Montgomery was born in Kennington, London, in 1887. He was the fourth child of nine. His parents were The ReverendHenry Hutchinson Montgomery, an Anglo-IrishAnglicanpriest, and Maud Montgomery (née Farrar). Henry Montgomery was the second son of the noted British Indian Empire official, Sir Robert Montgomery, who died a month after Bernard's birth.[26] Bernard's mother Maud was the daughter of the well-known preacher Frederic William Farrar, and was eighteen years younger than her husband.[27] After the death of Sir Robert Montgomery, Henry inherited the Montgomery ancestral estate of New Park at Moville, a town on the Inishowen Peninsula of north County Donegal in the west of Ulster.
However, there was still £13,000 to pay on the mortgage, a large amount of money in the 1880s, and Henry was at the time still only a parish priest. Despite selling off farms at Ballynally, "there was barely enough to keep up New Park and pay for the summer holiday" (i.e., at New Park).[28] It was lucky that in 1889 Henry was made Bishop of Tasmania, then still a colony. He thought he had to spend as much time as possible in rural Tasmania and was away six months at a time. While he was away his wife, still in her mid-twenties, gave her children "constant" beatings,[29] or ignored them most of the time as she carried out the public duties of the bishop's wife. Of Bernard's brothers and sisters, Sibyl would die when she was very young in Tasmania, and Harold, Donald and Una would all emigrate. When her husband was absent, Maud Montgomery took little active interest in the education of her young children. She had them taught by tutors brought across from England. The loveless environment made Bernard something of a bully, as he himself later recalled "I was a dreadful little boy. I don't suppose anybody would put up with my sort of behaviour these days." Later in life Montgomery refused to allow his son David to have anything to do with his grandmother and he refused to attend her funeral in 1949.[

Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (Swedish pronunciation:(4 June 1867 – 27 January 1951) was the military leader of the Whites in the Finnish Civil War, Commander-in-Chief of Finland's Defence Forces during World War II, Marshal of Finland, and a Finnish statesman. He was Regent of Finland (1918–1919) and the sixth President of Finland (1944–1946).
Mannerheim was born in the Grand Principality of Finland, Russian Empire (name in Russian: Густав Карлович Ма́ннергейм), into a family of Swedish-speaking aristocrats who had settled in Finland in the late 18th century. His paternal German ancestor Marhein had emigrated to Sweden during the 17th century

His maternal ancestry has its roots in Södermanland, Sweden.[2]
He made a career in the Imperial Russian Army, rising to the rank of lieutenant general. He also had a prominent place in the ceremonies for TsarNicholas II's coronation and later had several private meetings with the Russian Tsar. After the Bolshevik revolution, Finland declared its independence but was soon embroiled in a civil war along class lines. The working class overwhelmingly held a socialist ("Red") creed; whereas the aristocracy, landowners, and the middle-class held a capitalist ("White") creed. Mannerheim was appointed the military chief of the Whites. Twenty years later, when Finland was at war with the Soviet Union during 1939–1944, Mannerheim successfully led the defence of Finland as commander-in-chief of the country's armed forces. In 1944, when prospect of Germany's defeat in World War II became clear, Mannerheim was elected President of Finland and oversaw peace negotiations with the Soviet Union and the Allies. He resigned the presidency in 1946 and died in 1951, retaining universal respect as Finland's greatest statesman.

