Ferdinand Foch Quotes

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

None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.

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.

I am hard pressed on my right; my center is giving way; situation excellent. I am attacking.” General Ferdinand Foch

They stand as living proof of Marshal Ferdinand Foch’s words “The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.

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

Hard pressed on my right. My center is yielding. Impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent. I am attacking.

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.

Foch never for a moment thought about the easy ways of bringing his name before the public and the political world, or even about acquiring a reputation for military insight among the chiefs of the French army. He never posed as a central figure at public functions; he was never interviewed by the press; he made no use of the professional reviews to bring his name before military readers. Ile never published a line until his chiefs suggested the publication of his lectures at the Staff College. From the day when he received his first commission he was a hard-working student of war, patiently preparing himself to do his duty when the opportunity came, and meanwhile content to put all his energies into the work assigned to him. Success in the career of arms is not always associated with high personal character or with this modest pursuit of duty for its own sake.

Ferdinand Foch said, “The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.” What a tragedy to leave this life without a flicker of a legacy, without a flame of a witness.

Before them stood a small, erect man who fixed them with a withering gaze, Marshal Ferdinand Foch. After cool introductions, Foch opened the proceedings with a question that left the Germans agape. “Ask these gentlemen what they want,” he said to his interpreter. When the Germans had recovered, Erzberger answered that they understood they had been sent to discuss armistice terms. Foch stunned them again: “Tell these gentlemen that I have no proposals to make.

The invention of the telephone was also dismissed at first. Sir William Preece, the chief engineer of the British Post Office famously declared, "The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys."[cxxxv] In 1911, Ferdinand Foch the future Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies in WWI said, "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.

French general Ferdinand Foch said, “The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.

Force that is not dominated by spirit is vain force. Victory, in his belief, goes to those who merit it by the greatest strength of will and intelligence. It was his endeavor, always, to develop in the hundreds of officers who were his students, that dual strength in which it seemed to him that victory could only lie: moral and intellectual ability to perceive what ought to be done, and intellectual and moral ability to do it. In his mind, it is impossible to be intelligent with the brain alone. The Germans do not comprehend this, and therein, to Ferdinand Foch, lies the key to all their failures. He believes that each of us must think with our soul's aid—that is to say, with our imagination, our emotions, our aspiration—and employ our intelligence to direct our feeling. And he asks this combination not from higher officers alone, but from all their men down to the humblest in the ranks.

Almost his entire comprehension of war is based upon men and the way they act under certain stress—not the way they might be expected to act, but the way they actually do act, and the way they can be led to act under certain stimulus of soul. For Ferdinand Foch wins victories with men's souls—not just with their flesh and blood, nor even with their brains. And to command men's souls it is necessary to understand them.