A commander during the FirstMarne,Flanders andArtois campaigns of 1914–1916, Foch became Supreme Allied Commander in late March 1918 in the face of the all-outGerman spring offensive. He successfully coordinated the French, British and American efforts, deftly handling his strategic reserves. He stopped the German offensive and launched awar-winning counterattack.[4] In November 1918, Marshal Foch accepted the German cessation of hostilities and was present at theArmistice of 11 November 1918.
At the outbreak of war in August 1914, Foch's XX Corps participated in the briefinvasion of Germany before retreating in the face of a German counter-attack and successfully blocking the Germans short ofNancy. Ordered west to defend Paris, Foch's prestige soared as a result of thevictory at the Marne, for which he was widely credited as a chief protagonist while commanding theFrench Ninth Army. He was then promoted again to assistant commander-in-chief for the Northern Zone, a role which evolved into command ofArmy Group North, and in which role he was required to cooperate with the British forces atYpres and theSomme. At the end of 1916, partly owing to the disappointing results of the latter offensive and partly owing to wartime political rivalries, Foch was transferred to Italy.[5] After being named the commander-in-chief of Western Front with the titleGénéralissime, Foch was appointed "Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies" on 26 March 1918. He played a decisive role in haltinga renewed German advance on Paris in theSecond Battle of the Marne, after which he was promoted toMarshal of France. Author Larry H. Addington says, "to a large extent the final Allied strategy which won the war on land in Western Europe in 1918 was Foch's alone."[6]
On 11 November 1918, Foch accepted the German request for an armistice. Foch advocated peace terms that would make Germany unable to pose a threat to France ever again. He considered theTreaty of Versailles too lenient on Germany.Winston Churchill attributed this famous but apocryphal quote about the Peace Treaty of Versailles to Foch: "This is not Peace. It is an Armistice for twenty years."[7] Indeed,the next war broke out 20 years later.
Ferdinand Foch was born inTarbes, a municipality in the department ofHautes-Pyrénées, in southwestern France, into a modest, devout, middle-class Catholic family.[8][9][10] His last name reflects the ancestry of his father, a civil servant fromValentine, a village inHaute-Garonne, whose lineage may trace back to 16th-centuryAlsace. From a young age, he loved to study and work,[11] showed great interest in military history and strategy, and was an avid reader of military literature.[12][13] He attended school in Tarbes,Rodez,Gourdan-Polignan and at theJesuitCollège Saint-Michel inSaint-Étienne before attending the JesuitCollège Saint-Clément inMetz.[14] A professor there once said of Foch, "A geometric mind, he is made for the Polytechnique."[11] His brother, Germain Foch, became a Jesuit priest, which may have hindered Foch's rise in theFrench Army since the Republican government of France wasanti-clerical.[5]
When theFranco-Prussian War broke out in 1870, the 19-year-old Foch enlisted in the French4th Infantry Regiment, which did not take part in combat. He remained in the army after the war. In 1871, he passed the entrance exams to the grandes écoles scientifiques and later entered theÉcole Polytechnique.[15] There, he was an excellent, hard-working, and studious student,[16][17] and pursued studies inmathematics,engineering,science, history, and literature.[18][19][20][21] He eventually chose the school ofartillery. In 1873, he received hiscommission as an artillery officer and served as alieutenant in the24th Artillery Regiment in Tarbes, despite not having completed his course, because there was a shortage of junior officers. In 1876, he attended thecavalry school of Saumur to train as a mounted artillery officer. On 30 September 1878, he became acaptain and arrived inParis on 24 September 1879 as an assistant in the Central Personnel Service Depot of the artillery.
