Ferdinand Foch Quotations

The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.

My center is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack.

The power to command has never meant the power to remain mysterious.

A battle won is a battle which we will not acknowledge to be lost.

The will to conquer is the first condition of victory.

In whatever position you find yourself, determine first your objective.

It takes 15,000 casualties to train a major general.

Aviation is fine as a sport. But as an instrument of war, it is worthless.

The fundamental qualities for good execution of a plan is first; intelligence; then discernment and judgment, which enable one to recognize the best method as to attain it; the singleness of purpose; and, lastly, . . . stubborn will.

School is a building that has four walls-with tomorrow inside. Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds. There are many ways of going forward, but there is only one way of standing still. A lot of us would like to move mountains, but few of us are willing to practice on small hills. Doing your best is more important than being the best. Giant oak trees started out as little nuts. The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.

A war not only arises, but derives its nature , from the political ideas, the moral sentiments, and the international relations obtaining at the moment when it breaks out. This amounts to saying:;: try and know why and with the help of what you are going to act; then you will find out how to act.

Don't drown yourself in details. Look at the whole.

It take 15,000 casualties to train a major general.

Regulations are all very well for drill, but in the hour of danger they are no more use. You have to learn to think.

Victory is a thing of the will.

This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years.

A beaten general is disgraced forever.

There is but one means to extenuate the effects of enemy fire: it is to develop a more violent fire oneself.

All the same, the fundamental truths which govern that art are still unchangeable; just as the principles of mechanics must always govern architecture, whether the building be made of wood, stone, iron or concrete; just as the principles of harmony govern music of whatever kind. It is still necessary, then, to establish the principles of war.

To inform, and, therefore to reconnoitre , this is the first and constant duty of the advanced guard.

I am conscious of having served England as I served my own country.

One does simply what one can in order to apply what one knows .

No study is possible on the battlefield.

In tactics, action is the governing rule of war.

The military mind always imagines that the next war will be on the same lines as the last. That has never been the case and never will be. One of the great factors on the next war will be aircraft obviously. The potentialities of aircraft attack on a large scale are almost incalculable.

One is defeated only when one accepts defeat.

Far from being a sum of distinct and partial results, victory is the consequence of efforts, some of which are victorious while others appear to be fruitless, which nevertheless all aim at a common goal, all drive at a common result: namely, at a decision, a conclusion which alone can provide victory.

Every manoeuvre must be the development of a scheme; it must aim at a goal.

The truth is, no study is possible on the battle-field; one does there simply what one can in order to apply what one knows . Therefore, in order to do even a little, one has already to know a great deal and to know it well.

This absence of similarity among military questions naturally brings out the inability of memory to solve them; also the sterility of invariable forms, such as figures, geometrical drawings ( épures ), plans ( schémas ), etc. One only right solution imposes itself:;: namely, the application, varying according to circumstances, of fixed principles.

In war there are none but particular cases; everything has there an individual nature; nothing ever repeats itself. In the first place, the data of a military problem are but seldom certain; they are never final . Everything is in a constant state of change and reshaping.

To be disciplined does not mean being silent, abstaining, or doing only what one thinks one may undertake without risk; it is not the art of eluding responsibility ; it means acting in compliance with orders received, and therefore finding in one's own mind, by effort and reflection, the possibility to carry out such orders. It also means finding in one's own will the energy to face the risks involved in execution.

The distribution of troops devoted to the defence of a place includes a garrison, an occupying force, numerically as weak as possible; a reserve as strong as possible, designed for counterattacking and for providing itself, at the moment it goes into action, with a security service which will guard it from any possible surprise.

The laurels of victory are at the point of the enemy bayonets. They must be plucked there ; they must be carried by a hand-to-hand fight if one really means to conquer.

The unknown is the governing principle of war.