Early life
The Mannerheim family descends from a German businessman and mill owner from Hamburg, Hinrich Marhein (1618–1667), who emigrated to Gävle in Sweden and adopted the Swedish spelling of his first name, Henrik. His son Augustin Marhein changed his surname to Mannerheim and was raised to the nobility by King Charles XI in 1693. His son, an artillery colonel and mill manager, Johan Augustin Mannerheim, was raised to the status of Baron at the same time as his brother in 1768. The Mannerheim family came to Finland, then an integral part of Sweden, in the latter part of 18th century. (It was long believed that Hinrich Marhein had emigrated to Sweden from the Netherlands, but recent studies have shown this belief to be erroneous).[1] Mannerheim was also of Scottish ancestry on his paternal side, his ancestor George Wright (the founder of the Von Wright line of Finnish nobility) having emigrated from Dundee to Sweden in the 17th century.[3]
Mannerheim's great-grandfather, Count Carl Erik Mannerheim (1759–1837), had held a number of offices in Finland's civil service during the early years of the autonomous Russian Grand Principality of Finland, including membership in the Senate, and served as the first Prime Minister of Finland (formally the Vice Chairman of the Economic Department of the Senate - the Senate consisted of Economic Department, later the cabinet, and the Justice Dpt, later the Supreme Court, and the formal chairman of both was the Governor General as the acting head of state). In 1825, he was promoted to the rank of Count (in Finnish Kreivi, in Swedish Greve). Mannerheim's grandfather, Count Carl Gustaf Mannerheim (1797–1854), was a renowned entomologist and served as President of the Viipuri Court of Appeals. Mannerheim's grandmother Countess Eva Wilhelmina Mannerheim, née Schantz, was one of the leading figures in Finnish high society.[citation needed]
Mannerheim's father, Carl Robert, Count Mannerheim (1835–1914), was a playwright who held liberal and radical political ideas but was an businessman and industrialist whose success varied. Count Robert was president of Kuusankoski Ltd, the first producer of rotation paper in Northern Europe, and began the import of modern business machinery with his company Systema. His children sold Systema by management buy out year 1914. Mannerheim's mother, Hedvig Charlotta Helena (Hélène) von Julin (1842–1881), was the daughter of the wealthy industrialist Johan Jacob von Julin, who owned the Fiskarsironworks and village.
Gustaf Mannerheim was born in the family home, Louhisaari Manor in Askainen. As the third child of the family he inherited the title of Baron (in Finnish Vapaaherra, in Swedish Friherre; only the eldest son would inherit the title of Count).

Despite his businesses, his father ran into difficulties in the late 1870s.
- He suffered from a hypomania personality disorder, which manifested itself in his being overly optimistic in financial dealings. His addiction to gambling worsened the situation and he went bankrupt in 1880. To cover his debts he was forced to sell Louhisaari and his other landed estates to his sister, as well as his large art collection. He left his wife and moved to Paris with his mistress, becoming a bohemian.

He returned to Helsinki and founded the Systema company 1887, and was its manager until his death.

Countess Hélène, shaken by the bankruptcy and her husband's desertion, took their seven children to live with her aunt Louise at this aunt's estate in Sällvik. Hélène died the following year from a heart attack, caused by her shame and depression.

Her death left the children to be brought up by relatives, making Gustaf Mannerheim's maternal uncle Albert von Julin his legal guardian
Because of the worsened family finances and Gustaf Mannerheim's serious discipline problems in school, Albert von Julin decided to send him to the school of the Finnish Cadet Corps in Hamina in 1882 to learn self-discipline (something he excelled in as an adult) and a profession.

