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Updated: May 13, 2025
When the Brigade left that part of the line, Marshal Foch had begun his momentous counter-effort between Soissons and Château-Thierry. In a very short time we also were to be engaged in a swift and eventful movement that changed the whole tenor of the war: a time of hard ceaseless fighting, countless episodes of heroism and sacrifice, and vivid conquering achievement.
I went in to continue my reading of Charles le Goffic's book, General Foch at the Marne. My reading continued, as it were, the mysterious buzzing. I can give, as a rule, but a slack attention to military history, and my interest in war itself is, fundamentally, the same as for cretinism and bad drains. I merely wonder why it is, and wish it were not.
Thus was foreshadowed, in these two great men, that spirit of "all for France" which, under the civil leadership of one and the military leadership of the other, was to save the country and the world. In 1911 Foch, at 60, was given command of the Thirteenth division at Chaumont, just above the source of the Marne.
Those which had been wrecked by shellfire were like mouthfuls of broken teeth chimneys and fragments of walls still standing. Those which had been vengefully burned by the retreating Germans were mere heaps of ashes. Most of our time was spent around the Marais de St. Gond, where the French General Foch held the Thermopylae of Europe.
They've never heard of Foch, much less of Falkenhayn and Mackensen, to say nothing of Rommel, Guderian or Montgomery. They rest idly behind their Washington breastworks when the order of the day should be attack, attack, and again attack; keeping the combat entirely verbal, weakening the spirit of our forces and waiting supinely for the enemy to bring the war to us...."
Some good scientific collections are also treasured there. What is now known as the University of Rennes was styled merely the "college" in the days of Foch's residence there. But it did substantially the same work then as now, and among its faculty Foch undoubtedly found many who could give him able aid in his perpetual study of the past.
One of the "young gentlemen" who profited by this instruction was the little Corsican whom Ferdinand Foch so ardently venerated. The building covers an area of twenty-six acres and faces the vast Champ-de-Mars, which was laid out about 1770 for the military school's use as a field for maneuvers. This field is eleven hundred yards long and just half that wide.
In mid-July the Germans renewed their attacks but were shortly turned back again at Chateau-Thierry, and Marshal Foch judged this to be the time for the Allies to make a general offensive movement. On the 18th the First and Second Divisions, with picked French troops, made a successful drive toward Soissons.
This in two days! On the 30th an official announcement told all the world that the destinies of the allied armies were by common consent confided to the general direction of Ferdinand Foch.
By 11 a.m. on the 9th Von Kluck's army was ordered to retreat, thus exposing Von Buelow's right, and giving Foch his opportunity for the decisive stroke of the battle. It consisted of two blows, right and left, and both came off late on the 9th. Maunoury's counter-attack on the left had compelled the Germans to weaken their centre.
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