FOCH'S OWN STORY.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17419, 1 April 1922, Page 15

FOCH'S OWN STORY.

WHY HE BECAME A SOLDIER. In a conversation which is recorded in the "Petit Parisien," Marshal Foch has told a correspondent of that paper many things about his private lifo, while a few things he has denied. For one thing he has killed the legend that, since his visit to America, he had bocome a teetotaller —"an impenitent water-drinker."

"The truth is," said Marshal Foch, "that I drink at each meal two glasses of wine. It is not too much, I think, but it is enough; in all things I love moderation. Without being a gourmet, without having a marked preference for any special kijyl of cooking, I have a good appetite and I eat well—and quickly. It is not well to grant too much to the animal." The Mar- , shal confessed, liowevgs, that after meals he always takes hastily to hifl pipe—"That is my vice." Ho gently ridiculed his career as a horseman. For 40 years, 'Mesa from conviction than from a sense of duty," owing to the Army belief that in time of war one would always have to be on horseback, he rode from 7.30 to 9.30 every morning, winter and summer, wet or fine. But during the war, except for reviews, he "never had occarsion to show his talents as a horseman." If he showed no great enthusiasm when speaking of riding, he spoke very differently about shooting; then be became lyrical. Another legend which the Marshal demolished —though perhaps hardly completely—waa the story that he was an "optimist." People called him an optimist, ho said, merely because he always turned his back on disaster and "eliminated the hypothesis of failure." But optimism and pessimism were senseless words. Or, rather, he added, "Optimism is a temperature. In any case, it has nothing to do with war or with action." Then ho summed up his philosophy of action. "Whenever you have a task to perform/' he said, "consider it carefully, estimate exactly what is required of you. Then make your plans, and to carry them out have a method; never improvise. The fundamental qualities required for the proper execution of a plan are—first, intelligence, then discernment and judgment, which allows one to recognise at once the object to be attained 1 and the best means <i£ attaining it, then a proper sequence of ideas, and, finally, what is most essential of all, will —a stubborn will." Earlier in the conversation Marshal Foch confessed that Thiers, whom he had read ten times, was the first author lie studied, then came Walter Scott, and later Taine, with naturally, a study, of aJJ the classic military writers—ihe paid a ppecial tribute to Moltko's "Memories" for the study of the "theory of the Rhine." The Marshal also told what had decided him to be a soldier. It was at Metz on that August Sunday afternoon in the war with Prussia when Napoleon 111., who had arrived only the night before, had to flee, causing a notice to be posted on the wall stating that MacMahon had lost a battle, that Frossard had been obliged to retire, hut that the retreat was being conducted in good order. There was disaster in the air, and, said Foch, "that day, facing that notice, I felt that I would be a soldier."