Foch

“ His exploits in the Soudan recall a time when there was no smile on the face of John Bull as he looked across to France. A poet in his ideality and lyric quality, he has the sublime courage of the Early Christian, the personal sway of the born leader, the heart and tenderness of a woman.
No French general has come into closer contact with the English than Foch, for his army neighboured theirs for long months together, and none has a higher opinion of their qualities or was more sensible of the vast improvement effected in their fighting methods during the progress of the war. ”

“ Foch may well feel that he has done his utmost for his country and for mankind, in the crisis for which he prepared himself and which he met with such superb faith in the triumph of Right; but he certainly does not feel that he has ushered in the millennium; he knows what other demands there are and will be upon the souls of men, on their devotion to their country, their perception of truth and honor, and their ardor and ability to serve humanity. ”

“ And attack he did, hurling back the surprised Teutons and aiding Joffre to turn the invader, and save Paris.
Foch, in brief, is a soldier of the intellectual type. His headquarters when at last he was made Marshal of France and Generalissimo of the Allied forces, resembled a classroom more nearly than the center of a vast and far-reaching activity. ”

“ For Foch is, and ever has been, the kind of man who would most abhor being advanced faster than he developed.
He would infinitely rather be prepared for a promotion and fail to get it than get a promotion for which he was not thoroughly prepared.
Nor is he the sort of individual who can comfortably deceive himself about his fitness. He sustains himself by no illusions of the variety: "If I had so-and-so to do, I'd probably get through as well as nine-tenths of commanders would." ”

“ France is too essentially democratic to esteem one set of characteristics in the mass of men and another set in the leaders of men. Foch and Joffre will live always in the hearts of their countrymen because, like Jeanne d'Arc, they have so much to say to everyone—so much that illumines every path in life wherever it is laid.
On the 19th of December, 1918, Joffre took his seat among the Immortals of the French Academy. ”

“ There were now four of the family who had not been eaten by anyone. It is extraordinary when you come to think of it that any herring ever contrives to reach maturity at all. What with the mackerel and the seagulls and the barristers, everybody seems to be against it. However, Walter, Rupert and Foch succeeded. Stéphanie just missed. Walter and Rupert and Foch had jolly soft roes, a fact which is recorded in a cynical little poem by the precocious Foch, believed to be the only literary work of a whitebait now extant. ”

“ Foch declined to cease hostilities. He knew his enemy too well.
As soon as the Kaiser learned what the terms were, he abdicated his throne and fled his country. When the courier had returned, and the German plenipotentiaries once more presented themselves before Foch (again in his car) the "War Lord" of all the world was cowering in a Holland hiding place, his blubbering heir was in another, and a Social Republic had been declared in Berlin. ”

“ They say that Foch’s principle is to use up his storm-troops; he never relieves them when once an offensive has begun. We no longer guess—we know the task that lies before us. Last time it was the saving of Amiens; this time it is the breaking of the Hindenburg Line. Two nights ago we pulled into action across the bald chalky country that straddles the Cambrai-Arras road. To the north of us, rising out of the blackness of the Vimy Plain, we could see the ridge which was so long our home and which, because we were not allowed to die, we guarded with so much impatience. ”

“ One plan goes awry. Very well! we'll find a better.
But Foch had not trained the German general staff. They made war otherwise. And well he knew it! Well he knew what happened to them when their "blue prints" would not fit unexpected conditions.
He knew that they expected to take Nancy easily, that they were looking for some effort to defend it, but not for a French attack.
They did not know his maxim: "The best means of defense is to attack."
He attacked. His Twentieth corps fought its way through the center of the Bavarian army, into German Lorraine. ”

“ And also it is possible that Captain Joseph Joffre had not then begun to develop in himself those qualities which made him ready for greatness when the opportunity came.
If, however, any one has ever expressed surprise at Ferdinand Foch's attainment, I have not heard of it. He seems always to have impressed people with whom he came in contact as a man of tremendous energy, application, and thoroughness. ”

“ The Forty-second came! While they were marching to the rescue the Prussian Guard in a colossal effort smashed through Foch's right. They were wild with joy. The French line was pierced. They at once began celebrating, at La Fère-Champenoise.
When this was announced to Foch he telegraphed to general headquarters:
"My center gives way, my right recedes; the situation is excellent. I shall attack."
For this, we must remember, is the man who says: "A battle won is a battle in which one is not able to believe one's self vanquished." ”

“ I shall stand firm."
"As you should, your excellency. The enemy is entitled to no consideration."
"I shall be no more harsh than necessary," said Marshal Foch. "All I am striving to bring about is peace—peace on such terms as will prevent a resumption of this murderous struggle."
Marshal Foch now turned and re-entered his car which still stood in the station.
"I shall receive them here when they arrive," he informed General Dupree, who accompanied him.
The day passed slowly for Hal and Chester. ”

“ The author has been closely associated with Marshal Foch as a brother-in-arms and in his estimation the co-ordinated military talent in the Allied leaders found its highest expression “in the keen intelligence and strategic genius of their generalissimo—Foch.” The account of Foch’s career in the great war is preceded by a short description of his family and earlier life. Contents: Some glimpses of Foch; His family and his career; His lectures at the Ecole de guerre ”

“ Marshal Foch, having pocketed the document, indicated that the conference was adjourned.
"There is no other business before us, I believe, gentlemen," he said, "so I shall detain you no longer. I have much work to do in the next twenty-four hours and I must get about it."
At the door to the car the German envoys saluted the French commander-in-chief before taking their departure. Marshal Foch returned the salute stiffly. Upon suggestion of General Dupree, Hal and Chester were to take the German envoys back to their own lines. ”

