France
Ferdinand Foch
1851–1929 Allied commander-in-chief, 1918
Foch, a professor of military history who had preached the cult of the offensive before the war, was made coordinator of the Allied armies at Doullens on 26 March and later commander-in-chief. He lacked the technical brilliance of some of his subordinates, but he had energy, optimism and the political skill to manage Haig, Pétain and Pershing. His strategy in the autumn was to hit the Germans everywhere in a series of converging offensives. He became a Marshal of France on 6 August, received the German delegation at Compiègne, and afterward argued vainly for a French frontier on the Rhine. He is said to have remarked, after Versailles, that it was "an armistice for twenty years" (see chapter VIII).