FOCH, FERDINAND (1851-1929), French marshal, was born at Tarbes on Oct. 2, 1851. His father's family had long been settled in the south of France, leaving the district of Ariege in the I 7th century to establish themselves as woollen manufac turers in the small town of Valentine where they took a prom inent part in municipal affairs. On his mother's side, Marshal Foch came of a race of soldiers, his maternal grandfather having been a gallant officer of the Grand Army. His father was a lawyer at Tarbes (Hautes-Pyrenees) who later became a revenue official; and he was frequently transferred from place to place, taking his son with him. The future marshal thus received his education successively at the Lycees at Tarbes and Rodez, the seminary at Polignan and the Jesuit college at St. Etienne.
It was not long before his teachers were struck with his "geo metrical mind," and it was decided that he should enter the Ecole Polytechnique, to prepare for which he was sent to St. Clement' College at Metz. After a few months there, however, the war of 187o interrupted his studies. He enlisted in the in fantry but the armistice came before he saw any fighting, and he returned to Metz to finish preparing for his examination. One of his fellow-students has described how, in the midst of a lesson, they learned, on March I I, 1871, by the booming of the German guns, that the treaty of peace had made Metz a city of the Ger man empire. None could foresee that the young student was destined, as marshal, to restore the city to France.
He sat for his examinations at Nancy, which was still occupied by Manteuffel's troops, and was admitted to the Ecole Poly technique, where he made his mark. In 1873 he was commissioned, and served successively at Fontainebleau, Tarbes and Rennes. He then passed into the Ecole Superieure de Guerre where, after a tour of duty on the general staff, he was appointed a professor on Oct. 31, 1894. His lectures soon made a sensation, both by the evident soundness of the matter and the originality of the form. Even thus soon his pupils bore witness to the excellent qualities of their professor, who presently became one of the leaders in military doctrine. The lessons given between 1894 and 1900, collected in volumes, constitute the chapters of Foch's great works : De la conduite de la guerre and Des principes de la guerre, which appeared in 1897 and 1899.
In teaching six batches of staff college students Foch fortified his own military science as well; his years at Paris were, in fact, of capital importance in the higher development of his intellect. When he vacated his post no one doubted that he would return ere long in another capacity. After holding two regimental commands of artillery and spending a year on the staff of the 5th Corps, he was, so to say, imposed on the Government by the opinion of the whole army as the fittest selection for the command of the Ecole de Guerre that he had made famous. It was Cle menceau—at that time prime minister—who made the appoint ment, giving him the rank of general, and from that day began the cordial relations between the great statesman and the great soldier which were to be revived later under memorable condi tions.
The general held his post as head of the Ecole for four years, during which time he threw himself with untiring zeal into the work of this famous centre for military study, giving it a per manent stamp and forming a whole new generation of picked officers. When, in 1911, he was nominated to the command of the 13th Div. at Chaumont, Foch was one of the very few out standing figures of the army and it was not surprising that, after a brief period in command of the 8th Corps, the wish of everyone acquainted with the higher military personnel brought him to the head of the splendid aoth Corps, stationed about Nancy, which was accounted one of the best elements of the "couverture." Thus, in 1913, he entered, to the sound of trumpets, the town where he had passed his examinations to the tune of the German army fifes and whence, before long, he was to march out for the War_ General Foch, who had married Mlle. Julie Bienvenue, had at that time three children—two married daughters and a young son who was destined to be one of the first to fall in the war. Although still attached to his Pyrenean home, the general spent his holidays on a small estate that he had acquired at Trofeun teniou in Brittany. In the summer of 1914 France was so far re moved from any idea of attacking Germany that Foch had left Nancy to spend a month in far-away Brittany. A week later events led to his recall and he went into harness.
The loth Corps formed part of the and Army and Foch was therefore one of the commanders of Castelnau's army, which, on Aug. 19, 1914, was thrown into annexed Lorraine. It will be remembered that this army, of ter some successes, came up against a formidable resistance in the region of Morhange and failed with heavy losses. Foch had had no part in forming the plan, which met with so cruel a check; he was but one of the executants. He had thrown his army corps resolutely at Morhange and, when repulsed, was still able to organize with perfect cool ness its retreat on the solid positions of the Couronne de Nancy. Not content to await the enemy there, he resumed the offensive and, on Aug. 20, threw himself on the German regiments which were waiting to attack in the "gap of Charmes," and in over throwing them prepared the victory in Lorraine. He was pre paring to take his part there when he was called to the Grand Quartier General, where Joffre entrusted him with the command of an army.
