Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 13, 2025
He divested himself of his wig and did a five minutes' act of lightning impersonation with a trick felt hat, the descendant of the Chapeau de Tabarin: the ex-Kaiser, Foch, Clemenceau, Lloyd George, President Wilson a Boche prisoner, a helmeted Tommy, a Poilu which was marvellous, considering the painted Petit Patou face. For all assistance, Elodie held up a cheap bedroom wall-mirror.
He was sound asleep when the big gray car came to a stop at the door of his headquarters after its one-hundred-and-fifty-mile dash through silent towns and dark, war-invested country. Six weeks ago Foch had been his subordinate. Then they became equals in command.
Two days later, on August 27, 1914, General Joffre brought together, using army corps and divisions recruited elsewhere, a supplementary army, the Ninth Army, which was detailed to take its place between the Fourth and Fifth Armies. He intrusted its command to a general, who, while commanding the Twentieth Corps, had distinguished himself by his brilliant conduct in Lorraine, General Foch.
Soon after the successful British attack, south of Amiens, he overcame the objections of Foch and concluded arrangements for the organization of this army, which was to operate in the Lorraine sector. It contained 600,000 men, fourteen American divisions and two French.
The French front was extended up to the Luce and an extemporized Fourth Army replaced the weary remnants of the Fifth. More important was the appointment of Foch as commander-in-chief on the 25th after a conference at Doullens between Haig and Pétain, Lord Milner and Clémenceau, though it cannot have had much effect upon the operations which checked the German advance by the end of March.
My faith, but that is a pretty land, full of orchards and berry-gardens! Our old farm there is one of the prettiest and one of the best, though it is small. It was hard to leave it when the call to the colors came, two years ago. But I was glad to go. My heart was high and strong for France. I was in the Nth Infantry. We were in the center division under General Foch at the battle of the Marne.
"I regret," wrote Lieutenant d'Entraygues in the Paris Temps, "only one thing: that all the people of France were not able to see and hear this soldier as he spoke to us. They would know why it is not possible to doubt our victory." It was probably about that time that Major Darnley Stuart-Stephens wrote of Foch, for the English Review.
The massive entrance-gates open upon passages tunnelled through the hills, and although the modern part of the town boasts broad streets and squares, there are many narrow passageways winding around the ancient quarter. I went into a large bookstore to replenish my library, and was struck by the supply of post-cards of Marshal Foch and Kitchener and the King and Queen of Belgium.
I firmly believe that if unity of command under Marshal Foch and Sir Henry Wilson, with the following decisive victories of D'Esperey at Cerna and Allenby at Armageddon in September, 1918, bringing about the capitulation of Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, and the surrender of Constantinople to the Allies, had not been attained last year the war would still be in progress.
This leaves a great responsibility to officers, but it is the secret of that flexibility which makes the French army so effective. For Foch carries his belief in individual judgment far beyond the officers commanding units; he carries it to the privates in the ranks.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking