Talk:Ferdinand Foch

message: Generalissimo is italian and has no link back to Foch. Maxime Weygand article calls him Supreme Allied Commander, again an article apparently that has nothing to do with WWI and Foch. Perhaps somebody who knows more about this era and Foch should fix that matter. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 10:54, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I read a book by John Keegan on WWI which specifically uses the word "Generalissimo."  I will source it if I can remember later. - Borg Sphere (talk) 17:31, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Added the inline citation.  Hope I helped. Borg Sphere (talk) 17:22, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  WWI position? 

message: What is Foch's ethnic backround? Foch doesn't exactly sound French.
the ethnicity of Foch is quite french. in 1914, he wa at the head of the XX army corps (and not the XXX)
:He's French by birth and never claimed to be anything but. Ethnically, however, he was the son of a Basque father and an Alsatian (the German-speaking people of Alsace) mother. His last name is Basque, derived from "fioch," the Basque word for fire. France has many Basques and Alsatians, they're French citizens just like everyone else.
:Foch was born in Tarbes to Napoléon Foch and Sophie Dupré. Napoléon Foch was from a family whose roots were in the village of Valentine in neighbouring Comminges (Haute-Garonne, former Gascony) : Foch is a Gascon surname meaning "Foix" which is another town in the Pyrenees. Sophie Dupré was born in Argelès (Hautes-Pyrénées) near the Spanish border.
http://gw4.geneanet.org/index.php3?b=pdelaubier&lang=fr&m=N&v=Foch  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.250.67.96 (talk) 22:50, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Now, the article claims that Foch is a Breton (neither Basque nor Gascon) name. What's right?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.230.56.89 (talk) 17:02, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Ethnicity?

message: This article needs major improvement. Foch was a very significant figure in the French Army during the First World War and the paragraph concerning that conflict only deals with his role in 1918. J Gez M 17:02, 1st March 2006
You are, of course, welcome to make additions to the article to make it better. john k 19:08, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Work

message: Tried to improve things a bit as part of the collaboration of the week.  I am happy to report that it is now much more substantial than the French Wiki article. Andreas 16:21, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes 

message: I am assuming that this article has been expanded since the Military History rating.  There is  good basic information here.  ludahai 魯大海 23:38, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Rating

message: The article seems to give Foch large amounts of credit out of context.  For example it credits Foch with the defense during the Spring Offensive when Petain deserves as much or more credit.  The section about WWI seems to only focus on the good and magnifies that while ignoring the bad and the major downfalls of Foch as a commander.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tempestswordsman (talk • contribs) 01:40, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible Neutrality Issues 

message: In the wake of present events, I've heard a quotation supposedly attributed to Foch:
"The aeroplane is all very good for sport. For the army, it is useless."
A short while with google reveals the line - or some variation thereof - to be attributed to Foch, but with no citation, and no mention of date or context.
So, urban myth ? Or quotation taken out of context - originally referring to some specific unreliable aircraft, perhaps ?
86.25.120.204 (talk) 17:01, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Barbara Tuchman ("The Guns of August", 1962) traces it to a book called "Les Officiers" by Victor Monteil (1958). Presumably the trail runs cold there, as she provides no primary cite...Paulturtle (talk) 12:17, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Foch's scorn for aircraft - true or myth ? 

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thread_title: File:Ferdinand foch grabmal.jpg Nominated for Deletion

message: I have edited the introduction and reduced it by 60 words. Following is the text. If approved and asked, I'll alter the introduction.
[Marshal Ferdinand Foch (French pronunciation: [fɔʃ]), GCB, OM, DSO (2 October 1851 – 20 March 1929) - a First World War hero - was a French soldier and military theorist.
A native of Tarbes, France, Foch enlisted in the infantry during the Franco-Prussian War and later graduated from the École d'application de l'artillerie et du génie as artillery officer.
For his scholarship of military history and strategic skills, he was appointed instructor at Staff College. At the outbreak of WWI he successfully blocked the German counterattack short of Nancy and later won laurels for defending Paris while commanding the French Ninth Army. The subsequent failure offensives—including the operations at Ypres and the Somme—led to Foch's removal from major commands. Recalled as Chief of the General Staff in 1917, Foch was ultimately appointed "Generalissimo of the Allied Armies" in the spring of 1918. He played a decisive role in halting a renewed German advance on Paris in the Second Battle of the Marne, after which he was promoted Marshal of France.
Accepting the German request for an armistice in November 1918, 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.] --StarryEyed (talk) 08:31, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Marshal Ferdinand Foch Introduction 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Considering the fact that he has his own page on Wikiquote, should the Quotations section be removed?142.156.1.225 (talk) 14:24, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quotations 

