Ferdinand Foch Marshal Ferdinand Foch ( ) , ( 2 October 1851 – 20 March 1929 ) was a French soldier , military theorist , and an Allied Generalissimo during the First World War . 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 . He was then promoted again to command Army Group North , in which role he was required to cooperate with the British forces at Ypres and the Somme . At the end of 1916 , partly owing to the failure or stalemate of these offensives and partly owing to wartime political rivalries , Foch was removed from command . Recalled as Chief of the General Staff in 1917 , Foch was ultimately appointed " Commander - in - Chief ( 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 to Marshal of France . 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 . After the Treaty of Versailles , because Germany was allowed to remain a united country , Foch declared " This is not a peace . It is an armistice for twenty years " . His words proved prophetic : the Second World War started twenty years and 65 days later . In 1919 he was made an honorary Field Marshal in the British Empire , and in 1923 a Marshal of Poland , adding to a long list of military decorations . Early life . 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 , which 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 , he 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 returned to the College as an instructor and it is for his work there that he was later acclaimed as " the most original military thinker of his generation " . 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 " . 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 , " 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 . 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 to Général de Division ( equivalent to the rank of Major General ) and then in 1913 took command of the French XX Corps at Nancy . He had held this appointment exactly a year when he led the XX Corps into battle . Foch was seen as a master of the Napoleonic school of military thought , but he was the only one of the war school 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 criticized them as lacking in vigor 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 remained a source of controversy between experts . Foch influenced General Joseph Joffre ( chief of general staff , July 28 , 1911 - Dec . 12 , 1916 ) when he drafted the French plan of campaign ( Plan 17 ) in 1913 . World War I . 1914 . On the outbreak of the war , Foch was in command of XX Corps , part of the Second Army of General de Castelnau . On 14 August the corps advanced towards the Sarrebourg - Morhange line , taking heavy casualties in the Battle of the Frontiers . The defeat of the French XV Corps to its right forced Foch into retreat . Foch acquitted himself well , covering the withdrawal to Nancy and the Charmes Gap before launching a counter - attack that prevented the Germans from crossing the Meurthe . Foch was then selected to command the newly formed Ninth Army during the First Battle of the Marne with Maxime Weygand as his Chief of Staff . Only a week after taking command , with the whole French Army in full retreat , he was forced to fight a series of defensive actions to prevent a German breakthrough . During the advance at the marshes in St . - Gond he is said to have declared : " My center is yielding . My right is retreating . Situation excellent . I am attacking . " These words were seen as a symbol both of Foch ' s leadership and of French determination to resist the invader at any cost , although there is little evidence that Foch actually said them . Foch ' s counter - attack was an implementation of the theories he had developed during his staff college days and succeeded in stopping the German advance . Foch received further reinforcements from the Fifth Army and , following another attack on his forces , counter - attacked again on the Marne . The Germans dug in before eventually retreating . On 12 September , Foch regained the Marne at Châlons and liberated the city . The people of Châlons greeted as a hero the man widely believed to have been instrumental in stopping the retreat and stabilising the Allied position . Receiving thanks from the Bishop of Châlons ( Joseph - Marie Tissier ) , Foch piously replied , " " non nobis , Domine , non nobis , sed nomini tuo da gloriam . " " ( " Not unto us , o Lord , not unto us , but to Your name give glory " , Psalm 115 : 1 ) . Foch ' s successes gained him a further promotion on 4 October , when he was appointed assistant commander - in - chief with responsibility for co - ordinating the activities of the northern French armies and liaising with the British forces . This was a key appointment as the Race to the Sea was then in progress . Joseph Joffre , commander - in - chief of the French Army , had also wanted to nominate Foch as his successor " in case of accident " , to make sure the job would not be given to Joseph Gallieni , but the French government would not agree to this . When the Germans attacked on 13 October , they narrowly failed to break through the British and French lines . They tried again at the end of the month during the First Battle of Ypres , this time suffering terrible casualties . Foch had again succeeded in coordinating a defense and winning against the odds . John French , the head of the British Expeditionary Force , ( BEF ) had described Foch in August 1914 to J . E . B . Seely , a liaison officer , as “ the sort of man with whom I know I can get on ” and later in February 1915 described him to Lord Selbourne as “ the best general in the world ” . By contrast , William Robertson , another British officer , thought that Foch was “ rather a flat - catcher , a mere professor , and very talkative ” ( 28 September 1915 ) . On 2 December 1914 , King George V appointed him an honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath . 