Memoirs of Marshal Foch

The Commander-in-Chief of the Allied armies, the great strategist who directed the final victory, declined to publish his memoirs during his lifetime. Upon his death, his family at first intended to withhold his manuscript for ten or fifteen years, but the advice of the Marshal's friends prevailed.So this, the final word on the winning of the great war, was released in 1931, just two years after Marshal Foch's death.At first the Marshal planned to write a complete history, but he had neither the time nor the strength to complete so large a work. And it is fortunate for posterity that he did not. Others can collect and collate official documents. We have here what Foch alone could have written, his personal story of the war based solely upon his own experience.And it becomes apparent that Foch was not only the great commander and the leading strategist of his time but a writer with a sense of style and a graphic use of words that make his record one of the most moving and dramatic accounts of the great war.On certain details Foch's views may be questioned, but his story of the victory may well be called the final word. Only the leader of ten million men can speak from the vantage of supreme command.Special maps prepared by the French War Office, unpublished photographs, and facsimiles of the Armistice are included.