Marshal Foch, statue in London

This statue of Marshall Ferdinand Foch is near Victoria Station in London.

It was unveiled in 1930 and is by Georges Malissard in bronze.

Foch went to school in Metz in Lorraine, which became a German city from 1870 following defeat by the German in the Franco-German War. The German occupation and loss of Alsace Lorraine left an indelible impression on him and shaped his career in the French Army.

After 2 years at the Ecole Plytechnique in Paris, Foch became an artillery officer. In 1908 he was appointed by PM Clemenceau as Head of the French War College where he shaped the French doctrine of attack in the event of war. This proved disastrous on the outbreak of war when French casualties amounted to

He played an important part in enabling Joffre's defeat of the Germans at the gates of Paris - the First Battle of the Marne in 1914. In 1915 and 1916 he commanded the French Northern Army Group which with the British failed to break-through on the Somme.

In 1917 he was appointed as Chief of the War Minister's General Staff, and became military adviser to the politicians. He advocated a single command on the Western Front but this was politically unacceptable to the British until the crisis of 1918 when the Germans almost defeated the Allies, using troops freed from the Eastern Front following the Russian Revolution.

Foch was appointed as appointed commander in chief of all Allied Armies on the Western and Italian Fronts. Foch moved French forces to support the British Front, and deployed the newly arrived Americans. Foch succeeded in stopping the final attack of the Germans in Champagne in July.

In a series of co-ordinated offensives along the line Foch and the Allied Armies drove the Germans back, using tanks, artillery and aircraft, until they asked for an Armistice on 11 November 1918.

On 26 November Foch entered Metz.

As a victorious commander of British as well as French, American and Italian troops, Foch well deserves his statue in London.

Inscribed on the plinth of this status in London are Foch's words: "I am conscious of having served England as I served my own country".