• 10/11/2022
  • By binternet
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Tarbes: Foch was one of the craftsmen of the November 11 armistice<

In the spring of 1918, Marshal Foch relaunched the Allied forces bogged down in a war of position, implementing "an offensive war war that led to victory".

Referent agent of the native house of the most illustrious Tarbais, closed until December 17 for work of external repair, Béatrice Lalanne is a well of science on the great man.

With the curator of the Tarbes museums, Fabien Leclerc, she opened the doors of her biography both intimate and public.

"We were losing the war and it was he who led to victory and peace" symbolized by the signing of the armistice of November 11, 1918 in the wagon of the Rethondes forest.A peace agreement which does not completely satisfy Ferdinand Foch, the diplomat as the military strategist, former director of the Higher School of War and Teacher of General Tactics."For me, this peace is only an armistice that will last thirty years," he had declared more or less.Foch has always said that the Rhine had to be held as a buffer zone to preserve the security of the country ".

Foch returns to Tarbes

The rest of the story will unfortunately be right for him.In 1919, for the victory celebrations, the Marshal returned to the footsteps of his childhood in Tarbes where "he asks to visit his birthplace where he lived the first 12 years of his life.This house has never belonged to the Foch family.He returned one last time to remember his childhood memories, accompanied by his brothers and sisters.By chance of the changes of his father, then secretary general of the Hautes-Pyrénées prefecture, Ferdinand Foch was born in Tarbes.But his father was from Valentine, near Saint-Gaudens, and his mother of Argelès-Gazost.The fact remains that the child has bathed in the atmosphere of a garrison city which had a cavalry district (the Larrey district) and the Foix-lescun barracks.He also had a military ancestry by his maternal grandfather, Romain Dupré, who had served in the armies of the 1st Empire ".

"Promote peace"

Tarbes : Foch a été l’un des artisans de l’Armistice du 11 novembre

We will never know what role could have played Marshal Foch who died in 1929, during the Second World War, unlike his controversial colleague, Marshal Pétain.

After the Great War, the one who was also Marshal of the United Kingdom and Poland allowed this last country to regain his independence, and led a career as a diplomat "to promote peace" by moving around the world, especiallyin the United States in 1923.Béatrice Lalanne quotes Maurice de Barescut, her contemporary counterpart, probably to define the best Foch: "We cannot always agree with him but we cannot help but admire him".

Foch house virtual visit

En attendant la réouverture le 17 décembre de la maison Foch en travaux, on peut la visiter de manière virtuelle depuis le site internet de la ville de Tarbes (https://www.tarbes.fr/mes-loisirs/re-decouvrir-la-ville/visites-virtuelles-de-la-ville/la-maison-natale-du-marechal-foch/).On retrouve des documents sur le déroulement de la guerre, des éléments de costumes et d’uniformes du Maréchal Foch, des photos d’époque. Une évocation du personnage qui a marqué durablement l’histoire de France.