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Show WHY FOCH WAS MADE GENERALISSIMO. Why was General Ferdinand Foch singled out as tho officer to lead the allied forces? Now that the war is virtually over, more, of the inside story of the conflict is being told, and one of the details which has been made plain is that Foch was selected by President Wilson on the advice of the American army officers In France and President Wilson sent two different representatives to the war zone to urge :on the allies the necessity of a generalissimo gen-eralissimo in tho person of' General i Foch. i i What was Foch's record? Foch had been retired from active ! service, in April, 1917. when he was ! 66 years of age, but before that he had shown wonderful ability as a com- mander. I At the battle of tho Manic in September, Sep-tember, 1914, Foch was the officer who counter attacked in the center, after his troops on the right and left had been beaten back. He drove the Germans into the SL Goud marshes. He discovered by airplane reconnais-ance reconnais-ance that the German armies in front of him had failed to make a junction and quick as flash he ordered a huge wedge driven into the gap. Finding themselves in danger of being cut off, j the Germans in panic began a retreat on September G which affected the entire en-tire army in northern France. Foch, later in the war, wont to the relief of the British at Ypres. He directed di-rected the offensive In Artois and assisted as-sisted in shaping the battle of the Somrae In 1916. The first battle of the Marne, therefore, there-fore, proved Foch's worth and the general's gen-eral's brilliant work In that great struggle hold the attention of American Ameri-can army officers who had studied the war from the day the Germans crossed tho Belgium frontier, and they guided j President Wilson. |