Top 15 Ferdinand Foch Quotes

The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.

My centre is giving way, my right is in retreat, situation excellent. I attack.

Mon centre cède, ma droite recule. Situation excellente, j'attaque.

Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.

Regulations are all very well for drill, but in the hour of danger they are no more use. You have to learn to think.

the most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire

The truth is, no study is possible on the battlefield. One does there simply what one can in order to apply what one knows. Therefore, in order to do even a little, one has already to know a great deal, and to know it well.

I am conscious of having served England as I served my own country.

The will to conquer is the first condition of victory.

A four years' war and the subsequent peace have divided Europe into two sections, the winners and the losers. The winners have even less reason to make war than in 1914. Peace will never be threatened by them. Does that hold true also of the losers? Have they resigned themselves to their defeat and the moral and material losses it entails? Who can say? Germany, for instance, was for centuries moulded in character and instincts by Prussia, who regarded war as a lucrative national industry; she will experience much difficulty in changing her mentality and outlook.

Germany is about to join [the League of Nations]. It will be alleged that she conforms in spirit to that of the League. If you hope that she will desire to maintain the frontiers forced on her, which she has never acknowledged in her heart, and which, bluntly speaking, she loathes and yearns to destroy—if you can hope that, you must have more than your share of naïveté.

[O]ur Allies proposed the disarmament of Germany. It cannot be too often asserted that such a step would give us a mere temporary, precarious, illusory security. It is practically impossible to prevent Germany from arming herself in secret.

I bluntly remarked to M. Klotz, the Finance Minister: ‘With the treaty you have just signed, sir, you can expect with certainty to be paid in monkey tricks.’

The Rhineland question is controlled by the Rhine. The river is the deciding factor. The master of the Rhine is the master of the surrounding country. Whichever side does not control the Rhine has lost.

[T]he treaty [of Versailles]...provided for a fifteen-year occupation of the Rhineland, with retreats every five years. Such a guarantee, I said without mincing my words, was ‘from the military point of view, null; it will merely be an increase of work for the Allied occupation.’ I went on to say that whereas the treaty was non-existent as promoter of our security, it was distinctly bad for reparations. ... I asked who would be judge of the situation if we sought to reoccupy the Rhineland because of an infringement of terms by Germany. The Commission for Reparations would not suffice, I said. It cannot be denied that I was right on this point.