Antoine Huré General Antoine Jules Joseph Huré ( 11 February 1873 - December 1949 ) was a French army officer and engineer noted for his service in Morocco . Huré joined the army as a volunteer in 1893 and after training at the École Polytechnique and École d ' Application de l ' Artillerie et du Génie he was commissioned into the 3rd Regiment of Engineers . He spent a number of years with his regiment and on staff appointments in France before transferring to Algeria first with the 19th Army Corps , and then the 15th Army Corps . In 1912 Huré transferred to the general staff in eastern Morocco and earned the Colonial Medal . Huré was recalled to France at the start of the First World War and was shot in the chest whilst serving with the 1st Moroccan Infantry Division , being mentioned in dispatches for continuing with his duties despite his wound . He was posted back to Morocco in 1916 to become military commander of the Fes region . In January 1919 he took over command of French operations against the uprising led by Sidi Mhand n ' Ifrutant in the Tafilalt after General Joseph - François Poeymirau was wounded . Huré suppressed the uprising within a month . In April 1919 he led a column to the relief of a French garrison at Aïn Médiouna which had put up a defence against a Moroccan force twenty times their number for four days during another uprising against French rule . Huré then launched further operations that stabilised the military situation in the area within the month . In July he was appointed commander of French troops in Southern Morocco . Huré eventually reached the rank of général de division and became supreme commander of all French troops in Morocco . Under his supervision the country was finally pacified in 1934 . He returned to France in 1935 to serve on the Supreme Council of War and was later made inspector general of engineers . He wrote two books on military history , including one on the pacification of Morocco that was published after his death . Huré was rewarded for his work by appointment as Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour and as Commander of the Order of Ouissam Alaouite . Early career . Huré was born in Corbie in the Somme department of France on 11 February 1873 , the son of Eugene Edouard Edmund Huré and Céline Clémence Marie Burgeat Huré . Huré joined the French Army as a volunteer on 20 October 1893 and became an officer candidate at the École Polytechnique in Paris until 1 October 1895 when he transferred to the École d ' Application de l ' Artillerie et du Génie ( school of Applied Artillery and Engineering ) as a sous lieutenant . He received his commission as a second lieutenant on 1 October 1897 and was posted to the 3rd Regiment of Engineers . He was promoted to first lieutenant on 20 November 1898 and captain on 16 March 1901 . Huré was married on 11 April 1899 to Josephe Marie Magdaleine Francine , though the marriage was childless . Between 27 April 1901 and 22 August 1904 he was attached to the staff as an engineer at Valenciennes . He rejoined his regiment for two years before attending the École Supérieur de Guerre from 30 October 1906 . He was promoted to first captain on 23 June 1907 and joined the staff of the 19th Army Corps in Algiers on 24 October 1908 . He transferred to the staff of the 15th Army Corps on 24 December 1910 and on 24 April 1912 to the staff of the military subdivision of Oran . Huré first arrived in Morocco on 9 October 1912 when he was attached to the general staff in the east of the new French protectorate and received the Colonial Medal for Morocco on 28 April 1914 . On 3 August 1914 he became attached to the staff of the 1st Moroccan Infantry Division , being promoted to commandant ( major ) six days later , and served in the defence of France in the First World War . Huré was wounded in the left breast by a bullet on 28 August 1914 in Faissault and received a mention in dispatches for continuing his duties despite his injury . He was appointed a knight of the Legion of Honour on 28 December 1914 , with precedence backdated to the 1 December . Huré became chef de bataillon on 10 January 1916 when he left France to become military commander of the Fes region of Morocco and on 3 January 1918 was appointed an officer of the Legion of Honour , with precedence of 29 December 1917 . He was honoured for his service to the country by appointment as a commander of the Moroccan Order of Ouissam Alaouite and on 19 April 1918 he was promoted to lieutenant - colonel . As a colonel in January 1919 he participated in an operation in the Tafilalt region , under the command of General Joseph - François Poeymirau , to put down an uprising against French rule led by Sidi Mhand n ' Ifrutant as part of the Zaian War . After Poeymirau was wounded by the accidental explosion of an artillery shell Huré assumed command and won victories against bands of Moroccans at Zrigat and Erfoud . Huré engaged n ' Ifrutant at Tizimi on 25 January , comprehensively defeating his entrenched forces in a six - hour battle and inflicting 600 casualties . Huré received reinforcements from a 10 , 000 strong irregular tribal force sent by Thami El Glaoui , Pasha of Marrakesh and a French ally , and with their help was able to defeat the n ' Ifrutant uprising by 31 January . Battle of Aïn Médiouna . From 15 February to 5 March 1919 Huré commanded a French column in the area to the north of Boudenib , near the Algerian border , consisting of the 18th battalion of Senegalese Tirailleurs and the 1st battalion Algerian Tirailleurs . Huré ' s men demolished some ksar s belonging to the Aït Aïssa tribe but were scarcely troubled by attack , only his rear guard being fired upon . On 31 March 1919 a French reconnaissance force fighting Abdelmalek bin Muhyi al Din , grandson of the Algerian resistance leader Abdelkader El Djezairi , were threatening the town of Beni Oulid when they detached a unit under Captain Macouillard to take a forward position on the peak of the Gueznaïa hill . The next day , in heavy fog with visibility of only a few metres , Macouillard ' s force was attacked , in close hand - to - hand fighting his artillerymen are killed at their guns and despite repeated bayonet charges the French position became untenable . A grievously wounded Macouillard handed command to his second , Lieutenant Biron , with orders to take the surviving men back to the fortified French camp at Aïn Médiouna , around distant . Just fifty men made the journey , Biron and the other officers being killed in an ambush set by local villagers who then besieged the French post , assisted by other tribesmen attracted by the sound of gunfire . Attacks on the camp were repulsed by artillery fire directed by Lieutenant Solomon but the French were unable to break the siege . Solomon and Lieutenant Andrew held out against twenty times their number for the next four days , being resupplied with food and water by air , with total casualties ( including the fight at Gueznaïa ) reaching 4 officers and 292 killed or missing and 67 injured . Huré led a relief column of 10 infantry companies , seven machine gun sections , 10 cavalry troops , a battery of 75mm artillery and three sections of 65mm mountain gun s from Ain Matour to relieve Solomon and Andrew . His men endured forced march es on routes made almost impassable by heavy rain , with one unit covering in a single day . On the morning of 5 April Huré pushed back the besieging force and made contact with the garrison by 9 . 00 . However the Moroccans counterattacked at 10 . 00 , inflicting casualties of 24 Frenchmen killed and 59 wounded in a close - quarters fight in which they suffered heavy losses . At 11 . 00 on 6 April Huré sent out patrols to bury the dead at Gueznaïa , whilst he reinforced the defences at Aïn Médiouna and directed 12 aircraft to bomb the tribesmen remaining in the area . Huré left three companies to garrison Aïn Médiouna before withdrawing the remainder of the men . He and his men were commended for their enthusiasm and spirit which enabled the garrison to be relieved earlier than expected . Huré singled out the French Foreign Legion machine gunners for praise , noting that they had held the enemy off for four hours to cover the retreat of other units . He said " despite your small number . . . I knew at once that you would save the situation " . Despite Huré ' s victory at Aïn Médiouna attacks on loyal villages increased through April 1919 and on the 26th of that month Huré launched another column to defend them . He was attacked at Had Recifa but his hastily fortified camp held and the next morning Huré successfully defeated the tribesmen in battle , at the cost of 12 men killed and 4 officers and 63 men wounded . By the time General Hubert Lyautey and former prime - minister Louis Barthou arrived on an inspection tour on 3 May the military situation had been stabilised thanks to Huré ' s actions . On 31 July 1919 Huré was appointed to replace Lieutenant - Colonel Mayade in command of French troops in Southern Morocco fighting an uprising led by self - proclaimed Sultan Sembali . Huré later became a général de brigade ( brigadier ) and commander of the Marrakesh region and was commander of the Legion of Honour on 21 February 1928 . Pacification of Morocco . Huré became supreme commander of all troops in Morocco in 1931 . Upon his appointment the War Minister , André Maginot , warned him that " if you have one unfortunate engagement , I will hide your losses and I will lie against the evidence ; but I can only do that once . If you have a second reverse I will be obliged to tell the truth , and then all those - like me - who wish for the pacification of Morocco will be swept away , like Ferry after Lang Son " . Referring to the fall of Prime Minister Jules Ferry after the disastrous retreat from Lang Son in Vietnam in 1885 . On 16 March 1932 he was promoted to grand - officer of the Legion , having also received promotion to général de division ( major - general ) . The years of 1933 and 1934 were spent in hard mountain warfare in the last bastions of Moroccan resistance in the High Atlas and Anti - Atlas mountain ranges . Huré himself took personal command of the siege of the high mountain fortress of Bu Gafer in February and March 1933 , where he fought alongside General Henri Giraud , in a costly battle that caused the deaths of hundreds of French troops and up to 2 , 300 Moroccans . In July Huré led another campaign in the Dadès Gorges , laying a new road as he went and utilising his engineering knowledge to procure dozens of truck - powered pneumatic drill s for his sappers . By the end of the month this region too was pacified leaving the last pocket of resistance at Mount Baddou , a high peak home to 2 , 000 - 3 , 000 Berber tribesmen . Huré again led directly , commanding a two - week complete siege that successfully forced the tribesmen and their families to surrender , they were treated well and given food and supplies and allowed to return to their homes . There were further minor skirmishes in the Anti - Atlas in the winter of 1933 / 4 but by March 1934 Huré had pacified the remainder of the country and brought to an end almost 30 years of continuous French military involvement in Morocco . Return to France . Huré returned to France to serve on the Supreme Council of War in 1935 and also sat on Louis Franchet d ' Espèrey ' s African Friendship Committee , an organisation established to encourage the loyalty of North Africa to France in case of war . By 1936 he was inspector general of French North African troops and in 1938 was appointed inspector general of engineers . He was appointed grand cross of the Legion of Honour on 8 July 1938 and in the same year co - wrote " Lyautey du Tonkin au Maroc par Madagascar et le Sud - Oranais " ( Lyautey in Tonkin and Morocco by way of Madagascar and South Oran [ Algeria ] ) with British historian Sonia E . Howe . Huré was president of the Islam study group of the " Politique étrangère " journal for 1939 . After the outbreak of the Second World War Huré became Inspector General of the Military Regions of France on 5 June 1940 , holding that position until 1 July by which point France had surrendered to the Germans . Huré died in December 1949 at Saint - Valéry - sur - Somme in France . In 1952 a book he had written , " La Pacification du Maroc . Dernière étape : 1931 – 1934 " ( The Pacification of Morocco . The Last Step : 1931 – 1934 ) , was published with a preface written by Marshal Alphonse Juin .