Ferdinand Foch

"He rallied over and over again, and there was talk, at one time, of a move to the south of France, but it was not to be. When sitting in his chair by the window on the evening of Wednesday, the 20th of March, he was seized with a heart attack just before they were about to move him to his bed. Extreme unction according to the rites of his Church was administered by a priest from the neighboring church of St. Clotilde before he passed away, unconscious at the last, and Madame Foch was with him at the end. The closing of the shutters of his window told the outside world that all was over. Within half an hour there arrived tokens of sympathy, flowers and messages from the President, from members of the Government, and from the British Ambassador. The Chamber of Deputies was sitting at the time, and M. Poincaré, the Prime Minister, announced the death of the great Marshal, adding with emotion: "Marshal Foch was not only a great soldier, he was a great citizen. I know that the Chamber will associate itself with the national mourning." M. Flanderi, the Vice-President of the Chamber, said: "To try to make any eulogy of Marshal Foch would be to dim the glory which surrounds his memory in the thoughts of all his grateful countrymen. I am sure that I shall be interpreting Parliament's wishes in addressing our supreme homage to his memory and in sending our condolences to his family." Members of the Chamber were visibly moved as they filed out quietly. Within a few hours there arrived condolences and tributes to his memory from all parts of France and the peoples of foreign countries. It is said that the Marshal's last words were: "Allons-y"- Let us go. He was ready."

"On Armistice Day, the German armies had marched homeward in good order. "They fought well," said Marshal Foch, Generalissimo of the Allies, with the laurels bright upon his brow, speaking in soldierly mood: "let them keep their weapons." But he demanded that the French frontier should henceforth be the Rhine. Germany might be disarmed; her military system shivered in fragments; her fortresses dismantled: Germany might be impoverished; she might be loaded with measureless indemnities; she might become a prey to internal feuds: but all this would pass in ten years or in twenty. The indestructible might "of all the German tribes" would rise once more and the unquenched fires of warrior Prussia glow and burn again. But the Rhine, the broad, deep, swift-flowing Rhine, once held and fortified by the French Army, would be a barrier and a shield behind which France could dwell and breathe for generations. Very different were the sentiments and views of the English-speaking world, without whose aid France must have succumbed. The territorial provisions of the Treaty of Versailles left Germany practically intact. She still remained the largest homogeneous racial block in Europe. When Marshal Foch heard of the signing of the Peace Treaty of Versailles he observed with singular accuracy: "This is not Peace. It is an Armistice for twenty years.""

"France had been bled white by the war. The generation that had dreamed since 1870 of a war of revenge had triumphed, but at a deadly cost in national life-strength. It was a haggard France that greeted the dawn of victory. Deep fear of Germany pervaded the French nation on the morrow of their dazzling success. It was this fear that had prompted Marshal Foch to demand the Rhine frontier for the safety of France against her far larger neighbour. But the British and American statesmen held that the absorption of German-populated districts in French territory was contrary to the Fourteen Points and to the principles of nationalism and self-determination upon which the Peace Treaty was to be based. They therefore withstood Foch and France. They gained Clemenceau by promising: first, a joint Anglo-American guarantee for the defence of France; secondly, a demilitarised zone; and thirdly, the total, lasting disarmament of Germany. Clemenceau accepted this in spite of Foch’s protests and his own instincts. The Treaty of Guarantee was signed accordingly by Wilson and Lloyd George and Clemenceau. The United States Senate refused to ratify the treaty. They repudiated President Wilson’s signature. And we, who had deferred so much to his opinions and wishes in all this business of peacemaking, were told without much ceremony that we ought to be better informed about the American Constitution."

"I met General Foch... He corresponded more with the British idea of what a typical Frenchman is like—vivacious, demonstrative, emphatic and gesticulatory. He talked just as much with his hands and arms as he did with his tongue. But whether he expressed himself with hand or voice he always talked well and to the point. His high broad forehead and his penetrating eye proved him a man of exceptional gifts. I asked him if he had any message for the British Cabinet and he said, "Tell them there will be no more retreats." I asked him whether I could also tell them there would be any more advances. He hesitated and was evidently perplexed by the question. After a perceptible halt he replied: "That depends on the men and material you will be able to throw into the battle line." He said that the Belgians had been obliged to retreat before the German advance, but his advice to them had been, "If you want to keep your country, dig yourselves into it, and hang on to it!""

"[On 25 March 1918 there was] a Conference held at Pétain's Headquarters, Clemenceau, Loucheur, Pétain and Foch being also present. Pétain took a very pessimistic view... Foch, who seems to have spoken with energy and determination, took a different view of the situation. He thought the danger of the German push to break in between the French and British in the direction of Amiens was so formidable that risks must be taken in other directions. In his opinion, even more divisions must, if possible, be thrown in, and, by a great effort, this might be done more quickly than Pétain thought possible. It is in an emergency that the real quality of a man comes out. In front of this grave crisis both Pétain and Haig were bewildered and incapable of the action which a desperate situation demanded, but Foch rose to the occasion with the might of a giant. That accounts for the complete change which Milner found in the attitude of both Commanders-in-Chief towards this great old General. They were now anxious to retrace the fatal steps they had conjointly taken on the Versailles decision and to secure the help of Foch to extricate them from the dilemma in which their repudiation of his supremacy had landed the Allied Armies."

"Haig clearly took a desperate view of the position... Pétain expressed an identical opinion about the same time to Clemenceau, and according to Poincaré was actually ordering a retreat of the French Army to the south. Clemenceau had agreed with Pétain. It would look, therefore, as if the two Commanders at this Conference on the evening of the 24th had come to the same conclusion. The supreme courage of Foch saved the situation. This was the greatest moment in his career."

"Das ist kein Frieden. Es ist ein Waffenstillstand auf 20 Jahre."