Ferdinand Foch Quotes about Military

My center is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack.

Victory is a thing of the will.

The military mind always imagines that the next war will be on the same lines as the last. That has never been the case and never will be. One of the great factors on the next war will be aircraft obviously. The potentialities of aircraft attack on a large scale are almost incalculable.

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

In war there are none but particular cases; everything has there an individual nature; nothing ever repeats itself. In the first place, the data of a military problem are but seldom certain; they are never final . Everything is in a constant state of change and reshaping.

In tactics, action is the governing rule of war.

This absence of similarity among military questions naturally brings out the inability of memory to solve them; also the sterility of invariable forms, such as figures, geometrical drawings ( épures ), plans ( schémas ), etc. One only right solution imposes itself:;: namely, the application, varying according to circumstances, of fixed principles.

A beaten general is disgraced forever.

Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.