[2] The biographer Bernard Destremau gave five possible sets of parents: Leopold II with either the wife of the Austrian diplomat Count Zichy or an anonymous Mexican woman (dismissed as doubtful); Charlotte, wife of then-Archduke Maximilian of Austria, and the Belgian officer Alfred van der Smissen (dismissed as impossible); a tutor named David Cohen and a French woman named Thérèse Denimal ("lacks credibility"); Charlotte and a Mexican Colonel Lopez ("difficult to hide"); and, according to Antony Clayton most likely, Maximilian of Austria and a Mexican dancer called Lupe.

[4] In 2003, the French journalist Dominique Paoli claimed to have found evidence that Weygand's father was indeed van der Smissen, but the mother was Mélanie Zichy-Metternich, lady-in-waiting to Charlotte (and daughter of Prince Klemens von Metternich, Austrian Chancellor).

[6][7][page needed] At the age of seven, he was transferred to the household of David Cohen, an Italo-Belgian leather merchant in Marseille, with partner Thérèse Denimal (later de Nimal).

Then-called Maxime de Nimal, he attended schools in Cannes and then Asniéres, fees likely paid by the Belgian royal household or government, where his scholastic accomplishment were recognised.

[12] Weygand chose not to attempt the difficult preparation to the École Supérieure de Guerre (the French staff college) because of his desire, he said, to keep contact with the troops.

[20] Weygand supported Foch, who was appointed to coordinate the Belgian, British, and French forces in the northern sector, during the Race to the Sea and First Ypres.

He later wrote of the Anglo-French Somme Offensive in 1916, at which Foch commanded French Army Group North, that it had seen "constant mix-ups with an ally [the British] learning how to run a large operation and whose doctrines and methods were not yet in accordance with ours".

[31] Clemenceau told US President Woodrow Wilson's envoy, Colonel Edward M. House that he would put in a "second- or third-rate man" as PMR and "let the thing drift where it will".

The Reserve was shelved for the time being at a SWC Meeting in London (14–15 March 1918) as the national commanders in chief, Philippe Pétain and Sir Douglas Haig, were reluctant to release divisions.

From early July onwards, British military and political leaders came to regret Foch's increased power, but Weygand later recorded that they had only themselves to blame as they had pushed for the change.

They similarly agreed that the then-proposed League of Nations would do little to ensure peace and that the planned alliances between France, Britain, and the United States would be insufficient to guarantee French security.

One of his few lasting contributions was to insist on replacing the existing system of spoken orders by written documents; he also provided advice on logistics and construction of modern entrenchments.

[45] Norman Davies writes: "on the whole he was quite out of his element, a man trained to give orders yet placed among people without the inclination to obey, a proponent of defence in the company of enthusiasts for the attack".

[44] During another meeting with Piłsudski on 18 August, Weygand became offended and threatened to leave, depressed by his failure and dismayed by Poland's disregard for the Allied powers.

At the station at Warsaw on 25 August he was consoled by the award of the Virtuti Militari, 2nd class; at Paris on the 28th he was cheered by crowds lining the platform of the Gare de l'Est, kissed on both cheeks by the premier, Alexandre Millerand.

[49] In 1922, the Poincaré ministry appointed Weygand High Commissioner of the Levant to govern the French mandate in Lebanon and Syria, replacing Henri Gouraud.

[57] The opening of the question of succession as chief of the general staff from 1927 placed Weygand again in the spotlight: Foch, for his part, supported his protégé and made his views clear before his death in 1929.

Attacked as a right-wing Catholic cavalry officer with aristocratic haughtiness and designs against the Third Republic with profligate plans for military expenditure in a time of austerity, Weygand was forced to disavow in a statement to Parliament any political activities and affirm his loyalty to the republican regime.

[60][61] On Petain's retirement to the post of air defence inspector on 10 February 1931, Weygand took up the vice presidency of the Conseil supérieur de la guerre as well as inspector-general of the army; Gamelin was appointed chief of staff in his place.

Attempts to broker international disarmament agreements were collapsed and the politicians were unwilling in depressed economic conditions to invest in new equipment or expand military pay.

However, he disagreed with Charles de Gaulle's arguments for a centralised armour force on the grounds that it would undermine troop cohesion and greatly stress French industrial capacity.

[72][73] His thoughts in the years before Hitler's invasion of Poland saw him again press for further material rearmament even as his views on the need for a fully-professional army softened; he also wrote a book called Histoire de l'armée française in 1938 arguing against the prevailing defensive strategy and expressing fear over the reliability of colonial troops in metropolitan France.

[74] Weygand was recalled for active service in August 1939 by Édouard Daladier's government and appointed again to the Levant, resigning his position in the Suez Canal Company.

Weygand arrived on 17 May and started by cancelling the flank counter-offensive ordered by Gamelin, to cut off the enemy armoured columns which had punched through the French front at the Ardennes.

[87] At the Cabinet meeting on the evening of 13 June, after another Anglo-French conference at Tours, Marshal Pétain, Deputy Prime Minister, strongly supported Weygand's demand for an armistice.

In North Africa, he persuaded young officers, tempted to join the French Resistance against the German occupation, to go along with the armistice for the present, by letting them hope for a later resumption of combat.

With the complicity of the Recteur (University chancellor) Georges Hardy, Weygand instituted, on his own authority, by a mere "note de service" (n°343QJ of 30 September 1941), a school numerus clausus (quota).

These agreements authorized the Axis powers to establish bases in French colonies: at Aleppo, Syria; Bizerte, Tunisia; and Dakar, Senegal.

The Weygand General Delegation (4th Office) delivered military equipment to the Panzer Armee Afrika: 1,200 French trucks and other Armistice Army vehicles (Dankworth contract of 1941), and also heavy artillery with 1,000 shells per gun.

However, Adolf Hitler demanded full unconditional collaboration and pressured the Vichy government to dismiss Weygand in November 1941 and recall him from North Africa.