Whether he saw it or not, lowering upon the horizon, he
bent every effort to making the command of the French army fit, ready
for any emergency. He had never forgotten the dreadful invasion of his
boyhood days. With him the teaching of preparedness was almost as
sacred as religion.
And when the Great War at last descended, Foch was like a shining sword
in its path, one that had never been allowed to rust in its scabbard.
The story of his dogged perseverance and his brilliant strategy has
been fully told in the annals of war. Two or three strongly
characteristic points yet demand mention. He was a firm believer in
the element of surprise; he outguessed the enemy. And he never knew
when he was beaten.
"The weaker we are, the more important it is for us to attack," is one
of his famous sayings.
At the Battle of the Marne, when his corps was hard pressed at a
critical salient, he telegraphed Joffre:
"My left flank has been driven in. My right flank has been driven in.
Consequently nothing remains but for me to attack with my center."
And attack he did, hurling back the surprised Teutons and aiding Joffre
to turn the invader, and save Paris.
Foch, in brief, is a soldier of the intellectual type. His
headquarters when at last he was made Marshal of France and
Generalissimo of the Allied forces, resembled a classroom more nearly
than the center of a vast and far-reaching activity.
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