Clara E. Laughlin - Foch the Man
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Clara E. Laughlin >> Foch the Man
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FOCH THE MAN
A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies
by
CLARA E. LAUGHLIN
With Appreciation by Lieut.-Col. Edouard Requin
of the French High Commission to the United States
With Illustrations
Revised and Enlarged Edition
[Frontispiece: Marshal Foch at the Peace Conference.]
New York -------- Chicago
Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh
Copyright, 1918, 1919, by
Fleming H. Revell Company
First Printing - November 11, 1918
Second Printing - November 19, 1918
Third Printing - November 29, 1918
Fourth Printing - December 7, 1918
Fifth Printing - January 9, 1919
Sixth Printing - May 1, 1919
DEDICATION
TO THE MEN WHO HAVE FOUGHT UNDER GENERAL
FOCH'S COMMAND. TO ALL Of THEM, IN ALL
GRATITUDE. BUT IN AN ESPECIAL WAY TO THE MEN
OF THE 42D DIVISION, THE SPLENDOR OF
WHOSE CONDUCT ON SEPTEMBER 9, 1914,
NO PEN WILL EVER BE ABLE
ADEQUATELY TO COMMEMORATE.
[Illustration: Hand-written letter from Foch.]
[Illustration: Page 1 of hand-written letter from Lt.-Colonel E. Requin
to Clara Laughlin.]
[Illustration: Page 2 of hand-written letter from Lt.-Colonel E. Requin
to Clara Laughlin.]
[Transcriber's note: The letter in the second and third illustrations
is shown translated on the following page.]
Dear MADEMOISELLE LAUGHLIN:
I have read with the keenest interest your sketch of the life of
Marshal Foch. It is not yet history: we are too close to events to
write it now, but it is the story of a great leader of men on which I
felicitate you because of your real understanding of his character.
Christian, Frenchman, soldier, Foch will be held up as an example for
future generations as much for his high moral standard as for his
military genius.
It seems that in writing about him the style rises with the noble
sentiments which inspire him.
Thus in form of presentation as well as in substance you convey
admirably the great lesson which applies to each one of us from the
life of Marshal Foch.
Please accept, Mademoiselle, this expression of my respectful regards.
LT.-COLONEL E. REQUIN.
"THEY SHALL NOT PASS!"
Three Spirits stood on the mountain peak
And gazed on a world of red,--
Red with the blood of heroes,
The living and the dead;
A mighty force of Evil strove
With freemen, mass on mass.
Three Spirits stood on the mountain peak
And cried: "They shall not pass!"
The Spirits of Love and Sacrifice,
The Spirit of Freedom, too,--
They called to the men they had dwelt among
Of the Old World and the New!
And the men came forth at the trumpet call,
Yea, every creed and class;
And they stood with the Spirits who called to them,
And cried: "They shall not pass!"
Far down the road of the Future Day
I see the world of Tomorrow;
Men and women at work and play,
In the midst of their joy and sorrow.
And every night by the red firelight,
When the children gather 'round
They tell the tale of the men of old.
These noble ancestors, grim and bold,
Who bravely held their ground.
In thrilling accents they often speak
Of the Spirits Three on the mountain peak.
O Freedom, Love and Sacrifice
You claimed our men, alas!
Yet everlasting peace is theirs
Who cried, "They shall not pass!"
ARTHUR A. PENN.
_Reprinted by permission of M. Witmark & Sons, N. Y._
_Publishers of the musical setting to this poem._
CONTENTS
I. WHERE HE WAS BORN
Stirring traditions and historic scenes which surrounded him in
childhood.
II. BOYHOOD SURROUNDINGS
The horsemarkets at Tarbes. The school. Foch at twelve a student of
Napoleon.
III. A YOUNG SOLDIER OF A LOST CAUSE
What Foch suffered in the defeat of France by the Prussians.
IV. PARIS AFTER THE GERMANS LEFT
Foch begins his military studies, determined to be ready when France
should again need defense.
V. LEARNING TO BE A ROUGH RIDER
Begins to specialize in cavalry training. The school at Saumur.
VI. FIRST YEARS IN BRITTANY
Seven years at Rennes as artillery captain and always student of war.
Called to Paris for further training.
VII. JOFFRE AND FOCH
Parallels in their careers since their school days together.
VIII. THE SUPERIOR SCHOOL OF WAR
Where Foch's great work as teacher prepared hundreds of officers for
the superb parts they have played in this war.
