How to Understand Marshal Ferdinand Foch
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- A discussion of Ferdinand Foch's intellectual project and how he hoped to teach young officers how to think but not what to think.
Read Foch in French: amzn.to/4aGLjLb
Read Foch in English: amzn.to/3Cv7wiG
Read about Foch: amzn.to/4hduWbx
My earlier video on Foch's Principles of War: • Pax Americana: Foch an...
My essay on Foch in War on the Rocks: warontherocks....
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If you're curious about how the growth of Petain's influence over Foch's contributed to the disaster of 1940, see this excellent book by Robert Doughty, "The Seeds of Disaster." amzn.to/4hj5txu
There's something highly stimulating in learning stuff about your own country from a foreign voice who seriously looked into it.
Looked into it as if it was his job to do so 😂
I tend to agree but it's easier when the content is favorable. Otherwise, there's the rather uncomfortable reception of Robert Paxton's work on Pétain.
Having lived in a couple of countries other than my birthplace I think a foreign individual can come to cultural observations and conclusions without the innate national biases that can sometimes encumber native thinkers.
@@tremendousbaguette9680 Or of Zeev Sternhell on the origin of fascism (except in self-loathing leftist circles). I don't know whether either deserved the backlash they got, but there's no doubt that my first instinct was to believe any argument against their respective thesis'.
Paxton's work is invaluable. It's a shame it took an American to do it. But understandable. Sometimes one needs an outsider.
Some colleagues and I walked past Foch's statue in London and none of them had even heard of him, but don't worry, I let them have a history lesson!
I didn't know there was a statue of Foch in London. I'm glad there is one. I'm sure if you asked any British WW1 general who should get a statue, they'd all say Foch.
@@michaelshurkin613 Let's not forget Foch was also an (honorary) British Field Marshal!
@@Kookanoodles AFAIK it wasn't honorary, but the real deal. In fact, in the early 1920s, Foch was a Field Marshall in three countries, France, the UK and Poland.
Hi Michael, I've been following your channel for a while. I wouldn't worry about bells and whistles; your dissertations are vastly more interesting and in-depth than the vast majority of channels full of shiny animations. Keep it up!
Babe, wake up. Pax Americana just posted a new vid!
In my opinion the main strategic takeaway from Foch and other strategists, is never let the enemy dictate your state and if even at marginally greater risk, sometimes doing the counter intuitive can be the best strategy, and finally always maximise your options.
Among other things, yes.
Liking your lectures and this one, in particularly, a lot. I learned a lot more about Foch than I expected, and found him a lot more interesting and diverse. There is a definite sense of energy and purpose to Foch, and a lot of intellectual and practical agility. To think through situations and in military terms, for junior officers in command of smaller units to be sure to react to actual conditions not orders. This is now part of NATO doctrine and is a lesson put to good effect in Ukraine where success has often been from units being allowed to take the initiative and respond to battle field conditions more than orders. Thanks for the insights, military, strategic, intellectual and personal about this man.
If I’m not mistaken, Foch is quoted as saying “The most powerful weapon is the human soul on fire”.
Hell of a quote, and lines up with the strategic MO you describe here. Great videos, enjoy the analysis!
Bonjour from France ! What a great channel, please keep your distinct style and these amazing videos rolling :)
Thank you.
Your video and audio quality is excellent. I come to this channel for the quality of the observations and analyses not the peripherals.
Thank you Sir!
Another great video for those of us dead set on understanding the Theories of warfare! And Foch is part of that. Although you could have precised what is a "Republican" under the old French terminology. But I am nit picking :-)
From PL, and after your VDO I see a few concepts still appying today in Ukraine - thanks for that.
Now in regards to the French way of warfare, you may have an interesting topic with the CLEMENCEAU 25 training exercise currently happening (deployment to the Indo Pacific).
I personally don't know of any other (NATO) country doing such a level of Naval deployment. Heck, even ru would dream of such "projection de puissance maritime"...
About your son:
Kudos to him and his classmates, much respect for them! And congratulations to you as a father! Be proud Sir!
As West Point students, I just hope that their curriculum spends enough time studying what other countries did/do as opposed to what the US does. Not against the US! But rather this:
If a US serviceman/woman learns/knows how to do with a $80B/year budget, imagine what they will do with a $850B/year!
And this translates at the front when facing a logistic issue. Like not enough "rip it". Or Ammo.