Beside his mother tongue, Swedish, Mannerheim would learn to speak Finnish, Russian, French, German and English. However, due to his service in the Russian armed forces from 1887 to 1917, Mannerheim forgot most of the Finnish he had learned in his childhood, and would have to learn the language again in later life. In fact, he would speak Finnish with a strong accent and, in the Civil War, depended on a translator. He also spoke Polish and Portuguese and understood some Mandarin Chinese.[citation needed]
In his youth, Gustaf Mannerheim also had to learn how to budget and economize, due to his family's worsened financial status. He was humiliated by having to ask his uncle Albert for money for every small purchase. He was also forced to read his uncle's and other relatives' numerous exhortations to frugality and good conduct. The disciplinary problems continued.Mannerheim heartily disliked the school and the narrow social circles in Hamina. In the end, he rebelled by going on leave without permission in 1886, - for which he was expelled from the Finnish Cadet Corps.
As a military career in the Finnish army was closed to Gustaf, the only choice left was a career in the Russian armed forces. Young Gustaf was not averse to this idea. His first choice had been, while still in the Finnish Cadet Corps, to enter the Imperial Page School in St Petersburg. But his report from the Finnish Cadet Corps, with his bad conduct at school, made this impossible.[13]
After spending some time with Albert von Julin's brother-in-law, Edvard Bergenheim, at Kharkov, in modern Ukraine - where he received lessons in Russian[14] - Mannerheim attended the Helsinki Private Lyceum, passing his university entrance examinations in June 1887.[15] Now he had a better school report to show than the one from the Finnish Cadet Corps. He wrote to his godmother, Baroness Alfhild Scalon de Coligny, who had connections at the Russian court, to help him enter the Nicholas Cavalry School. His real wish was to join the Chevalier Guard, but his relatives balked at the costs, so he dropped it. His godmother invited him to her husband's country house, Lukianovka, in the summer of 1887. There Gustaf worked to improve his Russian. While in Russia, he spent some time at a military camp at Chuguyev, which strengthened his decision to choose a career in the military.[15]
At the end of July 1887, Gustaf was informed that he could take the entrance examination of the Nicolas Cavalry School in St. Petersburg. He passed it and swore his soldier's oath to the Tsar of Russia on 16 September 1887.[16] He graduated in 1889 tenth in his class after having fallen from second after a drunken argument about Finnish autonomy with a superior officer. He swore to never drink to excess again.[17] Mannerheim was commissioned as a Cornet. He was posted to the 15th Alexandriyski Dragoons at Kalisz on the German border

الوالد تعرض لمشاكل مالية ومرض نفسيا. هجر الام وسافر مع عشيقته. الام على ماتت على اثر ذلك من الكآبة والحزن بجلطة قلبية. الاولاد تركوا ليربوا من قبل الاقارب.

يتيم اجتماعي بسبب غياب الاب ويتيم فعلي حيث ماتت الام وهو في سن الـ 14.

Benedict Arnold (January 14, 1741 [O.S. January 3, 1740][1][2] – June 14, 1801) was a general during the American Revolutionary War who originally fought for the American Continental Army but defected to the British Army. While a general on the American side, he obtained command of the fort at West Point, New York, and plotted to surrender it to the British forces. After the plot was exposed in September 1780, he was commissioned into the British Army as a brigadier general.
Born in Connecticut, Arnold was a merchant operating ships on the Atlantic Ocean when the war broke out in 1775. After joining the growing army outside Boston, he distinguished himself through acts of intelligence and bravery. His actions included the Capture of Fort Ticonderoga in 1775, defensive and delaying tactics despite losing the Battle of Valcour Island on Lake Champlain in 1776, the Battle of Ridgefield, Connecticut (after which he was promoted to major general), operations in relief of the Siege of Fort Stanwix, and key actions during the pivotal Battles of Saratoga in 1777, in which he suffered leg injuries that ended his combat career for several years.
Despite Arnold's successes, he was passed over for promotion by the Continental Congress while other officers claimed credit for some of his accomplishments.[3] Adversaries in military and political circles brought charges of corruption or other malfeasance, but most often he was acquitted in formal inquiries. Congress investigated his accounts and found he was indebted to Congress after spending much of his own money on the war effort. Frustrated and bitter, Arnold decided to change sides in 1779, and opened secret negotiations with the British. In July 1780, he was offered, continued to pursue and was awarded command of West Point. Arnold's scheme to surrender the fort to the British was exposed when American forces captured British Major John André carrying papers that revealed the plot. Upon learning of André's capture, Arnold fled down the Hudson River to the British sloop-of-war Vulture, narrowly avoiding capture by the forces of George Washington, who had been alerted to the plot.
Arnold received a commission as a brigadier general in the British Army, an annual pension of £360, and a lump sum of over £6,000.[4] He led British forces on raids in Virginia, and nearly captured Thomas Jefferson, and against New London and Groton, Connecticut, before the war effectively ended with the American victory at Yorktown. In the winter of 1782, Arnold moved to London with his second wife, Margaret "Peggy" Shippen Arnold. He was well received by King George III and the Tories but frowned upon by the Whigs. In 1787, he entered into mercantile business with his sons Richard and Henry in Saint John, New Brunswick, but returned to London to settle permanently in 1791, where he died ten years later.
Because of the way he changed sides, his name quickly became a byword in the United States for treason or betrayal.[5] His conflicting legacy is recalled in the ambiguous nature of some of the memorials that have been placed in his honor.