1915 – 16 . In 1915 , his responsibilities by now crystallised into command of the Northern Army Group , he conducted the Artois Offensive , and , in 1916 , the French effort at the Battle of the Somme . He was strongly criticized for his tactics and the heavy casualties that were suffered by the Allied armies during these battles , and in December 1916 was removed from command by Joffre and sent to command Allied units on the Italian front ; Joffre was himself sacked days later . 1917 . Just a few months later , after the failure of General Robert Nivelle ' s offensive , General Philippe Pétain , the hero of Verdun , was appointed Chief of the General Staff ; Foch hoped to succeed Pétain in command of Army Group Centre , but this job was instead given to General Fayolle . The following month Pétain was appointed commander - in - chief in place of Nivelle , and Foch was recalled and promoted to chief of the general staff . Like Pétain , Foch favoured only limited attacks ( he had told Sir Henry Wilson , another officer in the British Army , that the planned Flanders offensive was “ futile , fantastic & dangerous ” ) until the Americans were able to send large numbers of troops to France . Outside of the Western Front , Foch opposed Lloyd George ' s plans to send British and French troops to help Italy take Trieste , but was open to the suggestion of sending heavy guns . The Anglo - French leadership agreed in early September to send 100 heavy guns to Italy , 50 of them from the French Army on Haig ’ s left , rather than the 300 which Lloyd George wanted . As the guns reached Italy , Cadorna called off his offensive ( 21 September ) . Until the end of 1916 the French under Joffre had been the dominant allied army ; by 1917 this was no longer the case , due to the vast number of casualties France ' s armies had suffered in the now three and a half year old struggle with Germany . The Supreme War Council was formally established on 7 November 1917 , containing the Prime Minister and a minister from each of the Western front powers ( i . e . , excluding Russia ) , to meet at least once a month . Foch ( along with Wilson and Italian general Luigi Cadorna ) were appointed military representatives , to whom the general staffs of each country were to submit their plans . The French tried to have Foch as representative to increase their control over the Western Front ( by contrast Cadorna was disgraced after the recent Battle of Caporetto and Wilson , a personal friend of Foch , was deliberately appointed as a rival to the British Chief of the Imperial General Staff Robertson , an ally of Haig ' s , who had recently lost 250 , 000 men at the battle of Ypres the same year . ) Clemenceau was eventually persuaded to appoint Foch ’ s protégé Weygand instead , although many already suspected that Foch would eventually become Allied generalissimo . Late in 1917 Foch would have liked to have seen Haig replaced as Commander - in - Chief of the BEF by Herbert Plumer ; however , Haig would remain in command of the BEF for the rest of the war . 1918 . In January 1918 , in accordance with Lloyd George ’ s wishes , an executive board was set up to control the planned Allied General Reserve , with Clemenceau ’ s agreement being obtained by having Foch on the board rather than Maxime Weygand . Petain agreed to release only eight French divisions and made a bilateral agreement with Haig , who was reluctant to release any divisions at all , to assist one another . The situation was worsened by Clemenceau ' s and Petain ' s dislike of Foch . At a Supreme War Council meeting in London ( 14 – 15 March ) , with a German offensive clearly imminent , Foch agreed under protest to shelve the Allied Reserve for the time being . On the evening of 24 March , after the German offensive was threatening to split apart the British and French forces , Foch telegraphed Wilson ( who by now had replaced Robertson as Chief of the Imperial General Staff ) “ asking what [ he ] thought of situation & we are of one mind that someone must catch a hold or we shall be beaten ” . Wilson reached France the following lunchtime . Petain had sent a dozen divisions to plug the gap and it is unclear that a committee would actually have acted any faster during the immediate crisis . At the Doullens Conference ( 26 March ) and at Beauvais ( 3 April ) , Foch was given the job of coordinating the activities of the Allied armies , forming a common reserve and using these divisions to guard the junction of the French and British armies and to plug the potentially fatal gap that would have followed a German breakthrough in the British Fifth Army sector . At a later conference he was give the title Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies with the title of Généralissime ( " Supreme General " ) . In May 1918 , in the fifth session of the Supreme War Council , Foch was given authority over the Italian Front . Despite being surprised by the German offensive on the Chemin des Dames , the Allied armies under Foch ' s command ultimately held the advance of the German forces during the great Spring Offensive of 1918 and at the Second Battle of the Marne in July 1918 . The celebrated phrase , " I will fight in front of Paris , I will fight in Paris , I will fight behind Paris , " attributed both to Foch and Clemenceau , illustrated the Généralissime ' s resolve to keep the Allied armies intact , even at the risk of losing the capital . The British were disappointed that Foch operated through his own staff rather than