Foch, Ferdinand, << fawsh, fehr dee NAHN >> (1851-1929), a French military leader, commanded the Allies in the final months of World War I (1914-1918). His offensive campaigns helped defeat Germany and end the war.
Foch was born in Tarbes, France, on Oct. 2, 1851. He served in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), and he joined the French artillery in 1874. Foch became a professor at the École Supérieure de Guerre, the French war college, in 1895, and head of the college in 1908. His lectures and publications emphasized offensive warfare.
At the start of World War I, Foch led a French army corps, but he soon became an army commander. In the fall of 1914, he played a prominent role in the First Battle of the Marne and coordinated Allied forces in the First Battle of Ypres. He directed Allied offensives in Artois in 1915 and French forces in the Battle of the Somme in 1916. These operations failed, and Foch was relieved of his command in late 1916. In 1917, however, he was appointed chief of the War Ministry’s general staff and sent to the Italian front to oversee Allied assistance to the Italian army. He then became France’s representative on the Allied Supreme War Council.
In 1918, great German offensives in France caused a crisis for the Allies. Owing to his experience, Foch was chosen as commander in chief of the British, French, and United States armies on the Western Front. His skillful leadership enabled them to withstand a series of enemy attacks. From July to November, he directed counteroffensives that freed much of northern France and Belgium from German control. On August 6, Foch achieved the army’s highest rank—marshal of France. Foch led the delegation that signed the armistice with Germany on November 11. On November 21, he was elected to the French Academy, a body of distinguished intellectuals and statesmen.
At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Foch argued that France should maintain a military frontier on the Rhine River and that Germany should lose control of areas west of the Rhine. When French Premier Georges Clemenceau yielded to American and British opposition to these demands, Foch predicted another war within 20 years. Foch died on March 20, 1929, in Paris.
See also World War I (The last campaigns) .