IX. THE GREAT TEACHER
Some of the principles Foch taught. Why he is not only the greatest
strategist and tactician of all time, but the ideal leader and
coordinator of democracy.
X. A COLONEL AT FIFTY
Clemenceau's part in giving Foch his opportunity.
XI. FORTIFYING FRANCE
How the Superior War Council prepared for the inevitable invasion of
France. Foch put in command at Nancy.
XII. ON THE EVE OF WAR
True to his belief that "the way to make war is to attack" Foch
promptly invaded Germany, but was obliged to retire and defend his own
soil.
XIII. THE BATTLE OF LORRAINE
How the brilliant generalship there thwarted the German plan; and how
Joffre recognized it in reorganizing his army.
XIV. THE FIRST VICTORY AT THE MARNE
"The Miracle of the Marne" was Foch. How he turned defeat to victory.
XV. SENT NORTH TO SAVE CHANNEL PORTS
Foch's skill and diplomacy in that crisis show him a great coordinator.
XVI. THE SUPREME COMMANDER
How Foch stopped the German drive that nearly separated the French and
English armies.
XVII. BRINGING GERMANY TO ITS KNEES
The completest humiliation ever inflicted on a proud nation.
XVIII. DURING THE ARMISTICE--AND AFTER
How Foch carries himself as victor.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Marshal Foch at the Peace Conference . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
The room in which Ferdinand Foch was born
The house in Tarbes where Foch was born
Ferdinand Foch as a schoolboy of twelve
The school in Tarbes
Marshall Joffre--General Foch
General Petain--Marshal Haig--General Foch--General Pershing
General Foch--General Pershing
Marshal Foch, Executive head of the allied forces
Ferdinand Foch, Marshal of France
FOREWORD TO REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION
When the Great War broke out, one military name "led all the rest" in
world-prominence: Kitchener. Millions of us were confident that the
hero of Kartoum would save the world. It was not so decreed. Almost
immediately another name flashed into the ken of every one, until even
lisping children said _Joffre_ with reverence second only to that
wherewith they named Omnipotence. Then the weary years dragged on, and
so many men were incredibly brave and good that it seemed hard for
anyone to become pre-eminent. We began to say that in a war so vast,
so far-flung, no one man _could_ dominate the scene.
But, after nearly four years of conflict, a name we had heard and seen
from the first, among many others, began to differentiate itself from
the rest; and presently the whole wide world was ringing with it: Foch!
He was commanding all the armies of civilization. Who was he?
Hardly anyone knew.
Up to the very moment when he had compassed the most momentous victory
in the history of mankind, little was known about him, outside of
France, beyond the fact that he had been a professor in the Superior
School of War.
Now and then, as the achievements of his generalship rocked the world,
someone essayed an account of him. They said he was a Lorrainer, born
at Metz; they said his birthday was August 4; they said he was too
young to serve in the Franco-Prussian war; and they said a great many
other things of which few happened to be true.
Then, as the summer of 1918 waned, there came to me from France, from
Intelligence officers of General Foch's staff, authoritative
information about him.
And also there came those, representing France and her interests in
this country, who said:
"Won't you put the facts about Foch before your people?"
If I could have fought for France with a sword (or gun) I should have
been at her service from the first of August, 1914, when I heard her
tocsin ring, saw her sons march away to fight and die on battlefields
as familiar to me as my home neighborhood.
Not being permitted that, I have yielded her such service as I could
with my pen.
And when asked to write, for my countrymen, about General Foch, I felt
honored in a supreme degree.
In due course we shall have many volumes about him: his life, his
teachings, his writings, his great deeds will be studied in minutest
details as long as that civilization endures which he did so much to
preserve to mankind.
But just now, while all hearts are overflowing with gratefulness to
him, it may be--I cannot help thinking--as valuable to us to know a
little about him as it will be for us to know a great deal about him
later on.
My sources of information are mainly French; and notable among them is
a work recently published in Paris: "Foch, His Life, His Principles,
His Work, as a Basis for Faith in Victory," by Rene Puaux, a French
soldier-author who has served under the supreme commander in a capacity
which enabled him to study the man as well as the General.