In 1885 Foch undertook a course at theÉcole Supérieure de Guerre where he was later an instructor from 1895 to 1901. He was promotedlieutenant-colonel in 1898, andcolonel in 1903. As a colonel he became regimental commander of the35th Artillery Regiment (35e R.A) at Vannes. Foch was known for his physical strength and his sharp mind who always maintained a highly dignified bearing.[22] 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.[22] One of Foch's favourite phrases was "Pas de protocole!" as he preferred to be approachable by all officers. Foch's only rigidity was always taking his meals at noon and at 7:30; otherwise, he would work all sorts of irregular hours from dawn until well into the night.[22]
In 1907 Foch was promoted toGénéral de Brigade, and in the same year, he assumed command of the French War College. He held this position until 1911, the year in which he was appointedGénéral de Division. Foch influenced GeneralJoseph Joffre (Chief of General Staff, 28 July 1911 – 12 December 1916) when he drafted the French plan of campaign (Plan XVII) in 1913.[23] In 1913 he took command ofXX Corps [fr] atNancy, and he had held this appointment for exactly one year when he led XX Corps into battle in August 1914.
Foch was later acclaimed as "the most original military thinker of his generation".[24] He was a disciple of Napoleon, and made use of the lessons taught byMoltke.[11] He became known for his critical analyses of the Franco-Prussian andNapoleonic campaigns and of their relevance to military operations in the new twentieth century. His re-examination of France's defeat in 1870 was among the first of its kind. At the college, Foch was a professor of military history, strategy, and general tactics while becoming the French theorist on offensive strategies.[25] He also employed mathematical terms in his lectures.[26]
During his time as an instructor, Foch created renewed interest inFrench military history, inspired confidence in a new class of French officers, and brought about "the intellectual and moral regeneration of the French Army".[27] His thinking on military doctrine was shaped by theClausewitzian philosophy, then uncommon in France, that "the will to conquer is the first condition of victory." Collections of his lectures, which reintroduced the concept of the offensive to French military theory, were published in the volumes"Des Principes de la Guerre" ("On the Principles of War") in 1903, and"De la Conduite de la Guerre" ("On the Conduct of War") in 1904. Both "thought" and "will" were the key words of these teachings.[28] While Foch advised "qualification and discernment" in military strategy and cautioned that "recklessness in attack could lead to prohibitive losses and ultimate failure",[29] his concepts, distorted and misunderstood by contemporaries, became associated with the extreme offensive doctrines (l' offensive à outrance) of his successors. Thecult of the offensive came to dominate military circles, and Foch's reputation was damaged when his books were cited in the development of the disastrous offensives that brought France close to ruin and the army to mutiny in 1917.
Foch was seen as a master of the Napoleonic school of military thought, but he was the only one of the Military College Commandants (Maillard, Langlois, Bonnal) still serving. Their doctrines had been challenged, not only by the German school, but also since about 1911 by a new French school inspired by General Loiseau de Grandmaison, which criticised them as lacking in vigour and offensive spirit and contributing to needless dispersion of force. The French Army fought under the new doctrines, but they failed in the first battles of August 1914, and it remained to be seen whether the Napoleonic doctrine would hold its own, would give way to doctrines evolved during the war, or would incorporate the new moral and technical elements into a new outward form within which the spirit of Napoleon remained unaltered. The war gave an ambiguous answer to these questions, which remains a source of controversy among experts.[30]
On the outbreak ofWorld War I, Foch was in command of XX Corps, part of theSecond Army of Generalde Castelnau. On 14 August the Corps advanced towards theSarrebourg–Morhange line, taking heavy casualties in theBattle of the Frontiers. The defeat of the 15th Army Corps (France) to its right forced Foch into retreat. Foch acquitted himself well, covering the withdrawal toNancy and the Charmes Gap before launching a counter-attack that prevented the Germans from crossing theRiver Meurthe.
