Charles Mangin (Our Place in the Sun)

Charles Mangin was a French general during World War I who, as Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, lead a coup against the government of Ludovic-Oscar Frossard in 1918, establishing a military dictatorship in France that would last until his death on 12 May 1925. As leader of France, he negotiated a popular deal with the German government to set the end date of the German occupation of France for 1928, he cracked down on radical leftist movements such as communism and anarchism, and often was at odds with the radical right wing monarchists as well. He remains a controversial figure in French politics, viewed by some as a despot who was responsible for the death of the third republic and the shift of French politics towards authoritarianism, and viewed by others as a necessary evil to fight against the looming disaster that Frossard's communist government and other communist movements would have brought to France.