Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1919-01-11
CHARACTERIzlNC
MARSHAL FOCH

r. RI - aeLl w EE1HNEI 49, haEsGS H.E-Fa%r.itu sNfa
OF General Foch. Marshal Of
France. many things will come to be
written. Fiographer, historian,
dramaust aid poet will vie with one
another to depict the unique genius
OF this French soldier, whose strategy,
courage and confidence in the hour Of
peril. as in the hour Of victory, have
been so brilliantly conspicuous. To-
day no tribute to his character and
achievements is of greater interest
than, that coming from a French Of
ficer who has during-this time served
under him, with the opportunity, not
only Of observing at close range those
successes with which the world Is
familiar, hut also in many instances
the preliminary steps which Gull
minated in thu triumph of the Allies
and the defeat Of the enemy.
Ferdinand Foch served as a youth
of 10 in the Franco-Prussian war.
Taken prisoner. he returned after
peace had been declared to a mutilat-
ed and stricken country. He began
his training Immediately fora soldier
of artillery in tina army Of which n
day he was to be the inspiration and
the glory. 1t would seem as though
no la ever took his profession more
seriously. Studying profoundly the
past victories and defeats of France
upon the battlefield, more especially
the strategy Of the great Napoleon
and the blunders of the Franco-Prus-
sian war, he determined that the
French soldier should be taught to
profit by both. He understood why
O Moltke had defeated France in
1870: the. methods of Won Moltke were
also to be the methods of o. linden
burg and Won Ludendorf.
The success of the German army
had been, and was again to be for a
time assured owing to their great ef-
fectives and the perfection of their
organization. Their strategy, gov
erned by p~reconceived ideas and
based upon hypothesis, had succeeded
in 1870 in Toch's opinion owing to
faulty French generalship, for he re-
garded it as dangerous and unsound.
At the erd of the Nineteenth Cen
fury and again at the beginning of
the Twentieth Cctury, Foch was in.
%structor at the Military School of
France. OF the influence that he ex-
crciscd. not only by reason of his
military erudition and power of i'm
parting knowledge, but by reason also
of the immense weight he placed up
on the moral equipment Of the SOL
der, his own country and indeed the
whole world is destined to reap the
benefit in no small measure.
When war broke out he was first
ant to Nancy, where he did brilliant
work in the early months of the Ger
nan invasion. During. the Battle of
the Marine. he commanded the center
Of the line with tho ninth army. 1t is
recorded during these fateful hours
that he tclearaphed to headquarters
the following message: My center is
giving way my rights in retreat: sit
uation excellent. I attack" Those
who remember his statement, "a bat
tie won is a battle in which one re-
fuses to admit oneself beaten" will
find the story a wholly characteristic
one of the Generalissimo:.
No more sincere or gracious testi-
mony to the great soldier. who during
these years not only led France to
victory. but in her darkest hours sus-
tanned her courage n confidence by
his own unfaltering conviction in the
final issue, has been paid than by the
president of the French republic. NJ.
P%oincare. During those early days in
March. before the unified command
had been agreed upon. before General
Pershing on that sever-memorable
occasion which was to win for Amer
lea the immediate and enthusiastic
gratitude of France, had placed the
armies under him at the disposal of
the French higher command, when
the onrusl1 of the enemy troops
seemed irresistible. General Foch
recognized for Franco not possible
defeat. but certain victory: Whatever
the situation. he declared in 1917. in
order to avoid mistakes and disasters,
in order to know how to act and when
to act, there is one remedy alone, 1.-The
exclusive cultivation in the most lofty
and exact sense of two qualities: Duty
and Discipline"
This moral superiority" wrote NJ.
P~oincare to him last August. in offer
ing him the baton of the Marshal Of
France, you have preserved as a
sacred fame. How many times in
anxious hours on the User and on the
Sonlne have l not witnessed your
energy and your tenacity."
OF three things Foch before 1914
was convince6-of the superiority of
individual responsibility and initiative
in the army. to ~preconceived ideas
based on hypothesis. of the great
weight to be placed upon the moral
factor in the equipment Of a. soldier,
and upon the magnifcent fighting
qualities Of the French people. Dur
ing the last four years it has been
proved triumphantly That in these
three contentious he was right.