History
Ferdinand Foch (1851–1929) began his military career as an enlisted soldier in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Gaining rapid promotion in the First World War, in March 1918 he was appointed Supreme Allied Commander of all the allied forces on the Western Front. The following months saw increasing allied success, and final German defeat, which Foch's great patron, the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, among others, attributed primarily to Foch's strategic direction. [3] In November 1918, Foch accepted the German surrender and signed the Armistice of 11 November 1918 on behalf of the Allied nations in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiegne.
Foch was the recipient of many French and foreign honours; among these the British government awarded him the Order of Merit and made him an honorary Field marshal. [5] Following Foch's death in March 1929, the British civil servant, Lord Askwith established the Foch Memorial Committee to plan and fund a permanent memorial. [5] The French sculptor Georges Malissard was approached and agreed to cast a replica of an earlier equestrian statue he had created of Foch in the French town of Cassel. The choice of a copy of a French statue by a French sculptor was not without controversy; the President of the Royal British Society of Sculptors wrote to The Times to complain, and the Chair of the Royal Fine Art Commission, Lord Crawford, privately described the final design as "a very poor and commonplace thing". Nevertheless, the Memorial Committee pressed ahead, partly due to underfunding of the project and the relatively cheap cost of the replica. The final cost of the statue was £5000.
The statue was originally intended to stand at the northern end of Grosvenor Gardens, but Malissard insisted on a more southerly situation as the statue would then be seen by French visitors arriving at Victoria Station, the London terminus for the prestigious cross-channel boat trains. [5] The memorial was unveiled by Edward, Prince of Wales, on 5 June 1930 [9] at a ceremony also attended by Lloyd George, Admiral Lord Jellicoe and an array of British and French senior military officers.
Commemorative ceremonies held at the statue include a rededication in November 2014, [10] and a ceremony held on 26 March 2018 to commemorate the centenary of the appointment of Foch as Supreme Allied Commander on the Western Front. [11] [12]
The Second Battle of the Marne was the last major German offensive on the Western Front during the First World War. The attack failed when an Allied counterattack, led by French forces and supported by several hundreds of Renault FT tanks, overwhelmed the Germans on their right flank, inflicting severe casualties. The German defeat marked the start of the relentless Allied advance which culminated in the Armistice with Germany about 100 days later.
Supreme Allied Commander is the title held by the most senior commander within certain multinational military alliances. It originated as a term used by the Allies during World War I, and is currently used only within NATO for Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Supreme Allied Commander Transformation.
Ferdinand Foch was a French general, Marshal of France and member of the Académie Française. He distinguished himself as Supreme Allied Commander on the Western Front during the First World War in 1918.
Cassel is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. Built on a prominent hill overlooking French Flanders, the town has existed since Roman times. It was developed by the Romans into an important urban centre and was the focus of a network of roads, which are still in use today, that converge on the hill. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Cassel became an important fortified stronghold for the rulers of Flanders which was repeatedly fought over before finally being annexed to France in the 17th century. It was the headquarters of Marshal Ferdinand Foch during part of the First World War. In 1940, during the German invasion of France, Cassel was the scene of a fierce three-day battle between British forces and German forces which resulted in much of the town being destroyed.
The Armistice of 11 November 1918 was the armistice signed at Le Francport near Compiègne that ended fighting on land, at sea, and in the air in World War I between the Entente and their last remaining opponent, Germany. Previous armistices had been agreed with Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary. It was concluded after the German government sent a message to American president Woodrow Wilson to negotiate terms on the basis of a recent speech of his and the earlier declared "Fourteen Points", which later became the basis of the German surrender at the Paris Peace Conference, which took place the following year.
The Hundred Days Offensive was a series of massive Allied offensives that ended the First World War. Beginning with the Battle of Amiens on the Western Front, the Allies pushed the Imperial German Army back, undoing its gains from the German spring offensive.
The St. Julien Memorial, also known as The Brooding Soldier, is a Canadian war memorial and small commemorative park located in the village of Saint-Julien, Langemark, Belgium. The memorial commemorates the Canadian First Division's participation in the Second Battle of Ypres of World War I which included fighting in the face of the first poison gas attacks along the Western Front. The memorial was designed by World War I veteran and architect, Lieutenant Frederick Chapman Clemesha, and was selected following a design competition organized by the Canadian Battlefields Memorials Commission in 1920.
The Supreme War Council was a central command based in Versailles that coordinated the military strategy of the principal Allies of World War I: Britain, France, Italy, the United States, and Japan. It was founded in 1917 after the Russian Revolution and with Russia's withdrawal as an ally imminent. The council served as a second source of advice for civilian leadership, a forum for preliminary discussions of potential armistice terms, later for peace treaty settlement conditions, and it was succeeded by the Conference of Ambassadors in 1920.
Marie Émile Fayolle was a French general during World War I and a diplomat, elevated to the dignity of Marshal of France.