Benedict was born the second of six children to Benedict Arnold (1683–1761) and Hannah Waterman King in Norwich, Connecticut, on January 14, 1741.[1] Like his father and grandfather, as well as an older brother who died in infancy, he was named after his great-grandfather Benedict Arnold, an early governor of the Colony of Rhode Island.[1] Only Benedict and his sister Hannah survived to adulthood; his other siblings succumbed to yellow fever in childhood.[6] His siblings were, in order of birth: Benedict (August 15, 1738 – April 30, 1739), Hannah (December 9, 1742 – August 11, 1803), Mary (June 4, 1745 – September 10, 1753), Absolom (April 4, 1747 – July 22, 1750) and Elizabeth (November 19, 1749 – September 29, 1755). Through his maternal grandmother, Arnold was a descendant of John Lothropp, an ancestor of at least four U.S. presidents.[7]
Arnold's father was a successful businessman, and the family moved in the upper levels of Norwich society. When he was ten, Arnold was enrolled in a private school in nearby Canterbury, with the expectation that he would eventually attend Yale. However, the deaths of his siblings two years later may have contributed to a decline in the family fortunes, since his father took up drinking. By the time he was fourteen, there was no money for private education. His father's alcoholism and ill health kept him from training Arnold in the family mercantile business, but his mother's family connections secured an apprenticeship for Arnold with two of her cousins, brothers Daniel and Joshua Lathrop, who operated a successful apothecary and general merchandise trade in Norwich.[8] His apprenticeship with the Lathrops lasted seven years.[9]
In 1755, Arnold, attracted by the sound of a drummer, attempted to enlist in the provincial militia for service against the French, but his mother refused permission.[10] In 1757, when he was sixteen, he did enlist in the militia, which marched off toward Albany and Lake George. The French had besieged Fort William Henry, and their Indian allies had committed atrocities after their victory. Word of the siege's disastrous outcome led the company to turn around; Arnold served for 13 days.[11] A commonly accepted story that Arnold deserted from militia service in 1758 is based on uncertain documentary evidence.
Arnold's mother, to whom he was very close, died in 1759. His father's alcoholism worsened after the death of his wife, and the youth took on the responsibility of supporting his father and younger sister. His father was arrested on several occasions for public drunkenness, was refused communion by his church, and eventually died in 1761.[

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (pronounced [musˈtäfä ceˈmäl ätäˈtyɾc]; 19 May 1881 (Conventional) – 10 November 1938) was an Ottoman and Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman, writer, and the first President of Turkey. He is credited with being the founder of the Republic of Turkey. His surname, Atatürk (meaning "Father of the Turks"), was granted to him (and forbidden to any other person) in 1934 by the Turkish parliament.
Atatürk was a military officer during World War I.[1] Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, he led the Turkish national movement in the Turkish War of Independence. Having established a provisional government in Ankara, he defeated the forces sent by the Allies. His military campaigns gained Turkey independence. Atatürk then embarked upon a program of political, economic, and cultural reforms, seeking to transform the former Ottoman Empire into a modern, westernized and secular nation-state. Under his leadership, thousands of new schools were built, primary education was made free and compulsory, while the burden of taxation on peasants was reduced.[2] The principles of Atatürk's reforms, upon which modern Turkey was established, are referred to as Kemalism.