through the Permanent Military Representatives at Versailles , and on 11 July 1918 British ministers resolved to remind Foch that he was an Allied , and not a French , commander - in - chief . On 6 August 1918 , Foch was made a Marshal of France . Along with the British commander Field Marshal Douglas Haig , Foch planned the Grand Offensive , opening on 26 September 1918 , which led to the defeat of Germany . After the war , he claimed to have defeated Germany by smoking his pipe . An unintended consequence of Foch ' s appointment was that he sheltered Haig from British political interference . Before the armistice Foch was given control over a planned invasion of Germany through Bavaria . Foch accepted the German cessation of hostilities in November , after which he refused to shake the hand of the German signatory , Matthias Erzberger . . On the day of the armistice , he was elected to the Académie des Sciences . Ten days later , he was unanimously elected to the Académie française . On 30 November 1918 , he was awarded the highest Portuguese decoration , the Order of the Tower and Sword , 1st class ( Grand Cross ) . Assessments . In the euphoria of victory Foch was regularly compared to Napoleon and Caesar ; postwar historians took a less sanguine view of Foch ' s talents as commander , particularly as the 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 . Supporters and critics continue to debate Foch ' s tactical ideas and instincts as a commander , as well as his exact contributions to the Marne " miracle " : Foch ' s counter - attacks 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 . Foch ' s pre - war contributions as military theorist and lecturer have also been recognized , and in the early 20th century he has been credited in one instance as " the most original and subtle mind in the French army " . Paris Peace Conference . In January 1919 , at the Paris Peace Conference Foch presented a memorandum to the Allied plenipotentiaries in which he stated : In a subsequent memorandum , Foch argued that the Allies should take full advantage of their victory by permanently weakening German power in order to prevent her from threatening France again : However , the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and the American President Woodrow Wilson objected to the detachment of the Rhineland from Germany , but agreed to Allied military occupation for fifteen years , which Foch thought insufficient to protect France . Foch considered the Treaty of Versailles to be " a capitulation , a treason " because he believed that only permanent occupation of the Rhineland would grant France sufficient security against a revival of German aggression . As the treaty was being signed Foch said : " This is not peace . It is an armistice for 20 years " . Post - war career and legacy . Foch was made a British Field Marshal in 1919 , and , for his advice during the Polish - Bolshevik War of 1920 , as well as his pressure on Germany during the Great Poland Uprising , he was awarded with the title of Marshal of Poland in 1923 . On 1 November 1921 Foch was in Kansas City to take part in the groundbreaking ceremony for the Liberty Memorial that was being constructed there . Also present that day were Lieutenant General Baron Jacques of Belgium , Admiral David Beatty of Great Britain , General Armando Diaz of Italy and General John J . Pershing of the United States . One of the main speakers was Vice President Calvin Coolidge of the United States . In 1935 bas - reliefs of Foch , Jacques , Diaz and Pershing by sculptor Walker Hancock were added to the memorial . Foch died on 20 March 1929 , and was interred in Les Invalides , next to Napoleon and other famous French soldiers and officers . A statue of Foch was set up at the Compiègne Armistice site when the area was converted into a national memorial . This statue was the one item left undisturbed by the Germans following their defeat of France in June , 1940 . Following the signing of France ' s surrender on 21 June , the Germans ravaged the area surrounding the railway car in which both the 1918 and 1940 surrenders had taken place . The statue was left standing , to view nothing but a wasteland . The Armistice site was restored by German prisoner - of - war labour following the Second World War , with its memorials and monuments either restored or reassembled . Honours and awards . A heavy cruiser and an aircraft carrier were named in his honour . An early district of Gdynia , Poland was also named " Foch " after the marshal , but was renamed by the communist government after the Second World War . Nevertheless , one of the major avenues of the town of Bydgoszcz , located then in the Polish corridor , holds his name as sign of gratitude for campaigning for an independent Poland . Avenue Foch , a street in Paris , was named after him . Several other streets have been named in his honour in Melbourne , Ypres , Lyon , Kraków , Chrzanów , Grenoble , Quito , Beirut , New Orleans , Wynnum , Cambridge , Williston Park , Milltown , Shanghai ( now part of Yan ' an Road ) and Singapore ( Foch Road ) . Fochville in South Africa was also named in his honour . A statue of Foch stands near Victoria station in London . He is the only Frenchmen ever to be made an honorary field - marshal by the British , and the only French person ever commemorated by a statue in London . Foch also has a grape cultivar named after him . In the Belgian city of Leuven , one of the central squares was named after him after the first World War , but it was renamed in 2011 . Mount Foch in Alberta is also named after him . Foreign decorations . Foch received the title of Doctor honoris causa of the Jagiellonian University of Kraków in 1918 .