Foch was then selected to command the newly formedNinth Army during theFirst Battle of the Marne withMaxime Weygand as his chief of staff.[31] Only a week after taking command, with the whole French Army in full retreat, he was forced to fight a series of defensive actions to prevent a German breakthrough. During the advance at the marshes at St.-Gond he is said to have declared: "My centre is yielding. My right is retreating. Situation excellent. I am attacking."[32] These words were seen as a symbol both of Foch's leadership and of French determination to resist the invader at any cost, although there is little evidence that the signal was sent.[33] Accordingly, on 4 October 1914, Foch was made the Assistant Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Zone under Joseph Joffre.
Foch'scounterattack was an implementation of the theories he had developed during his staff college days and succeeded in stopping the German advance. Foch received further reinforcements from theFifth Army and, following another attack on his forces, counter-attacked again on the Marne. The Germans dug in before eventually retreating. On 12 September, Foch regained the Marne atChâlons and liberated the city. The people of Châlons greeted as a hero the man widely believed to have been instrumental in stopping theretreat and stabilising the Allied position. Receiving thanks from theBishop of Châlons (Joseph-Marie Tissier), Foch piously replied, "non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam" ("Not unto us, o Lord, not unto us, but to Your name give glory", Psalm 115:1).[34]
As assistant Commander-in-Chief with responsibility for co-ordinating the activities of the northern French armies and liaising with the British forces; this was a key appointment as theRace to the Sea was then in progress. GeneralJoseph Joffre,Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the French Army, had also wanted to nominate Foch as his successor "in case of accident", to make sure the job would not be given toJoseph Gallieni, but the French Government would not agree to this. When the Germans attacked on 13 October, they narrowly failed to break through theBritish and French lines. They tried again at the end of the month during theFirst Battle of Ypres, this time suffering terrible casualties. Foch had again succeeded in coordinating a defense and winning against the odds.
In 1915, his responsibilities by now crystallised in command of theNorthern Army Group, he conducted theArtois Offensive and, in 1916, the French effort at theBattle of the Somme. He was strongly criticised for his tactics and the heavy casualties that were suffered by theAllied armies during these battles, and in December 1916 was removed from command by Joffre and sent to command Allied units on theItalian front; Joffre was himself sacked days later.
Just a few months later, after the failure of GeneralRobert Nivelle'soffensive, GeneralPhilippe Pétain, the hero ofVerdun, was appointed Chief of the General Staff; Foch hoped to succeed Pétain in command ofArmy Group Centre, but this job was instead given to GeneralFayolle. The following month Pétain was appointed C-in-C in place of Nivelle, and Foch was recalled and promoted to chief of the general staff. Like Pétain, Foch favoured only limited attacks (he had told Lieutenant GeneralSir Henry Wilson, another British Army officer, that the plannedFlanders offensive was "futile, fantastic & dangerous") until the Americans, who hadjoined the war in April 1917, were able to send large numbers of troops to France.[38]
Outside of theWestern Front, Foch opposedBritish Prime MinisterDavid Lloyd George's plans to send British and French troops to help Italy takeTrieste, but was open to the suggestion of sending heavy guns.[39] The Anglo-French leadership agreed in early September to send 100 heavy guns to Italy, 50 of them from the French army on the left of Field MarshalSir Douglas Haig, C-in-C of the BEF, rather than the 300 which Lloyd George wanted. As the guns reached Italy,Cadorna called offhis offensive (21 September).[40]
Until the end of 1916, the French under Joffre had been the dominant allied army; after 1917 this was no longer the case, due to the vast number of casualties France's armies had suffered in the now three and a half-year-old struggle with Germany.[41]
TheSupreme War Council was formally established on 7 November 1917, containing the Prime Minister and a Minister from each of the Western Front powers (i.e., excluding Russia), to meet at least once a month. Foch (along with Wilson and Italian general Cadorna) were appointed military representatives, to whom the general staffs of each country were to submit their plans. The French tried to have Foch as representative to increase their control over the Western Front (by contrast, Cadorna was disgraced after the recentBattle of Caporetto) and Wilson, a personal friend of Foch, was deliberately appointed as a rival to GeneralSir William Robertson, the BritishChief of the Imperial General Staff, an ally of Haig's, who had lost 250,000 men at the battle of Ypres the same year.[42]Clemenceau was eventually persuaded to appoint Foch's protégéWeygand instead, although many already suspected that Foch would eventually become the Allied Generalissimo.[43]