At that time the French were retiring in good order from Belgium and the Ardennes towards the region of the Marne. As a gap tended to open between the 4th and 5th Armies, Joffre gave Foch the mission of forming a new army (the 9th) between them, co-ordinating his action with theirs. He was on the ground before the corps entrusted to him had arrived. In a few days he forged out of them a solid and supple little army which was already well in hand when the celebrated order of Sept. 4 arrested the retreat and prescribed the battle which was to lead to the victory of the Marne.
Foch, after passing the marshes of St. Gond, established him self on the heights which dominate the Petit Morin and of which Fere Champenoise marks the crest. It was thought that his role would be limited to supporting Franchet d'Esperey's army on his left. But when the German armies, which, instead of turning the left of the French armies as they had expected, were themselves turned on the right, they tried to penetrate the allied centre precisely in this region of Fere Champenoise and Foch had there fore suddenly to support the main strain of the battle, and that with troops inferior in number. The heights were for a moment carried by the Germans from Mondemont to Fere Champenoise. It was then that, by a clever manoeuvre, Foch rapidly trans ferred the 42nd Div. from his left to his centre and thus was able to gain the upper hand and force the enemy back. The ex treme fatigue of his troops prevented him from pushing his successes, but he hung on to the retreating Germans and entered Chalons-sur-Marne behind them. His part in the victory of the Marne was capital and it was recognized by a glorious citation in general orders. (See MARNE, 1ST BATTLE OF.) His reputation was so increased after this great crisis that Joffre immediately entrusted him with a new mission—this time one without parallel. Scarcely had the operations of the Marne terminated when, the two armies mutually trying to outflank one another, the "race to the sea" set in from the Oise to the Flemish coast which was only to be closed by the arrival of the Belgian Army and the formation of a continuous front right to Nieu port. The British corps, for their part, had been moved into the region of Ypres, while Joffre detached from the now stable front between the Oise and the Vosges all the forces that he could spare to meet a great attack between the Oise and the sea.
To co-ordinate the action of the heterogeneous troops hurriedly thrown into these regions, a leader of great authority was wanted at once to take the higher direction of the operations of the French armies and to co-operate harmoniously with the Allied armies so as to assure the co-ordination necessary to victory. On Oct. 4, Foch was sent to the Nord to fulfil this mission with the title of "deputy to the commander-in-chief." He did not limit himself to giving the French armies, from Picardy to Flanders, the most energetic orders but put himself in close and cordial relations with Field-Marshal Sir John French and King Albert I., and established the essential liaison between the Allied armies. Ceaselessly finding the necessary reinforcements and dispatching them to the aid of the hard-pressed British and Belgian corps, he was able by his friendly and generous activity to impose his own resolute ideas and so make himself the soul of the battle of Flanders that, after the fierce fighting of the Yser and of Ypres, ended in mid-November by the definite check of the German invasion for the year 1914. In all this Foch had not merely confirmed his prestige as a strategist, but had won for himself the friendly admiration of his Allies so completely that, even then, it could be foreseen that if, one day, circumstances required unity of command there could be no better choice for it than Foch. Did not Lloyd George say: "He could not have done more for us had he been one of our own generals." Foch was left therefore in contact with the British and Belgian corps in the capacity of general commanding the Group of Armies of the North. He held the post for two years and thus presided over the two Artois offensives of May and Sept. 1915 and the battle of the Somme (q.v.) in the summer of 1916 which the German attack on Verdun prevented from assuming the amplitude and decisive character that had been intended.
After brilliant initial successes the Somme battle seemed to sink in the autumn mud. The disappointment that it caused led to a movement of dissatisfaction with the higher leaders who had presided over it. Joffre having been relieved of his command, Foch was deprived of his also and relegated to Senlis for a mis sion of inspection. The story was that he was fatigued. This was hardly the case, but he accepted this semi-disgrace with resigna tion and his valuable advice was always at the disposal of Gen. Lyautey, who had become minister of war.
When, in May 1917, Gen. Petain was called to the chief com mand, he himself suggested to the Government that Foch could be usefully employed in the post of chief of the general staff. Having been sent into Italy on the morrow of Caporetto to es tablish a much-needed understanding with Gen. Cadorna's head quarters, and having remained in constant and cordial relations with Field-Marshal Haig, there was little doubt that when the time came Foch would appear as the single commander that so many people desired by the end of 1917. When, in March 1918, the Germans launched their first grand offensive and the Allied line threatened to break, the necessity of this command became obvious to everybody. It was at Doullens that Foch, on March 29, received from the representatives of the French and British Governments that mission of higher co-ordination that on April 14 became more precise in the form of the chief command of all the Allied armies fighting in France. Already he had grasped this command with a firm hand. Thanks to the close co-operation of the Allies he stopped the Germans at the gates of Amiens, and thereby brought about the final failure of their attempt to break the Anglo-French front and penetrate to the Channel.
