Ferdinand Foch - Post-war Career and Legacy

Post-war Career and Legacy

Foch was made a British Field Marshal in 1919, and, for his advice during the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1920, as well as his pressure on Germany during the Great Poland Uprising, he was awarded with the title of Marshal of Poland in 1923.

On 1 November 1921 Foch was in Kansas City to take part in the groundbreaking ceremony for the Liberty Memorial that was being constructed there. Also present that day were Lieutenant General Baron Jacques of Belgium, Admiral David Beatty of Great Britain, General Armando Diaz of Italy and General John J. Pershing of the United States. One of the main speakers was Vice President Calvin Coolidge of the United States. In 1935 bas-reliefs of Foch, Jacques, Diaz and Pershing by sculptor Walker Hancock were added to the memorial.

Foch died on 20 March 1929, and was interred in Les Invalides, next to Napoleon and many other famous French soldiers and officers.

A statue of Foch was set up at the Compiègne Armistice site when the area was converted into a national memorial. This statue was the one item left undisturbed by the Germans following their defeat of France in June, 1940. Following the signing of France's surrender on 21 June, the Germans ravaged the area surrounding the railway car in which both the 1918 and 1940 surrenders had taken place. The statue was left standing, to view nothing but a wasteland. The Armistice site was restored by German POW labour following the Second World War, with its memorials and monuments either restored or reassembled.

A heavy cruiser and an aircraft carrier were named in his honour, as well as an early district of Gdynia, Poland. The latter was, however, renamed by the communist government after the Second World War. Nevertheless, one of the major avenues of the town of Bydgoszcz, located then in the Polish corridor, holds his name as sign of gratitude for campaigning for an independent Poland. Avenue Foch, a street in Paris, was named after him. Several other streets have been named in his honour in Ypres, Lyon, Kraków, Chrzanów, Grenoble, Quito, Beirut, New Orleans, Wynnum, Cambridge, Williston Park, Milltown and Foch Road in Singapore. Fochville in South Africa was also named in his honour. A statue of Foch stands near Victoria station in London. He is the only Frenchmen ever to be made an honorary field-marshal by the British, and the only French person ever commemorated by a statue in London Foch also has a grape cultivar named after him. In the Belgian city of Leuven, one of the center squares was named after him after the first World War, but the square was renamed in 2011.