Late in 1917 Foch would have liked to have seen Haig replaced as C-in-C of the BEF byGeneralHerbert Plumer; however, Haig would remain in command of the BEF for the remainder of the war.[44]
In January 1918, in accordance with Lloyd George's wishes, an executive board was set up to control the planned Allied General Reserve, withClemenceau's agreement being obtained by having Foch on the board rather thanMaxime Weygand. Pétain agreed to release only eight French divisions and made a bilateral agreement with Haig, who was reluctant to release any divisions at all, to assist one another. The situation was worsened by Clemenceau's and Pétain's dislike of Foch. At a Supreme War Council meeting in London (14–15 March), with a German offensive clearly imminent, Foch protested to no avail for the formation of the Allied Reserve.[45][46]
On the evening of 24 March, after theGerman spring offensive was threatening to split apart the British and French forces, Foch telegraphed Wilson (who by now had replaced Robertson as Chief of the Imperial General Staff) "asking what [he] thought of situation & we are of one mind that someone must catch a hold or we shall be beaten". Wilson reached France the following lunchtime. Pétain had sent a dozen divisions to plug the gap and it is unclear that a committee would actually have acted any faster during the immediate crisis.[47] At theDoullens Conference (26 March) and at theBeauvais Conference (3 April), Foch was given the job of coordinating the activities of the Allied armies,[48][49] 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 theBritish Fifth Army sector. Two days later, while Foch was writing in his notebook, he allowed an interview to a group of war correspondents.[50] At a later conference he was given the title Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies with the title ofGénéralissime ("Supreme General"). In May 1918, in the fifth session of the Supreme War Council, Foch was given authority over the Italian Front.[41]
Foch controlled theMilitary Board of Allied Supply (MBAS), an Allied agency for the coordination of logistical support of the Allied forces. In March 1918 ColonelCharles G. Dawes, the general purchasing agent for theAmerican Expeditionary Forces (AEF) recommended to his commanding generalJohn J. Pershing that a new intergovernmental agency was necessary to coordinate transportation and storage of military supplies in France. Pershing took the recommendation to French Premier Georges Clemenceau. The British were hesitant at first but finally the key players were in agreement and the Board was established in May 1918. It involved coordinating the entirely different supply systems for the American, British, and French armies, as well as the Italian and Belgian armies. It started operation from its base in Paris at the end of June. The president of the board was French general Jean-Marie Charles Payot (1868–1931), assisted by an international staff. Board decisions had to be unanimous, and once made were binding on all of the armies. However each army continued to be responsible for its own logistical system and procedures.[51]
Foch was surprised by the German offensive ("Bluecher") on theChemin des Dames (27 May). Foch believed it was a diversion to draw Allied reserves away from Flanders. This was partly true, although the planned German Flanders Offensive ("Hagen") never took place. The Allied armies under Foch's command ultimately held the advance of the German forces.[52] The celebrated phrase, "I will fight in front of Paris, I will fight in Paris, I will fight behind Paris", attributed both to Foch and Clemenceau, illustrated the Généralissime's resolve to keep the Allied armies intact, even at the risk of losing the capital. The British generalSir Henry Rawlinson, commanding theBritish Fourth Army, commented after meeting Foch: "I am overjoyed at his methods and far-sighted strategy. I was in close touch with him in 1916. He is a better man now than he was then, for his fiery enthusiasm has been tempered by adversity."[22] Rawlinson also noted Foch's intense Frenchness: "He knew nothing of Britain. The Rhine was for him a river of life and death."[22]
At the sixth session of the Supreme War Council on 1 June Foch complained that the BEF was still shrinking in size and infuriated Lloyd George by implying that theBritish government was withholding manpower.[53] At a major Allied conference at Beauvais (7 June)Lord Milner agreed with Clemenceau that 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.[54]