Mustafa was born on an undetermined date in the early months of 1881, either in the Ahmed Subaşı neighbourhood or in Islahhane Street (present-day Apostolou Pavlou Street) in the Koca Kasım Pasha neighbourhood (this house is preserved as a museum) in Salonica (present-day Thessaloniki),[3] Ottoman Empire, to his mother Zübeyde Hanım (a housewife) and father Ali Rıza Efendi (a militia officer, title-deed clerk and lumber trader). Only one of Atatürk's siblings, a sister named Makbule (Atadan) survived childhood; she died in 1956.[4] According to Andrew Mango, he was born into a family which was Muslim, Turkish-speaking and precariously middle-class.[5] According to Encyclopaedia Judaica, one assertion that was commonly made by many Jews of Salonika was that Kemal Atatürk was of Doenmeh (crypto-Jewish) origin. Many of Atatürk’s religious opponents eagerly embraced this view.[6] His father Ali Rıza is thought to be of Albanian origin by some;[7][8][9][10][11] however, according to Falih Rıfkı Atay, Ali Rıza's ancestors were Turks, ultimately descending from Söke in the Aydın Province of Anatolia.[12][13] His mother Zübeyde is thought to be of Turkish origin[9][10] and according to Şevket Süreyya Aydemir, she was of Yörük ancestry.[14]
Born Mustafa, his second name Kemal (meaning Perfection or Maturity) was given to him by his mathematics teacher, Captain Üsküplü Mustafa Efendi, according to Afet Inan in admiration of his capability and maturity,[15][16] and according to Ali Fuat Cebesoy, because his teacher Mustafa Efendi wanted to distinguish his student who carried the same name with him,[17] although his biographer Andrew Mango suggests that he may have chosen the name himself as a tribute to the nationalist poet Namık Kemal.[18] In his early years, his mother encouraged Mustafa to attend a religious school, something he did reluctantly and only briefly. Later, he attended the Şemsi Efendi School (a private school with a more secular curriculum) at the direction of his father. His parents wanted him to learn a trade, but without consulting them, Atatürk took the entrance exam for the Salonica Military School (Selanik Askeri Rüştiyesi ) in 1893. In 1896, he enrolled into the Monastir Military High School. On 14 March 1899,[19] he enrolled at the Ottoman Military Academy in the neighbourhood of Pangaltı[20] within the Şişli district of the Ottoman capital city Constantinople[21] (modern Istanbul in Turkey) and graduated in 1902. He later graduated from the Ottoman Military College in Constantinople on 11 January 1905.[1

Ali Rıza Efendi (1839 – 1888) was the father of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the husband of Zübeyde Hanım

يتيم الاب في سن الـ 7

Fisher is primarily celebrated as an innovator, strategist and developer of the navy rather than a seagoing admiral involved in major battles, although in his career he experienced all these things. When appointed First Sea Lord in 1904 he removed 150 ships then on active service but which were no longer useful and set about constructing modern replacements, creating a modern fleet prepared to meet Germany during World War I.[5]
Fisher saw the need to improve the range, accuracy and firing rate of naval gunnery, and was an early proponent of the use of the torpedo, which he believed would supersede big guns for use against ships. As Controller, he introduced torpedo boat destroyers as a class of ship intended for defence against attack from torpedo boats or submarines. As First Sea Lord, he was responsible for the construction of HMS Dreadnought, the first all-big-gun battleship, but he also believed that submarines would become increasingly important and urged their development. He was involved with the introduction of turbine engines to replace reciprocating designs, and the introduction of oil fuelling to replace coal. He introduced daily baked bread on board ships, whereas when he entered the service it was customary to eat hard biscuits, frequently infested by weevils.[6]

Tōgō was born on 27 January 1848 (by the Western calendar) in the Kajiyacho district of the city of Kagoshima in Satsuma domain (modern-day Kagoshima prefecture), in feudal Japan, the third of four sons of Tōgō Sanetomo (1805-1867), a samurai serving the Shimazu daimyo, and Hori Masuko (1812-1901).

Kajiyacho was one of Kagoshima's samurai housing-districts, in which many other influential figures of the Meiji period were born, such as Saigō Takamori and Ōkubo Toshimichi. They rose to prominent positions under the Meiji Emperor partly because the Shimazu clan had been a decisive military and political factor in the Boshin war against the Tokugawa Shogunate during the Meiji Restoration.

