After the First Battle of the Marne, it was necessary to appoint a commander for the French forces north of Paris, and it was very important to select one who had the initiative and the ability to check the German attempt to capture the Channel ports. The new commander must also be a man of great tact, for he would have to work with the British and the Belgians. General Foch was selected, and has proved to be the right man in the right place.
The race for the Channel ports was an exciting one. Although the Germans lost, it seemed at times as if they would win, and be able to establish submarine bases within a very short distance of England. In fact, if they had captured Calais, they could have fired with their long-range guns across the Channel and have bombarded English coast towns, and perhaps London itself.
Foch's decision and strength of purpose are well illustrated by an incident which is told by the French officers working under his command. He had sent some cavalry to protect the British army from being outflanked and disastrously defeated. At the close of the day, the cavalry commander reported to General Foch that he had been obliged to withdraw, as the Germans had been reënforced. "Did you throw all the forces possible into the fight?" asked General Foch. "No," answered the cavalry commander. "You will at once take up your old position and hold the enemy there until you have lost every gun," directed the general. "Then you will report to headquarters for further orders."
Foch is a leader who plans well, who knows how to command, and how to make others obey. His orders always end with the words, "Without delay!" Because the enemy has usually had larger numbers and more ammunition, time has been everything to the Allies. Foch saved time and so saved the Allies.
After his great victory at the Second Battle of the Marne, Foch was made a Marshal of France.
The Allies, in 1918, through the influence of President Wilson, it is said, decided to appoint a generalissimo, that is, one who should have direction of all the Allied forces on the west front, including those in Italy. Foch was appointed to this command, and from this time the German plans and campaigns began to go wrong. To this one man, who entered the French army in his teens, and who commanded at sixty-six the largest forces ever under one general, the successes of the Allies were due, more than to any other single individual, unless it be President Wilson.
Between July 15 and October, he had regained all the territory taken by the Germans in their great drives of 1918 and had driven the enemy out of the St. Mihiel salient which they had held since 1914. These victories were won not by hammer blows of greatly superior numbers but by generalship of the highest order and far superior to that of the German leaders.