Henceforward his whole energies were directed towards assur ing this fruitful co-operation. Thus he brought strong French re inforcements to help the British armies, attacked in March and April, and engaged British and American divisions in the battle of the Aisne in May, thus twice checking German offensives that, for a moment, were triumphant. And when the Germans came to a standstill in the pockets that they had driven into our front, he prepared the counter-offensives which, when the hour struck, were to shake and crumple the German front.
The counter-offensive was on the point of being launched against the flanks of these pockets, from the Aisne to the Marne, when, on July 15, a new German offensive took place (see MARNE, 2ND BATTLE OF). This met with a partial check which, as we know, had the effect of deepening the pocket in which Foch in tended to grip the enemy. The victorious attack of July 18 on the enemy's flanks forced him to retire and gave the signal for . the grand Allied offensives, Foch was now determined to halt no more. He realized that the German armies were beginning to be exhausted but that if they were to be overthrown, the blows must fall thick and fast. The great offensive of Aug. 8 in the region of the Somme which, as it gradually spread and became more violent, forced the Ger mans to retire on to the Hindenburg Line, was almost immediately followed by the new offensive against that strong position where French and English vied with each other in valour. Once the line had been forced, Foch launched his famous "directive" of Sept. 3 which was in fact the programme of the general attack. The stages of this semi-concentric attack are well known. It stretched from the Meuse into Flanders and was designed to draw the enemy from all parts back on to the region of the Ardennes where Foch hoped to pin them and grasp them. The "directives," which issued from the headquarters of Bombon (and later, Senlis) are clear, resolute and pitiless. At this point Petain, Haig and Per shing worked in closest harmony with their French colleague. The directives of Oct. io and 19 were followed by successes—hard won and unequal, it is true, but which on Nov. 5 culminated in the general retreat of the beaten and exhausted German armies.
Foch, following them closely, had already prepared an oper ation on a large scale to make an end of them. While the Ger mans were to be thrown back into the difficult Ardennes region, a huge group of armies under the orders of Castelnau with Mangin as principal executant, were to attack on the Moselle and the Sarre and, reaching the Rhine, were to bar the line of retreat from the encircled Germans. It was at this point that the Ger mans asked for the Armistice. On Nov. 8 Foch, who had been engaged in drawing up the conditions for three weeks past, re ceived the German plenipotentiaries at Rethondes and, by his masterful attitude, brought them to accept all conditions on Nov. 11, obtaining with the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine the results which he had expected to gain from the supreme battle.
The career of Foch was not at an end. Europe acclaimed him as the leader who had secured the victory. Marshal of France since Aug. 7, he now became a British field-marshal and later a marshal of Poland. He was elected a member of the Academie f rancaise, which body, emulating the Academie des sciences, gave him a wonderful reception, and at Paris, on July 14, 1919, he passed under the Arc de triomphe de l'Etoile at the head of the victorious troops. From New York to London and from Brussels to Warsaw he passed from triumph to triumph. He was not, however, content with a parade role, and, as president of the Inter-Allied military commission, he was repeatedly called upon to take measures in support of the action of the Allied Govern ments. In Jan. 1929 the Marshal was taken ill and after a long wasting illness, he died suddenly on March 20. He lay in state beside the grave of the Unknown Poilu at the Arc de Triomphe, and was then laid to rest at the Invalides near the tomb of Napoleon. (See WORLD WAR.) (L. M.) Foch's own works are Des principes de la guerre (19o3) , with English translation by Hilaire Belloc (1918) ; De la conduite de la guerre, 3rd ed. (1915) ; Preceptes et jugements du Marechal Foch extraits de ses oeuvres, precedes d'une etude sur la vie militaire du marechal par A. Casset (Nancy, 1919) with English translation by Hilaire Belloc (1919) . See also A. H. Atteridge, Marshal Ferdinand Foch (1919) ; A. L. Grasset, Le Marechal Foch (1919) ; H. de Lacroix, Le Marechal Foch (192I) ; P. Painleve, Comment j'ai nomme Foch (1923) ; R. Recouly, Foch, his character and leader ship (192o) and Foch, My Conversations with the Marshal (1929) ; E. Mayer, La psychologie du commandement (1924) ; Major C. Bugnet, Foch Speaks (1929) ; Sir George Grey Aston, Marshal Foch (1929). See ARMY: Morale in War, by Foch, in this Encyclopædia.