File:Marshal Ferdinand Foch, his life and his theory of modern war (1919) (14578125088).jpg

Identifier: marshalffoch00atte (find matches)
Title: Marshal Ferdinand Foch, his life and his theory of modern war
Year: 1919 (1910s)
Authors: Atteridge, A. Hilliard (Andrew Hilliard)
Subjects: Foch, Ferdinand, 1851-1929 World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns Western Front Tactics
Publisher: New York : Dodd, Mead and company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ul andNancy. There are plenty of good roads running northand south through the district; but a few miles northof the S^zanne-F^re Champenoise front, there is a longhollow in the chalk hills that forms a green level ex-panse. It was a lake in early times. Long after, asit partly dried up, it was an impassable morass, thesource on which the Petit Morin started on its courseto the Marne. Much of it has now been reclaimed andturned into pasture; and two good roads and fourunmetalled country lanes cross it. But there are stillwide reaches of marsh, with shallow pools, and bedsand thickets of brown rushes that grow six feet highby September. For the heavy traffic of an army onlythe two roads are practicable ways across this naturalbarrier, and in wet weather they become defiles throughground where a wheel would sink to the axle. Themediaeval abbey of St. Gond, ruined at the Revolution,gives its name to this marsh region. First-class roadspass it on the east and west, from Epernay to Suzanne
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THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 163 crossing the Petit Morin by the bridge of St. Prix, andfrom Vertus to Fere Champenoise. Foch knew the district well. Among the exercises ofthe Ecole de Guerre were staff rides. These exercisesare among the most useful methods of training in allEuropean armies. They are manoeuvres of officers.There are no troops on the ground, but an episode inan imaginary campaign is worked out as if they werepresent. Orders were written out, and situations dis-cussed, as if an actual war were in progress. The di-rector of the operations introduces sudden variations inthe course of the supposed events, so as to test thecapacity of his pupils for dealing with emergencies. Ttis a war game on the actual ground, often lasting formany days. While he was director of the Ecole, Fochhad conducted several of these staff rides on the groundon which he was to command in a great battle. Thisis one more instance of the remarkable way in which hiswork in the years of peace prepared him f

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