Foch, Ferdinand

(1851-1929)

   military figure

   The commander of the Allied forces on the western front during the later campaigns of World War I, Ferdinand Foch was born in Tarbes and, after being commissioned in the artillery corps (1873), became professor of strategy at the École supérieure de guerre (1894). His lectures and writings (Principes de la guerre, 1903; Conduite de la guerre, 1904) established him as a leading military theoretician. In october 1914, shortly after the outbreak of war, he was charged with coordination of the various Allied forces (French, British, Belgian) in northeastern France. Throughout 1915 and 1916, he was the commanding general of the Allied armies in the north and, in 1917, became chief of the French general staff. After the German advance in spring 1918, the Allies saw the need for a supreme commander. Foch was named commander in chief of all Allied armies, including the American. After initial setbacks, he launched the series of coun-teroffensives that led to final Allied victory. Foch was made a marshal of France in August 1918 (Great Britain and Poland also later conferred that honor on him) and, in November, he signed the armistice that ended the war with the Central Powers. Foch was elected to the Académie Française and left his account of the war in his Mémoires de guerre, published in 1931. He died in Paris.