French, English and some few American periodicals have given me bits of
impression and some information. French military and other writers
have also helped. And noted war correspondents have contributed
graphic fragments. The happy fortune which permitted me to know
France, her history and her people, enabled me to "read into" these
brief accounts much which does not appear to the reader without that
acquaintance. And distinguished Frenchmen, scholars and soldiers,
including several members of the French High Commission to the United
States, have helped me greatly; most of them have not only close
acquaintance with General Foch, having served as staff officers under
him, but are eminent writers as well, with the highest powers of
analysis and of expression.
Lieutenant-Colonel Edouard Requin of the French General Staff, who was
at General Foch's side from the day Foch was made commander of an army,
has been especially kind to me in this undertaking; I am indebted to
him, not only for many anecdotes and suggestions, but also for his
patience in reading my manuscript for verification (or correction) of
its details and its essential truthfulness.
And I want especially to record my gratefulness to M. Antonin
Barthelemy, French Consul at Chicago, the extent and quality of whose
helpfulness, not alone on this but on many occasions, I shall never be
able to describe. Through him the Spirit of France has been potent in
our community.
Thus aided and encouraged, I have done what I could to set before my
countrymen a sketch of the great, dominant figure of the World War.
The thing about Foch that most impresses us as we come to know him is
not primarily his greatness as a military genius, but his greatness as
a spiritual force.
Those identical qualities in him which saved the world in war, will
serve it no less in peace--if we study them to good purpose.
As a leader of men, his principles need little, if any, adaptation to
meet the requirements of the re-born world from which, we hope, he has
banished the sword.
Not to those only who would or who must captain their fellows, but to
every individual soul fighting alone against weakness and despair and
other foes, his life-story brings a rising tide of new courage, new
strength, new faith.
For the young man or woman struggling with the principles of success;
for the man or woman of middle life, fearful that the time for great
service has gone by; to the preacher and the teacher and other moulders
of ideals--to these, and to many more, he speaks at least as
thrillingly as to the soldier.
This is what I have tried to make clear in my simple sketch here
offered.
I
WHERE HE WAS BORN
Ferdinand Foch was born at Tarbes on October 2, 1851.
His father, of good old Pyrenean stock and modest fortune, was a
provincial official whose office corresponded to that of secretary of
state for one of our commonwealths. So the family lived in Tarbes, the
capital of the department called the Upper Pyrenees.
The mother of Ferdinand was Sophie Dupre, born at Argeles, twenty miles
south of Tarbes, nearer the Spanish border. Her father had been made a
chevalier of the empire by Napoleon I for services in the war with
Spain, and the great Emperor's memory was piously venerated in Sophie
Dupre's new home as it had been in her old one. So her first-born son
may be said to have inherited that passion for Napoleon which has
characterized his life and played so great a part in making him what he
is.
There was a little sister in the family which welcomed Ferdinand. And
in course of time two other boys came.
[Illustration: The Room in Which Ferdinand Foch was Born.]
[Illustration: The House in Tarbes Where Foch was Born.]
These four children led the ordinary life of happy young folks in
France. But there was much in their surroundings that was richly
colorful, romantic. Probably they took it all for granted, the way
children (and many who are not children) take their near and intimate
world. But even if they did, it must have had its deep effect upon
them.
To begin with, there was Tarbes.
Tarbes is a very ancient city. It is twenty-five miles southeast of
Pau, where Henry of Navarre made his dramatic entry upon a highly
dramatic career, and just half that distance northeast of Lourdes,
whose famous pilgrimages began when Ferdinand Foch was a little boy of
seven.
He must have heard many soul-stirring tales about little Bernadette,
the peasant girl to whom the grotto's miraculous qualities were
revealed by the Virgin, and whose stories were weighed by the Bishop of
Tarbes before the Catholic Church sponsored them. The procession of
sufferers through Tarbes on their way to Lourdes, and the joyful return
of many, must have been part of the background of Ferdinand Foch's
young days.
Many important highways converge at Tarbes, which lies in a rich,
elevated plain on the left bank of the River Adour.
The town now has some 30,000 inhabitants, but when Ferdinand Foch was a
little boy it had fewer than half that many.
For many centuries of eventful history it has consisted principally of
one very long street, running east and west over so wide a stretch of
territory that the town was called Tarbes-the-Long. Here and there
this "main street" is crossed by little streets running north and south
and giving glimpses of mountains, green fields and orchards; and many
of these are threaded by tiny waterways--small, meandering children of
the Adour, which take themselves where they will, like the chickens in
France, and nobody minds having to step over or around them, or
building his house to humor their vagaries.
