Ferdinand Foch

1851–1929 · French · World War I

Known for: Supreme Commander who coordinated the Allied victory in WWI—predicted WWII to the year

Ferdinand Foch was the French general who served as Supreme Commander of Allied forces in the final year of World War I, coordinating the multinational force that broke Germany's last offensive and won the war. He was a military theorist before the war, teaching at the École de Guerre, and was nearly dismissed after early failures.

His most famous quote is his most tragic: upon seeing the Treaty of Versailles, he said 'This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years.' He was off by 65 days—World War II began 20 years and 65 days later.

What Ferdinand Foch would be watching

The “if they lived today” Q&A on this page gives Ferdinand Foch 1917 (2019) as a favourite film. Their reason: “Sam Mendes captured the trench warfare experience. Almost.” Rankquant scores it above 85% of films, drawn from 2,812 IMDb reviewers individually re-centred rather than averaged raw. The full film & TV rankings are built the same way.

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