Henri Guisan (1874-1960) Was a General in the Swiss army during the Second World War. He was born on October 21, 1874, at Mézières in the canton de Vaud; his father was a physician. He received his early military training at Bière, then became a lieutenant in 1894. He gradually rose in the ranks, becoming a commandant de corps in 1932. His name became synonymous with the Resistance and unshakeable determination. On August 30, 1939, the Swiss Federal Assembly made him general and commander in chief of the Swiss Army, which post he held throughout the Second World War. Henri Guisan was admired and highly respected, both in German-speaking Switzerland, where he spoke a dialect he invented himself, as in the French-speaking territories. On August 20, 1945, General Guisan requested that the Federal Council relieve him of his military responsibilities. He retired to Pully, near Lausanne. After his death on April 7, 1960, the newspaper La Suisse wrote of him: ?He represented the Swiss citizen, and above all, the Swiss soldier. He was the man of the hour at a troubled period of our history, when so many opposing forces were at work in the country.? The newspaper La Liberté wrote: ?he left us, without the shadow of a doubt or a sign of weakness ever having troubled his image. Henri Guisan was the kind of man that Providence sends to the people it wants to lead, and who so completely incarnate their mission that they seem to have been created for the sole purpose of fulfilling that destiny.? The socialist newspaper La Sentinelle noted: ?what workers and soldiers loved in the General was his simplicity of manner and his unselfconsciousness. He dispensed the same justice to all. These human qualities allowed General Guisan to instill a new spirit into the army and the people.?