Talk:Robert Nivelle

General Comments
What about his nickname "Blood soaker" for spilling his men's blood? See the German article.

This article isn't very well written. It seems as though it was translated from French into English.

Nickname
During my time in 1960s France I was told by several old soldiers who'd served in WW1 that even before Nivelle took over a major command he was known as "Butcher Nivelle".AT Kunene (talk) 15:30, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Rank Question
How can his rank be given as a three star general when he served as commander in chief of the French Army? Surely he must have been promoted to serve in such a position?

Technically, General de Division is the highest French rank. General de Corps d'Armee (4 stars) and General d'Armee (5 stars) are technically titles rather than ranks and I'm not sure whether they existed or had separate insignia in WW1. It's not as silly as it sounds - during the American Civil War Northern corps were commanded by brigadiers and armies by major-generals, perhaps to avoid having a surplus of men with inflated ranks (and pension expectations) after the war. Joffre was the first Marshal to be appointed under the Third Republic, when he was sacked at the end of 1916.Paulturtle (talk) 12:09, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

On the Foch biog there is a picture of Foch wearing 3 stars on his sleeve in 1917-18, either as Army Chief of Staff or as Generalissimo in March-August 1918. So that suggests the 4- and 5-star insignia were not then used. I still don't know if the titles technically existed, but French generals are always just known as "General" anyway, both in French and English - "General de Gaulle" not "General de Brigade de Gaulle".Paulturtle (talk) 01:55, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

There is also a very famous photo, taken during the Battle of the Somme, of Joffre, Haig, President Poincare, King George V and Foch (then commanding French Army Group North), posing for the cameras after some conference or other. Joffre, CinC at the time, is clearly wearing three stars, although the cuff buttons create a bit of confusion. Some books (e.g. Clayton) claim that 4 and 5-star insignia were used at the time, but this does not appear to be correct. Paulturtle (talk) 12:37, 6 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Hello, for anyone wondering (after 7 years), Général de division was the highest rank at the time. The ranks of Général de corps d'armée (4 stars) and Général d'armée (5 stars) were only created in 1939. CocoricoPolynesien (talk) 20:05, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Correct, but I think they were sort-of used unofficially in the latter years of World War One. After reading about this and peering at photos for donkeys' years I think the insignia on the plain informal kepi might have been a series of horizontal bars - zero for a corps commander (a division commander would have been a brigadier, of course), one for an army commander, two for an army group commander - under the three stars (don't know what they did on the more formal kepi with leaves all over it). The cover photo of Charles Williams' biog of Petain supports this, as does a photo I've seen of Eugene Debeney. Nivelle was also given "the seniority of an Army Group Commander", whatever that means, when posted to North Africa (which never at any time reported to the CinC Western Front). We can't post my suppositions and inferences from photos on wikipedia, though. It's hard to get a comprehensive answer as the French Army tends to be woefully undercovered in Anglophone books.Paulturtle (talk) 18:40, 23 January 2021 (UTC)