foch

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Foch

A postcard image of General Foch:

From cnparm.home.texas.net/Wars/Marne/MarneBios.htm "Ferdinand Foch (1851-1929) - Commander of XX Corps in Lorraine, Aug.1914; commander of French 9th Army, Aug-Oct.1914. Before the war he was a highly influential instructor and administrator at the École de Guerre who promoted the ‘offensive spirit’ doctrine that would become French military dogma by 1914, but he also more sensibly encouraged flexibility and adaptability. Though he’d never been in combat before, he successfully endured desperate fighting in Lorraine in Aug.1914 and in the Battle of the Marne in Sep. Commanded Army Group North, Jan.1915-Dec.1916. After a brief hiatus, became Chief of Staff to Pétain in May.1917; organized Allied relief to Italy, fall 1917; named Allied Supreme Commander in spring 1918, though with limited powers. Credited as the mastermind behind the successful Allied offensives in the last months of the war. Foch favored a tough settlement with Germany, and predicted a second world war when one was not imposed. Intelligent, resolute, cool, and supremely aggressive. One of the most remarkable personalities of WWI. "

Grace!

Grace!

translation: First World War. [The French] generals Foch and Weygand pose in front of the train carriage in Rehtondes, near Compiègne, during the armistice negotiations of November 1918

Ferdinand Foch, Marshal and the Allied Commander-in-chief, is the second person (with moustache) of the right is burried at Hôtel des Invalides in Paris. He is famous because of his influence on WWI by the Second Battle of the Marne.

Matthias Erzberger, as the head of the German delegation, he signed the armistice ending World War I on November 11, 1918.

Maxime Weygand, Major General, read out the armistice conditions.

Weird historical detail of the forest of Compiègne and the train carriage:

Weygand surrendered to and collaborated with the Germans as part of the Vichy France regime in WWII in 1940. Adolf Hitler had chosen this location for negotiate an armistice with France, because Compiègne was a humiliating defeat for Germany in WWI. It was a perfect location for revenge. Hitler had the special train wagon moved to Compiègne.

Germany took the carriage to Berlin as a trophy of war, along with pieces of a large stone tablet which bore the inscription (in French):

HERE ON THE ELEVENTH OF NOVEMBER 1918 SUCCUMBED THE CRIMINAL PRIDE OF THE GERMAN REICH. VANQUISHED BY THE FREE PEOPLES WHICH IT TRIED TO ENSLAVE.

It seems that the railway carriage finally was taken to Crawinkel in Thuringia in 1945, where it was destroyed by the SS troops and the remains has been buried.

A replica of this railway carriage has built an can be seen in a French Museum in Compiègne. Le Musée de l'Armistice. Wagon de l’Armistice, Route de Soissons, 60200 Compiègne, France.

I visited this french museum a few years ago during a "historical holidays" , visiting Pointe du Hoc and The Ladies Way.

There are (too many...) war memorials and cemeteries, German, French, Americain and British, all along the way.



Seeing the remainders of European history is more impressive then reading about it.

Hey how about lets not have any more wars since they've run out of room to put memorials ?