Petal

3689

Peter I.

two years in the Ecole Superieure de Guerre;
became a member of the general staff; and in
1901 was made professor of infantry tactics
at the Ecole Superieure. At the outbreak of
the Great War he was placed in command of
an infantry brigade; on April jo, 1915, was
made a general of division in command of
the Thirty-Third Army Corps; and on June
21, 1915, was put in command of the Second
Army. After his defence of Verdun he was
promoted to the command of the Armies of
the Center, from Soissons to Verdun; in De-
cember, 1916, was made a marshal of France
and adviser to the War Council; and in April,
1917, succeeded General Nivelle as supreme
head of the French Armies in France. His
greatest fame is based upon his heroic defence
of Verdun, February to June, 1916, from the
repeated assaults of the German armies; and
his stirring declaration 'They shall not pass!'
will go down in history. He \vas elected to
the French Academy in 1931 and in the same
year visited the United States to represent
France in the celebration of the i^oth anni-
versary of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at
Yorktown, Va. He was Premier when France
surrendered to Germany, 1940, and assumed
dictatorial powers. He was Chief of State
under Hitler; in 1945 he was convicted by
the French of intelligence with the enemy and
was given the sentence of national dishonor
and death* In view of his age it was recom-
mended that the sentence should not be car-
ried out, and Gen. De Gaulle commuted it
to perpetual imprisonment.

Petal, one of the individual parts of the
corolla of a flower. See COROLLA.

Petard.

Petard, in warfare, a now obsolete engine
for blowing open the gates or effecting a
breach in the walls of a city or a fortress. It
consisted of an iron receptacle in the shape of
a half cone, filled with gunpowder. The plank

to which it was fastened was attached by
hooks to the wall or palisade to be destroyed.

Peter, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus.
His original name was Symeon, for which the
Greek name Simon was often used; the sur-
name Peter (Petros) is the Greek translation
of the Aramaic Kepha (Graecized Cephas), 'a
rock/ and was given to him by Jesus. Simon
was probably a native of Bethsaida, and with
his brother Andrew was a fisherman on the
Lake of Galilee. Peter began to take a leading
place in the Christian community after Pente-
cost. According to ancient and well authenti-
cated traditions, he was the organizer of the
church in Antioch (Syria), and spent his last
years in Rome, being martyred there about 64
A.D. Tradition says that he was crucified head
downward. Beside the Epistles (Sec PETER,
FIRST AND SECOND EPISTLES OF) , the Gospel of
Mark is ultimately traceable to him; also a
Gospel of Peter, a Preaching, an Apocalypse,
and books of Acts bearing his name.

Peter, First and Second Epistles of,
two of the catholic epistles. The first epistle is
addressed to the dispersed (Christian) Jews
in Asia Minor. It purports to have been writ-
ten from Babylon, but many scholars under-
stand this as a metaphorical name for Rome,
in which case it would corroborate the tradi-
tion that Peter spent his closing years in the
latter city. The second epistle of Peter consists
mainly of warnings against heretical teachers,
and exhortations to growth in Christian
knowledge and character.

Peter I. (Peter the Great) (1672-1725),
Tsar of Russia, was the son of Tsar Alexis and
his second wife, Natalia Naryshkin. At the
age of 17, Peter took the reins of government
into his own hands (Sept. 17, 1689). He be-
gan his military career by entering into war
\vith Turkey (1695). In the meantime he had
become strongly impressed with the advan-
tages of Western civilization, and in 1697 he
resolved to travel through part of Europe. He
went to Zaandam in Holland, where he work-
ed in the dockyard; then to England. In 1699
Peter joined the Polish and Danish kings in
;'an alliance against Sweden. By a series of vic-
tories, he obtained, in 1721, the position of
supremacy in the Baltic, formerly held by
Sweden. Westernizing tendencies were seen in
changes in dress and customs, the establish-
ment of newspapers, encouragement of for-
eign trade, and in the building of St. Peters-
burg to supplant the old capital of Moscow.
Peter was married in 1712 to Martha Skavron-
skaya, a Livonian or Lithuanian peasant, who,
upon her admission to the Greek church took