Primary Documents - Ferdinand Foch on the Allied Advance of 1918, 4 July 1918
Reproduced below is the
text of a brief official address given by the Allied Supreme Commander,
Ferdinand Foch,
stating his view that now that the German Army had been halted in its tracks
on the Western Front the Allied advance to victory, aided by an
ever-increasing influx of U.S. troops, was inevitable.
Foch's address was given eleven days prior to the German Army's final attempt to break the deadlock on the Western Front, at the Second Battle of the Marne. The failure of that attack - which was in fact a notable Allied victory - spelled the beginning of the end for the German Army.
Ferdinand Foch's Official Address of 4 July 1918
After four years of struggle the plans of the enemy for domination are stopped.
He sees the number of his adversaries increase each day, and the young American Army bring into the battle a valour and a faith without equal.
Is not this a sure pledge of the definitive triumph of the just cause?
Source: Source Records of the Great War, Vol. VI, ed. Charles F. Horne, National Alumni 1923
A "creeping barrage" is an artillery bombardment in which a 'curtain' of artillery fire moves toward the enemy ahead of the advancing troops and at the same speed as the troops.
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