[Tokugawa conflicts (1863–1869

Tōgō's first experience at war was at the age of 15 during the Bombardment of Kagoshima (August 1863), in which Kagoshima was shelled by the Royal Navy to punish the Satsuma daimyo for the death of Charles Lennox Richardson on the Tōkaidō highway the previous year (the Namamugi Incident), and the Japanese refusal to pay an indemnity in compensation.
The following year, Satsuma established a navy, in which Tōgō and two of his brothers enrolled. In January 1868, during the Boshin War, Tōgō was assigned to the paddle-wheel steam warship Kasuga, which participated to the Naval Battle of Awa, near Osaka, against the navy of the Tokugawa Bakufu, the first Japanese naval battle between two modern fleets.
As the conflict spread to northern Japan, Tōgō participated as a third-class officer aboard the Kasuga in the last battles against the remnants of the Bakufu forces, the Naval Battle of Miyako and the Naval Battle of Hakodate (1869).
Tōgō studied naval science for seven years in England as an apprentice officer, from 1871 to 1878, together with sixteen (or eleven?) other Japanese students. Tōgō visited London, at that time the largest and most populous city in the world. Many things were strange to Japanese eyes; the round houses made out of stone, the 'number and massiveness of the buildings', 'the furnishings of a commonplace European room', 'the displays in the butchers' shop windows: it took them several days to become accustomed to such an abundance of meat.' The Japanese group was separated and sent to English boardinghouses for individual instruction in English language, customs and manners. Next, Tōgō was sent to Plymouth, where he was assigned as a cadet on HMS Worcester, which was part of the Thames Nautical Training College, in 1872. Tōgō found his cadet rations 'inadequate': "I swallowed my small rations in a moment. I formed the habit of dipping my bread in my tea and eating a great deal of it, to the surprise of my English comrades." This was attributed possibly to Tōgō's 'Far Eastern metabolism', the lack of rice, 'or that some other essential element was missing; or perhaps the climatic differences sharpened his appetite.' Perhaps the excitement of his adventure contributed, or maybe Togo just liked the food. Tōgō's comrades called him 'Johnny Chinaman', being unfamiliar with the 'Orient', and not knowing the difference between Asiatic peoples. 'The young samurai did not like that, and on more than one occasion he put an end to it by blows.' Tōgō also surprised these young Englishmen by graduating second in the class.
During 1875, Tōgō circumnavigated the world as an ordinary seaman on the British training-ship Hampshire, leaving in February and staying seventy days at sea without a port call until reaching Melbourne, eating only salted meat and ship's biscuits. Tōgō 'observed the strange animals on the Southern continent.' On his return, Tōgō had sailed thirty thousand miles. Tōgō suffered a strange illness which severely threatened his eyesight: 'the patient asked his medical advisers to "try everything", and some of their experiments were extremely painful.' Mr. Capel commented later, 'If', he wrote, 'I had not seen with my own eyes what a Japanese can suffer without complaint, I should often have been disinclined to believe....But, having observed Tōgō, I believe all of them.' The Harley Street ophthalmologists saved his eyesight. Tōgō studied mathematics in Cambridge (though not at the University) during this time, while living with Reverend A.S. Capel. Tōgō then went to the Royal Naval Academy in Portsmouth, and to the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. During his stay, the Imperial Japanese Navy placed orders in Great Britain for three warships. Tōgō made use of the opportunity to apply his training, supervising (watching carefully) the construction of the Fusō whilst on work experience at the Samuda Brothers shipyard on the Isle of Dogs.
Tōgō, newly promoted to lieutenant finally returned to Japan on 22 May 1878 onboard one of the newly-purchased British-built ships, the Hiei.
Tōgō was absent from Japan during the Satsuma Rebellion, and often expressed regret for the fate of his benefactor Saigō Takamori.

Moshe Dayan

; 20 May 1915 – 16 October 1981) was an Israeli military leader and politician. The fourth Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (1953–58), he became a fighting symbol to the world of the new State of Israel. He went on to become Defense Minister and later Foreign Minister of Israel.

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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