Tarbes was a prominent city of Gaul under the Romans. They, who could
always be trusted to make the most of anything of the nature of baths,
seem to have been duly appreciative of the hot springs in which that
region abounds.
But nothing of stirring importance happened at or near Tarbes until
after the battle of Poitiers (732), when the Saracens were falling back
after the terrible defeat dealt them by Charles Martel.
Sullen and vengeful, they were pillaging and destroying as they went,
and probably none of the communities through which they passed felt
able to offer resistance to their depredations--until they got to
Tarbes. And there a valiant priest named Missolin hastily assembled
some of the men of the vicinity and gave the infidels a good
drubbing--killing many and hastening the flight, over the mountains, of
the rest.
This encounter took place on a plain a little to the south of Tarbes
which is still called the Heath of the Moors.
When Ferdinand Foch was a little boy, more than eleven hundred years
after that battle, it was not uncommon for the spade or plowshare of
some husbandman on the heath to uncover bones of Christian or infidel
slain in what was probably the last conflict fought on French soil to
preserve France against the Saracens. And there may still have been
living some old, old men or women who could tell Ferdinand stories of
the 24th of May (anniversary of the battle) as it was observed each
year until the Revolution of 1789. At the southern extremity of the
battlefield there stood for many generations a gigantic equestrian
statue, of wood, representing the holy warrior, Missolin, rallying his
flock to rout the unbelievers. And in the presence of a great
concourse singing songs of grateful praise to Missolin, his statue was
crowned with garlands by young maidens wearing the picturesque gala
dress of that vicinity.
Some forty-odd years after Missolin's victory, Charlemagne went with
his twelve knights and his great army through Tarbes on his way to
Spain to fight the Moors. And when that ill-starred expedition was
defeated and its warriors bold were fleeing back to France, Roland--so
the story goes--finding no pass in the Pyrenees where he needed one
desperately, cleaved one with his sword Durandal.
High up among the clouds (almost 10,000 feet) is that Breach of
Roland--200 feet wide, 330 feet deep, and 165 feet long. A good
slice-out for a single stroke! And when Roland had cut it, he dashed
through it and across the chasm, his horse making a clean jump to the
French side of the mountains. That no one might ever doubt this, the
horse thoughtfully left the mark of one iron-shod hoof clearly
imprinted in the rock just where he cleared it, and where it is still
shown to the curious and the stout of wind.
It is a pity to remember that, in spite of such prowess of knight and
devotion of beast. Roland perished on his flight from Spain.
But, like all brave warriors, he became mightier in death even than he
had been in life, and furnished an ideal of valor which animated the
most chivalrous youth of all Europe, throughout many centuries.
With such traditions is the country round about Tarbes impregnated.
It has been suggested that the name Foch (which, by the way, is
pronounced as if it rhymed with "hush") is derived from Foix--a town
some sixty miles east of St. Gaudens, near which was the ancestral home
of the Foch family.
Whatever the relatives of Ferdinand may have thought of this as a
probability, it is certain that Ferdinand was well nurtured in the
history of Foix and especially in those phases of it that Froissart
relates.
Froissart, the genial gossip who first courted the favor of kings and
princes and then was gently entreated by them so that his writing of
them might be to their renown, was on his way to Blois when he heard of
the magnificence of Gaston Phoebus, Count of Foix. Whereupon the
chronicler turned him about and jogged on his way to Foix. Gaston
Phoebus was not there, but at Orthez--150 miles west and north--and,
nothing daunted, to Orthez went Froissart, by way of Tarbes, traveling
in company with a knight named Espaing de Lyon, who was a graphic and
charmful raconteur thoroughly acquainted with the country through which
they were journeying. A fine, "that-reminds-me" gentleman was Espaing,
and every turn of the road brought to his mind some stirring tale or
doughty legend.
"Sainte Marie!" Froissart cried. "How pleasant are your tales, and how
much do they profit me while you relate them. They shall all be set
down in the history I am writing."
So they were! And of all Froissart's incomparable recitals, none are
more fascinating than those of the countryside Ferdinand Foch grew up
in.
II
BOYHOOD SURROUNDINGS
The country round about Tarbes has long been famed for its horses of an
Arabian breed especially suitable for cavalry.