The British were disappointed that Foch operated through his own staff rather than through the Permanent Military Representatives atVersailles, and on 11 July 1918 British ministers resolved to remind Foch that he was an Allied, and not a French, C-in-C.[41] The Allies (mainly French and the growingAmerican forces) counterattacked at theSecond Battle of the Marne in July 1918. On 6 August 1918, Foch was made aMarshal of France. Along with the British commander, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, Foch planned theGrand Offensive, opening on 26 September 1918, which led to the defeat of Germany. After the war, he claimed to have defeated Germany by smoking his pipe.[55] An unintended consequence of Foch's appointment was that he sheltered Haig from British political interference.[41]
Before the armistice and after theArmistice of Villa Giusti, Foch controlled all the operations against Germany including a planned invasion from Italy intoBavaria.[41] Foch accepted theGerman cessation of hostilities in November from the German delegate,Matthias Erzberger, at 5:00 a.m. local time. However, he refused to accede to the German negotiators' immediate request to declare a ceasefire or truce so that there would be no more useless waste of lives among the common soldiers. By not declaring a truce even between the signing of the documents for theArmistice at 5:45 a.m.[56] and its entry into force, "at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month", about 11,000 additional men on both sides were needlessly wounded or killed due to Foch – far more than usual for a similar time period according to the military statistics.[57]
On the day of the armistice, 11 November 1918, he was elected to theAcadémie des Sciences. Ten days later, he was unanimously elected to theAcadémie française. He received many honours and decorations from Allied governments.[58]
In theeuphoria of victory Foch was regularly compared to Napoleon andJulius Caesar. However, historians took a less favourable view of Foch's talents as commander, particularly as the idea took root that his military doctrines had set the stage for the futile and costlyoffensives of 1914 in which French armies suffered devastating losses. Supporters and critics continue to debate Foch's strategy and instincts as a commander, as well as his exact contributions to the Marne "miracle": Foch's counter-attacks at the Marne generally failed, but his sector resisted determined German attacks while holding the pivot on which the neighbouring French and British forces depended in rolling back the German line.[6]
After the reading of the preamble of theNovember 1918 armistice, Foch left thecarriage, in a move that was perceived as humiliating by the defeated Germans. In 1940, after the defeat of France by Germany early inWorld War II, whenFrance signed an armistice with Germany,Adolf Hitler, in a calculated gesture of disdain to the French delegates, left the carriage, as Foch had done in 1918.
Foch's pre-war contributions as a military theorist and lecturer have also been recognised, and he has been credited as "the most original and subtle mind in theFrench Army" of the early 20th century.[27]
Henceforward theRhine ought to be the Westernmilitaryfrontier of the German countries. Henceforward Germany ought to be deprived of all entrance and assembling ground, that is, of all territorialsovereignty on the left bank of the river, that is, of all facilities for invading quickly, as in 1914,Belgium,Luxembourg, for reaching the coast of theNorth Sea and threatening the United Kingdom, for outflanking the natural defences of France, the Rhine,Meuse, conquering the Northern Provinces and entering the Parisian area.[59]
In a subsequent memorandum, Foch argued that the Allies should take full advantage of their victory by permanently weakening German power in order to prevent her from threatening France again:
What the people of Germany fear the most is a renewal of hostilities since, this time, Germany would be the field of battle and the scene of the consequent devastation. This makes it impossible for the yet unstable German Government to reject any demand on our part if it is clearly formulated. TheEntente, in its present favourable military situation, can obtain acceptance of any peace conditions it may put forward provided that they are presented without much delay. All it has to do is to decide what they shall be.[59]
Upon returning home. Foch wrote in his diary:
Watch out: suspect peace, English peace... We must have a program, a tactic, a will. We find ourselves in the presence of an England that has all it wants for the present: the German colonies and the German fleet. We lack future security because [Britain] is not interested. In the presence of an America which seeks its own peace, we must have what we need... It is on the Rhine and nowhere else that we shall find it.[60]
He later wrote:
In a word, the occupation is a lever that we have in our hand and with which we can call the tune.[61]
However, the British Prime MinisterDavid Lloyd George and the American PresidentWoodrow Wilson objected to the detachment of theRhineland from Germany so that the balance of power would not be too much in favour of France, but agreed to Allied military occupation for fifteen years, which Foch thought insufficient to protect France.