“ To those heroic men who had left their beautiful country to the arch-fiends of destruction, their parents and wives and children to savages who befoul the name of beasts; who no longer had any possessions, nor munitions wherewith to make another stand on Belgian soil; to them Foch took fresh inspiration with his calm and tremendous personality; to them he sent his splendid Forty-second Division to swell their ranks so frightfully depleted in Honor's cause ”

“ Perhaps, after giving orders for notifying his Government and her Allies, he sent a message to Madame Foch. But I am quite sure that otherwise he did not "celebrate," except that he gave God thanks for the victory.
XVIII DURING THE ARMISTICE AND AFTER
When the French army rode into Metz, Foch was not at its head. There may or there may not be another man who could and would have foregone that satisfaction; but certainly there are not many. ”

“ The allied airplane, caught thus between two fires, was in a dangerous predicament.
"Climb in here, sir," said Hal to General Herwigs, "and we will make our escape while we may."
But Chancellor Ebert stayed the departure.
"A moment," he said. "I cannot fly while Germans, through a misunderstanding, are at each other's throats."
"But we must go, sir," said General Herwigs. "Time is growing short. Marshal Foch said that if we had not returned in twenty-four hours negotiations would be considered suspended. We have little time now, sir. Haste is necessary." ”

“ And when asked to write, for my countrymen, about General Foch, I felt honored in a supreme degree.
In due course we shall have many volumes about him: his life, his teachings, his writings, his great deeds will be studied in minutest details as long as that civilization endures which he did so much to preserve to mankind. ”

“ General Rhodes informs me that he has made you acquainted with the facts that seem to indicate an early cessation of hostilities, so I need not amplify here. Now, Marshal Foch, anticipating that Germany may really sue for peace, has asked my advice in the matter of armistice terms pending a final treaty of peace. These I have written out. As you will readily recognize, they are not to be trusted to careless hands. I have confidence in you, however, gentlemen, so I shall ask you to carry this paper to Marshal Foch."
"We shall be glad to do it, sir," said Chester. ”

“ It was just twenty years after Foch entered upon his full-fledged professorship at the Superior School of War that Marshal Joffre, speaking at a dinner assembling the principal leaders of the government and of the army, declared that without the Superior School of War the victory of the Marne would have been impossible. ”

“ Foch took it and poured French troops to our aid and stopped the tide and saved the great city, the railway-key of Calais and of Paris.
The great German effort had resulted first in German victory, then in a dramatic change in the leadership of the war. Doubtless the German took little stock of Foch. It seemed of good augury to our foe that the enemy should have [Pg 151] been forced to make a change in command. Changes of the kind are seldom good in the midst of a strenuous campaign. But the sway of Foch nevertheless gave a new faith to the whole army of the Allies. ”

“ There are few situations possible in life in which a man could be set apart with his soul and have so much demanded of his communings as was demanded of Foch from October, 1914, on to October, 1918. Every decision he made involved lives—hundreds and thousands or hundreds of thousands of lives—and not one pang of what must be suffered for each life laid down was strange to him; his only son was among the first to die for France and human liberties ”

“ He became then just a spectator at one of the greatest football games ever played between Yale and Princeton. Come to think of it he was rather less a part of the proceedings than the young men in the cheering section behind him. Foch did not have a blue feather, or a girl, or a bet on the game. The greatest military leader in the world was assigned today to the humble job of being just a neutral. ”

“ But Foch fought on.
The Americans had cleared the last corner of the Argonne of German machine-gun nests and gunners, and were widening their offensive on the Meuse. The French had taken Laon, and were pushing on. The British had taken Lens and Cambrai and were advancing on Douai and Lille.
On the 23rd of October the President of the United States referred the matter of the armistice to the Allies. On the 29th, the Allied War Council met at Versailles to fix the armistice conditions. ”

“ For no other man in the world knows so well as he the extent and the enormity of the crimes those men and their masters and their minions are guilty of. A primitive man, or any undisciplined modern man, would have leaped at their throats. Instead, Foch treated them as if they were human though not humane beings, and read to them slowly and in a loud voice, the terms of the armistice for which they had asked.
Mathias Erzberger, their spokesman, requested a cessation of hostilities whilst a courier carried the terms to German General Headquarters at Spa. ”

“ On the 8th of September Foch's army was violently attacked by the famous German Guard, and his right was forced back a few miles. Early next morning he made a further retreat, and at the same time drew back his left, so as to maintain his line. Although he had retreated he was full of fight, and he ordered an attack to be made the same day.
To the north of Sézanne you will see a region known as the Marshes of St. Gond. This stretch of swampy ground was the scene of a great fight which forced the retreat of the German centre; we must, therefore, look at it more closely. ”

“ On that night of July 14 he began the great offensive which never stopped until the whining boche was east of the Rhine!
His Intelligence Department told him that the German drive would probably begin at ten minutes past midnight. They might be quite wrong, but that was their guess. Foch was all-but sure they were not wrong; that it was not in German nature to reason other than as I have described.
An hour before midnight the Germans were (doubtless) surprised by some lively action of French artillery. Strange! But it couldn't mean anything, of course! So the boche came on. ”

“ They developed, in that battle, more than one great commander of whose abilities Joffre hastened to avail himself. On the day he issued that order commending the First and Second armies, the generalissimo called Manoury from the Lorraine front, where he had shown conspicuous leadership, and put him in command of the newly-created Sixth army, which was to play the leading part in routing Von Kluck. And on the next day (August 28) Joffre called Foch from Lorraine to head the new Ninth army, which was to hold the center at the Battle of the Marne and deal the smashing, decisive blow. ”