He went on to serve in the Ministry of War and the staff of Conseil supérieur de la guerre under the vice president Général d'armée Maxime Weygand.

[9][10][11] De Lattre was assigned to the 12th Dragoon Regiment [fr], which was stationed at Toul and Pont-à-Mousson near the frontier with Germany and still wore red riding breeches and a helmet with a plume.

[13] In February 1919, de Lattre was assigned to the 18th Military District section at Bordeaux, where his duties included providing recreation for American troops prior to their repatriation.

[18] He was slashed in the right cheek by an assailant wielding a dagger on 13 March 1924, resulting in a prominent scar,[17] and he was wounded in the knee by a bullet on 26 August 1925 during a reconnaissance mission.

(Driving with him on his daily tour of inspection in January 1945, the seventeen-year-old John Julius Norwich recalled: "I did have a little trouble keeping his hand off my thigh in the car on the way home...but nothing serious."[20][relevant?])

On 20 June, he joined the staff of the Conseil supérieur de la guerre, serving under the vice president, Général d'armée Maxime Weygand.

[24] On 14 May, four days after the main German offensive began, the 14th Infantry Division was ordered to move to Rheims, where it came under the command of André Corap's Ninth Army.

He was made a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour on 12 July for his handling of the 14th Infantry Division in the Battle of France,[29] an award Weygand, to whom he remained loyal, conferred on him in person.

De Lattre was determined to resist on the frontier, fearing that a fighting withdrawal might lead to the Germans and Italians occupying Vichy France; Juin, a native of North Africa, was more concerned with the security of Algeria.

Following the Allied landings in French North Africa on 8 November 1942, German and Italian troops occupied southern France and disbanded the Vichy Army.

De Lattre received orders from Vichy that troops were to remain in their barracks, which he decided to disobey, instead carrying out a previously prepared plan to resist the German occupation.

They then departed in two cars that Roetsch provided, along with false papers identifying de Lattre as Charles Dequenne, his headquarters clerk who had been killed in the fighting in June 1940.

[41] Increases in the size of the German garrison, a need to provide more amphibious warfare training for the assault troops, and a desire to minimise casualties and maximise the chance of success led to de Lattre securing a postponement of the operation from 25 May to 17 June.

De Lattre had not intended to rush the city, but Sudre's arrival sparked a popular uprising, enabling Combat Command 1 to reach the old port.

[53] Equipment wore out even faster, and the French logistical system was stretched to its limit just to provide the army with its daily requirements of food, fuel and ammunition.

[54] On occasion they encountered an apathetic local population, and what de Lattre regarded as a dangerous sentiment arose among the North African troops that the French people should be making a bigger contribution.

No preparations had been made for a French representative, but some Russian women improvised a tricolour from a flag of Nazi Germany, a white bed sheet and blue mechanic's boiler suit.

To prepare the 1946 conscripts, de Lattre opened a dozen new training centres modelled on those he had created during the war at Opme, Douera and Rouffach, where they would be schooled in citizenship.

[75] From September to November 1947, he led a diplomatic and economic mission to South America where he held numerous talks with presidents from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil and high-ranking ministers, including French communities there.

[80]: 101 After de Lattre's arrival in Vietnam, Việt Minh General Giap proclaimed that his army would face "an adversary worthy of its steel".

[81] De Lattre's arrival raised the morale of French troops significantly and inspired his forces to inflict heavy defeats on the Việt Minh.

[82] He won three major victories at Vĩnh Yên, Mạo Khê and Yen Cu Ha and successfully defended the north of the country against the Việt Minh.

[84] On 20 September 1951, de Lattre spoke at The Pentagon to request American aid and warned of the danger of the spread of communism throughout Southeast Asia if northern Vietnam fell completely to the Việt Minh.

[84] He was highly regarded by both his French subordinates and Việt Minh adversaries and has been described as the "Gallic version of [General Douglas] MacArthur – handsome, stylish, sometimes charming, yet egocentric to the point of megalomania" and "brilliant and vain" and "flamboyant".

[89] His body was moved through the streets of Paris in a series of funeral processions, with the coffin lying in state at four separate locations: his home, the chapel at Les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe and before Notre-Dame.

The stage of the journey from the Arc de Triomphe to Notre-Dame took place in the evening, and cavalrymen from the Garde républicaine flanked the coffin on horseback bearing flaming torches.

There his 97-year-old father, Roger de Lattre, aged and blind, ran his hands over the ceremonial accoutrements on the coffin, which included the posthumously-awarded marshal's baton and his son's képi.

The coffin was lowered into the ground and the Marshal was laid to rest beside his only son, Bernard, who had been killed fighting under his father's command in Indochina about eight months earlier.

Rethel, where six times it rejected the enemy in the Aisne, will be inscribed on the flags and standards of the 14th division as a name of glory and victory.For his promotion to Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honour: Performed several perilous reconnaissance with remarkable audacity and safety.

Sent on 14 September in reconnaissance, was wounded with a spear and cleared enemy riders who surrounded him by killing two of his hand.An annual military service, involving serving soldiers, veteran associations, and ceremonial carriage of the Marshal's baton, takes place at the graves of his family in his birthplace, Mouilleron-en-Pareds.