The Doullens Conference was held in Doullens, France, on 26 March 1918 between French and British military leaders and governmental representatives during World War I. Its purpose was to better co-ordinate their armies' operations on the Western Front in the face of a dramatic advance by the German Army which threatened a breakthrough of their lines during the war's final year. It occurred due to Lord Alfred Milner, a member of the British War Cabinet, being dispatched to France by Prime Minister Lloyd George, on 24 March, to assess conditions on the Western Front, and to report back.
The 51st (Highland) Division Memorial at Beaumont-Hamel is a memorial in France commemorating the soldiers of the 51st (Highland) Division killed during World War I. The memorial is located near Y Ravine on the 84-acre (340,000 m2) Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial site. This position had been the scene of the Division's first major victory on 13 November 1916 during the Battle of the Ancre, the closing stage of the Battle of the Somme.
General Sir John Philip Du Cane, was a British Army officer. He held high rank during the First World War, most notably as Major General Royal Artillery at General Headquarters in 1915 when the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was expanding rapidly, as General Officer Commanding XV Corps 1916–18, then from April 1918 as liaison officer between Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig and the Allied Generalissimo Ferdinand Foch. After the war he was Master-General of the Ordnance.
The position of Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford was founded in 1918 shortly after the end of the First World War. Ferdinand Foch, or "Marshal Foch", was supreme commander of Allied forces from April 1918 onwards. The chair was endowed by an arms trader, Basil Zaharoff, in Foch's honour; he also endowed a post in English Literature at the University of Paris in honour of the British Field Marshal Earl Haig. Zaharoff wanted the University of Paris to have a right of veto over the appointment, but Oxford would not accept this. The compromise reached was that Paris should have a representative on the appointing committee. In advance of the first election, Stéphen Pichon unsuccessfully attempted to influence the decision. The first professor, Gustave Rudler, was appointed in 1920. As of 2015, the chair is held by Catriona Seth. The position is held in conjunction with a Fellowship of All Souls College.
The Earl Haig Memorial is a bronze equestrian statue of the British Western Front commander Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig on Whitehall in Westminster, London. It was created by the sculptor Alfred Frank Hardiman and commissioned by Parliament in 1928. Eight years in the making, it aroused considerable controversy; the Field Marshal's riding position, his uniform, the horse's anatomy and its stance all drew harsh criticism. The inscription on the plinth reads 'Field Marshal Earl Haig Commander-in-Chief of the British Armies in France 1915–1918'.
The Glade of the Armistice is a French war memorial in the Forest of Compiègne in Picardy, France, near the city of Compiègne approximately 60 kilometres (37 mi) north of Paris. It was built at the location where the Germans signed the Armistice of 11 November 1918 that ended World War I. During World War II, Adolf Hitler chose the same spot for the French and Germans to sign the Armistice of 22 June 1940 after Germany won the Battle of France. The site was destroyed by the Germans but rebuilt after the war.
The 1914–1918 Inter-Allied Victory medal was a French commemorative medal established on 20 July 1922. It was the French version of a common allied campaign medal where each allied nation issued a Victory Medal to their own nationals, all issues having certain common features, including the same ribbon, a winged figure of victory on the obverse and a similar inscription on the reverse, the French version reading "LA GRANDE GVERRE POUR LA CIVILISATION 1914-1918".
The Compiègne Wagon was the train carriage in which both the Armistice of 11 November 1918 and Armistice of 22 June 1940 were signed.
The Calais Conference was a 26 February 1917 meeting of politicians and generals from France and the United Kingdom. Ostensibly about railway logistics for the upcoming allied Spring offensive the majority of the conference was given over to a plan to bring British forces under overall French command. The British Prime Minister David Lloyd George was supportive of the proposal and arranged for the British war cabinet to approve it in advance of the conference, without the knowledge of senior British generals Douglas Haig and Sir William Robertson. The latter were surprised when the proposal was presented by French General Robert Nivelle at the conference. The next day the two generals met with Lloyd George and threatened their resignations rather than implement the proposal. This led to the significant watering-down of the plan with greater freedom given to British commanders. The conference caused mistrust between the British civil and military chiefs and set back the cause of a unified allied command until Spring 1918, when the successful German spring offensive rendered it essential.
The Gladstone Memorial on the Strand, London is a bronze sculpture of the British statesman, created by Hamo Thornycroft between 1899-1905. The statue was erected as the national memorial to Gladstone and shows him in the robes of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The figure stands on a plinth surrounded by allegorical figures depicting four of the Virtues, Courage, Brotherhood, Education and Aspiration. The memorial is a Grade II listed structure.
The Beauvais Conference of World War I was held at the request of French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau to solidify command of the Western Front and to ensure the maximum participation of France's allies in the war. The conference was held on April 3, 1918, at Beauvais Town Hall, France, one week after the Doullens Conference that appointed General Ferdinand Foch as Commander of the Western Front. Clemenceau thought the wording of the Doullens Agreement was too weak, and that a correction was needed to solidify Foch's command. The urgency of the meeting was underpinned by Germany's Spring Offensive on the Western Front, which opened a gap 50 miles wide and 50 miles deep in the line, forcing the British Expeditionary Force to reel back, and retreat orders from both French and British army commanders to protect their armies.
