Marshal Ferdinand Foch (French pronunciation: [fɔʃ]), GCB, OM, DSO (2 October 1851 – 20 March 1929), was a French soldier, military theorist, and First World War hero credited with possessing "the most original and subtle mind in the French army" in the early 20th century.[1]
At the outbreak of war in August 1914, Foch's XX Corps participated in the brief invasion of Germany before retiring in the face of a German counterattack and successfully blocking the Germans short of Nancy. Ordered west to the defence of Paris, Foch's prestige soared as a result of the victory at the Marne for which he was widely credited as a chief actor while commanding the French Ninth Army. The failure or stalemate of subsequent offensives—including the operations at Ypres and the Somme—led to Foch's removal from major commands, in which wartime political rivalries also played a part. Recalled to the front in 1917, Foch was made Marshal of France and ultimately "Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies" in 1918, at which time he played a decisive role in halting a renewed German advance on Paris in the Second Battle of the Marne.
Postwar historians took a less sanguine view of Foch's talents as commander, particularly as that idea took root that his military doctrines had set the stage for the futile and costly offensives of 1914 in which French armies suffered devastating losses. Both Foch's tactical ideas and his instincts as a commander are debated—Foch's counterattacks 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. One of his battlefield reports from the Marne—"Hard pressed on my right; center is yielding; impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent, I shall attack!"—won fame as a symbol both of Foch's leadership and of French determination to resist the invader at any cost. Foch lost his only son and his son-in-law in the war.
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. His words after the Treaty of Versailles, "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years" would prove prophetic; the Second World War started twenty years and sixty-five days later. In 1919 he was made a Field Marshal in the British Empire, and in 1923 a Marshal of Poland, adding to a long list of military decorations.

Foch was born in Tarbes, Hautes-Pyrénées as the son of a civil servant from Comminges. He attended school in Tarbes, Rodez, and the Jesuit College in St. Etienne. His brother was later a Jesuit and this may initially have hindered Foch's rise through the ranks of the French Army (since the Republican government of France was anti-clerical).
Foch enlisted in the French 4th Marine Infantry Regiment, in 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, and decided to stay in the army after the war. In 1871, Foch entered the École Polytechnique and received his commission as a Lieutenant in the 24th Artillery Regiment, in 1873, despite not having the time to complete his course due to the shortage of junior officers. He rose through the ranks, eventually reaching the rank of Captain before entering the Staff College in 1885. In 1895, he was to return to the College as an instructor and it is for his work here that he was later acclaimed as "the most original military thinker of his generation".[2] Turning to history for inspiration, Foch became known for his critical analyses of the Franco-Prussian and Napoleonic campaigns and of their relevance to the pursuit of military operations in the new century. His re-examination of France's painful defeat in 1870 was among the first of its kind.
In his career as instructor Foch created renewed interest in French military history, inspired confidence in a new class of French officers, and brought about "the intellectual and moral regeneration of the French Army".[1] His thinking on military doctrine was shaped by the Clausewitzian 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. Sadly, while Foch advised "qualification and discernment" in military strategy and cautioned that "recklessness in attack could lead to prohibitive losses and ultimate failure,"[3] his concepts, distorted and misunderstood by contemporaries, became associated with the extreme offensive doctrines (l'offensive à outrance) of his successors. The cult of the offensive came to dominate military circles; that Foch's books were cited in the development of Plan XVII, the disastrous offensive that brought France close to ruin in 1914, proved particularly damaging to his reputation.
Foch continued his initially slow rise through the ranks, being promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1898. Thereafter, his career accelerated and he returned to command in 1901, when he was posted to a regiment. He was promoted to become a Colonel in 1903. In 1905 Georges Clemenceau, then Prime Minister, determined to make use of his military ability to the full, irrespective of political considerations, and, after a short time spent as deputy chief of the general staff, he was appointed commandant of the École Militaire. Then Brigadier General (Général de Brigade) in 1907, returning to the Staff College as Commandant from 1907–1911. In 1911 he was promoted Major General (Général de Division) and then Lieutenant General (Général de corps d’Armée) in 1913, taking command of XXe Corps at Nancy. He had held this appointment exactly a year when he led the XX Corps into battle. Foch was then the only intellectual master of the Napoleonic school still serving. And the doctrines of the brilliant series of war school commandants, Maillard, Langlois, Bonnal, Foch, had been challenged, not only by the German school, but also since about 1911 by a new school of thought within the French army itself, which, under the inspiration of General Loiseau de Grandmaison, criticized them as lacking in vigour and offensive spirit, and conducing to needless dispersion of force. The younger men carried the day, and the French army took the field in 1914 governed by a new code of practice. But history decided at once and emphatically against the new idea in the first battles of August, and it remained to be seen whether the Napoleonic doctrine would hold its own, give way to doctrines evolved in the war itself, or, incorporating the new moral and technical elements and adapting itself to the war of national masses, reappear in a new outward form within which the spirit of Napoleon remained unaltered. To these questions the war had given an ambiguous answer which provided material for expert controversy

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