French military officer (1851–1929) who served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies in the final months of World War I. Unsigned handwritten manuscript by Ferdinand Foch, four pages, 8.5 x 12.5, no date but circa 1918. Foch's draft of an important speech delivered in Beauvais, discussing the decisive impact of the sole command entrusted to him by the Allied forces. In part (loosely translated): "When I arrived there on March 28 of this year, under the strong German push commencing on March 21, the Somme line gave way, the invasion was once again underway, the invaded populations retreated en masse…The Marshal Haig saw the danger and on the 24th he requested that the Gen. W. send a minister…The danger was growing rapidly, there was talk in Paris of evacs…In any case and from March 26…on the proposal of the British tasked Gen. F. with taking charge of the management of operations…He launched a formidable attack…the invasion threatens to break up the coalition, by separating the two allies and cutting communications from Paris with the English…By this unity of action maintained from the first lines of our front to the rear, the most distant of nations involved in the war quickly take on this sustained pace from which victory emerges…what does that mean other than that if unity creates the strength of a coalition, given overall direction in its efforts…increases the power of this coalition tenfold. The coalition had its plan of operations as well as its plan for maintaining the armies; all it had to do was apply them actively and the results would not be long in coming. In fact, the war of 1914, far from lasting until the summer of 1919, ended in the fall of 1918, 7 months after the Abbeville agreement. On November 11, Germany signs the armistice which bears the allies without firing a shot at the Rhine." In good to very good condition, with odd old tape repairs to the once completely torn letter.
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