Ferdinand Foch Quotes

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The unknown is the governing principle of war.

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

In tactics, action is the governing rule of war.

None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.

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.

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

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

One is defeated only when one accepts defeat.

A beaten general is disgraced forever.

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

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

Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.

No study is possible on the battlefield.

My center is giving way my right is in retreat: situation excellent. I am attacking.

The will to conquer is the first condition of victory.

My centre is giving way, my right is in retreat, situation excellent. I attack.