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Albert Gerard Leo D Amade

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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"ALBERT GERARD LEO D AMADE' (1856-), French general, was born at Toulouse Dec. 27 1856. He was the son of an officer and was educated at La Fleche prior to entering the army in 1876. From 1887, when he became French military attache at Peking, his military experience was peculiarly varied, and included, besides his four years in China, service as military attache with the British forces during the S. African War, three years as French military attache in London, and finally, as a general officer, the command of the expeditionary force in the Moroccan campaign of 1907. On the outbreak of the World War, he was, in accordance with the prepared scheme of operations which assumed Italy as an opponent, placed in charge of the " Army of the Alps." This group, however, had only a momentary existence. It became clear that Italy would remain neutral. D'Amade's troops were taken to reinforce other fronts and he himself was placed in charge of a group of forces formed in the region of Lille and Douai to resist as best it might the unexpectedly wide sweep of the German invasion. Weak numerically, composed wholly of territorial units of the oldest classes, improvised in point of organization and ill equipped, D'Amade's " army " was in no condition to attempt a vigorous counteroffensive or even a fixed defensive, and after a certain amount of fighting in the Cambrai region it was withdrawn to the extreme left, between Amiens and Abbeville, Gen. Maunoury's VI. Army taking its place. In the spring of 1915, when a French contingent was formed for service in the Levant, D'Amade was appointed to command it, and in this capacity led the French forces in the Dardanelles landing of April, and the trench warfare that followed. A gallant and knightly soldier, already experienced in the ways of his Allies, he was exceptionally well fitted to hold a command which, half subordinate, half independent, presented all possible opportunities of friction, and in fact few if any inter-Allied operations of the World War were conducted with so little friction as this. In May, however, he was recalled to France.