Ferdinand Foch Quotes
The power to command has never meant the power to remain mysterious.
Foch, Ferdinand. Precepts and Judgments. Translated by Hilaire Belloc, Chapman & Hall, 1919, p. 202.
Johansson is describing the origin of the word “hegemony.” During the 5th Century B.C. Athens and their allies formed the Delian League to combat the Persian Empire. Athens, as the most powerful city-state in Ancient Greece, controlled the alliance and the League soon turned into the Athenian “empire” or “hegemony.”
Ferdinand Foch was a French general and military theorist who served as the Supreme Allied Commander during the First World War. An aggressive, even reckless commander at the First Marne, Flanders and Artois campaigns of 1914–1916, Foch became the Allied Commander-in-Chief in late March 1918 in the face of the all-out German spring offensive, which pushed the Allies back using fresh soldiers and new tactics that trenches could not contain. He successfully coordinated the French, British and American efforts into a coherent whole, deftly handling his strategic reserves. He stopped the German offensive and launched a war-winning counterattack. In November 1918, Marshal Foch accepted the German cessation of hostilities and was present at the Armistice of 11 November 1918.
