Abstract
This article evaluates Ferdinand Foch’s contemporary reflections on the Somme offensive that he directed. It explains how he came to understand that a high-tempo, front-wide operational system that combined cumulative attrition with lateral maneuver would be needed to destroy the enemy’s army. This reconceptualization of operational art, the second stage of a two-stage process by which modern operational warfare emerged on the Western Front, enabled Foch, when Allied generalissimo in 1918, to secure a swift, decisive victory in 1918’s climactic bataille générale.
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Cite this article
William Philpott, “Ferdinand Foch and the Operational Level of War, Part 2: Operational Art and Allied Victory,” The Journal of Military History 90, no. 2 (April 2026): 315–338.