Foch, in short, is one of the military geniuses of the war, so record
observers at the front. He is a General who has something of the
Napoleonic in his composition; the dramatic in war is for him--secrecy
and suddenness, gigantic and daring movements; fiery, yet coldly
calculated attacks; vast strategic conceptions carried out by swift,
unfaltering tactics. Foch has a tendency to the impetuous, but he is
impetuous scientifically. He has, however, taken all in all, much more
of the dash and nervousness and warmth of the Southern Latin than has
Joffre--cool, cautious, taciturn Joffre. Yet both men are from the south
of France. They were born within a few miles of one another, within
three months of one another, Foch being born on Oct. 2, 1851, and Joffre
on Jan. 12, 1852.
Most writers who have dealt with Foch agree on this as one of his
paramount characteristics--the Napoleonic mode of military thought.
When Foch was director of the Ecole de Guerre, where he had much to do
with shaping the military views of many of the men who are now
commanding units of the French Armies, he was considered to be possessed
of almost an obsession on the subject of Napoleon. He studied Napoleon's
campaigns, and restudied them.
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