Foch considered theTreaty of Versailles to be "acapitulation, atreason" because he believed that only permanent occupation of the Rhineland would grant France sufficient security against a revival of German aggression.[62] It is claimed that Foch said: "This is not peace. It is an armistice for 20 years".[63]
On 1 November 1921 Foch was inKansas City, Missouri, to take part in the groundbreaking ceremony for theLiberty Memorial that was being constructed there. Also present that day were Lieutenant GeneralBaron Jacques of Belgium, AdmiralDavid Beatty of Great Britain, GeneralArmando Diaz of Italy and GeneralJohn J. Pershing of the United States. One of the main speakers was Vice PresidentCalvin Coolidge of the United States. The local veteran chosen to present flags to the commanders was a Kansas City haberdasher,Harry S. Truman, who would later serve as 33rd President of the United States from 1945 to 1953. In 1935, bas-reliefs of Foch, Jacques, Diaz and Pershing by sculptorWalker Hancock were added to the memorial.
Foch made a 3,000-mile (5,000 km) circuit through theAmerican Midwest and industrial cities such as Pittsburgh and then on to Washington, D.C., which included ceremonies atArlington National Cemetery for what was then called Armistice Day. During the tour, he received numerous honorary degrees from American Universities.[65]
In 1923, Foch retired from the French Army, having served a total of 53 years in uniform. His career began as theLebel Model 1886 rifle had just entered service, and ended after Foch had commanded hundreds of thousands of soldiers in World War I.
Onchemistry, he said, "There is no science that is so nearly bound up with the future of our industrial and military forces. France will not remain indifferent to this branch of science that she has neglected for so long."[66]
Foch died on 20 March 1929. He was buried inLes Invalides, next to Napoleon and other famous French soldiers and officers. Initially he was interred in the crypt of the Saint-Louis Church, orCaveau des Gouverneurs. In 1937 his remains were transferred to a monumental tomb sculpted byPaul Landowski, with inspiration from the 15th-centurytomb of Philippe Pot,[67] at the center of the Dome Church's northeastern chapel (Chapelle Saint-Ambroise).[68]
A statue of Foch was set up at theCompiègne Armistice site when the area was converted into a national memorial. This statue was the one item left undisturbed by the Germans following their defeat of France in June 1940. Following the signing of France's surrender on 21 June, the Germans ravaged the area surrounding the railway car in which both the 1918 and 1940 surrenders had taken place. The statue was left standing, to view nothing but a wasteland. The Armistice site was restored by German prisoner-of-war labour following the Second World War, with its memorials and monuments either restored or reassembled.
The aircraft carrierFoch (R99) was named in his honor.Equestrian statue of Marshal Ferdinand Foch in Paris, France.
