51 Facts About Marechal Foch

Ferdinand Foch was a French general and military theorist who served as the Supreme Allied Commander during the First World War.

Marechal Foch successfully coordinated the French, British and American efforts into a coherent whole, deftly handling his strategic reserves.

Marechal Foch stopped the German offensive and launched a war-winning counterattack.

In November 1918, Marshal Marechal Foch accepted the German cessation of hostilities and was present at the Armistice of 11 November 1918.

Marechal Foch was then promoted again to assistant commander-in-chief for the Northern Zone, a role which evolved into command of Army Group North, and in which role he was required to cooperate with the British forces at Ypres and the Somme.

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Marechal Foch was appointed "Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies" on 26 March 1918 following being the commander-in-chief of Western Front with the title Generalissime in 1918.

Marechal Foch played a decisive role in halting a renewed German advance on Paris in the Second Battle of the Marne, after which he was promoted to Marshal of France.

Marechal Foch advocated peace terms that would make Germany unable to pose a threat to France ever again.

Ferdinand Marechal Foch was born in Tarbes, a municipality in the department of Hautes-Pyrenees, in southwestern France, into a devout Catholic family.

Marechal Foch attended school in Tarbes, Rodez, Polignan and at the Jesuit in Saint-Etienne before attending the Jesuit in Metz.

In 1885 Marechal Foch undertook a course at the Ecole Superieure de Guerre where he was later an instructor from 1895 to 1901.

Marechal Foch was promoted lieutenant-colonel in 1898, and colonel in 1903.

An extremely short man, Marechal Foch was known for his physical strength and his sharp mind who always maintained a highly dignified bearing.

Marechal Foch was a quiet man, known for saying little and when he did speak, it was a volley of words accompanied by much gesturing of his hands that required some knowledge of him to understand properly.

In 1907 Marechal Foch was promoted to General de Brigade, and in the same year, he assumed command of the French War College.

Marechal Foch held this position until 1911, the year in which he was appointed General de Division.

Marechal Foch influenced General Joseph Joffre when he drafted the French plan of campaign in 1913.

Marechal Foch was later acclaimed as "the most original military thinker of his generation".

Marechal Foch became known for his critical analyses of the Franco-Prussian and Napoleonic campaigns and of their relevance to military operations in the new twentieth century.

At the college, Marechal Foch was a professor of military history, strategy, and general tactics while becoming the French theorist on offensive strategies.

The cult of the offensive came to dominate military circles, and Marechal Foch's reputation was damaged when his books were cited in the development of the disastrous offensive that brought France close to ruin in August 1914.

Marechal Foch was seen as a master of the Napoleonic school of military thought, but he was the only one of the Military College Commandants still serving.

Marechal Foch was then selected to command the newly formed Ninth Army during the First Battle of the Marne with Maxime Weygand as his chief of staff.

Marechal Foch's counterattack was an implementation of the theories he had developed during his staff college days and succeeded in stopping the German advance.

Marechal Foch received further reinforcements from the Fifth Army and, following another attack on his forces, counter-attacked again on the Marne.

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Marechal Foch had again succeeded in coordinating a defense and winning against the odds.

Marechal Foch was strongly criticised for his tactics and the heavy casualties that were suffered by the Allied armies during these battles, and in December 1916 was removed from command by Joffre and sent to command Allied units on the Italian front; Joffre was himself sacked days later.

Just a few months later, after the failure of General Robert Nivelle's offensive, General Philippe Petain, the hero of Verdun, was appointed Chief of the General Staff; Marechal Foch hoped to succeed Petain in command of Army Group Centre, but this job was instead given to General Fayolle.

The following month Petain was appointed C-in-C in place of Nivelle, and Marechal Foch was recalled and promoted to chief of the general staff.

Outside of the Western Front, Marechal Foch opposed British Prime Minister David Lloyd George's plans to send British and French troops to help Italy take Trieste, but was open to the suggestion of sending heavy guns.

Marechal Foch were appointed military representatives, to whom the general staffs of each country were to submit their plans.

Late in 1917 Marechal Foch would have liked to have seen Haig replaced as C-in-C of the BEF by General Herbert Plumer; however, Haig would remain in command of the BEF for the remainder of the war.

At a Supreme War Council meeting in London, with a German offensive clearly imminent, Marechal Foch agreed under protest to shelve the Allied Reserve for the time being.

At the Doullens Conference and at Beauvais, Marechal Foch was given the job of coordinating the activities of the Allied armies, forming a common reserve and using these divisions to guard the junction of the French and British armies and to plug the potentially fatal gap that would have followed a German breakthrough in the British Fifth Army sector.

Marechal Foch controlled the Military Board of Allied Supply, an Allied agency for the coordination of logistical support of the Allied forces.

Marechal Foch was surprised by the German offensive on the Chemin des Dames.

Marechal Foch believed it was a diversion to draw Allied reserves away from Flanders.

Marechal Foch is a better man now than he was then, for his fiery enthusiasm has been tempered by adversity.

At a major Allied conference at Beauvais Lord Milner agreed with Clemenceau that Marechal Foch should have the power to order all Allied troops as he saw fit, over the protests of Haig who argued that it would reduce his power to safeguard the interests of the British Army.

British were disappointed that Marechal Foch operated through his own staff rather than through the Permanent Military Representatives at Versailles, and on 11 July 1918 British ministers resolved to remind Marechal Foch that he was an Allied, and not a French, C-in-C.

An unintended consequence of Marechal Foch's appointment was that he sheltered Haig from British political interference.

Marechal Foch received many honours and decorations from Allied governments.

In January 1919, at the Paris Peace Conference Marechal Foch presented a memorandum to the Allied plenipotentiaries in which he stated:.

Marechal Foch considered the Treaty of Versailles to be "a capitulation, a treason" because he believed that only permanent occupation of the Rhineland would grant France sufficient security against a revival of German aggression.

Marechal Foch was made a British Field Marshal in 1919, and, for his advice during the Polish–Soviet War of 1920, as well as his pressure on Germany during the Greater Poland Uprising, he was awarded the title of Marshal of Poland in 1923.

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On 1 November 1921 Marechal Foch was in Kansas City, Missouri, to take part in the groundbreaking ceremony for the Liberty Memorial that was being constructed there.

Marechal Foch made a 3000-mile circuit through the American Midwest and industrial cities such as Pittsburgh and then on to Washington, DC, which included ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery for what was then called Armistice Day.

Marechal Foch was buried in Les Invalides, next to Napoleon and other famous French soldiers and officers.

Statue of Marechal Foch was set up at the Compiegne Armistice site when the area was converted into a national memorial.

Marechal Foch is the only Frenchman ever to be made an honorary field-marshal by the British.

Marechal Foch received an honorary doctorate from the Jagiellonian University of Krakow in 1918.