He was Foch’s chief of staff in World War I, and in 1920 was sent by the French government to aid the Poles in their ultimately successful defence against the advancing Soviet Red Army. In the military crisis of May 1940 Weygand was recalled to assume command of the French armies attempting to stem the German Blitzkrieg attack. Advising capitulation, he later commanded the Vichy forces in North Africa, was dismissed at the request of the Germans, arrested by the Gestapo, and then freed by the Allies. He was tried and acquitted under the de Gaulle regime on a charge of collaboration with the Germans.