Channel4.com Text Only

[ News  | Homes  | Life | Entertainment  | History  | Science  | Community  | Shop ]
| Sport  | Culture  | Cars  | Money  | Broadband  | Learning | Health  | Dating  | Games ]

[ Text Only: Homepage ]
[ Graphical: Channel4 Homepage ]

The Series | Credits | Shop

Home | Overview | Controversies | Timeline | Combatants | Biographies | Glossary | Learn More

Biographies | Sir Winston Churchill | Georges Clemenceau | General Erich von Falkenhayn | Marshal Ferdinand Foch | Archduke Franz Ferdinand | Emperor Franz Josef I | Sir Douglas Haig | General Paul von Hindenburg | Emperor Karl I | David Lloyd George | General Erich Ludendorff | General Robert Nivelle | Vittorio Orlando | General Henri-Philippe Pétain | Gavril Princip | Kiaser Wilhelm II | President Woodrow Wilson | Arthur Zimmermann

The First World War

MARSHAL FERDINAND FOCH 1851-1929

After serving in the Franco-Prussian War, Foch went on to specialise in artillery tactics. He was director of the École Supérieure de Guerre between 1907 and 1911.

In charge of the French Ninth Army in 1914, he held the crucial central sector on the Marne, and then assumed command of France's Northern Army Group on the Western Front. After holding this post during the Battle of the Somme, he spent some time at army headquarters and on the Italian Front. When Pétain replaced Nivelle as commander-in-chief in May 1917, Foch was finally recalled from obscurity. He went on to become chief of the French General Staff in 1917.

After intense lobbying by Clemenceau, Foch was appointed Allied supreme commander in March 1918 and was in overall command of Allied forces during the final push against Germany in the summer and autumn. Foch presented the Allied armistice terms to the Germans at Compiègne and accepted their final surrender.

He participated at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference but was unhappy with the final treaty, predicting that a renewal of hostilities with Germany was likely within two decades. Foch died in Paris in March 1929.

Top of page

Graphical version