On this day in 1918 the Allies obtained a supreme military commander.
Well, sort of.
In actuality Ferdinand Foch, the French Field Marshall, was given the task of coordinating all of the Allied activities in response to the Kaiserschlacht at the Doullens Conference. His formal appointment of being the supreme Allied commander would come somewhat later. Even at that, given the strong personalities involved, the role was always more of formulating policy and then seeking the cooperation of other Allies.
In these regards, Foch's role was weaker than, but would anticipate, the role played by Dwight Eisenhower during World War Two. In retrospect it seems amazing that this did not occur until 1918, the last year of the war, but getting to this point was not an easy one, and it came only in the face of seemingly looming military disaster. That it would go to a French commander, rather than a British one, also seems surprising in retrospect, but France had the largest army in the field, and of course most of that field was in France.
Foch was, at least in my view, a good choice. He had been in French military service since 1870 in one way or another, and had seen service in the Franco Prussian War. He was irrepressible in spirit, something that had served him well not only in the Great War but before as well, as his advancement had been slower than it should have been in the pre war French Army, something that was likely the case because his brother was a Jesuit Priest and Republican France retained a Revolutionary and Napoleonic period anti clerical bias. His appointment was not without controversy but he filled the role well and worked well with strong personalities that were technically his inferior in the Allied armies but which never saw themselves that way.
It's interesting to note that his appointment came just one day after the US had placed its troops under French command because of the crisis on the Western Front.
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