Lastly, Foch would not have made a difference if being alived at the start of WW2 because at the time, in France, too much political apathy towards the Military among French politicians. rings a bell? ;-)
Thanks again Sir!
Thank you.
Out of curiosity are you aware of Perun? You two are some of the best channels on TH-cam, it would be rly cool to do a collab maybe on French defense production and military doctrine!
I second this
Ii third this
I am not aware. Will check out.
They are different generations of expert, each with different methodology, professional experience, and epistemology. While a collaboration would be fascinating, I have personal doubts as to whether it would really be as fruitful as you or I hope.
Congrats on your son being in Westpoint.
Thanks. It's a fantastic place.
I'm just a enthusiast. And I love your videos
There's echoes of du Picq in the early Foch (as well as Napoleon "the moral is to the physical as as three is to one") and echoes of Foch in the 1934 (IIRC) Wehrmacht Truppenführung admonishment "better brashness than inertia".
The study of strategy and the operational art is like a river delta.
It is quite a relief to see an American speaking of Foch. The English speaking world seems to have forgotten that WWI took place on French soil and that it wasn't just an English-German war as it is often portrayed in medias. I remember a Canadian company who made a game taking place in WWI and they didn't see the point of adding the French to the armies you could choose from, which many French people found quite weird and insulting to say the least. It would be like making a game about the American war of Independence without mentioning the Americans.
The UK's biggest contribution really was the Royal Navy, which kept resources flowing while choking German resources. The ground war was 80% France.
As a history buff from Anglophone Africa, it's taken me 20 years to glean from English history books and documentaries that the so cold World War I was primarily a Franco-German with the rest of Europe and their colonies (and later America) dragged in.
The English have a severe 'main character syndrome' and subconsciously re-write history to revolve around them.
@@kalomboC This was my impression all along. As a Frenchman, who lived in England for a while, I must say I spent many hours pondering on their take of history.
I actually met British people who didn't know that France had participated into WWI. One of them even told me that we had certainly fled the battlefield...
Thank you very much for this interesting video. About Foch, I remember this (maybe apocryphal) prophecy after the armistice: "it is not the peace, but a 20 years armistice". ("Ce n'est pas la paix. C'est un armistice pour 20 ans.")
The Western front during WWI has been widely studied and depicted. But the Balkan front is a bit forgotten. Yet it seems to me that the victory of 1918 resulted from the Vardar offensive which first led to the collapse of Bulgaria, then that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, exposing all the Southern side of Germany. It also led to the collapse of the Ottoman empire.
I would appreciate your views on the strategies implemented on this front, especially those of Castelnau and Franchet d'Esperey.
Maybe Churchill's obsession for the Balkan during WW2 resulted from this breakthrough.
I regret I know little about the Balkans and eastern front. The tragedy is that Foch believed peace could only be maintained through active support for the post-war security agreements France signed with eastern European countries, but France neglected them and slipped into passivity. In retrospect, it's easy to argue that perhaps Foch was too quick to sign the armistice and should have let the big November offensive take place first. That would have seen the allies reach the Rhine and imposed a tangible military defeat in Germany. On 11 November, the Germans were guaranteed to lose (which is why German commanders agreed to the armistice), but they had not been broken. Letting the war continue a few months more would have broken them.
Great Stuff. I wonder if you can do something on General Andre Beaufre. I would be interested in knowing how you think Beaufre would have handled something like the war in Ukraine for example. Does Beaufre theories still hold up today with the every changing warefare (especially with drones). I think Beaufre would have really enjoyed the FPV drones (my opinion).
I'm curious to hear about your opinions on Petain.
Pétain was a good general. Foch trusted him . But he lacked the fire to be effective at a strategic level, and couldn't have been the supreme leader. Sadly, his influence post war was detrimental, and he completely disgraced himself in WW2.
Hello,
Can you please make a video on the general Maxime Weygand?
I recently tried to seek information on the person, but the only poeple I see talking about it on the internet are vichy sympathisers who hardly are the most objective poeple
That's a great idea. He's often described as being the right man for the job in 1940 but came too late after Gamlin had screwed everything up. Weygand worked very closely with Foch in 14-18.
I will remember one thing from this presentation: the heads of the French army did not follow Foch's advice in 1936-1940.
Foch died in 1929, Petain had a great influence and several positions until 1939. Even if it will be extremely simplistic to put on him all the blame it did play a role in the mindset of that time in defense matters, a great one.
