Charles Noguès

Noguès was raised in the Pyrenees.{{Cite book |last=Porch |first=Douglas |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/defeat-and-division/3DD290401CE49162AC1F7584CBA0CA01 |title=Defeat and Division: France at War, 1939–1942 |date=2022 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-04746-4 |series=Armies of the Second World War |location=Cambridge |pages=224–225}} He graduated from Ecole Polytechnique.

He served in field artillery units during World War I.

On 20 March 1933, he became commander of the 19th Army Corps (France), the French Army's forces in French Algeria.

During World War II, he served as Resident-General in Morocco and Commander-in-Chief in French North Africa.{{cite book|last1=Buffetaut|first1=Yves|title=La campagne d'Afrique du Nord : Opération Torch|date=1996|publisher=Histoire & collections|location=Paris|page=34|oclc=465573584}}{{cite book|last1=Levisse-Touzé|first1=Christine|title=L'Afrique du Nord dans la guerre : 1939-1945|date=1998|publisher=Albin Michel|location=Paris|isbn=9782226100696|oclc=406007403|pages=64–75}} Noguès was appalled by news that the French government was seeking an armistice with Germany. On 17 June 1940, he telegraphed to Bordeaux, where the government sat: "The whole of North Africa is appalled. The troops beg to continue the struggle if the government has no objection. I am ready to take responsibility for this attitude with all the risks that it entails," i.e. asking for a hint to carry on fighting. However, he did not approve of General Charles de Gaulle's call from London on 18 June to carry on fighting, telling the British liaison officer that he thought de Gaulle's attitude "unseemly" and forbidding the North African press from publishing de Gaulle's appeal.Lacouture 1991, pp. 229–230

Noguès accepted the armistice on 22 June, partly because he claimed that Admiral François Darlan would not let him have the French fleet to continue hostilities against the Axis powers. He eventually agreed under pressure from Maxime Weygand's emissary General Louis Koeltz, telegraphing Weygand: "it covers me with shame".

The Allies and the French resistance had hopes that Noguès would lead the North African resistance movement against the Vichy regime.

In 1940, Noguès implemented antisemitic decrees coming from German-controlled Vichy government that excluded Jews from public functions.{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=Susan Gilson|title=A History of Modern Morocco|date=2013|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-04583-4|location=Cambridge|pages=45|doi=10.1017/cbo9781139045834}} Sultan Mohammed V refused "Vichy’s plan to ghettoize and deport Morocco’s quarter of a million Jews to the killing factories of Europe", but the French government under Noguès managed to impose some antisemitic laws against the sultan's will.[http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=533744 Moroccan Jews pay homage to `protector' – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News]. Haaretz.com. Retrieved on 2011-07-04. Leon Sultan, of the Moroccan Communist Party, for example, was disbarred.{{Cite web|url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k46914843|title=Le Petit Marocain|date=1945-06-24|website=Gallica|language=EN|access-date=2020-03-22}}

Noguès was critical of movements in Morocco for reforms in colonial administration. He was of the belief that Moroccan reformers pursued independence and would not be satisfied with liberal reforms in France's colonial administration.{{Cite book|last=Lawrence|first=Adria K.|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/imperial-rule-and-the-politics-of-nationalism/C25DB67F2AABEA1097273FF7D0518556|title=Imperial Rule and the Politics of Nationalism: Anti-Colonial Protest in the French Empire|date=2013|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-03709-0|pages=67–68}}

File:Charles Noguès in Es-Saada November 12, 1942.jpg in November 1942 on the front page of es-Saada, an Arabic propaganda newspaper that was published by the French in Morocco.{{Cite web |date=1942-11-12 |title=Al-saʿādaẗ : ǧarīdaẗ iẖbāriyyaẗ yawmiyyaẗ |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k51754552 |access-date=2023-01-31 |website=Gallica |language=EN}}]]

When the Allies landed in North Africa on 8 November 1942, he ordered the troops under his command to resist, until the conclusion three days later of the ceasefire, ordered by Darlan. In June 1943, he resigned from his position as Resident General of France in Morocco. Replaced by Gabriel Puaux, he retired to Portugal.

In 1947, he was sentenced in absentia to 20 years of forced labour. He returned to France in June 1954 and became a prisoner there but was immediately released.

He was married to the daughter of Théophile Delcassé.

{{Reflist}}

• Lacouture, Jean. De Gaulle: The Rebel 1890–1944 (1984; English ed. 1991), {{ISBN|978-0-841-90927-4}}

{{Commons category|Charles Noguès}}

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Category:1876 births

Category:1971 deaths

Category:People from Hautes-Pyrénées

Category:École Polytechnique alumni

Category:French Army generals of World War II

Category:French military personnel of World War I

Category:French military personnel of the Rif War

Category:French expatriates in Portugal

Category:Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour

Category:People convicted of indignité nationale

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