Practically all the farmers of the region raised these fine, fleet
animals. There was a great stud-farm on the outskirts of town, and the
business of breeding mounts for France's soldiers was one of the first
that little Ferdinand Foch heard a great deal about.
He learned to ride, as a matter of course, when he was very young. And
all his life he has been an ardent and intrepid horseman.
A community devoted to the raising of fine saddle horses is all but
certain to be a community devotedly fond of horse racing.
Love of racing is almost a universal trait in France; and in Tarbes it
was a feature of the town life in which business went hand-in-hand with
pleasure.
In an old French book published before Ferdinand Foch was born, I have
found the following description of the crowds which flocked into Tarbes
on the days of the horse markets and races:
"On these days all the streets and public squares are flooded with
streams of curious people come from all corners of the Pyrenees and
exhibiting in their infinite variety of type and costume all the races
of the southern provinces and the mountains.
"There one sees the folk of Provence, irascible, hot-headed, of
vigorous proportions and lusty voice, passionately declaiming about
something or other, in the midst of small groups of listeners.
"There are men of the Basque province--small, muscular and proud, agile
of movement and with bodies beautifully trained; plain of speech and
childlike in deed.
"There are the men of the Bearnais, mostly from towns of size and
circumstance--educated men, of self-command, tempering the southern
warmth which burns in their eyes by the calm intelligence born of
experience in life and also by a natural languor like that of their
Spanish neighbors.
"There are the old Catalonians, whose features are of savage strength
under the thick brush of white hair falling about their leather-colored
faces; the men of Navarre, with braided hair and other evidences of
primitiveness--vigorous of build and handsome of feature, but withal a
little subnormal in expression.
"Then, in the midst of all these characteristic types, moving about in
a pell-mell fashion, making a constantly changing mosaic of vivid hues,
there are the inhabitants of the innumerable valleys around Tarbes
itself, each of them with its own peculiarities of costume, manners,
speech, which make them easily distinguishable one from another."
It was a remarkable crowd for a little boy to wander in.
If Ferdinand Foch had been destined to be a painter or a writer, the
impressions made upon his childish mind by that medley of strange folk
might have been passed on to us long ago on brilliant canvas or on
glowing page.
[Illustration: Ferdinand Foch (center) as a Schoolboy.]
[Illustration: The School in Tarbes Where Foch Prepared for the
Military Academy.]
But that was not the way it served him.
I want you who are interested to comprehend Ferdinand Foch, to think of
those old horsefairs and race meets of his Gascony childhood, and the
crowds of strange types they brought to Tarbes, when we come to the
great days of his life that began in 1914--the days when his
comprehension of many types of men, his ability to "get on with" them
and harmonize them with one another, meant almost as much to the world
as his military genius.
Tarbes had suffered so much in civil and religious wars, for many
centuries, that not many of her ancient buildings were left. The old
castle, with its associations with the Black Prince and other renowned
warriors, was a ramshackle prison in Ferdinand Foch's youth. The old
palace of the bishops was used as the prefecture, where Ferdinand's
father had his office.
There were two old churches, much restored and of no great beauty, but
very dear to the people of Tarbes nevertheless.
Ferdinand and his brothers and sister were very piously reared, and at
an early age learned to love the church and to seek it for exaltation
and consolation.
Later on in these chapters we shall see that phase of a little French
boy's training in its due relation to a marechal of France, directing
the greatest army the world has ever seen.
The college of Tarbes, where Ferdinand began his school days, was in a
venerable building over whose portal there was, in Latin, an
inscription recording the builder's prayer:
"May this house remain standing until the ant has drunk all the waves
of the sea and the tortoise has crawled round the world."
Ferdinand was a hard student, serious beyond his years, but not
conspicuous except for his earnestness and diligence.
When he was twelve years old, his fervor for Napoleon led him to read
Thiers' "History of the Consulate and the Empire." And about this time
his professor of mathematics remarked of him that "he has the stuff of
a polytechnician."
The vacations of the Foch children were passed at the home of their
paternal grandparents in Valentine, a large village about two miles
from the town of St. Gaudens in the foothills of the Pyrenees. There
they had the country pleasures of children of good circumstances, in a
big, substantial house and a vicinity rich in tranquil beauty and
outdoor opportunities. And there, as in the children's own home at
Tarbes, one was ashamed not to be a very excellent child, and, so,
worthy to be descended from a chevalier of the great Napoleon.
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