Was Philippe P�tain a terrible traitor or a brave man who tried to protect France from the worst of Nazism?

A little bit of both. Petain's career is marked by his brilliance when others around him were idiots. He acquired the reputation of being a defeatist in WW1 because he refused to butcher his men in futile attacks. Instead Petain developed new tactics, that the smarter generals copied. When the second world war started, he was summoned to lead the country through the armistices. He tried to protect what was left of france. Where Petain became a traitor, was the poor deals he had with Germany. Though many blame the worst deals on Lavel, who was the Germans stooge.