This book gets into all that: The declining influence of Foch, the stronger influence of Petain. Very good book. amzn.to/3EyiO6j
Hi Michael, may I transfer your post to my friends Foch's great grandsons and daughter?
Please do!
Literally here just to learn the correct pronunciation of Foch. 😅
Sh not CK :)
I finally saw all of it. The gentleman that introduced me to military history said the same thing about how Foch surviving until 1940 (and maybe Petain dying in 1929) would have surely changed many things. People like Foch could change History... there is quite a lot of examples only in WW2 with other people. Too bad. He was totally against being passively on the defensive waiting for the ennemy and totally predicted, in a famous quote, another great war 20 years later after the Treaty of Versailles. Thanks for another great vid.
. Can you put into perspective the scale of the troops deployed by the Americans during the First World War, their quality and, above all, where they were positioned?
The first American divisions did not intervene on the front line until the summer of 1918. On the three fronts (Western, Italian, Balkan), the American armies were present with 405,000 soldiers, against 2.8 million French soldiers, 2.2 million Italian soldiers and 1.9 million British. During the Second Battle of the Marne - a real turning point in the war on the Western Front - the American army was not present. At the time of the signing of the armistice, there were approximately 110 French divisions, around sixty British divisions, around fifty Italian divisions and 16 American divisions on the front line, 8 of which had real combat experience. Between 32 and 42 American divisions were located in training camps in France, supposed to intervene in March 1919. They weakened the command of the French army, because it had been mobilized to train them for combat. The majority of American deaths occurred at the rear, due to accidents or the "Spanish" flu of 1918. These figures show from the outset that the United States was not the saviors that were said to be.
In addition, the American armies had very few officers familiar with modern warfare. They were composed mainly of inexperienced soldiers. They also did not have any weaponry worthy of the name. The contribution of American industry was slow to be felt, particularly in the field of heavy artillery. The French army therefore took charge of equipping the American army and training its soldiers.
"The French and British governments exaggerated American military power to strengthen the morale of their nation and impress the enemy. »
The myth of the American savior, which went hand in hand with the marginalization of the French and Italians, did not arise after the war, but during it. How did it arise?
In 1917-1918, the French and British governments exaggerated American military power to boost their nation’s morale and impress the enemy. The Allies also extrapolated American support to give the impression that Germany’s defeat was solely due to the Allies. The French press also extrapolated the value of the American army and convinced itself that its intervention was decisive, even though the war had already been won in the summer of 1918, while the massive entry of American armies did not occur until 1919.
Finally, behind the front, American camps and parades were numerous, which gave credence to the idea that the Yankee "steamroller", all the more fascinating because it was made up of young soldiers, was preparing to strike the enemy. The massive arrival of American ships in French ports also fascinated the population.
Did this myth of the American savior subsequently intensify and, if so, for what reasons?
From the 1920s and 1930s, American culture penetrated the French population, particularly the urban population, through jazz, a symbol of freedom, even though the United States practiced racial segregation at the time. It will become even more present after the Second World War. The rise of the American economy in the world will also contribute to giving more importance to a very favorable reinterpretation of the role of the United States during the First World War.
There are already a certain number of French politicians fascinated by everything that comes from across the Atlantic, an industrial and young power, and who tend to denigrate what is French, perhaps because France emerged drained from a conflict in which it lost many soldiers. American soft power, with the entire cultural industry, has only accentuated things further. The dominant historiography has also directed the gaze on the past because, due to the importance of the English language, it has outlets at the international level and therefore other countries.
An offensive is normally planned for November 1918 which should allow the entry of French troops into Germany. This would have nipped in the bud the myth, put forward by the Nazis, of the "stab in the back", according to which Germany which has not lost is betrayed by politicians. The offensive does not take place under pressure from the Anglo-Americans and also from General Foch who wanted to avoid new French losses, against the advice of Pétain. Concerning the Treaty of Versailles, President Wilson wants to spare Germany. He has ulterior commercial motives and also the hope of a possible understanding, based on the real link at the racial level between the Americans and the Germans, to the detriment of the Latin peoples, including France. The English, for their part, have always wanted to prevent France from gaining too much power in Europe and many were Germanophiles, even if it meant reducing France to a second plan. Churchill, rather Francophile, believes for his part that France should have a powerful army, but he is not in the majority.
Firepower > Elan.
Yes, but elan, Foch argued, was still essential. I think Foch was correct.
@@michaelshurkin613 Agree.