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 MARSHAL FOCH 
 
 ADDRESS OF 
 
 EDGAR A. BANCROFT 
 
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 AT CHICAGO'S MEETING OF WELCOME 
 TO 
 
 MONSIEUR LE MARECHAL FOCH 
 
 AT THE AUDITORIUM 
 NOVEMBER 5, 1921 
 
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 MARSHAL FOCH 
 
 OUR YEARS and a half ago we met here 
 to welcome and honor a military hero of 
 France — Marshal Joffre, the victor of the 
 Marne. To-night we meet to welcome and honor 
 the military hero, not of France alone, but of the world 
 — Marshal Foch, the victor of the War. Then we 
 made a vow to support to the uttermost this Nation's 
 declaration of war. To-night we pledge the supreme 
 soldier of that war as the messenger of peace. 
 
 For more than forty years an ominous shadow 
 had lain across the national life of France. Then 
 suddenly in August, 1914, the long threatened march 
 on Paris began; and for four agonizing years, France 
 bore the brunt of the German assault. She not only 
 gave her sons and her resources in fullest measure, but 
 her soil was the battleground; her cities and villages, 
 her orchards and vineyards, her factories and her 
 mines, were ruined and destroyed, some of them 
 in wantonness or with fiendish calculation. No other 
 nation, not even martyred Belgium, suffered such 
 destruction. And there were losses that no repara- 
 tions can ever repair. 
 
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 Through all those desperate years, France held 
 the front line of Liberty. By the tenacity and courage 
 of her soldiery, the military skill of her officers, and 
 the unconquerable spirit of her people, reflected and 
 focussed in the genius and spirit of the Supreme Com- 
 mander, she made the largest contribution to final 
 victory. 
 
 Yet there is to-day no bitterness or hatred in the 
 heart of France toward her ancient but now conquered 
 foe. The brave do not hate. Faithful and uncom- 
 plaining in the days of her humiliation, France cannot 
 but be chivalrous in her day of triumph. During the 
 long years that followed the wrongs of 1870-71, France 
 was patient and forbearing, and kept the peace. 
 To-day she longs for peace more than ever before. 
 But her liberty and her security — bought at such an 
 awful price — she must not neglect. 
 
 Is not France now entitled, has she not earned 
 the right, to dwell in the same confident peace that 
 England and the United States enjoy? Yet how can 
 she relax her vigilance until her Eastern neighbor, like 
 our own Northern neighbor of a hundred friendly 
 years, proves herself worthy of respect and trust? 
 
 Until Germany asks France to forgive, let no one 
 ask France to forget ! 
 
In the military principles, character and success 
 of Marshal Foch, there is a quality that pecuUarly 
 appeals to America's ideals and imagination. Scien- 
 tifically trained engineer, artillerist and strategist as 
 he was, he yet believed, and for many years taught 
 the officers of France, the dominance of moral forces 
 in war. Faith, hope, determination, he said, are 
 factors as real and as necessary as intelligence, study, 
 and energy in action; ''a battle is lost morally, not 
 materially;" victory is the outcome of moral rather 
 than material forces; and the true commander is 
 ''the soul of an Army." And in the War he gave 
 frequent illustrations of this creed: 
 
 All the world remembers — and always will remem- 
 ber — the message of General Foch to Headquaters at 
 a critical moment on the third day of the Battle of 
 the Marne: ''My center is giving way; my right is 
 falling back. The situation is excellent: I shall attack." 
 
 When, in October, the German hordes had swept 
 the Belgians back to the Yser, and their heroic King 
 Albert doubted whether his shattered army could 
 halt the superior forces, it was General Foch who 
 said to him: "It is vital to hold the line here. French 
 troops will help you." And the line was held. 
 
 Then followed the terrible battle of Ypres, with 
 its new horror and infamy of poison gas, that broke 
 the British lines, and revealed the unflinching valor 
 
of the Canadian volunteers. The British commander 
 was considering an order of retreat, when he learned 
 that General Foch was near, and immediately con- 
 sulted him. General Foch strongly advised that the 
 city be held at whatever cost. And it was held, and held 
 gloriously, by the British until reserves came to fill 
 their gaping ranks. 
 
 So, in the darkest hour of the defense of Verdun — 
 the greatest battle in all history — General Foch 
 encouraged the indomitable spirit of commander and 
 men; and the Crown Prince, and all his vast array 
 of artillery and shock troops, fell back defeated before 
 "They shall not pass." 
 
 At Chateau Thierry it was Marshal Foch, Gen- 
 eralissimo of the Allied Armies, who turned the defen- 
 sive into an offensive that started the Germans on 
 their way back to the Rhine. 
 
 And finally, when the long night of agony and 
 blood drew near its end, and the German lines had 
 been retreating for three months, and terms of an 
 armistice had been asked and given — three years ago 
 almost to this very day — and it was urged that the 
 terms should be unconditional surrender, it was 
 Marshal Foch who said: "If these terms are accepted, 
 this War is already ended; therefore, it is not worth 
 the life of one brave soldier to gain harder terms." 
 Like the great Silent Commander of Victory in our 
 
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Civil War, Marshal Foch in the moment of triumph 
 thought only of Peace. 
 
 It is a part of the fine quality of his leadership 
 that he has heart. In all his responsibilities and fame, 
 he has never forgotten' the friends of his little native 
 village in the Pyrenees, or the troubles and anxieties 
 of the young officer, or the common soldier. And 
 somehow our American boys in France, though many 
 of them never saw him, knew this, and responded to 
 his human appeal with an added dash and bravery 
 which all the world called superb. That is why there 
 is so much warmth in the welcome of the overseas 
 men. Some of them know that they are here because 
 he stopped the War as soon as he could. Yet, when 
 they were in France, their sense of his leadership only 
 made them more forgetful of self, more ready to fight, 
 to suffer, and to die under his command. 
 
 Therefore, the welcome of the men of the American 
 Legion means most, and is most grateful, to their old 
 Commander. Already he has received it in very moving 
 and dramatic form. And it awaits him wherever he 
 may go in our country. 
 
 This meeting, representative of all the people of 
 our State and City, expresses to Marshal Foch the 
 pride every American has in his triumph, the gratitude 
 every American feels for his commanding service in 
 hastening the end. It expresses also a deeper, ten- 
 
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 derer feeling in many hearts, that he was the leader of 
 a Cause sanctified to them by the loss of those most 
 dear. These mothers and wives may not be in the 
 throngs that acclaim his coming, but they welcome 
 him none the less with proud tears. If they bring 
 no new pledge to France, their reason is that spoken 
 by Theodore Roosevelt: "1 have already given to 
 France my best." 
 
 Every American heart that suffered any anxiety of 
 war, and every thoughtful and humane citizen will 
 welcome, and will wish to aid, this Warrior-Hero in 
 his pilgrimage of peace. 
 
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