Aheavy cruiser and anaircraft carrier were named in his honor. An early district ofGdynia, Poland was also named "Foch" after the Marshal but was renamed by thecommunist government after the Second World War. Nevertheless, one of the major avenues of the City ofBydgoszcz, located then in thePolish corridor, holds Foch's name as sign of gratitude for his campaigning for an independent Poland.Avenue Foch, a street in Paris, was named after him. Several other streets have been named in his honor inMelbourne,Ypres,Lyon,Kraków,Chrzanów,[76]Grenoble,Quito,Beirut,New Orleans,Truth or Consequences, New Mexico,Wynnum,Cambridge, Massachusetts,Mineola, New York,Queens, New York,Milltown,Shanghai (now part of Yan'a Road) and Singapore (Foch Road). A city quarter in the former French sector of Berlin is called Cité Foch in his honor. This is where French garrison soldiers were housed while Berlin was divided.Fochville inSouth Africa was also named in his honour. Astatue of Foch stands nearVictoria railway station in London. He is the only Frenchman ever to be made an honorary field-marshal by the British.[77] A statue of Foch stands on the Bapaume-Peronne road, near the village of Bouchavesnes, at the point whereMessimy'schasseurs broke through on 12 September 1916.General Debeney spoke at the statue's unveiling in 1926, praising Foch's operational concepts of 1918.[78] Foch also has agrape cultivar named after him. In the Belgian city ofLeuven, one of the central squares was named after him after the First World War, but it was renamed in 2012.[79]Mount Foch inAlberta is also named after him. The position ofMarshal Foch Professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford was founded in 1918 shortly after the end of the First World War.
Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de la guerre de 1914-1918, 2 vol., 1931 (posthume)[82]
DansLa Revue de la cavalerie un article surl'artillerie de la division de cavalerie au combat, un autre surMitrailleuse ou canon, une conférence surL'Attaque décisive
^Atkinson, Charles Francis (1922)."Foch, Ferdinand" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.). London & New York: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company.
^Singer, Barnett (2008).Maxime Weygand: A Biography of the French General in Two World Wars.
^Raymond Recouly,Foch: Le Vainqueur de la Guerre [Foch: The victor of the war] (Paris, France: Hachette, 1919),page 121 : "Mon centre céde, ma droite recule, situation excellente, j'attaque." (My centre is giving way, my right is retreating, situation excellent, I am attacking.)
^Cowley, Robert; Parker, Geoffrey, eds. (1996).The Reader's Companion to Military History. sponsored by the Society for Military History (1st ed.). Houghton Mifflin. pp. 164–165.ISBN0-395-66969-3.
^"Nouvelles de Rome: S. G. Mgr. Tissier à Rome (Rome, 19 janvier 1917)" [News from Rome: S. G. Monsignor Tissier in Rome],Le Croix (French Catholic newspaper), 25 January 1917Archived 5 November 2013 at theWayback Machine, p. 7: "On sent ... qu'il n'oubliera plus jamais le réponse du général Foch à ses félicitions, au lendemain de la victoire:Non nobis, Domine, non nobis; sed nomini tuo da gloriam." (One feels ... that he will never forget the reply of General Foch to his congratulations in the aftermath of the victory:Not to us, Lord, not to us; but to Your name give glory.)
^Laughlin, Clara Elizabeth (1918).Foch the Man: A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies. Fleming H. Revell Company. p. 150. Reprint:ISBN978-1-4219-7064-6.
^Edward A. Goedeken, "Charles Dawes and the Military Board of Allied Supply"Military Affairs (1986) 50#1 pp. 1–6online
^"'How did I win the war?' Foch will say chaffingly to André de Marincourt, many months later. 'By smoking my pipe. That is to say, by not getting excited, by reducing everything to simple terms, by avoiding useless emotions, and keeping all my strength for the job.'" Frank H. Simonds,History of the World War, Vol. 5, Ch. 3, III. Doubleday, Page & Co., 1920.
^Nelson, Keith L. (28 April 2023).Victors Divided: America and the Allies in Germany, 1918-1923. Univ of California Press. p. 66.ISBN978-0-520-33726-8.
^Anthony Adamthwaite,Grandeur and Misery: France's Bid for Power in Europe, 1914–40 (Hodder Arnold, 1995), p. 57.
^Ruth Henig,Versailles and After, 1919–33 (Routledge, 1995), p. 52.
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.jpg)
