Moving to the Aisne sector, he witnessed the disastrous start of the Second Battle of the Aisne on 16 April 1917, a day which saw the annihilation of two of the three battalions of the French 208th Infantry Regiment, destruction in a few minutes of a group of the 13th Artillery Regiment that had advanced in accordance with the operational order, and the destruction of a French tank force at Berry-au-Bac.

Between 5 and 15 April 1918, his regiment was placed at the disposal of the 151st Infantry Division of General Pierre des Vallières, engaged north of the Ailette to protect its retreat south of the river during the German spring offensive of 1918.

On 27 May 1918, however, the Germans broke through the front held by the French 6th Army in the Chemin des Dames sector, beginning the Second Battle of the Marne.

From 28 May to 2 June 1918, Zeller found his unit constantly on the move as it responded to a chaotic series of orders and sought to block the road to Paris to the Germans, and he faced a requirement to quickly recover telephone wire that was abandoned with each movement of his regiment.

Assigned to the command post of the regiment at the castle of Bourneville in Marolles to face the Germans, who had reached the Ourcq, Zeller caught the Spanish flu.

He rejoined his regiment while it was en route to the Lorraine front and had the unpleasant surprise of learning that he had to give up his place as commander of the 3rd Battery to a more senior lieutenant.

On the day of the armistice with Germany, which brought World War I to an end on 11 November 1918, his regiment passed through Nancy in front of an apparently indifferent population.

Within the shuttle convoy which supplied French troops engaged in the siege of Aïntab, he had under his command for the transport of ammunition 250 men, 100 Araba carriages, and 350 horses and mules.

After the departure of General Goubeau and elements of the 4th Division of the Levant, which had reinforced French forces for three weeks during the siege of Aïntab, Zeller was appointed to command the 3rd Battery of the 273rd Artillery Regiment, armed with Model 1897 75-millimetre (2.95 in) field guns.

Transferred at his request to French North Africa, he arrived in Algiers on 26 September 1940 assigned to duty as military director of transport.

Promoted to lieutenant colonel in August 1942, he became chief of ctaff to General Charles Mast, commanding the Algiers Division, a few days before the beginning of Operation Torch, the Allied amphibious landings in French North Africa, on 8 November 1942.

From December 1943 to July 1944, Zeller was the deputy chief of staff of the French Expeditionary Corps in Italy commanded by General Alphonse Juin.

He then commanded the French 1st Armored Division, which he led in the fighting in the Vosges, in the "race to the Rhine," and, at the beginning of 1945, in the reduction of the Colmar Pocket.

Zeller resigned from his post in February 1956 to protest against a decision by the Government of France to reduce the workforce in Algeria.

Like General Challe, he was sentenced to 15 years of criminal detention and deprivation of his civic rights by the High Military Tribunal after the public prosecutor, Antonin Besson, refused to request the death penalty demanded by the Minister of Justice, Edmond Michelet.