message: The section on "Military thought" is as follows as of 20190319:
"Foch was later acclaimed as "the most original military thinker of his generation".[7] He became known for his critical analyses of the Franco-Prussian and Napoleonic campaigns and of their relevance to military operations in the new twentieth Century. His re-examination of France's defeat in 1870 was among the first of its kind. At the College, Foch was a professor of military history, strategy and general tactics while becoming the French theorist on offensive strategies.
During his time as an 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".[8] 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. While Foch advised "qualification and discernment" in military strategy and cautioned that "recklessness in attack could lead to prohibitive losses and ultimate failure,"[9] 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, and Foch's reputation was damaged when his books were cited in the development of the disastrous offensive that brought France close to ruin in August 1914.
Foch was seen as a master of the Napoleonic school of military thought, but he was the only one of the Military College Commandants (Maillard, Langlois, Bonnal) still serving. Their doctrines had been challenged, not only by the German school, but also since about 1911 by a new French school inspired by General Loiseau de Grandmaison, which criticised them as lacking in vigour and offensive spirit, and contributing to needless dispersion of force. The French Army fought under the new doctrines, but they failed in the first battles of August 1914, and it remained to be seen whether the Napoleonic doctrine would hold its own, would give way to doctrines evolved during the war, or would incorporate the new moral and technical elements into a new outward form within which the spirit of Napoleon remained unaltered. The war gave an ambiguous answer to these questions, which remains a source of controversy among experts.[10]"
This is an excellent section to have and is in fairly good shape. But it needs someone with knowledge to elaborate more on the distinction between the Napoleonic school as rearticulated by Foch and the second French school of Grandmaison, and with regard to the quickly passed over reference to the German school, which is offered as contrast without any definition. 
I suggest a promising avenue would be to lay out Foch's recognition of the importance of will [seems obvious] to win as a first condition in the context of others, including "fire" and the relative capacity of the offense and defense, as against Grandmaison's and others' arguable overemphasis on will and morale and on a particular subset of offensive tactics. As well as their distinctions on the operational and strategic levels vis a vis plan XVII, which is better addressed elsewhere but the strategic level needs to be represented here with regard to the two French perspectives. I think the distinction between the schools is probably clear enough, but here it demonstrably is not. And it needs to be done in such a way to make it clear that Foch still was an advocate of the offensive in theory and practice. He just was less dogmatic and more pragmatic about conditions. Thanks to anyone who can tackle this. Random noter (talk) 20:39, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Military thought 

message: Hi, I added in sources his official records (birth and death certificates). I will add later his services records and promotions in the Legion of Honour. What surprised me is that nowhere is his name Ferdinand Jean-Marie Foch. His birth certificate is at the name of Ferdinand, but also his death certificate, his service records, his promotions. Every single official source never uses Jean Marie.
So I removed it. This is a pure invention that was kept for whatever reason. 
His records (culture.gouv.fr)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by CocoricoPolynesien (talk • contribs) 20:00, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name 

message: Did he ever visit Poland? Did he speak Polish? He was made a marshal of Poland and this is why I am asking. 2A00:23C7:5882:8201:1B:E11:8CC4:81D6 (talk) 15:48, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poland 

message: This part of the introduction is a confusing run-on sentence. 
I would edit it but I don't know anything about the man, and I wouldn't feel comfortable without resources corresponding to the information. Also, other than being names Allied Commanders, the other information doesn't belong in the introduction IMO.
An aggressive commander [says who? in what way?], at the First Marne, Flanders and Artois campaigns [they're battles, the Western Front could be considered a campaign] of 1914–1916, Foch became the Allied Commander-in-Chief [this reads as Foch became the allied commander as a result of being aggressive at the mentioned battles, then says he became commander in the face of the German offensive years later; it's unclear] in late March 1918 in the face of the all-out German spring offensive, which pushed the Allies back using fresh soldiers and new tactics that trenches could not withstand. MrWrightEsq. (talk) 07:38, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Being named allied commander* MrWrightEsq. (talk) 00:36, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction clarification